INTRODUCTION

I

Book of Job:
The Story Opens

THE story in the Book of Job opens by telling how there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; how he was perfect and upright, a man that feared God and eschewed evil. It tells of his great substance in sheep and camels and oxen, and how he was the greatest of i, ii all the children of the east. Then it speaks of his seven sons and three daughters, and describes their joyous family life. And so scrupulous was the piety of Job that, when his sons and daughters had concluded a round of feastings at one another's houses, Job rose early and sanctified them, lest perchance in their gaiety they had offended God.

Then the story passes to a Council in Heaven, at which the sons of God came, each from his several province, to present themselves before the Lord; and amongst them came the Adversary from his sphere of inspection, the Earth. He in his turn was questioned as to his charge, and Job was instanced by the Lord as a type of human perfection. But the Adversary, as his office was, began to raise doubts as to this perfection. God had made a hedge of prosperity about the man: if he were to put forth his hand, and destroy all at a stroke, Job might yet renounce his worship.

The Lord gave consent for this experiment to be made. So it came about that in the midst of Job's prosperity there came a messenger to him and said:

The oxen were plowing,

and the asses feeding beside them;
and the Sabeans fell upon them
and took them away;

yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword;
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee !

While he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:

The fire of God is fallen from heaven,
and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants,
and consumed them;

and I only am escaped alone to tell thee!

While he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:

The Chaldeans made three bands,

and fell upon the camels,

and have taken them away,

yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword;
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee!

While he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:

Thy sons and thy daughters

were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house;
and behold,

there came a great wind from the wilderness,

and smote the four corners of the house,

and it fell upon the young men,

and they are dead;

and I only am escaped alone to tell thee!

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped; and he said:

Naked came I out of my mother's womb,

And naked shall I return thither!

The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away:
Blessed be the Name of the LORD!

So the experiment of the Adversary was over, and Job had not fallen into sin.

A second Council in Heaven followed, and a second time came the sons of God, and the Adversary among them, and made their reports. When the Lord triumphed in the matter of Job, that he still retained his integrity notwithstanding the destruction done to him, the Adversary did honour to the goodness of the man by suggesting a yet severer test:

Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face.

Even in this case the Almighty had no fear for his servant. So the Adversary went forth, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And Job silently passed out, as one unclean, and crept up the ash-mound, and there he sat and suffered; until his good wife — who had uttered no word of complaint when all the substance was swallowed up and her children perished-broke down in the presence of this helpless pain:

Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and die!

But Job rebuked this momentary lapse from her wisdom:

What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?

So the second experiment was over, and still Job sinned not with his lips.

But a third trial awaited Job, which needed no Council in Heaven to decree it, the trial of time. Day followed day, but no relief came; and Job sat patiently on the ash-mound, an outcast and unclean. And gradually a reverence grew about the silent sufferer: the children no longer jostled him as they sported to and fro, and groups of sympathising spectators would gather about the mound to gaze for a while on the fallen child of the east. And the travellers as they passed by the way smote on

their breasts at the sight; and they made a token of it, and carried the news into distant countries, until it reached the ears of Job's three Friends, all of them great chieftains like himself: the stately Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the sturdy Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, with his venerable grey hairs. These three made an appointment together to visit Job; and, when they came in sight of him, with one accord they lifted up their voices and wept. And the crowd of spectators made way for the great men to ascend the mound; and they sat down upon the ground opposite Job. Day after day they took their station there, yet they could only weep with their friend; for, though they longed to speak, their utter courtesy forbade them to disturb the majesty of that silent suffering.

At last it was Job himself who broke the long silence, in order to curse, not God, but his own life. And at this point the introductory story in which the poem is framed begins to give place to dialogue; but not before the introduction has made its contribution to the general argument. The topic of the whole book is the Mystery of Human Suffering: the introduction has suggested a First Solution of the Mystery: Suffering presented as Heaven's test of goodness; the test being made the severer where the goodness is strong enough to stand it.

(Problem of the poem and First Solution)

Job's Curse iii

Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. Would that it might be blotted from among the days of the year, that the cloud, and the thick darkness, and the shadow of death, and all the degrees of blackness might seize it for their own! If the best of all gifts never to have existed - must be denied him, why might not that day of his birth have also brought to him the Grave, and the long quiet sleep with the stately dead, and with the wicked and the weary, the prisoner and his task-master, the small and the great, all at their ease together? Why should life be forced upon the bitter in soul?

In these later thoughts Job seems to reflect upon the order of God's providence: he must be checked, and yet gently; and Eliphaz takes this task upon himself. He dreads

The Dramatic

to give pain to his friend, yet how can he refrain Dialogue
from speaking, and laying down to Job the foun- First Cycle
dations of hope and fear with which Job himself
has so often comforted the afflicted?

Now a thing was secretly brought to me,
And mine ear received a whisper thereof:

In thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth on men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face;

The hair of my flesh stood up.

iv-xiv

It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof;
A form was before mine eyes:

There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

"Shall mortal man be more just than God?

Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?"

With the awful solemnity of this vision Eliphaz enforces the view which the three Friends maintain throughout the discussion, and which is put forward as a Second Solution of the Problem: The very righteousness of God (they think) is involved in the doctrine that all Suffering is a judgment upon Sin. Affliction, says Eliphaz, does not spring up of itself like the grass, but it is they who have sown trouble that reap the same. But he puts the doctrine gently, as constituting so much hope for Job: when the sinner has once sought unto God he will find what great and unsearchable wonders God doeth. Then happy will have been the chastening of the Almighty, for if he maketh sore he bindeth up.

He shall deliver thee in six troubles;

Yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

In famine he shall redeem thee from death;
And in war from the power of the sword.
Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue;