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We may then, too, take occasion to notice such considerations as have been thought inconsistent with the supposition of Idumea being the country of the patriarch.

With regard to the age in which Job lived, all are agreed in assigning to it a very remote date. This is apparent in a variety of particulars: such, for example, as the general air of antiquity in the manners; the patriarchal length of Job's life; the allusions to idolatry being only to that species of it, which, by general confession, is admitted to have been the most ancient; references to certain customs, which are understood also to have belonged to a remote age; and others of a like nature; on none of which, however, do we conceive it necessary to dwell."

Whilst there is a universal agreement with respect to the general point of antiquity, the precise time is, of course, matter of conjecture; and there is no getting further on this point than degrees of probability. The range of time within which the different hypotheses are confined, extends from the days of Abraham to those of Moses and the most ably supported opinion appears to be, that which places the period at which Job flourished between the death of Joseph and the Exodus, or departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt.+

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Without dwelling further on the time when Job lived, we proceed to consider the more contested question of AUTHORSHIP; the question WHO wrote the book, and, as necessarily involved in this, WHEN the book was written. Here, as has just been hinted, the opinions have been very various. It has been ascribed to Ezra, to Solomon, to Elihu, to Job himself, to Moses. We can but touch on these different opinions.

The ascription of it to Ezra appears to be set aside at once, by the reference to the character of Job, which we find in the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, chap. xiv. The ordinary reader may require to be reminded, that the arrangement of the books in the Bible is not made at all according to the times when they were respectively written, or when their authors lived; and that, though the book of Ezekiel comes after that of Ezra, Ezekiel himself lived and prophesied before him. Now, there is no reason for supposing, that Ezekiel's knowledge of Job was derived from any other source than the book called by his name. The reference occurs in a solemn declaration of Jehovah himself, and proceeds upon the assumption of the well-known and, in a manner, proverbial excellence of the patriarch's character amongst the Jewish people. But if this knowledge of Job, both by the prophet and by the Jews generally, was derived from the book, the book was in existence before the time of Ezra, which renders it needless to draw the inference, that it could not be written by him.

Those critics who assign the book to so late a date as the age of Ezra, or even of Solomon, fancy they find in it a variety of allusions to Jewish customs, and to some of the more remarkable incidents of

*Magee, vol. ii. pp. 58, 59.

+ The different opinions, with their authors, are enumerated by Magee, vol. ii. pp. 62, 63.

the Jewish history. But the reality of these supposed allusions appears to be extremely questionable. Different interpreters discover different allusions in the very same passages; and none of them can, with any certainty, be established. They seem to be the product of an imaginative ingenuity, influenced by anxiety to support a favourite theory. As to certain peculiarities of language, which have also been conceived to indicate a later date than the time of Job himself or Moses, it must suffice for the present, to enter the same objection to the validity of the evidence; namely, that the critics are, on this point too, entirely at variance. And, whereas particular passages in the book are by some conceived to have been borrowed from the Psalms or from the Proverbs, it is almost too obvious to require the remark of Warburton, that if the resemblances be not entirely incidental, which, however, is neither impossible nor unlikely, there is just as great a probability that the borrowing was by the writer of the Psalms or of the Proverbs from the book of Job, as that it was by the writer of the book of Job from the Psalms or the Proverbs. The inference might thus be reversed.

The hypothesis, indeed, of Solomon having been the author, rests on little if any thing more than a high estimate of his pre-eminent qualifications, together with some real or supposed Arabisms in the style of his Proverbs.*

The ascription of the authorship to Elihu has arisen from a part of his address at the close of the controversy, chap. xxxii. 16, 17, of which it is enough to say, that it is only by an erroneous rendering it can be made at all to support such an inference; and that (to use the language of Goode) "the correction of it puts to flight all Elihu's pretensions in a moment."

The opinions which carry in them the largest share of probability, are those which assign the Poem to Moses or to Job himself, or (in a sense which will be explained immediately) to both.

I. The opinion that the book is the production of Moses, has been entertained by not a few, both of Jewish and Christian commentators.

The objection to this opinion, advanced by that eminent critic, Bishop Lowth, derived from the absence of such allusions to the customs and ceremonies of the Israelites, or the events of their history, as he thinks must have appeared in it on the hypothesis of Moses having written it, is answered, on the part of its supporters, by alleging that it was written at an earlier period of his life, previously to the Exodus, and therefore, during his forty years residence in Midian, where they conceive him to have become acquainted with the facts of the story and on this supposition, too, they account for the Arabisms already alluded to, which occasionally

Goode, in the Introd. Dissert. to his Translation of the Book of Job, mentions this as the opinion of Grotius, and as resting chiefly on his authority. Of the alleged Arabisms he says, "they are scattered, comparatively, with a very sparing hand, and were probably meant to be nothing more than classical ornaments, like the occasional Grecisms to be found in Tully and Virgil." Page 50.

occur in the style of his composition. This is the opinion of Michaelis, Kennicott, and others. Besides Bishop Lowth's objection just noticed, that great critic further urges against it the dissimilarity of the style of the book of Job to that of the Pentateuch, not indeed of the simple historical narrative of the Pentateuch, but of what the Bishop calls "the poetical style of Moses." That of Job, he says, "is much more compact, concise, or condensed, more accurate in the poetical conformation of the sentences."* But here again other critics are at variance with Lowth. "Kennicott differs from the bishop so far as to affirm that there is a striking resemblance in the construction of the poetry of Job, to the song of Moses in Deut. xxxi."+ Where such "doctors differ," who is to decide? It would be out of place, as well as ultra vires, to adjust the balance of criticism and taste between men of renown like these, whose eminence is so merited as well as so exalted.

2. That the book was the composition of Job himself, is the opinion favoured by Lowth, and Peters, and other critics and expositors. That the concluding verses were added by another hand, (which is abundantly manifest, since Job could not record his own death), is no valid objection to this hypothesis: and, if it shall be thought that the character of the patriarch, in the opening of the book, can hardly, with propriety, be conceived to have come from his own pen, inasmuch as even inspiration is not in general to be found operating in contravention of the proprieties of conduct and in correct feelings of the heart, there is little difficulty in supposing the introductory as well as the concluding verses to have been the writing of another. The poem may have been, notwithstanding such suppositions, substantially Job's, written subsequently to the return of his prosperity, in grateful commemoration of the goodness of God, and of the wonders of the divine procedure towards him, as well as for the illustration, by the remarkable facts of his own case, of the principle on which the providential government of God is conducted. The objections to both these hypotheses lead me to the third.

3. According to it, Job himself is supposed to have left in writing the materials of his own story, and Moses to have worked them up in their present form. It is obvious that " leaving the materials” is a phrase which may be understood in considerably different acceptations, with regard to the degree of arrangement and general completeness in which they were left. As the book consists principally of a series of conversational addresses between Job and his friends, it cannot be meant that the naked facts of the narrative alone, few and simple as they are, were left on record, while the addresses were an entire blank. We must conceive both the particulars of the narrative and the substance of the conversations to have been given by Job; while Moses, having understood the prophetic character of this patriarch, brought forward the poem; that he gave it his sanction, in consequence of which it obtained an

* Lowth's Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews. Lect. xxxii. Magee, vol. ii. pp. 78, 79. Edit. 1816.

undisputed place among the canonical books of scripture; that, in the transcription, he threw the introductory portion of the book into its present form, altered and filled up, under divine guidance, as occasion might require, and subjoined the closing verses of the narrative; that he made use of it for the instruction and consolation of his countrymen, the Hebrews, and for deepening upon their minds the impression of the duty of submission, humble, and cheerful, and confiding submission, to the divine will, under the adverse dispensations of his providence, either previously to the Exodus, during their sufferings in Egypt, or subsequently to it, during their wanderings in the wilderness.

If this hypothesis be admitted, and it appears, on the whole, to have more numerous and weighty considerations to give it verisimilitude than any other, then, along with other powerful recommendations to notice and to study, the poem possesses the interesting claim of being actually the most ancient writing extant in the world.

III. Our third inquiry (or rather the fourth, the preceding having included two) is into the GENERAL STRUCTURE of the poem, and

STYLE OF ITS COMPOSITION.

The light in which we seem warranted to regard Job himself, is that of a patriarchal prophet. The language of the apostle James may be quoted as favouring this view of him: "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold we count them happy who endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." We do not cite the words as at all decisive of the point, but only as placing Job on a footing, at least, with the prophets, if not classing him amongst them. It was, in all likelihood, as the production of such a prophet, that the book was received as of divine authority, first, as has been noticed, under the sanction of Moses, and afterwards under that of Ezra, amongst those "holy writings" which were "given by inspiration of God," and were "profitable for instruction, conviction, for reformation, and for education in righteousness." That the book was so recognized previously to the time of Ezra, appears from the allusion to it by Ezekiel, (chap. xx.) formerly referred to.

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Job was an Idumean; and yet the book is written in pure Hebrew; and, in the judgment of the best critics, it bears no marks of being a translation from one language into another. This might seem favourable to the hypothesis of Moses having been the writer of it. It is not, however, inconsistent with that which assigns it to Job." It is not improbable," says Lowth," that all the posterity of Abraham, Israelites, Idumeans, and Arabians, whether of the family of Keturah or Ishmael, spoke for a considerable length of time, one common language.' From the instance, too, of Balaam, of Mesopotamia, we know that the prophetic afflatus was not confined even to the posterity of Abraham, in any of the lines of descent.

* Lecture xxxii.

The Hebrew in which the book is written, was probably the language in which the conversations recorded in it were carried on; inasmuch as the different parties were all either Idumeans, or Arabians of the adjacent country.

The men of Idumea and Teman appear to have been noted, in early times, for their traditionary wisdom. Even in the days of Jeremiah and Obadiah, the prophets, this reputation seems to have been maintained. "Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished?" Jer. xlix 7.*"Shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, even destroy the wise men of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?" Obad. ver. 8. In the apocryphal book of Baruch, also, they are mentioned amongst "the authors of fables, and searchers out of understanding." Bar. iii. 22, 23. And from various passages in the book of Job itself, in which the speakers make their appeal to the wisdom of their fathers, and of their fathers' fathers, the same reputation appears to have reached back to a still more remote antiquity.

The question, to what description of poetical composition the book should be assigned, is one on which, as on most of the rest, the critics have differed. Is it a dramatic poem? or is it epic; or is it simply narrative and didactic? It can hardly be classed with the drama; for the beginning and the close are plain narration; and yet evidently form integral and inseparable parts of the piece and moreover, there is nothing in it of the nature of dramatic plot or mystery, no concealed story, of whose issue the reader is not previously apprized, progressively, and by a series of unanticipated occurrences, evolving itself, till it arrives at the final denouement, towards which all is then seen to have been tending, but which, the greater the skill of the writer, the reader is the longer of discovering. The poem might indeed be said, with truth, to have the three unities of action, time, and place, which are pronounced essential to a properly constructed drama. The two latter it possesses in perfection, there being no transition either in place or time. And the first it may fairly be regarded as also possessing; inasmuch as, though there are many and important lessons taught in it respecting the operation of the human passions, both good and evil, towards God and towards men, yet the proper point of illustration and enforcement is, the great principle on which the administration of divine providence is conducted. Still, in other respects, it is not dramatic. Mr. Goode denominates the poem "a regular Hebrew epic." This, however, is surely not less objectionable. Not but that there may be found in it the essential requisites, also three in number, which critics have conceived to belong to poems of this class, namely, that the action, or subject be one, that it be great, and that it be interesting: for here we have, as already noticed, unity of action, the struggles of a good man with the heavy visitations of Providence, illustrating and vindicating the principle of that Providence, and the wisdom, righteousness, and benignity, by which its operations are characterized; and, both in the struggles themselves,

Introd. Dissert. page 20.

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