"Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me." Job 31:35.

Job had appealed to the highest court, the friends had rested their case, and now all were to hear Jehovah. The tests, which Satan had been permitted to apply, Job had stood successfully. He had not renounced God, although, under affliction, and hurt by the words of his friends, he had insisted upon his righteousness, and had demanded of God a reason for his, to him, unjust sufferings. The Satan (who is not the Satan, or Devil, of the New Testament, a later conception) does not appear at the close of the book. Jehovah deals directly with Job.

Nowhere else is there such a magnificent description of the relation of God to his universe, as we have in Job, chs. 38 and 39. Parts of Isaiah are comparable to it in grandeur, but they are different in tone. Passages in Psalms rise to the summit of appreciation of the greatness of God in his creatorship. The author of Job impresses on us that the fabric of the entire universe is inseparable from the problems of man's life. Job must not think of himself alone, but as a part of God's creation. Job's demand for an answer from God is met by God's demand for an answer from Job:

"Gird up now thy loins like a man;

For I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding." Job 38:3-4.

And Job replies:

"Behold I am of small account; what shall I answer thee?" Job 40:4.

And Jehovah asks:

"Wilt thou even annul my judgment?

Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be justified?" Job 40:8.

Job is humiliated when he compares his littleness to God's greatness. He now sees that the purposes of Jehovah cannot be restrained, and that absolute dependence on God, and faith in his righteousness, is the only attitude that man should maintain. Job acknowledges no sin save that he had failed to recognize that there are relations in God's dealings with men, which men, owing to being finite, cannot understand. For men to assume that they do understand, or to complain of injustice, when they do not understand, are equally inconsistent with the unquestioning faith which Jehovah demands.

In the conclusion, Job is restored to greater prosperity than before, because he has steadfastly refused to utter falsehood by pretending to understand, what he did not. The three friends are rebuked, and commanded to offer sacrifice, not because they advanced the arguments they did, which were the orthodox arguments of their day, but because their attitude towards Job had been wrong throughout; for at no time did it occur to them, in their certainty of their own infallibility, that perhaps there might be, in a particular case, such as that of Job, elements of which they were ignorant. They are therefore punished not because they had wronged Job, but because they had wronged Jehovah, who says to Eliphaz:

"My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right,

as my servant Job hath . . . and my servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, that I deal not with you after your folly; . . . And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends." Job 42:7-10.

...

Opinions as to what the book of Job teaches are at variance with each other. The author of it does not draw conclusions as to the precise purpose of suffering. He does however set forth clearly his opinion that Job, in his persistent refusal to say that he believed something which he did not believe, pleased God, and that Job's friends, in their equally persistent endeavor to make Job believe that their opinions represented God's thoughts toward man, did not please God. The sovereignty of God is indisputable, and likewise inscrutable. Suffering may be a test of goodness, or a punishment for sin, or a warning and discipline. The first idea is that of the prologue, the second that of the three friends, and the third that of Elihu. Jehovah does not say why men are made to suffer.

The Job, who at the close of the book prays for his friends, is a man who has learned through the experience of great suffering, mental and spiritual, as well as physical, that men need sympathy and kindness more than they need criticism. In the opening chapter we see Job praying for his children. At the close we see him, chastened and humiliated, but happy in the favor of Jehovah, praying for those professed friends, who, in his sorrow and affliction, had for him no words of sympathy, but only accusations of hidden sin. Job, vindicated, praying for those who had not been kind to him, presents a remarkable picture. From a generation puzzled and perplexed by the impossibility of reconciling what they saw with what they professed to believe came the Book of Job, a discussion of the

problem, which reached the conclusion that the finite cannot understand the infinite. Job says:

"I know that thou canst do all things,

And that no purpose of thine can be restrained. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not, Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." Job 42:2-3.

CHAPTER XII

PARABLES

THE Oriental mind delights in picturesque figurative language of which the parables of the Old and New Testaments are evidence. To illustrate or explain an idea by telling a little story is as characteristic in the East to-day, as it was in the days of Jesus or of David. The little story, however, is not always for the purpose of making an idea easy to grasp, the parable being used probably to reveal a meaning gradually, and thus make it more impressive. The indirectness of the parable and its picturesqueness are spoken of, but it possesses another quality, which is the power to establish a sympathetic personal relationship between the speaker and his hearers by attracting their attention and arousing their curiosity as to the meaning.1

The absence of abstractions in the Bible even in the conceptions of God, and the purely personal character of all discussions and reasonings, is clearly evident in Job where an abstract problem is discussed in a concrete instance. When Jesus was asked "What is the great commandment?" Matthew 22:37-39, he replied in language which referred directly to the relationships of persons to each other, "Love the Lord thy God,"

1" Parabolic speech is dear to the Oriental heart. It is poetical, mystical, sociable. In showing the reason why Jesus taught in parables, Biblical writers speak of the indirect method, the picture language, the concealing of the truth from those 'who had not the understanding,' and so forth. But those writers fail to mention a most important reason, namely, the sociable nature of such a method of teaching, which is so dear to the Syrian heart." The Syrian Christ, A. M. Rihbany, p. 142.