in those of Job, and that the author designed that the people should see their own features in his, and from his history forecast the issue of their own. These are considerations that make us hesitate to regard Job's malady as part of the tradition regarding him, even though that view be supported by names so distinguished as that of Ewald.

The Book of Job has been called an Epic by some, by others a Drama, or more specifically a Tragedy, and by others still a Didactic Poem. That the Poem has a didactic purpose is unquestionable. It is equally evident that it contains many elements of the drama, such as dialogue, and a plot with an entanglement, development and solution. The action, however, is internal and mental, and the successive scenes are representations of the varying moods of a great soul struggling with the mysteries of its fate, rather than trying external situations. Much in the action may rightly be called tragic, but the happy conclusion is at variance with the conception of a proper tragedy. Any idea of representing his work on a stage never crossed the author's mind; his object was to instruct his countrymen and inspire them with hope in the future, and it is nothing to him that he detracts from the artistic effect of his work by revealing beforehand in the Prologue the real cause of Job's afflictions, the problem which is the subject of the dialogue, and the cause of the successive tragic phases of Job's feeling, in which the action chiefly consists. A more skilful artist according to western ideas might have concealed the explanation of Job's afflictions till the end, allowing it to transpire perhaps in the speeches of the Almighty. If he had allowed God to explain to Job the meaning of the sufferings with which He afflicted him, whatever addition to his literary renown he might have won, the author would have shewn himself much less wise and true as a religious teacher, for the experience of men tells them that they do not reach religious peace through the theoretical solution of the problems of providence ; the theoretical solution comes later, if it comes at all, through their own reflection upon their history and the way in which God has led them. And if Job ever knew the meaning of his afflictions he learned it in this way, or he

learned it through the teaching of some other man wiser than himself, as we have learned it from the author of this Book.

The Book of Job can hardly be named a drama, though it may justly be called dramatic. The dramatic movement is seen in the varying moods of Job's mind, and in his attitude towards Heaven. The dialogue with his friends partly occasions these moods and partly exhibits them. The progressive advance of the debate, however, is not to be considered as constituting the dramatic action. The commencement, culmination, and exhaustion of the debate do not run parallel with the rise, the increase and climax, and the composure of Job's perplexity of mind and war with Heaven. It is in the latter that the dramatic movement lies, in which the debate is a mere episode, for the state of Job's mind, twice signalised in the Prologue, lies before it, and the perfect composure to which he is brought by the divine speeches lies far behind it. Such a representation therefore as that of Delitzsch can hardly be accepted, who says "the Book of Job is substantially a drama, and one consisting of seven divisions: (1) ch. i.—iii., the opening; (2) ch. iv.—xiv., the first course of the controversy, or the beginning of entanglement; (3) ch. xv—xxi., the second course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement; (4) ch. xxii.-xxvi., the third course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement at its highest; (5) ch. xxvii.—xxxi., the transition from the entanglement to the unravelling; (6) ch. xxxviii.-xlii. 6, the consciousness of the unravelling; (7) ch. xlii. 7 seq., the unravelling in outward reality". This representation confuses two things quite distinct, and which do not move parallel to one another, namely the gradual thickening of the conflict between Job and his friends, ending at last in their directly imputing heinous offences to him, and the religious tension of Job's mind under his trials. It is not till the last round that the climax of the debate is reached (ch. xxii.), but the perplexity and violence of Job attain their height in the first round (ch. ix.-x.). Already in ch. xiv. the strain is considerably relieved, and it decreases still more in the speeches culminating in ch. xix., being wholly removed by the interposition of the Almighty.

1 Trans. i. p. 15.

CHAPTER III.

THE IDEA AND PURPOSE OF THE Book.

THE Book of Job, as we possess it, conveys the impression that it is a finished and well-rounded composition. Its form, Prologue, Poem and Epilogue, suggests that the writer had a clear idea before his mind, which he started, developed and brought to an issue in a way satisfactory to himself. The Book has not the appearance of a mere fragment, or what might be called a contribution to the ventilation of a great problem, on which the author feels that he has something that may be useful to say, though nothing very definite or final; although this is a view of the Book that some have taken. The author being assumed, however, to have a distinct idea, this idea still remains so obscure, and the question, What is the purpose of the Book? has been answered in so many ways, that a judgment regarding it must be put forth with the greatest diffidence. Almost every theory that has been adopted has found itself in collision with one or more of the parts of which the Book now consists, and has been able to maintain itself only by sacrificing these parts upon its altar. With the exception of the speeches of Elihu there is no great division of the Book to which valid objections can be made, except on the ground that it does not harmonise with the idea of the Poem. The Elihu speeches occupy their right place between the discourses of the friends and the answer of Jehovah. They maintain the ground of the former, though they perhaps advance and refine upon it; and they prepare for the speeches of the Almighty, being the expression from the reverent religious consciousness of man of that which the Almighty expresses, if such language may be used, from His own consciousness of Himself. Whether, therefore, these speeches be held original or considered a later insertion they import no new principle into the Book, and may be neglected when the general conception of the Poem is being sought for. It seems fair, however, to take into account all the remaining divisions of the Book.

1. Though the author of the Book does not identify himself with Job, whom, on the contrary, he allows to assume positions which are extreme, and to utter language which is unbecoming, Job is undoubtedly the hero of the piece, and in the sentiments which he expresses and the history which he passes through combined, we may assume that we find the author himself speaking and teaching. Even the exaggerated sentiments which he allows Job to utter are not to be considered mere extravagances; they are not incoherencies which Job flings out in one line, and retracts in the next; they are excesses, which men under trials such as he suffered are driven to commit, and with which the author, amidst the questionings in regard to providence which the terrible sufferings of the time forced on men, was no doubt too familiar, if he had not himself perhaps fallen into them; and as we observe Job's mind gradually and naturally approaching the state in which he commits them, so we see it naturally recovering its balance and effecting a retreat. The discussion of the question of suffering between Job and his friends runs through a large part of the Book (ch. iv.—xxxi.), and in the direction which the author causes the discussion to take we may see revealed one of the chief didactic purposes of the Poem. When the three friends, the representatives of former theories of providence, are reduced to silence and driven off the ground by Job (ch. xxi. xxiii., xxiv.), we may assume that it was the author's purpose to discredit the ideas which they support. The theory that sin and suffering are in all cases connected, and that suffering cannot be where there has not been previous sin to account for the measure of it, is a theory of providence which cannot be harmonised with the facts observed in the world. Job traverses this theory on both its sides. He himself is an instance of suffering apart from previous sin; and the world is full of examples of notoriously wicked men prospering and being free from trouble till the day of their death. Job offers no positive contribution to the doctrine of evil; his position is negative, and merely antagonistic to that of his friends. Now without doubt in all this he is the mouthpiece of the author of the Book.

Is it natural now to suppose that the author contemplated only this negative result? Would he have thought his task sufficiently fulfilled by pulling down the old fabric under which men had found friendly shelter and comfort for ages, and strewing its ruins on the ground, without supplying anything in its place, beyond perhaps the good advice which he is supposed to give in ch. xxxviii. seq.? So far as the rest of the Poem is concerned no further light is cast on the question. Job is left in darkness, and the divine speeches do not touch the point. The author exhibits Job reaching the conclusion that the righteousness of God, as he in common with his friends had always understood it, cannot be detected in the world as God actually rules it. And he exhibits the terrible perplexity into which the discovery threw him. To miss God's righteousness in the world was equivalent to missing it in God Himself, and Job's idea of God threatened to become wholly transformed. He is filled with terror and despair, and in his wrestling with the question he forces his way across the confines of this world, and first demands (ch. xiv., xvi.—xvii.) and then assures himself (ch. xix.) that, if not in his life here, beyond his life here, God's righteousness shall be manifested. By allowing Job to rise to such a thought the author probably meant to signalise it as one of the solutions to which men or himself had been forced. But the time was not yet come, and the darkness that overhung all beyond this life was too thick for men to find repose in this great thought. Hence Job is made to renew his demand for a solution in this life of the riddle of his sufferings (ch. xxxi. 35— 37). Does then the author offer no solution? He does not, and no solution is offered to us, unless the Prologue supplies it. This passage, however, when naturally read, teaches that Job's sufferings were the trial of his righteousness. If then we bring the Prologue and the debate into combination we perceive that it was the author's purpose to widen men's views of God's providence, and to set before them a new view of suffering. With great skill he employs Job as his instrument to clear the ground of the old theories, and he himself brings forward in their place his new truth, that sufferings may befall the innocent,