CHAPTER X.

ARGUMENT FROM THE DOCTRINE OF ANGELS.

The facts on which our argument is based are mainly the passages in _Job_ which refer to ‘sons of Elohim’ (or better, as Davidson, ‘of the Elohim’), to ‘the Satan,’ and to the _mal’akim_. The first of these three phrases means probably _inferior_ members of the class of beings called Elohim (i.e. ‘superhuman powers’); the second, ‘the adversary (or opposer);’ the third, ‘envoys or messengers’ (ἄγγελοι). We may at once draw an inference from the expression ‘the Satan,’ the full importance of which will be seen later on. ‘The Satan’ being an appellative, the book in which it occurs was probably written before Chronicles, where we find ‘Satan’ without the article, almost[99] as if a proper name; and being applied to a minister and not an opponent of Jehovah, the Book of Job is probably earlier than the prophecies of Zechariah and the Books of Chronicles; see Zech. iii. 1, 2 (where observe that Jehovah’s only true representative gives a severe reproof to ‘the Satan’), 1 Chron. xxi. 1 (where ‘Satan,’ uncommissioned, ‘entices’ David to an act displeasing to Jehovah[100]). The difference between the notices of the Satan (or Satan) may not seem great to an unpractised student, but no one who has followed the development of any single doctrine will undervalue such traces of a growing refinement in the conceptions of good and evil. Whether or no the ideas of the Chronicler and his age had been modified by hearing of the Persian Ahriman, may be questioned; but a similar supposition cannot be allowed in the case of the author of _Job_. The Satan of the Prologue is, in theory at least, simply Jehovah’s agent, though he certainly betrays a malicious pleasure in his invidious function of trying or sifting the righteous. It is not impossible that the author of the Prologue was the first to use the term Satan in this sense. At any rate, it is a pure Hebrew term, unlike the Ashmedai or Asmodæus of the Book of Tobit. [Ashmedai, in later Judaism, is the head of the Shedim—demons who were never angels of God, just as Sammael is the ‘head of all Satans,’ i.e. the prince of the fallen angels. Weber, _System der altsynagog. Palästin. Theologie_, pp. 243-5.]

Next, turning to the _mal’akim_, observe that the word occurs very rarely in _Job_, viz. once in the original Colloquies (iv. 18), and once (virtually) in the first speech of Elihu (xxxiii. 23). We find, however, a kindred phrase ‘the _q’doshim_,’ or ‘holy ones,’ i.e. superhuman, heavenly beings, separate from the world of the senses[101] (v. 1, xv. 15), and comparing v. 1 with iv. 18 we cannot doubt that the same class of beings is intended. We nowhere meet with the _Mal’ak Yahvè_, so familiar to us in certain Old Testament narratives; Elihu’s _mal’ak mēlīç_ (xxxiii. 23) is not synonymous with the older expression (see account of Elihu). In fact, the thousands of _mal’akim_ known at the period of the writers of Job have made the one great _mal’ak_ unnecessary, just as, but for the influence of Persian ideas, the multitudinous ‘hurtful angels’ (Ps. lxxviii. 49) might sooner or later have entirely supplanted the single Satan. And yet even an ordinary _mal’ak_, when he appears, is more awful than the great _mal’ak Yahvè_; the angel who appears to Eliphaz (Job iv. 15, 16) is as unrecognisable as the ‘face’ of Jehovah himself. This is an indication, though but a slight one, of a somewhat advanced age, when the gulf between God and man was more acutely felt, and religious thought was more specially directed to filling it up.

The title ‘holy ones’ (v. 1) enables us to identify the ‘angels’ with the ‘sons of the Elohim.’ Separateness from human weakness, though not mediatorial ability[102] is equally, predicated of both. But neither the poet of _Job_, nor any of the psalmists, identifies the phrases in express terms;[103] a virtual identification (see above, and Ps. lxxxix. 7, 8) is all that they venture upon. There was a good reason for this—viz. their recollection of the physical and mythological origin of the phrase, ‘the sons of the Elohim.’ ‘Angels’ and ‘sons of the Elohim’ are indeed alike ‘holy’ and ‘servants’ of the supreme God, but not always so, according to Hebrew tradition, were the ‘sons of the Elohim.’ In support of this, we may refer, not only to Gen. vi. 4 (which the author of _Job_ need not have known), but to the allusions in his poem (see above) to a war among the inhabitants of heaven. This war, I think, stands in connection not merely with the physical phenomena of light and darkness, but also with speculations of pious Jehovists, or worshippers of Jehovah, as to the basis and value of ‘heathen’ religions. According to Deut. xxxii. 8,[104] each of the nations of the world was allotted by the Most High (_Elyōn_)[105] to some one of the ‘sons of El’ (the simplest name for God); of course we are to suppose that these ‘sons of El’ and their worshippers were meant to recognise the supremacy of the ‘God of Gods’—Jehovah. But (so we may suppose the train of thought of the Jehovists to have run) the nations and their deities formed the vain dream of independence. The result of the struggle between Jehovah and the inferior Elohim is referred to in _Job_: the Elohim renounced their dream of independent sovereignty and were admitted into Jehovah’s service. Henceforth they were no longer _shīdīm_, i.e. ‘lords’ (?), Deut. xxxii. 17, but _mal’akīm_ ‘messengers.’ But the ‘heathen’ nations go on worshipping the Elohim, ignorant that their divinities have been dispossessed of their misused lordship.[106] Instead of Him who alone henceforth is ‘enthroned in the heavens’ (Ps. ii. 4), they honour ‘that which is not God’ (Deut. xxxii. 21), phantom-divinities whom they localise, like Jehovah, in the sky. Thus, except as to the region of the divine habitation, they differ radically from Jehovists like the author of _Job_. In that one point he agrees with them: the stars and the ‘sons of Elohim’ he still pictures to himself as closely conjoined (xxxviii. 6). Thus, the old and the new are fermenting in his brain, and on the ground of their angelology we can safely date the authors of _Job_ somewhere in the great literary period which opens with the ‘Captivity.’

Footnote 99:

It is not likely that Satan was ever used entirely as a proper name; but being frequently in men’s mouths, it naturally lost the article. At last the name Sammael was invented for the arch-Satan (see above).

Footnote 100:

In 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, the temptation is ascribed to Jehovah; the Chronicler is at any rate on the road to James i. 13. Contrast the stationariness of Mohammed (‘God misleadeth whom He will,’ Korán, xxxv. 9).

Footnote 101:

So rightly Baudissin, _Studien_, ii. 125.

Footnote 102:

Eliphaz apparently assumes that the ‘holy ones’ might plead for Job with Eloah (comp. xxxiii. 23). There is an analogy for this in Arabian religion. The Koreish (Qurais) tribe were willing to join Mohammed, if he would only admit their three idol-gods to be mediators with the supreme God, and for a time he consented. See Palmer’s Korán, Introd., p. xxvii. This was equivalent to recognising these heathen deities as _b’ur Elohim_ and also (Eliphaz would say) as _Q’dōskīm_ or ‘holy ones.’

Footnote 103:

The Elohistic narrator in Gen. xxviii. 12, 17, xxxii. 2, 3 even appears to identify the terms ‘angels of Elohim’ (= God) and ‘Elohim’ (= divine powers). _Beth ’elōhīm_ and _makhani’ ’elōhīm_ are more naturally rendered ‘place, host, of divine powers’ than ‘place, host of God.’

Footnote 104:

The ‘Song of Moses’ is placed by Ewald and Kamphausen in the Assyrian period of Israel’s history. Ver. 8 runs, in a corrected version.

Footnote 105:

‘When Elyōn gave the nations as inheritances, when he parted out the sons of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of El:’ comp. ver. 9. ‘For Jehovah is the portion of his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.’ (With many recent critics, I follow the reading of the Septuagint. A scribe, offended by the no longer intelligible statement in ver. 8, inserted an Ι before ΗΛ, and so formed the usual abbreviation of Ἰσραήλ.) This passage explains Sirach xvii. 17.

Footnote 106:

There is a singular reference to a still future deposition of the patron spirits of the nations in Isa. xxiv. 21 (post-Exile), with which comp. Ps. lviii., lxxxii. In lxxxii. 6 the title _’elōhim_ is interchanged with _b’nē ’elyōn_ ‘sons of the Most High.’