xix. 25, 26), the remainder of the colloquies ought surely to pursue a

very different course; as a matter of fact, neither Job nor his friends, nor yet Jehovah Himself, refers to this supposed newly-won truth, and the only part of ‘Job’s deepest saying’ which the next speaker fastens upon (xx. 3) is the threatening conclusion (xix. 29). Ewald himself has drawn attention to this, without remarking its adverse bearing on his own interpretation.[34]

Here, side by side, are Dr. A. B. Davidson’s and Dr. W. H. Green’s translations of the received text of vv. 25-27, and Dr. Bickell’s version of his own emended text.

But I know that my redeemer liveth, and in after time he shall stand upon the dust[35] and after this my skin is destroyed and without my flesh I shall see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another— my reins consume within me!

And I know my redeemer liveth, and last on earth shall he arise; and after my skin, which has been destroyed thus, and out of my flesh [i.e. when my vital spirit shall be separated from my flesh] shall I see God....

Ich weiss, es lebt mein Retter, Wird noch auf meinem Staub stehn; Zuletzt wird Gott mein Zeuge, Lässt meine Unschuld schauen, Die ich allein jetzt schaun kann, Mein Auge und kein andres.

Most critics are now agreed that the immediately preceding words (vv. 23, 24) are not an introduction, as if vv. 25-27 composed the rock inscription. Job first of all wishes what he knows to be impossible, and then announces a far better thing of which he is sure. His wish runs thus:

Would then that they were written down— my words—in a book, and engraved with a pen of iron, and with lead cut out for a witness in the rock.[36]

But whatever view we take of the prospect which gladdened the mind of Job, his remaining speeches contain no further reference to it. Henceforth his thoughts appear to dwell less on his own condition, and more on the general question of God’s moral government, and even when the former is spoken of it is without the old bitterness. In his next speech, stirred up by the gross violence of Zophar, Job for the first time meets the assertions of the three friends in this cycle of argument, viz. that the wicked, at any rate, always get their deserts, and, according to Zophar, suddenly and overwhelmingly. He meets them by a direct negative, though in doing so he is as much perturbed as when he proclaimed his own innocence to God’s face. He is familiar now with the thought that the righteous are not always recompensed, but it fills him with horror to think that the Governor of the world even leaves the wicked in undeserved prosperity, as if, in the language of Eliphaz, He could not ‘judge through the thick clouds’ (xxii. 16).

Why do the wicked live on, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their houses are safe, without fear, neither is Eloah’s rod upon them. They wear away their days in happiness, and go down to Sheól in a moment (xxi. 7, 9, 13).

Footnote 27:

Miss E. Smith’s rendering, ‘irksome,’ Renan’s ‘insupportable,’ are not definite enough. Job means that his would-be comforters do but aggravate his unease.

Footnote 28:

Notice the expressions in xvi. 10, and comp. Ps. xxii. 7, 12, 13. (Ps. xxii., like the Book of Job, has some features which belong to an individual and some to a collection of sufferers.) Job would never have spoken of his friends in the terms used in xvi. 10, 11.

Footnote 29:

Sur. ix. 119.

Footnote 30:

Comp. Ps. xxii. 6, Isa. xlix. 7, Joel ii. 17 (where we should render ‘make a byword upon them’).

Footnote 31:

_The Argument of the Book of Job_ (1881), p. 200.

Footnote 32:

Dr. Hermann Schultz is an unexceptionable witness, because his tastes lead him more to Biblical and dogmatic theology than to minute textual studies. He is convinced, he says, after each fresh examination, of ‘the baffling intricacy and obscurity and the probable corruption of the text’ (_Alttestamentliche Theologie_, ed. 2 [1878], pp. 661-2).

Footnote 33:

I agree with Dr. W. H. Green that the third view, which ‘conceives Job to be here looking forward, not to a future state, but to the restoration of God’s favour and his own deliverance out of all his troubles in the present life,’ is to be rejected. I do not follow him in all his reasons, but these two are decisive. 1. Everywhere else Job ‘regards himself as on the verge of the grave.... Every earthly hope is annulled; every temporal prospect has vanished. He invariably repels the idea, whenever his friends present it to him, of any improvement of his condition in this world as plainly impossible.’ 2. ‘If he here utters his expectation that God will interfere to reward his piety in the present life, he completely abandons his own position and adopts [that of the friends].’ (_The Argument of Job_, pp. 204-5).

Footnote 34:

Job’s vindication, thinks Ewald, would be incomplete if at least the spirit of the dead man did not witness it.

Footnote 35:

The dust beneath which Job lies: comp. ‘ye that dwell in dust’ (Isa. xxvi. 19).

Footnote 36:

On the text see Bickell, Merx, Hitzig; on the use of metal for public notices see Chabas, quoted by Cook in _Speaker’s Comm._, _ad loc._