{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JOB","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Job","commonName":"Job","introduction":"The Book of Job\n\nIntroduction\n\n1. The Problem of the Book of Job\n\nWhy do afflictions upon afflictions befall the righteous man? This is the question, the answering of which is made the theme of the book of Job. Looking to the conclusion of the book, the answer stands: that afflictions are for the righteous man the way to a twofold blessedness. But in itself, this answer cannot satisfy; so much the less, as the twofold blessedness to which Job finally attains is just as earthly and of this world as that which he has lost by affliction. This answer is inadequate, since on the one hand such losses as those of beloved children cannot, as the loss of sheep and camels, really be made good by double the number of other children; on the other hand, it may be objected that many a righteous man deprived of his former prosperity dies in outward poverty. There are numerous deathbeds which protest against this answer. There are many pious sufferers to whom this present material issue of the book of Job could not yield any solace; whom, when in conflict at least, it might the rather bring into danger of despair. With reference to this conclusion, the book of Job is an insufficient theodicy, as in general the truth taught in the Old Testament, that the end, אהרית, of the righteous, as of the unrighteous, would reveal the hidden divine recompense, could afford no true consolation so long as this אהרית flowed on with death into the night of Hades, שׁאול, and had no prospect of eternal life.\n\nBut the issue of the history, regarded externally, is by no means the proper answer to the great question of the book. The principal thing is not that Job is doubly blessed, but that God acknowledges him as His servant, which He is able to do, after Job in all his afflictions has remained true to God. Therein lies the important truth, that there is a suffering of the righteous which is not a decree of wrath, into which the love of God has been changed, but a dispensation of that love itself. In fact, this truth is the heart of the book of Job. It has therefore been said - particularly by Hirzel, and recently by Renan - that it aims at destroying the old Mosaic doctrine of retribution. But this old Mosaic doctrine of retribution is a modern phantom. That all suffering is a divine retribution, the Mosaic Thora does not teach. Renan calls this doctrine la vielle conception patriarcale. But the patriarchal history, and especially the history of Joseph, gives decided proof against it. The distinction between the suffering of the righteous and the retributive justice of God, brought out in the book of Job, is nothing new. The history before the time of Israel, and the history of Israel even, exhibit it in facts; and the words of the law, as Deu 8:16, expressly show that there are sufferings which are the result of God's love; though the book of Job certainly presents this truth, which otherwise had but a scattered and presageful utterance, in a unique manner, and causes it to come forth before us from a calamitous and terrible conflict, as pure gold from a fierce furnace. It comes forth as the result of the controversy with the false doctrine of retribution advanced by the friends; a doctrine which is indeed not Mosaic, for the Mosaic Thora in the whole course of the history of revelation is nowhere impugned and corrected, but ever only augmented, and, consistently with its inherent character, rendered more complete.\n\nTo this question the book furnishes, as it appears to us, two answers: (1.) The afflictions of the righteous are a means of discipline and purification; they certainly arise from the sins of the righteous man, but still are not the workings of God's wrath, but of His love, which is directed to his purifying and advancement. Such is the view Elihu in the book of Job represents. The writer of the introductory portion of Proverbs has expressed this briefly but beautifully Pro 3:11; cf. Heb 12). Oehler, in order that one may perceive its distinction from the view of the three friends, rightly refers to the various theories of punishment. Discipline designed for improvement is properly no punishment, since punishment, according to its true idea, is only satisfaction rendered for the violation of moral order. In how far the speeches of Elihu succeed in conveying this view clear and distinct from the original standpoint of the friends, especially of Eliphaz, matters not to us here; at all events, it is in the mind of the poet as the characteristic of these speeches. (2.) The afflictions of the righteous man are means of proving and testing, which, like chastisements, come from the love of God. Their object is not, however, the purging away of sin which may still cling to the righteous man, but, on the contrary, the manifestation and testing of his righteousness. This is the point of view from which, apart from Elihu's speeches, the book of Job presents Job's afflictions. Only by this relation of things is the chagrin with which Job takes up the words of Eliphaz, and so begins the controversy, explained and justified or excused. And, indeed, if it should be even impossible for the Christian, especially with regard to his own sufferings, to draw the line between disciplinary and testing sufferings so clearly as it is drawn in the book of Job, there is also for the deeper and more acute New Testament perception of sin, a suffering of the righteous which exists without any causal connection with his sin, viz., confession by suffering, or martyrdom, which the righteous man undergoes, not for his own sake, but for the sake of God.\n\nIf we, then, keep in mind these two further answers which the book of Job gives us to the question, \"Why through suffering to blessedness?\" it is not to be denied that practically they are perfectly sufficient. If I know that God sends afflictions to me because, since sin and evil are come into the world, they are the indispensable means of purifying and testing me, and by both purifying and testing of perfecting me, - these are explanations with which I can and must console myself. But this is still not the final answer of the book of Job to its great question. And its unparalleled magnitude, its high significance in the historical development of revelation, its typical character already recognised in the Old Testament, consists just in its going beyond this answer, and giving us an answer which, going back to the extreme roots of evil, and being deduced from the most intimate connections of the individual life of man with the history and plan of the world in the most comprehensive sense, not only practically, but speculatively, satisfies.\n\n2. The Chokma-Character of the Book\n\nBut before we go so far into this final and highest answer as the province of the Introduction permits and requires, in order to assign to the reader the position necessary to be taken for understanding the book, we ask, How comes it that the book of Job presents such a universal and absolute solution of the problem, otherwise unheard of in the Old Testament Scriptures? The reason of it is in the peculiar mental tendency (Geistesrichtung) of the Israelitish race from which it proceeded. There was in Israel a bias of a universalistic, humanic, philosophical kind, which, starting from the fear or worship (religion) of Jehovah, was turned to the final causes of things, - the cosmical connections of the earthly, the common human foundations of the Israelitish, the invisible roots of the visible, the universal actual truth of the individual and national historical. The common character of the few works of his Chokma which have been preserved to us is the humanic standpoint, stripped of everything peculiarly Israelitish. In the whole book of Proverbs, which treats of the relations of human life in its most general aspects, the name of the covenant people, ישׁראל, does not once occur. In Ecclesiastes, which treats of the nothingness of all earthly things, and with greater right than the book of Job may be called the canticle of Inquiry,\n\n(Note: The book of Job, says H. Heine, in his Vermischte Schriften, 1854, i., is the canticle of Inquiry (das Hodhelied der Skepsis), and horrid serpents hiss therein their eternal Wherefore? As man when he suffers must weep his fill, so must he cease to doubt. This poison of doubt must not be wanting in the Bible, that great storehouse of mankind.)\n\neven the covenant name of God, יהוה, does not occur. In the Son of Songs, the groundwork of the picture certainly, but not the picture itself, is Israelitish: it represents a common human primary relation, the love of man and woman; and that if not with allegorical, yet mystical meaning, similar to the Indian Gitagovinda, and also the third part of the Tamul Kural, translated by Graul.\n\nSo the book of Job treats a fundamental question of our common humanity; and the poet has studiously taken his hero not from Israelitish history, but from extra-Israelitish tradition. From beginning to end he is conscious of relating an extra-Israelitish history, - a history handed down among the Arab tribes to the east of Palestine, which has come to his ears; for none of the proper names contain even a trace of symbolically intended meaning; and romantic historical poems were moreover not common among the ancients. This extra-Israelitish history from the patriarchal period excited the purpose of his poem, because the thought therein presented lay also in his own mind. The Thora from Sinai and prophecy, the history and worship of Israel, are nowhere introduced; even indirect reference to them nowhere escape him. He throws himself with wonderful truthfulness, effect, and vividness, into the extra-Israelitish position. His own Israelitish standpoint he certainly does not disavow, as we see from his calling God יהוה everywhere in the prologue and epilogue; but the non-Israelitish character of his hero and of his locality he maintains with strict consistency. Only twice is יהוה found in the mouth of Job (Job 1:21, Job 12:9), which is not to be wondered at, since this name of God, as the names Morija and Jochebed show, is not absolutely post-Mosaic, and therefore may have been known among the Hebrew people beyond Israel. But with this exception, Job and his friends everywhere call God אלוהּ, which is more poetic, and for non-Israelitish speakers (vid., Pro 30:5) more appropriate than אלהים, which occurs only three times (Job 20:29; Job 32:2; Job 38:7); or they call Him שׁדּי, which is the proper name of God in the patriarchal time, as it appears everywhere in Genesis, where in the Elohistic portions the high and turning-points of the self-manifestation of God occur (Job 17:1, Job 35:11, cf. Exo 6:3), and when the patriarchs, at special seasons, pronounce the promise which they have received upon their children (Gen 28:3, Gen 48:3, Gen 49:25; cf. Gen 43:14). Even many of the designations of the divine attributes which have become fixed in the Thora, as אפּים ארך, חנּוּן, רחוּם, which one might well expect in the book of Job, are not found in it; nor טוב, often used of Jehovah in Psalms; nor generally the too (so to speak) dogmatic terminology of the Israelitish religion;\n\n(Note: קרושׁ, of God, only occurs once (Job 6:10); חסד but twice (Job 10:12, and with Elihu, Job 37:13); אהב with its derivatives not at all (Gen. only Gen 19:19). In the speeches of the three, צדיק (only with Elihu, Job 34:17), משׁפט, and שׁלּם, as expressions of the divine justitia recompensativa, are not to be found; נסּה and בחן become nowhere synonymous to designate Job's sufferings by the right name; מסּה appears (Job 9:23) only in the general signification of misfortune.)\n\nbesides which also this characteristic, that only the oldest mode of heathen worship, star-worship (Job 31:26-28), is mentioned, without even the name of God (צבאות יהוה or צבאות אלהים) occurring, which designates God as Lord of the heavens, which the heathen deified. The writer has also intentionally avoided this name, which is the star of the time of the Israelitish kings; for he is never unmindful that his subject is an ante-and extra-Israelitish one.\n\nHengstenberg, in his Lecture on the Book of Job, 1856, goes so far as to maintain, that a character like Job cannot possibly have existed in the heathen world, and that revelation would have been unnecessary if heathendom could produce such characters for itself. The poet, however, without doubt, presupposes the opposite; and if he did not presuppose it, he should have refrained from using all his skill to produce the appearance of the opposite. That he has nevertheless done it, cannot mislead us: for, on the one hand, Job belongs to the patriarchal period, therefore the period before the giving of the law, - a period in which the early revelation was still at work, and the revelation of God, which had not remained unknown in the side branches of the patriarchal family. On the other hand, it is quite consistent with the standpoint of the Chokma, that it presupposes a preparatory self-manifestation of God even in the extra-Israelitish world; just as John's Gospel, which aims at proving in Christianity the absolute religion which shall satisfy every longing of all mankind, acknowledges τέκνα τοῦ Θεοῦ διεσκορπισμένα also beyond the people of God, Joh 11:52, without on this account finding the incarnation of the Logos, and the possibility of regeneration by it, to be superfluous.\n\nThis parallel between the book of Job and the Gospel by John is fully authorized; for the important disclosure which the prologue of John gives to us of the Logos, is already in being in the book of Job and the introduction to the book of Proverbs, especially ch. 8, without requiring the intervening element of the Alexandrine religious philosophy, which, however, after it is once there, may not be put aside or disavowed. The Alexandrine doctrine of the Logos is really the genuine more developed form, though with many imperfections, of that which is taught of the Chokma in the book of Job and in Proverbs. Both notions have a universalistic comprehensiveness, referring not only to Israel, but to mankind. The חכמה certainly took up its abode in Israel, as it itself proves in the book Σοφια Σειραχ, ch. 24; but there is also a share of it attainable by and allotted to all mankind. This is the view of the writer even beyond Israel fellowship is possible with the one living God, who has revealed himself in Israel; that He also there continually reveals himself, ordinarily in the conscience, and extraordinarily in dreams and visions; that there is also found there a longing and struggling after that redemption of which Israel has the clear words of promise. His wonderous book soars high above the Old Testament limit; it is the Melchizedek among the Old Testament books. The final and highest solution of the problem with which it grapples, has a quarry extending out even beyond the patriarchal history. The Wisdom of the book of Job originates, as we shall see, from paradise. For this turning also to the primeval histories of Genesis, which are earlier than the rise of the nations, and the investigation of the hieroglyphs in the prelude to the Thora, which are otherwise almost passed over in the Old Testament, belong to the peculiarities of the Chokma.\n\n3. Position in the Canon\n\nAs a work of the Chokma, the book of Job stands, with the three other works belonging to this class of the Israelitish literature, among the Hagiographa, which are called in Hebrew simply כתובים. Thus, by the side of תורה and נביאים, the third division of the canon is styled, in which are included all those writings belonging neither to the province of prophetic history nor prophetic declaration. Among the Hagiographa are writings even of a prophetic character, as Psalms and Daniel; but their writers were not properly נביאים. At present Lamentations stands among them; but this is not its original place, as also Ruth appears to have stood originally between Judges and Samuel. Both Lamentations and Ruth are placed among the Hagiographa, that there the five so-called מגלות or scrolls may stand together: Schir ha-Schirim the feast-book of the eight passover-day, Ruth that of the second Schabuoth-day, Kinoth that of the ninth of Ab, Koheleth that of the eight Succoth-day, Esther that of Purim. The book of Job, which is written neither in prophetico-historical style, nor in the style of prophetic preaching, but is a didactic poem, could stand nowhere else but in the third division of the canon. The position which it occupies is moreover a very shifting one. In the Alexandrine canon, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, follow the four books of the Kings. The historical books therefore stand, from the earliest to the latest, side by side; then begins with Job, Psalms, Proverbs, a new row, opened with these three in stricter sense poetical books. Then Melito of Sardis, in the second century, places Chronicles with the books of the Kings, but arranges immediately after them the non-historical Hagiographa in the following order: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Job; here the Salomonic writings are joined to the Davidic Psalter, and the anonymous book of Job stands last. In our editions of the Bible, the Hagiographa division begins with Psalms, Proverbs, Job (the succession peculiar to MSS of the German class); in the Talmud (Bathra, 14b), with Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs; in the Masora, and in MSS of the Spanish class, with Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs. All these modes of arrangement are well considered. The Masora connects with the אחרונים נביאים the homogeneous book, the Chronicles; the Talmud places the book of Ruth before the Psalter as an historical prologue, or as a connection between the prophetico-historical books and the Hagiographa.\n\n(Note: That Job stands after the Psalms is explained by his being contemporary with the Queen of Sheba, or, accepting Moses as the writer of the book (in which case it should stand at the head of the Chethubim), by its not being placed foremost, on account of its terrible contents (according to the maxim בפרענותא מתחילינן לא).)\n\nThe practice in our editions is to put the Psalms as the first book of the division, which agrees with Luk 24:44, and with Philo, who places ὕμνους next to the prophetical books. Job stands only in the lxx at the head of the three so-called poetic books, perhaps as a work by its patriarchal contents referring back to the earliest times. Everywhere else the Psalter stands first among the three books. These three are commonly denoted by the vox memoralis מתספרי א; but this succession, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, is nowhere found. The Masora styles them after its own, and the Talmudic order אםספרי ת.\n\n4. The System of Accentuation\n\nManner of Writing in Verses, and Structure of the Strophe\n\nThe so-ciphered three books have, as is known, this in common, that they are (with the exception of the prologue and epilogue in the book of Job) punctuated according to a special system, which has been fully discussed in my Commentary on the Psalms, and in Baer's edition of the Psalter. This accent system, like the prosaic, is constructed on the fundamental law of dichotomy; but it is determined by better organization, more expressive and melodious utterance. Only the so-called prose accents, however, not the metrical or poetic (with the exception of a few detached fragments), have been preserved in transmission. Nevertheless, we are always still able to discern from these accents how the reading in the synagogue divided the thoughts collected into the form of Masoretic verses, into two chief divisions, and within these again into lesser divisions, and connected or separated the single words; while the musical rhythm accommodated itself as much as possible to the logical, so that the accentuation is on this account an important source for ascertaining the traditional exegesis, and contains an abundance of most valuable hints for the interpreter. Tradition, moreover, requires for the three books a verse-like short line stich-manner of writing; and פסוק, versus, meant originally, not the Masoretic verse, but the separate sentence, στίχος, denoted in the accent system by a great distinctive; as e.g., Job 3:3 :\n\nLet the day perish wherein I was born,\n\nAnd the night, which said, There is a man-child conceived,\n\nis a Masoretic verse divided into two parts by Athnach, and therefore, according to the old order, is to be written as two στίχοι.\n\n(Note: The meaning of this old order, and the aptness of its execution, has been lost in later copyists, because they break off not according to the sense, but only according to the space, as the στίχοι in numbering the lines, e.g., of the Greek orators, are mere lines according to the space (Raumzeile), at least according to Ritschl's view (Die alex. Bibliotheken, 1838, S. 92-136), which, however, has been disputed by Vmel. The old soferish order intends lines according to the sense, and so also the Greek distinction by πέντε στιχηραὶ (στιχήρεις) βίβλοι, i.e., Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes.)\n\nThis also is important. In order to recognise the strophe-structure of Hebrew poems, one must attend to the στίχοι, in which the poetic thoughts follow one another in well-measured flow. Parallelism, which we must likewise acknowledge as the fundamental law of the rhythm of Hebrew poetry, forms the evolutions of thought not always of two members, but often - as e.g., Job 3:4, Job 3:5, Job 3:6, Job 3:9 - also of three. The poetic formation is not, however, confined to this, but even further combines (as is most unmistakeably manifest in the alphabetical psalms,\n\n(Note: That from these we may proceed, the ancients here and there conjectures; as e.g., Serpilius says, \"It may perhaps occur to some, whether now and then a slight judgment of the Davidic species of verse and poesy may not be in some way formed from his, so to speak, alphabetical psalms.\")\n\nand as recently also Ewald inclines to acknowledge)\n\n(Note: On strophes in the book of Job, Jahrb. iii. 118: \"That the Masoretic division of the verses is not always correct, follows also from a more exact consideration of the strophes. Here comes a further question, whether one must determine the limit of such a strophe only according to the verses, which are often in themselves very irregular, or rather, strictly according to the members of the verse? The latter seems to me, at least in some parts, certainly to be the case, as I have already had opportunity to remark.\" Nevertheless, he reckons the strophes in Neue Bemerkungen zum B. Ijob, Job 9:35-37, according to lines = Masoretic verses.)\n\nsuch distichs and tristichs into a greater whole, forming a complete circle of thought; in other words, into strophes of four, eight, or some higher number of lines, in themselves paragraphs, which, however, show themselves as strophes, inasmuch as they recur and change symmetrically. Hupfeld has objected that these strophes, as an aggregate formed of a symmetrical number of stichs, are opposed to the nature of the rhythm = parallelism, which cannot stand on one leg, but needs two; but this objection is as invalid as if one should say, Because every soldier has two legs, therefore soldiers can only march singly, and not in a row and company. It may be seen, e.g., from Job 36:22-25, Job 36:26-29, Job 36:30-33, where the poet begins three times with הן, and three times the sentences so beginning are formed of eight lines. Shall we not say there are three eight-line strophes beginning with הן? Nevertheless, we are far from maintaining that the book of Job consists absolutely of speeches in the strophe and poetic form. It breaks up, however, into paragraphs, which not unfrequently become symmetrical strophes. That neither the symmetrical nor mixed strophe-schema is throughout with strict unexceptional regularity carried out, arises from the artistic freedom which the poet was obliged to maintain in order not to sacrifice the truth as well as the beauty of the dialogue. Our translation, arranged in paragraphs, and the schemata of the number of stichs in the paragraph placed above each speech, will show that the arrangement of the whole is, after all, far more strophic than its dramatic character allows, according to classic and modern poetic art.\n\n(Note: What Gottfr. Hermann, in his diss. de arte poesis Graecorum bucolicae, says respecting the strophe-division in Theocritus, is nevertheless to be attentively considered: Verendum est ne ipsi nobis somnia fingamus perdamusque operam, si artificiosas stropharum comparationes comminiscamur, de quibus ipsi poetae ne cogitaverint quidem. Viderique potest id eo probabilius esse, quod saepenumero dubitari potest, sic an aliter constituendae sint strophae. Nam poesis, qualis haec bucolicorum est, quae maximam partem ex brevibus dictis est composita, ipsa natura sua talis est ut in partes fere vel pares vel similes dividi possit. Nihilo tamen minus illam strophicam rationem non negligendam arbitror, ut quae apud poetas bucolicos in consuetudinem vertisse videatur, etc.)\n\nIt is similar in Canticles, with the melodramatic character of which it better agrees. In both cases it is explained from the Hebrew poesy being in its fundamental peculiarity lyric, and from the drama not having freed itself from the lyric element, and attained to complete independence. The book of Job is, moreover, not a drama grown to complete development. Prologue and epilogue are treated as history, and the separate speeches are introduce din the narrative style. In the latter respect (with the exception of Job 2:10), Canticles is more directly dramatic than the book of Job.\n\n(Note: Hence there are Greek MSS, in which the names of the speakers (e.g., ἡ νύμφη, αἱ νεανίδες, ὁ νυμφίος) are prefixed to the separate parts of Canticles (vid., Repertorium fr bibl. u. morgenl. Lit. viii. 1781, S. 180). The Archimandrite Porphyrios, who in his Travels, 1856, described the Codex Sinaiticus before Tischendorf, though unsatisfactorily, describes there also such διαλογικῶς written MSS of Canticles.)\n\nThe drama is here in reference to the strophic form in the garb of Canticles, and in respect of the narrative form in the garb of history or epopee. Also the book of Job cannot be regarded as drama, if we consider, with G. Baur,\n\n(Note: Das B. Hiob und Dante's Gttliche Camdie, Studien u. Krit. 1856, iii.)\n\ndramatic and scenic to be inseparable ideas; for the Jews first became acquainted with the theatre from the Greeks and Romans.\n\n(Note: See my Geschichte der jdischen Dramatik in my edition of the Migdal Oz1 (hebr. handling of the Pastor fido of Guarini) by Mose Chajim Luzzatto, Leipz. 1837.)\n\nNevertheless, it is questionable whether the drama everywhere presupposes the existence of the stage, as e.g., A. W. v. Schlegel, in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, maintains. Gthe, at least, more than once asserts, that \"drama and a composition for the stage may be separate,\" and admits a \"dramatic plot and execution\" in Canticles.\n\n(Note: Werke (neue Ausg. in 30 Bden.), xiii. 596; xxvi. 513f.)\n\n5. The Dramatic Art of the Plot and Execution\n\nOn the whole, we have as little hesitation as Hupfeld in calling the book of Job a drama; and it is characteristic of the Israelitish Chokma, that by Canticles and the book of Job, its two generic manifestations, it has enriched the national poesy with this new form of poetic composition. The book of Job is, though not altogether, yet substantially, a drama, and one consisting of seven divisions: (1) ch. 1-3, the opening; (2) ch. 4-14, the first course of the controversy, or the beginning entanglement; (3) ch. 15-21, the second course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement; (4) ch. 22-26, the third course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement at its highest; (5) ch. 27-31, the transition from the entanglement (δέσις) to the unravelling (λύσις): Job's monologues; (6) ch. 38-42:6, the consciousness of the unravelling; (7) Job 42:7., the unravelling in outward reality. In this we have left Elihu'a speeches (ch. 32-37) out of consideration, because it is very questionable whether they are a part of the original form of the book, and not, on the contrary, the introduction of another poet. If we include them, the drama has eight divisions. The speeches of Elihu form an interlude in the transition from the δέσις to the λύσις. The book of Job is an audience-chamber, and one can readily suppose that a contemporary or later poet may have mixed himself up with the speakers. Whether, however, this is really the case, may remain here undecided. The prologue is narrative, but still partly in dialogue style, and so far not altogether undramatical. In form it corresponds most to the Euripidean, which also are a kind of epic introduction to the pieces, and it accomplishes what Sophocles in his prologues so thoroughly understands. At the very beginning he excites interest in the occurrences to be brought forward, and makes us acquainted with that which remains concealed from the actors. After the knot of the puzzle is tied in the prologue, it becomes more and more deeply entangled in the three courses of the controversy. In the monologues of Job it begins to be disentangled, and in the sixth part the unravelling follows, well prepared for, and therefore not ἀπὸ μηχανῆς, and is perfected in the epilogue or exodus: the servant of God, being so far as necessary cleared by penitence, is justified in opposition to his friends; and the victor, tried in accordance with the divine utterance, is crowned. It is therefore a continually progressing history. The remark of Herder,\n\n(Note: Geist der Ebrischen Poesi, 1805, i. S. 137.)\n\n\"Here all is stationary in long conversations,\" is superficial. It is from beginning to end a stream of the most active life, with external incident only in the opening and in the unravelling; what Shlegel says of Gthe's Iphigenie holds good of the middle of the book, that the ideas are worked into incidents, and brought, as it were, before the eye. Moreover, as in Gthe's Tasso, the deficiency of external action is compensated by the richness and precision with which the characters are drawn. Satan, Job's wife, the hero himself, the three friends, - everywhere diversified and minute description. The poet manifests, also, dramatic skill in other directions. He has laid out the controversy with a masterly hand, making the heart of the reader gradually averse to the friends, and in the same degree winning it towards Job. He makes the friends all through give utterance to the most glorious truths, which, however, in the application to the case before them, turn out to be untrue. And although the whole of the representation serves one great idea, it is still not represented by any of the persons brought forward, and is by no one expressly uttered. Every person is, as it were, the consonant letter to the word of this idea; it is throughout the whole book taken up with the realization of itself; at the end it first comes forth as the resulting product of the whole. Job himself is not less a tragic hero than the Oedipus of both Sophicles' tragedies.\n\n(Note: Schultens says: Quidquid tragoedia vetus unquam Sophocleo vel Aeschyleo molita est cothurno, infra magnitudinem, gravitatem, ardorem, animositatem horum affectuum infinitum quantum subsidet. Similarly Ewald (Jahrb. ix. 27): Neither the Hindoos, nor the Greek sand Romans, have such a lofty and purely perfected poem to produce. One would perhaps compare it with one of Aeschylus or Sophocles' tragedies as the nearest, but we cannot easily find a single one among these approaching its unblemished height and perfection in the midst of the greatest simplicity.)\n\nWhat is there an inevitable fate, expressed by the oracle, is in the book of Job the decree of Jehovah, over whom is no controlling power, decreed in the assembly of angels. As a painful puzzle the lot of affliction comes down on Job. At the beginning he is the victor of an easy battle, until the friends' exhortations to repentance are added to suffering, which in itself is incomprehensible, and make it still harder to be understood. He is thereby involved in a hard conflict, in which at one time, full of arrogant self-confidence, he exalts himself heavenward; at another time, sinks to the ground in desponding sadness.\n\nThe God, however, against which he fights is but a phantom, which the temptation has presented to his saddened eye instead of the true God; and this phantom is in no way different from the inexorable fate of the Greek tragedy. As in that the hero seeks to","order":18,"numberOfChapters":41,"sha256":"b4687bb0caf8f131eb8035ae9e2ffb05e470da84e585f472ad5278538bdf728d","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JOB/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JOB","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":42,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JOB/42.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JOB","chapter":42},"totalNumberOfVerses":297},"chapter":{"number":27,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said:\n2 As God liveth, who hath deprived me of my right,\nAnd the Almighty, who hath sorely saddened my soul - \n3 For still all my breath is in me,\nAnd the breath of Eloah in my nostrils - \n4 My lips do not speak what is false,\nAnd my tongue uttereth not deceit!\n5 Far be it from me, to grant that you are in the right:\nTill I die I will not remove my innocence from me.\n6 My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go:\nMy heart reproacheth not any of my days.\n7 Mine enemy must appear as an evil-doer,\nAnd he who riseth up against me as unrighteous.\nThe friends are silent, Job remains master of the discourse, and his continued speech is introduced as a continued שׂאת משׁלו (after the analogy of the phrase נשׂא קול), as in Num 23:7 and further on, the oracles of Balaam. משׁל is speech of a more elevated tone and more figurative character; here, as frequently, the unaffected outgrowth of an elevated solemn mood. The introduction of the ultimatum, as משׁל, reminds one of \"the proverb (el-methel) seals it\" in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech.\nJob begins with an asseveration of his truthfulness (i.e., the agreement of his confession with his consciousness) by the life of God. From this oath, which in the form bi-hajât allâh has become later on a common formula of assurance, R. Joshua, in his tractate Sota, infers that Job served God from love to Him, for we only swear by the life of that which we honour and love; it is more natural to conclude that the God by whom on the one hand, he believes himself to be so unjustly treated, still appears to him, on the other hand, to be the highest manifestation of truth. The interjectional clause: living is God! is equivalent to, as true as God liveth. That which is affirmed is not what immediately follows: He has set aside my right, and the Almighty has sorely grieved my soul (Raschi); but הסיר משׁפטי and המר נפשׁי are attributive clauses, by which what is denied in the form of an oath introduced by אם (as Gen 42:15; Sa1 14:45; Sa2 11:11, Ges. 155, 2, f) is contained in Job 27:4; his special reference to the false semblance of an evil-doer shows that semblance which suffering casts upon him, but which he constantly repudiates as surely not lying, as that God liveth. Among moderns, Schlottm. (comp. Ges. 150, 3), like most of the old expositors, translates: so long as my breath is in me,...my lips shall speak no wrong, so that Job 27:3 and Job 27:4 together contain what is affirmed. By (1) כּי indeed sometimes introduces that which shall happen as affirmed by oath, Jer 22:5; Jer 49:13; but here that which shall not take place is affirmed, which would be introduced first in a general form by כּי explic. s. recitativum, then according to its special negative contents by אם, - a construction which is perhaps possible according to syntax, but it is nevertheless perplexing; (2) it may perhaps be thought that \"the whole continuance of my breath in me\" is conceived as accusative and adverbial, and is equivalent to, so long as my breath may remain in me (כל עוד, as long as ever, like the Arab. cullama, as often as ever); but the usage of the language does not favour this explanation, for Sa2 1:9, נפשׁי בי כל־עוד, signifies my whole soul (my full life) is still in me; and we have a third instance of this prominently placed כל per hypallagen in Hos 14:3, עון כל־תשׂא, omnem auferas iniquitatem, Ew. 289, a (comp. Ges. 114, rem. 1). Accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., Hahn, and most modern expositors, we take Job 27:3 as a parenthetical confirmatory clause, by which Job gives the ground of his solemn affirmation that he is still in possession of his full consciousness, and cannot help feeling and expressing the contradiction between his lot of suffering, which brand shim as an evil-doer, and his moral integrity. The נשׁמתי which precedes the רוח signifies, according to the prevailing usage of the language, the intellectual, and therefore self-conscious, soul of man (Psychol. S. 76f.). This is in man and in his nostrils, inasmuch as the breath which passes in and out by these is the outward and visible form of its being, which is in every respect the condition of life (ib. S. 82f.). The suff. of נשׁמתי is unaccented; on account of the word which follows being a monosyllable, the tone has retreated (נסוג אחור, to use a technical grammatical expression), as e.g., also in Job 19:25; Job 20:2; Psa 22:20. Because he lives, and, living, cannot deny his own existence, he swears that his own testimony, which is suspected by the friends, and on account of which they charge him with falsehood, is perfect truth.\nJob 27:4 is not to be translated: \"my lips shall never speak what is false;\" for it is not a resolve which Job thus strongly makes, after the manner of a vow, but the agreement of his confession, which he has now so frequently made, and which remains unalterable, with the abiding fact. Far be from me - he continues in Job 27:5 - to admit that you are right (חלילה לּי with unaccented ah, not of the fem., comp. Job 34:10, but of direction: for a profanation to me, i.e., let it be profane to me, Ew. 329, a, Arab. hâshâ li, in the like sense); until I expire (prop.: sink together), I will not put my innocence (תּמּה, perfection, in the sense of purity of character) away from me, i.e., I will not cease from asserting it. I will hold fast (as ever) my righteousness, and leave it not, i.e., let it not go or fall away; my heart does not reproach even one of my days. מיּמי is virtually an obj. in a partitive sense: mon coeur ne me reproche pas un seul de mes jours (Renan). The heart is used here as the seat of the conscience, which is the knowledge possessed by the heart, by which it excuses or accuses a man (Psychol. S. 134); חרף (whence חרף, the season in which the fruits are gathered) signifies carpere, to pluck = to pinch, lash, inveigh against. Jos. Kimchi and Ralbag explain: my heart draws not back) from the confession of my innocence) my whole life long (as Maimonides explains נחרפת, Lev 19:20, of the female slave who is inclined to, i.e., stands near to, the position of a free woman), by comparison with the Arabic inḥarafa, deflectere; it is not, however, Arab. ḥrf, but chrf, decerpere, that is to be compared in the tropical sense of the prevailing usage of the Hebrew specified. The old expositors were all misled by the misunderstood partitive מימי, which they translated ex (= inde a) diebus meis. There is in Job 27:7 no ground for taking יהי, with Hahn, as a strong affirmative, as supposed in Job 18:12, and not as expressive of desire; but the meaning is not: let my opponents be evil-doers, I at least am not one (Hirz.). The voluntative expresses far more emotion: the relation must be reversed; he who will brand me as an evil-doer, must by that very act brand himself as such, inasmuch as the מרשׁיע of a צדיק really shows himself to be a רשׁע, and by recklessly judging the righteous, is bringing down upon himself a like well-merited judgment. The כּ is the so-called Caph veritatis, since כּ, instar, signifies not only similarity, but also quality. Instead of קימי, the less manageable, primitive form, which the poet used in Job 22:20 (comp. p. 483), and beside which קם (קום, Kg2 16:7) does not occur in the book, we here find the more usual form מתקוממי (comp. Job 20:27).\n(Note: In Beduin the enemy is called qômâni (vid., supra, on Job 24:12, p. 505), a denominative from qôm, Arab. qawm, war, feud; but qm has also the signification of a collective of qômâni, and one can also say: entum wa-ijânâ qôm, you and we are enemies, and bênâtna qôm, there is war between us. - Wetzst.)\nThe description of the misfortune of the ungodly which now follows, beginning with כי, requires no connecting thought, as for instance: My enemy must be accounted as ungodly, on account of his hostility; I abhor ungodliness, for, etc.; but that he who regards him as a רשׁע is himself a רשׁע, Job shows from the fact of the רשׁע having no hope in death, whilst, when dying, he can give no confident hope of a divine vindication of his innocence. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["8 For what is the hope of the godless, when He cutteth off,\nWhen Eloah taketh away his soul?\n9 Will God hear his cry\nWhen distress cometh upon him?\n10 Or can he delight himself in the Almighty,\nCan he call upon Eloah at all times?\n11 I will teach you concerning the hand of God,\nI will not conceal the dealings of the Almighty.\n12 Behold, ye have all seen it,\nWhy then do ye cherish foolish notions?\nIn comparing himself with the רשׁע, Job is conscious that he has a God who does not leave him unheard, in whom he delights himself, and to whom he can at all times draw near; as, in fact, Job's fellowship with God rests upon the freedom of the most intimate confidence. He is not one of the godless; for what is the hope of one who is estranged from God, when he comes to die? He has no God on whom his hope might establish itself, to whom it could cling. The old expositors err in many ways respecting Job 27:8, by taking בצע, abscindere (root בץ), in the sense of (opes) corradere (thus also more recently Rosenm. after the Targ., Syr., and Jer.), and referring ישׁל to שׁלה in the signification tranquillum esse (thus even Blumenfeld after Ralbag and others). נפשׁו is the object to both verbs, and בצע נפשׁ, abscindere animam, to cut off the thread of life, is to be explained according to Job 6:9; Isa 38:12. שׁלח נפשׁ, extrahere animam (from שׁלה, whence שׁליח Arab. salan, the after-birth, cogn. שׁלל . Arab. sll, נשׁל Arab. nsl, nṯl, nšl), is of similar signification, according to another figure, wince the body is conceived of as the sheath (נדנה, Dan 7:15) of the soul \n(Note: On the similar idea of the body, as the kosha (sheath) of the soul, among the Hindus, vid., Psychol. S. 227.)\n(comp. Arab. sll in the universal signification evaginare ensem). The fut. apoc. Kal ישׁל (= ישׁל) is therefore in meaning equivalent to the intrans. ישּׁל, Deu 28:40 (according to Ew. 235, c, obtained from this by change of vowel), decidere; and Schnurrer's supposition that ישׁל, like the Arab. ysl, is equivalent to ישׁאל (when God demands it), or such a violent correction as De Lagarde's\n(Note: Anm. zur griech. Uebers. der Proverbien (1863), S. VI.f., where the first reason given for this improvement of the text is this, that the usual explanation, according to which ישׁל and יבצע have the same subj. and obj. standing after the verb, is altogether contrary to Semitic usage. But this assertion is groundless, as might be supposed from the very beginning. Thus, e.g., the same obj. is found after two verbs in Job 20:19, and the same subj. and obj. in Neh 3:20.)\n(when he is in distress יצק, when one demeans his soul with a curse ישּׁאל בּאלה), is unnecessary.\nThe ungodly man, Job goes on to say, has no God to hear his cry when distress comes upon him; he cannot delight himself (יתענּג, pausal form of יתענג, the primary form of יתענג) in the Almighty; he cannot call upon Eloah at any time (i.e., in the manifold circumstances of life under which we are called to feel the dependence of our nature). Torn away from God, he cannot be heard, he cannot indeed pray and find any consolation in God. It is most clearly manifest here, since Job compares his condition of suffering with that of a חנף, what comfort, what power of endurance, yea, what spiritual joy in the midst of suffering (התענג, as Job 22:26; Psa 37:4, Psa 37:11; Isa 55:2; Isa 58:13), which must all remain unknown to the ungodly, he can draw from his fellowship with God; and seizing the very root of the distinction between the man who fears God and one who is utterly godless, his view of the outward appearance of the misfortune of both becomes changed; and after having allowed himself hitherto to be driven from one extreme to another by the friends, as the heat of the controversy gradually cools down, and as, regaining his independence, he stands before them as their teacher, he now experiences the truth of docendo discimus in rich abundance. I will instruct you, says he, in the hand, i.e., the mode of action, of God (בּ just as in Psa 25:8, Psa 25:12; Psa 32:8; Pro 4:11, of the province and subject of instruction); I will not conceal עם־שׁדּי אשׁר, i.e., according to the sense of the passage: what are the principles upon which He acts; for that which is with (אם) any one is the matter of his consciousness and volition (vid., on Job 23:10).\nJob 27:12 is of the greatest importance in the right interpretation of what follows from Job 27:13 onwards. The instruction which Job desires to impart to the friends has reference to the lot of the evil-doer; and when he says: Behold, ye yourselves have beheld (learnt) it all, - in connection with which it is to be observed that אתּם כּלּכם does not signify merely vos omnes, but vosmet ipsi omnes, - he grants to them what he appeared hitherto to deny, that the lot of the evil-doer, certainly in the rule, although not without exceptions, is such as they have said. The application, however, which they have made of this abiding fact of experience, as and remains all the more false: Wherefore then (זה makes the question sharper) are ye vain (blinded) in vanity (self-delusion), viz., in reference to me, who do not so completely bear about the characteristic marks of a רשׁע? The verb הבל signifies to think and act vainly (without ground or connection), Kg2 17:15 (comp. ἐματαιώθησαν, Rom 1:21); the combination הבל הבל is not to be judged of according to Ges. 138, rem. 1, as it is also by Ew. 281, a, but הבל may also be taken as the representative of the gerund, as e.g., עריה, Hab 3:9.\nIn the following strophe (Job 27:13) Job now begins as Zophar (Job 20:29) concluded. He gives back to the friends the doctrine they have fully imparted to him. They have held the lot of the evil-doer before him as a mirror, that he may behold himself in it and be astounded; he holds it before them, that they may perceive how not only his bearing under suffering, but also the form of his affliction, is of a totally different kind. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["13 This is the lot of the wicked man with God,\nAnd the heritage of the violent which they receive from the Almighty:\n14 If his children multiply, it is for the sword,\nAnd his offspring have not bread enough.\n15 His survivors shall be buried by the pestilence,\nAnd his widows shall not weep.\n16 If he heapeth silver together as dust,\nAnd prepareth garments for himself as mire:\n17 He prepareth it, and the righteous clothe themselves,\nAnd the innocent divide the silver among themselves.\n18 He hath built as a moth his house,\nAnd as a hut that a watchman setteth up.\nWe have already had the combination אדם רשׁע for אישׁ רשׁע in Job 20:29; it is a favourite expression in Proverbs, and reminds one of ἄνθρωπος ὁδίτης in Homer, and ἄνθρωπος σπείρωϚ, ἐχθρός, ἔμπορος, in the parables Matt 13. Psik (Pasek) stands under רשׁע, to separate the wicked man and God, as in Pro 15:29 (Norzi). למו, exclusively peculiar to the book of Job in the Old Testament (here and Job 29:21; Job 38:40; Job 40:4), is ל rendered capable of an independent position by means of מו = מה, Arab. mâ. The sword, famine, and pestilence are the three punishing powers by which the evil-doer's posterity, however numerous it may be, is blotted out; these three, חרב, רעב, and מות, appear also side by side in Jer 15:2; מות, instead of ממותי, diris mortibus, is (as also Jer 18:21) equivalent to דּבר in the same trio, Jer 14:12; the plague is personified (as when it is called by an Arabian poet umm el-farit, the mother of death), and Vavassor correctly observes: Mors illos sua sepeliet, nihil praeterea honoris supremi consecuturos. Bttcher (de inferis, 72) asserts that במות can only signify pestilentiae tempore, or better, ipso mortis momento; but since בּ occurs by the passive elsewhere in the sense of ab or per, e.g., Num 36:2; Hos 14:4, it can also by נקבר denote the efficient cause. Olshausen's correction במות לא יקברו, they will not be buried when dead (Jer 16:4), is still less required; \"to be buried by the pestilence\" is equivalent to, not to be interred with the usual solemnities, but to be buried as hastily as possible.\nJob 27:15 (common to our poet and the psalm of Asaph, 78:64, which likewise belongs to the Salomonic age) is also to be correspondingly interpreted: the women that he leaves behind do not celebrate the usual mourning rites (comp. Gen 23:2), because the decreed punishment which, stroke after stroke, deprives them of husbands and children, prevents all observance of the customs of mourning, and because the shock stifles the feeling of pity. The treasure in gold which his avarice has heaped up, and in garments which his love of display has gathered together, come into the possession of the righteous and the innocent, who are spared when these three powers of judgment sweep away the evil-doer and his family. Dust and dirt (i.e., of the streets, חוצות) are, as in Zac 9:3, the emblem of a great abundance that depreciates even that which is valuable. The house of the ungodly man, though a palace, is, as the fate of the fabric shows, as brittle and perishable a thing, and can be as easily destroyed, as the fine spinning of a moth, עשׁ (according to the Jewish proverb, the brother of the סס), or even the small case which it makes from remnants of gnawed articles, and drags about with it; it is like a light hut, perhaps for the watchman of a vineyard (Isa 1:8), which is put together only for the season during which the grapes are ripening.\n(Note: The watchman's hut, for the protection of the vineyards and melon and maize fields against thieves, herds, or wild beasts, is now called either ‛arı̂she and mantara (מנטרה) if it is only slightly put together from branches of trees, or chême (הימה) if it is built up high in order that the watcher may see a great distance. The chême is the more frequent; at harvest it stands in the midst of the threshing-floors (bejâdir) of a district, and it is constructed in the following manner: - Four poles (‛awâmı̂d) are set up so as to form the corners of a square, the sides of which are about eight feet in length. Eight feet above the ground, four cross pieces of wood ('awrid) are tightly bound to these with cords, on which planks, if they are to be had, are laid. Here is the watcher's bed, which consists of a litter. Six or seven feet above this, cross-beams are again bound to the four poles, on which boughs, or reeds (qasab), or a mat (hası̂ra, חצירה) forms a roof (sath, שׂטח), from which the chême has its name; for the Piel-forms ערּשׁ, חיּם, and שׂטּח signify, \"to be stretched over anything after the manner of a roof.\" Between the roof and the bed, three sides of the che=me are hung round with a mat, or with reeds or straws (qashsh, קשׁ) bound together, in order both to keep off the cold night-winds, and also to keep the thieves in ignorance as to the number of the watchers. A small ladder, sullem (סלּם), frequently leads to the bed-chamber. The space between the ground and this chamber is closed only on the west side to keep off the hot afternoon sun, for through the day the watcher sits below with his dog, upon the ground. Here is also his place of reception, if any passers-by visit him; for, like the village shepherd, the field-watcher has the right of showing a humble hospitality to any acquaintances. When the fruits have been gathered in, the chême is removed. The field-watchman is now called nâtûr (Arab. nâṭûr), and the verb is natar, נטר, \"to keep watch,\" instead of which the quadriliteral nôtar, נוטר (from the plur. Arab. nwâṭı̂r, \"the watchers\"), has also been formed. In one part of Syria all these forms are written with צ (d) instead of ט fo da, and pronounced accordingly. The נצר in this passage is similarly related to the נטר in Sol 1:6; Sol 8:11-12. - Wetzst.) \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["19 He lieth down rich, and doeth it not again,\nHe openeth his eyes and-is no more.\n20 Terrors take hold of him as a flood;\nBy night a tempest stealeth him away.\n21 The east wind lifteth him up, that he departeth,\nAnd hurleth him forth from his place.\n22 God casteth upon him without sparing,\nBefore His hand he fleeth utterly away.\n23 They clap their hands at him,\nAnd hiss him away from his place.\nThe pointing of the text ולא יאסף is explained by Schnurr., Umbr., and Stick.: He goes rich to bed and nothing is taken as yet, he opens his eyes and nothing more is there; but if this were the thought intended, it ought at least to have been ואין נאסף, since לא signifies non, not nihil; and Stickel's translation, \"while nothing is carried away,\" makes the fut. instead of the praet., which was to be expected, none the more tolerable; also אסף can indeed signify to gather hastily together, to take away (e.g., Isa 33:4), when the connection favours it, but not here, where the first impression is that רשׁע is the subj. both to ולא יאסף and to ואיננו. Bttcher's translation, \"He lieth down rich and cannot be displaced,\" gives the words a meaning that is ridiculed by the usage of the language. On the other hand, ולא יאסף can signify: and he is not conveyed away (comp. e.g., Jer 8:2; Eze 29:5; but not Isa 57:1, where it signifies to be swept away, and also not Num 20:26, where it signifies to be gathered to the fathers), and is probably intended to be explained after the pointing that we have, as Rosenm. and even Ralbag explain it: \"he is not conveyed away; one opens his eyes and he is not;\" or even as Schlottm.: \"he is not conveyed away; in one moment he still looks about him, in the next he is no more;\" but the relation of the two parts of the verse in this interpretation is unsatisfactory, and the preceding strophe has already referred to his not being buried. Since, therefore, only an unsuitable, and what is more, a badly-expressed thought, is gained by this reading, it may be that the expression should be regarded with Hahn as interrogative: is he not swept away? This, however, is only a makeshift, and therefore we must see whether it may not perhaps be susceptible of another pointing. Jerome transl.: dives cum dormierit, nihil secum auferet; the thought is not bad, but מאוּמה is wanting, and לא alone does not signify nihil. Better lxx (Ital., Syr.): πλούσιος κοιμηθήσεται καὶ ου ̓ προσθήσει. This translation follows the form of reading יאסף = יוסיף, gives a suitable sense, places both parts of the verse in the right relation, and accords with the style of the poet (vid., Job 20:9; Job 40:5); and accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we decide in favour of this reading: he lieth down to sleep rich, and he doeth it no more, since in the night he is removed from life and also from riches by sudden death; or also: in the morning he openeth his eyes without imagining it is the last time, for, overwhelmed by sudden death, he closes them for ever. Job 27:20 and Job 27:20 are attached crosswise (chiastisch) to this picture of sudden destruction, be it by night or by day: the terrors of death seize him (sing. fem. with a plur. subj. following it, according to Ges. 146, 3) like a flood (comp. the floods of Belial, Psa 18:5), by night a whirlwind (גּנבתּוּ סוּפה, as Job 21:18) carrieth him away. The Syriac and Arabic versions add, as a sort of interpolation: as a fluttering (large white) night-moth, - an addition which no one can consider beautiful.\nJob 27:21 extends the figure of the whirlwind. In Hebrew, even when the narrative has reference to Egyptian matters (Gen 41:23), the קדים which comes from the Arabian desert is the destructive, devastating, and parching wind κατ ̓ εξοχὴν.\n(Note: In Syria and Arabia the east wind is no longer called qadı̂m, but exclusively sharqı̂ja, i.e., the wind that blows from the rising of the sun (sharq). This wind rarely prevails in summer, occurring then only two or three days a month on an average; it is more frequent in the winter and early spring, when, if it continues long, the tender vegetation is parched up, and a year of famine follows, whence in the Lebanon it is called semûm (שׂמוּם), which in the present day denotes the \"poisonous wind\" (= nesme musimme), but originally, by alliance with the Hebr. שׁמם, denoted the \"devastating wind.\" The east wind is dry; it excites the blood, contracts the chest, causes restlessness and anxiety, and sleepless nights or evil dreams. Both man and beast feel weak and sickly while it prevails. Hence that which is unpleasant and revolting in life is compared to the east wind. Thus a maid in Hauran, at the sight of one of my Damascus travelling companions, whose excessive ugliness struck her, cried: billâh, nahâr el-jôm aqshar (Arab. 'qšr), wagahetni (Arab. w-jhṫnı̂) sharqı̂ja, \"by God, it is an unhealthy day to-day: an east wind blew upon me.\" And in a festive dance song of the Merg district, these words occur:\nwa rudd lı̂ hômet hodênik\nseb‛ lejâlı̂ bi-‛olı̂ja wa berd\nwa sherd wa sharqı̂ja ...\n\"And grant me again to slumber on thy bosom,\nSeven nights in an upper chamber,\nAnd (I will then endure) cold, drifting snow, and east wind.\"\nDuring the harvest, so long as the east wind lasts, the corn that is already threshed and lying on the threshing-floors cannot be winnowed; a gentle, moderate draught is required for this process, such as is only obtained by a west or south wind. The north wind is much too strong, and the east wind is characterized by constant gusts, which, as the Hauranites say, \"jôchotû tibn wa-habb, carried away chaff and corn.\" When the wind shifts from the west to the east, a whirlwind (zôba‛a, זובעה) not unfrequently arises, which often in summer does much harm to the threshing-floors and to the cut corn that is lying in swaths (unless it is weighted with stones). Storms are rare during an east wind; they come mostly with a west wind (never with a south or north wind). But if an east wind does bring a storm, it is generally very destructive, on account of its strong gusts; and it will even uproot the largest trees. - Wetzst.)\nוילך signifies peribit (ut pereat), as Job 14:20; Job 19:10. שׂער (comp. סערה, O storm-chased one) is connected with the accus. of the person pursued, as in Psa 58:10. The subj. of וישׁלך, Job 27:22, is God, and the verb stands without an obj.: to cast at any one (shoot), as Num 35:22 (for the figure, comp. Job 16:13); lxx correctly: ἐπιῤῥίψει (whereas Job 18:7, σφάλαι = ותכשׁילהו). The gerundive with יברח lays stress upon the idea of the exertion of flight: whithersoever he may flee before the hand of God, every attempt is in vain. The suff. êmo, Job 27:22, both according to the syntax and the matter, may be taken as the plural suff.; but the fact that כּפּימו can be equivalent to כּפּיו (comp. Psa 11:7), עלימו to עליו (comp. Job 20:23; Job 22:2), as למו is equivalent to לו ot tn (vid., Isa 44:15; Isa 53:8), is established, and there is no reason why the same may not be the case here. The accumulation of the terminations êmo and ômo gives a tone of thunder and a gloomy impress to this conclusion of the description of judgment, as these terminations frequently occur in the book of Psalms, where moral depravity is mourned and divine judgment threatened (e.g., in Psa 17:1-15; 49; 58:1-59:17; 73). The clapping of hands (שׂפק כּפּים = ספק, Lam 2:15, comp. תּקע, Nah 3:19) is a token of malignant joy, and hissing (שׁרק, Zep 2:15; Jer 49:17) a token of scorn. The expression in Job 27:23 is a pregnant one. Clapping of hands and hissing accompany the evil-doer when merited punishment overtakes him, and chases him forth from the place which he hitherto occupied (comp. Job 8:18).\nEarlier expositors have thought it exceedingly remarkable that Job, in Job 27:13-23, should agree with the assertions of the three friends concerning the destiny of the ungodly and his descendants, while he has previously opposed them on this point, Job 12:6, Job 12:21, Job 12:24. Kennicott thinks the confusion is cleared away by regarding Job 26:2-27:12 as Job's answer to the third speech of Bildad, Job 27:13. as the third speech of Zophar, and Job 28:1 (to which the superscription Job 27:1 belongs) as Job's reply thereto; but this reply begins with כּי, and is specially appropriate as a striking repartee to the speech of Zophar. Stuhlmann (1804) makes this third speech of Zophar begin with Job 27:11, and imagines a gap between Job 27:10 and Job 27:11; but who then are the persons whom Zophar addresses by \"you\"? The three everywhere address themselves to Job, while here Zophar, contrary to custom, would address himself not to him, but, according to Stuhlmann's exposition, to the others with reference to Job. Job 28 Stuhlmann removes and places after Job 25:1-6 as a continuation of Bildad's speech; Zophar's speech therefore remains unanswered, and Zophar may thank this critic not only for allowing him another opportunity of speaking, but also for allowing him the last word. Bernstein (Keil-Tzschirner's Analekten, Bd. i. St. 3) removes the contradiction into which Job seems to fall respecting himself in a more thorough manner, by rejecting the division Job 27:7-28:28, which is certainly indissolubly connected as a whole, as a later interpolation; but there is no difference of language and poetic spirit here betraying an interpolator; and had there been one, even he ought indeed to have proceeded on the assumption that such an insertion should be appropriate to Job's mouth, so that the task of proving its relative fitness, from his standpoint at least, remains. Hosse (1849) goes still further: he puts Job 27:10; Job 31:35-37; Job 38:1, etc., together, and leaves out all that comes between these passages. There is then no transition whatever from the entanglement to the unravelment. Job's final reply, Job 27:1, with the monologue Job 29:1, in which even a feeble perception must recognise one of the most essential and most beautiful portions of the dramatic whole, forms this transition.\nEichhorn (in his translation of Job, 1824), who formerly (Allgem. Bibliothek der bibl. Lit. Bd. 2) inclined to Kennicott's view, and Bckel (2nd edition, 1804) seek another explanation of the difficulty, by supposing that in Job 27:13-23 Job reproduces the view of the friends. But in Job 27:11 Job announces the setting forth of his own view; and the supposition that with זה חלק אדם רשׁע he does not begin the enunciation of his own view, but that of his opponents, is refuted by the consideration that there is nothing by which he indicates this, and that he would not enter so earnestly into the description if it were not the feeling of his heart. Feeling the worthlessness of these attempted solutions, De Wette (Einleitung, 288), with his customary spirit of criticism with which he depreciates the sacred writers, turns against the poet himself. Certainly, says he, the division Job 27:11-28:28 is inappropriate and self-contradictory in the mouth of Job; but this wan to clearness, not to say inconsistency, must be brought against the poet, who, despite his utmost endeavour, has not been able to liberate himself altogether from the influence of the common doctrine of retribution.\nThis judgment is erroneous and unjust. Umbreit (2nd edition, S. 261 [Clark's edition, 1836, ii. 122]) correctly remarks, that \"without this apparent contradiction in Job's speeches, the interchange of words would have been endless;\" in other words: had Job's standpoint been absolutely immoveable, the controversy could not possibly have come to a well-adjusted decision, which the poet must have planned, and which he also really brings about, by causing his hero still to retain an imperturbable consciousness of his innocence, but also allowing his irritation to subside, and his extreme harshness to become moderated. The latter, in reference to the final destiny of the godless, is already indicated in Job 24, but is still more apparent here in Job 27, and indeed in the following line of thought: \"As truly as God lives, who afflicts me, the innocent one, I will not incur the guilt of lying, by allowing myself to be persuaded against my conscience to regard myself as an evil-doer. I am not an evil-doer, but my enemy who regards me and treats me as such must be accounted wicked; for how unlike the hopelessness and estrangement from God, in which the evil-doer dies, is my hope and entreaty in the midst of the heaviest affliction! Yea, indeed, the fate of the evil-doer is a different one from mine. I will teach it you; ye have all, indeed, observed it for yourselves, and nevertheless ye cherish such vain thoughts concerning me.\" What is peculiar in the description that then follows - a description agreeing in its substance with that of the three, and similar in its form - is therefore this, that Job holds up the end of the evil-doer before the friends, that form it they may infer that he is not an evil-doer, whereas the friends held it up before Job that he might infer from it that he is an evil-doer, and only by a penitent acknowledgment of this can he escape the extreme of the punishment he has merited. Thus in Job 27:1 Job turns their own weapon against the friends.\nBut does he not, by doing so, fall into contradiction with himself? Yes; and yet not so. The Job who has become calmer here comes into contradiction with the impassioned Job who had, without modification, placed the exceptional cases in opposition to the exclusive assertion that the evil-doer comes to a fearful end, which the friends advance, as if it were the rule that the prosperity of the evil-doer continues uninterrupted to the very end of his days. But Job does not come into collision with his true view. For how could he deny that in the rule the retributive justice of God is manifest in the cast of the evil-doer! We can only perceive his true opinion when we compare the views he here expresses with his earlier extreme antitheses: hitherto, in the heat of the controversy, he has opposed that which the friends onesidedly maintained by the direct opposite; now he has got upon the right track of thought, in which the fate of the evil-doer presents itself to him from another and hitherto mistaken side, - a phase which is also but imperfectly appreciated in Job 24; so that now at last he involuntarily does justice to what truth there is in the assertion of his opponent. Nevertheless, it is not Job's intention to correct himself here, and to make an admission to the friends which has hitherto been refused. Hirzel's explanation of this part inclines too much to this erroneous standpoint. On the contrary, our rendering accords with that of Ewald, who observes (S. 252f. 2nd edition, 1854) that Job here maintains in his own favour, and against them, what the friends directed against him, since the hope of not experiencing such an evil-doer's fate becomes strong in him: \"Job is here on the right track for more confidently anticipating his own rescue, or, what is the same thing, the impossibility of his perishing just as if he were an evil-doer.\" Moreover, how well designed is it that the description Job 27:23. is put into Job's mouth! While the poet allows the friends designedly to interweave lines taken from Job's misfortunes into their descriptions of the evil-doer's fate, in Job's description not one single line is found which coincides with his own lot, whether with that which he has already experience, or even with that which his faith presents to him as in prospect. And although the heavy lot which has befallen him looks like the punitive suffering of the evil-doer, he cannot acknowledge it as such, and even denies its bearing the marks of such a character, since even in the midst of affliction he clings to God, and confidently hopes for His vindication. With this rendering of Job 27:13. all doubts of its genuineness, which is indeed admitted by all modern expositors, vanish; and, far from charging the poet with inconsistency, one is led to admire the undiminished skill with which he brings the idea of the drama by concealed ways to its goal.\nBut the question still comes up, whether Job 28:1, opening with כּי, does not militate against this genuineness. Hirzel and others observe, that this כי introduces the confirmation of Job 27:12: \"But wherefore then do ye cherish such vain imaginations concerning me? For human sagacity and perseverance can accomplish much, but the depths of divine wisdom are impenetrable to man.\" But how is it possible that the כי, Job 28:1, should introduce the confirmation of Job 27:12, passing over Job 27:13? If it cannot be explained in any other way, it appears that Job 27:13 must be rejected. There is the same difficulty in comprehending it by supplying some suppressed thought, as e.g., Ewald explains it: For, as there may also be much in the divine dealings that is dark, etc.; and Hahn: Because evil-doers perish according to their desert, it does not necessarily follow that every one who perishes is an evil-doer, and that every prosperous person is godly, for - the wisdom of God is unsearchable. This mode of explanation, which supposes, between the close of Job 27:1 and the beginning of Job 28:1, what is not found there, is manifestly forced; and in comparison with it, it would be preferable, with Stickel, to translate כי \"because,\" and take Job 28:1-2 as the antecedent to Job 28:3. Then after Job 27:1 a dash might be made; but this dash would indicate an ugly blank, which would be no honour to the poet. Schlottmann explains it more satisfactorily. He takes Job 27:13. as a warning addressed to the friends, lest they bring down upon themselves, by their unjust judgment, the evil-doer's punishment which they have so often proclaimed. If this rendering of Job 27:13. were correct, the description of the fate of the evil-doer would be influenced by an underlying thought, to which the following statement of the exalted nature of the divine wisdom would be suitably connected as a confirmation. We cannot, however, consider this rendering as correct. The picture ought to have been differently drawn, if it had been designed to serve as a warning to the friends.\nIt has a different design. Job depicts the revelation of the divine justice which is exhibited in the issue of the life of the evil doer, to teach the friends that they judge him and his lot falsely. To this description of punishment, which is intended thus and not otherwise, Job 28:1 with its confirmatory כי must be rightly connected. If this were not feasible, one would be disposed, with Pareau, to alter the position of Job 28:1, as if it were removed from its right place, and put it after Job 26:1. But we are cautioned against such a violent measure, by the consideration that it is not evident from Job 26:1 why the course of thought in Job 28:1, which begins with כי, should assume the exact form in which we find it; whereas, on the other hand, it was said in Job 27:1 that the ungodly heaps up silver, כסף, like dust, but that the innocent who live to see his fall divide this silver, כסף, among themselves; so that when in Job 28:1 it continues: כי ישׁ לכסף מוצא, there is a connection of thought for which the way has been previously prepared.\nIf we further take into consideration the fact of Job 28:1 being only an amplification of the one closing thought to which everything tends, viz., that the fear of God is man's true wisdom, then Job 28:1, also in reference to this its special point, is suitably attached to the description of the evil-doer's fate, Job 27:13 The miserable end of the ungodly is confirmed by this, that the wisdom of man, which he has despised, consists in the fear of God; and Job thereby at the same time attains the special aim of his teaching, which is announced at Job 27:11 by אורה אתכם ביד־אל: viz., he has at the same time proved that he who retains the fear of God in the midst of his sufferings, though those sufferings are an insoluble mystery, cannot be a רשׁע. This design of the conformation, and that connection of thought, which should be well noted, prove that Job 28:1 stands in its original position. And if we ponder the fact, that Job has depicted the ungodly as a covetous rich man who is snatched away by sudden death from his immense possession of silver and other costly treasures, we see that Job 28:1 confirms the preceding picture of punitive judgment in the following manner: silver and other precious metals come out of the earth, but wisdom, whose value exceeds all these earthly treasures, is to be found nowhere within the province of the creature; God alone possesses it, and from God alone it comes; and so as man can and is to attain to it, it consists in the fear of the Lord, and the forsaking of evil. This is the close connection of Job 28:1 with what immediately precedes, which most expositors since Schultens have missed, by transferring the central point to the unsearchableness of the divine wisdom which rules in the world; whereas Bouiller correctly observes that the whole of Job 28:1 treats not so much of the wisdom of God as of the wisdom of man, which God, the sole possessor of wisdom, imparts to him: omnibus divitiis, fluxis et evanidis illis possessio praeponderat sapientiae, quae in pio Dei cultu et fuga mali est posita. The view of von Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 96, 2nd edit.) accords with this: \"If Job 28:1, where a confirmatory or explanatory כי forms the transition, is taken together with Job 28:12, where another part of the speech is introduced with a Waw, and finally with Job 28:28, where this is rounded off, as forming the unity of one thought: it thus proves that the final destruction of the godless, who is happy and prosperous in worldly things, is explained by the fact that man can obtain every kind of hidden riches by his own exertion and courage, but not the wisdom which is not indigenous to this outward world, but is known to God alone, and is to be learned from Him only; and the teaching concerning it is: behold, the fear of God, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.\"\nBefore we now pass on to the detailed exposition of Job 28:1, we may perhaps here, without anticipating, put the question. Whence has the poet obtained the knowledge of the different modes of mining operations which is displayed in Job 28:1, and which has every appearance of being the result of personal observation? Since, as we have often remarked already, he is well acquainted with Egypt, it is most natural that he derived this his knowledge from Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula. The ruins of mines found there show that the Sinaitic peninsula has been worked as a mining district from the earliest times. The first of these mining districts is the Wadi Nasb, where Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) found traces of old smelting-places, and where also Graul and his companions, having their attention drawn to it by Wilkinson's work, searched for the remains of a mine, and found at least traces of copper slag, but could see nothing more (Reise, ii. 202). E. Rppell explored the spot at the desire of the Viceroy Mehemed Ali, and Russegger with less successful result (vid., the particular sin Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. 784-788).\n(Note: The valley is not called Wadi nahas (Copper valley), which is only a supposition of Rppell, but Wadi nasb, Arab. naṣb, which, according to Reinaud, signifies valley of statues of columns. Thirty hours' journey from Suez, says a connoisseur in the Historisch-politische Bltter, 1863, S. 802f., lies the Wadi nesb [a pronunciation which assumes the form of writing Arab. nsb]; it is rare that the ore is so easy to get, and found in such abundance, for the blocks containing the copper are in many places 200 feet in diameter, and the ore is almost in a pure state. The mineral (the black earth containing the copper) abounds in the metal ... . Besides this, iron-ore, manganese, carbonate of lead, and also the exceeding precious cinnabar, have been discovered on Sinai.)\nA second mining district is denoted by the ruins of a temple of Hathor, on the steep terrace of the rising ground Sarbut (Serbt) el-chdim, which stretches out into a spacious valley. This field of ruins, with its many lofty columns within the still recognisable area of a temple, and round about it, gives the impression of a large burying-ground, and it is described and represented as such by Carsten Niebuhr (Reise, 235, Tafel xliv.). In February 1854, Graul (Reise, ii. 203) and Tischendorf spent a short time upon this eminence of the desert, which is hard to climb, and abounds in monuments. It produced a strong impression upon us - says the latter (Aus dem heiligen Lande, S. 35) - as we tarried in the midst of the grotesque forms of these monuments, while the setting sun cast its deep red gleam over the wild terrific-looking copper rocks that lay around in their varied shades, now light, now dark. That these copper rocks were worked in ancient days, is proved by the large black heaps of slag which Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) discovered to the east and west of the temple. Moreover, in the inscriptions Hathor bears the by-name \"Queen of Mafkat,\" i.e., the copper country (mafka, copper, with the feminine post-positive article t). It even bears this name on the monuments in the Wadi maghra, one of the side-gorges of the Wadi mucatteb (i.e., the Written Valley, valley full of inscriptions). These signs of another ancient mining colony belong almost entirely to the earliest Egyptian antiquity, while those on Sarbut el-chdim extend back only to Amenemha III, consequently to the last dynasty of the old kingdom. Even the second king of the fifth dynasty, Snefru, and indeed his predecessor (according to Lepsius, his successor) Chufu - that Che'ops who built the largest pyramid - appear here as conquerors of foreign peoples, and the mountainous district dedicated to Hathor is also called Mafka.t. The remains of a mine, discovered by J. Wilson, at the eastern end of the north side of the Wady mucatteb, also belongs to this copper country: they lie near the road, but in back gorges; there is a very high wall of rock of granite or porphyry, which is penetrated by dark seams of metal, which have been worked out from above downwards, thus forming artificial caverns, pits, and shafts; and it may be inferred that the yield of ore was very abundant, and, from the simplicity of the manner of working, that it is of very great antiquity. This art of mining thus laid open, as Ritter says,\n(Note: In the essay on the Sinaitic peninsula in Piper's Ev. Jahrbuch, 1852. The mining district that J. Wilson saw (1843-44) is not one that was unknown up to that time, but one of the places of the Wadi maghra recognised as favouring the ancient Egyptian system of excavation.)\nfurnishes the most important explanation of Job's remarkable description of mining operations.\nAs to Egypt itself, it has but few places where iron-ore was obtained, and it was not very plentiful, as iron occurs much more rarely than bronze on the tombs, although Wilkinson has observed important copper mines almost as extensive as the copper country of Sinai: we only, however, possess more exact information concerning the gold mines on the borders of Upper Egypt. Agatharchides mentions them in his Periplus; and Diodorus (iii. 11ff.) gives a minute description of them, from which it is evident that mining in those days was much the same as it was with us about a hundred years ago: we recognise in it the day and night relays, the structure of shafts, the crushing and washing apparatus, and the smelting-place.\n(Note: Thus Klemm, Allgem. Cultur-Geschichte, v. 304.)\nThere are the gold mines of Nubia, the name of which signifies the gold country, for NOYB is the old Egyptian name for gold. From the time of Sethoshi I, the father of Sesostris, we still possess the plan of a gold mine, which Birch (Upon a historical tablet of Rameses II of the XIX dynasty, relating to the gold mines of Aethiopia) has first of all correctly determined. Moreover, on monuments of all ages frequent mention is made of other metals (silver, iron, lead), as of precious stones, with which e.g., harps were ornamented; the diamond can also be traced. In the Papyrus Prisse, which Chabas has worked up under the title Le plus ancien livre du monde, Phtha-hotep, the author of this moral tractate, iv. 14, says: \"Esteem my good word more highly than the (green) emerald, which is found by slaves under the pebbles.\" \n(Note: According to a contribution from Prof. Lauth of Munich.)\nThe emerald-hills near Berenice produced the emerald.\nBut if the scene of the book of Job is to be sought in Idumaea proper (Gebal) or in Hauran, there were certainly mines that were nearer than the Egyptian. In Phunon (Phinon), between Petra and Zoar, there were pits from which copper (χαλκοῦ μέταλλα, aeris metalla) was obtained even to the time of Moses, as may be inferred from the fact of Moses having erected the brazen serpent there (Num 21:9., comp. 33:42f.), and whither, during the persecutions of the Christians in the time of the emperors, many witnesses for the faith were banished, that they might fall victims to the destructive labour of pit life (Athanasius extravagantly says: ἔνθα καὶ φονεῦς καταδικαζόμενος ὀλίγας ἡμέρας μόγις δύναται ζῆσαι).\n(Note: Vid., Genesis, S. 512; Ritter, Erdkunde, xiv. 125-127; as also my Kirchliches Chronikon des petrischen Arabiens in the Luth. Zeitschr. 1840, S. 133.)\nBut Edrsi also knew of gold and silver mines in the mountains of Edom, the 'Gebel esh-Sher (Arab. 'l-šrât), i.e., חר שׂעיר. According to the Onomasticon, דּי זהב, Deu 1:1 (lxx καταχρύσεα), indicates such gold mines in Arabia Petraea; and Jerome (under Cata ta chrysea)\n(Note: Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iii. 183. The text of Eusebius is to be amended according to that of Jerome; vid., Ugolini, Thes. vol. v. col. cxix.f. What Ritter says, Erdkunde, xiv. 127, is disfigured by mischievous mistakes.)\nobserves on that passage: sed et metallo aeris Phaeno, quod nostro tempore corruit, montes venarum auri plenos olim fuisse vicinos existimant. Eupolemus' account (in Euseb. praep. ix. 30) of an island Aurfee', rich in gold, in the Red Sea, does not belong here; for by the red sea, ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα,\n(Note: On the meaning of this appellation, vid., Genesis, S. 630.)\nit is not the Arabian Gulf that is meant; and the reference of the name of the range of hills Tell ed-dhahab in ancient Gilead to gold mines rests only on hearsay up to the present time. But it is all the more worthy of mention that traces of former copper mines are still found on the Lebanon (vid., Knobel on Deu 8:9); that Edrsi (Syria, ed. Rosenm. p. 12) was acquainted with the existence of a rich iron mine near Beirut; and that, even in the present day, the Jews who dwell in Deir el-kamar, on the Lebanon, work the iron on leases, and especially forge horse-shoes from it, which are sent all over Palestine.\n(Note: Schwarz, Das h. Land (1852), S. 323. The Egyptian monuments mention a district by the name of Asj, which paid native iron as tribute; vid., Brugsch, Geogr. der Nachbarlnder Aegyptens, S. 52.)\nThe poet of the book of Job might therefore have learned mining in its diversified modes of operation from his own observation, both in the kingdom of Egypt, which he had doubtless visited, and also in Arabia Petraea and in the Lebanon districts, so as to be able to put a description of them into the mouth of his hero. It is unnecessary, with Stickel, to give the preference to the mining of Arabia proper, where iron and lead are still obtained, and where, according to ancient testimony, even gold is said to have been worked at one time. \"Since he places his hero in the country east of Jordan, the poet may in Job 28:2 have thought chiefly of the mines of the Iron mountain (τὸ σιδηροῦν καλοῦμενον ὄρος, Jos. Bell. iv. 8, 2), which is also called the 'cross mountain,' el-mi‛râd, because it runs from west to east, while the Gebel 'Agln stretches from north to south. It lies between the gorges of the Wd Zerk and Wd 'Arabn, begins at the mouths of the two Wds in the Ghr, and ends in the east with a precipitous descent towards the town of Gerash, which from its height, and being seen from afar, is called the Negde (נגדּח). The ancient worked-out iron mines lie on the south declivity of the mountain south-west of the village of Burm, and about six miles from the level bed of the Wd Zerk. The material is a brittle, red, brown, and violet sandstone, which has a strong addition of iron. It also contains here and there a large number of small shells, where it is then considerably harde"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JOB/27.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JOB","chapter":27},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JOB/28.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JOB","chapter":28},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JOB/26.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JOB","chapter":26},"numberOfVerses":4}