Chapter 2

solely in the interests of orthodoxy.[88] In order to bridge over the gap between them, a transitional half verse was strung together, in an absolutely mechanical manner, from words that precede or follow. And the words that precede and follow are those which we find in the primitive arrangement of the manuscript, not in the present sequence. Thus, at the bottom of the leaf containing viii. 4, the first words, "leb chakham,"[89] of the following verse (x. 2) were inserted, and then by inadvertence repeated on the next leaf. Seeing these words, the author of the transition made them the subject of his new verse. He selected the grammatical objects of the sentence from the verse which follows in the new sequence,[90] and took the verb from the preceding half verse, which is itself an older interpolation.

Lastly, Koheleth's treatise, which in our Bibles is utterly devoid of order or sequence, falls naturally, in its restored form, into two distinct halves: a speculative and a practical, distinguished from each other by characteristics proper to each, which there is no mistaking. The former, for instance, contains but few metrical passages, whereas the latter is composed of poetry and prose in almost equal proportions. The ethical part continually addresses the reader himself in the second person singular, while the discursive section never does. In a word, internal evidence leaves no doubt that, whether the dislocation of the chapters was the result of accident or design, this was the ground plan of the original treatise.

Footnotes:

[77] Professor Cheyne discusses Bickell's theory with the caution characteristic of English theology and the fairness of unprejudiced scholarship ("Job and Solomon," p. 273 fol.).

[78] _Cf_. for instance, Cornill, "Theologisches Literaturblatt," Sept. 19, 1884.

[79] This mean estimate tallies with calculations made by the late Professor Lagarde for another book of the Old Testament.

[80] The leaves 6, 7, 8, 9.

[81] The pages following each other thus: 8, 9, 6, 7.

[82] Leaves 15 and 16.

[83] 4, 5, 10, 11.

[84] So that the order was then: 4, 5, 13, 14, 17, 18, 10, 11.

[85] 12, 19.

[86] The sequence of the leaves was then; 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 6, 7, 15, 16, 4, 5, 13, 14, 18, 10, 11, 20, 12, 19, 17, 21, 22.

[87] The most practical and simple way of realising Professor Bickell's theory is to make a little book of four fascicules of four double leaves each. On these leaves write the contents of the original manuscript leaves in chapter and verse numbers. On each of the three last leaves of the first fascicule (counting, as in Hebrew, from right to left) write i. 1-ii. 11. On the first two leaves of the second fascicule write v. 9-vi. 7 (this must be written on each of the leaves, as it is not quite certain how they were divided). On third and fourth leaves of the second fascicule write iii. 9-iv. 8; on each of the fifth and sixth leaves, ii. 12-iii. 8. On the seventh and eighth leaves, viii. 6-ix. 3. Then comes the third fascicule. On the first leaf, write ix. 11-x. 1; on the second and third leaves, vi. 8-vii. 22 on the fourth and fifth leaves, iv. 9-v. 8; on the sixth leaf, x. 16-xi. 6; on the seventh leaf, vii. 23-viii. 5; on the eighth leaf, x. 2-15. Lastly comes the fourth fascicule. On the first leaf, ix. 3-10, on the second and third leaves, xi. 7-xii. 8.

[88] The first half of viii. 5: "Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing." This interpolation is older than the accident to the MS.

[89] The heart of the wise.

[90] viii. 6.

* * * * *

KOHELET'S THEORY OF LIFE

Read in its primitive shape, the book is a systematic disquisition on the questions, What positive boon has life in store for us? to which the emphatic answer is "None;" and How had we best occupy the vain days of our wretched existence? which the author solves by recommending moderate sensuous enjoyment combined with healthy activity. He begins his gloomy meditations with a general survey of the wearisome working of the machinery of the world, wherein is neither rest nor profit. Everything is vanity, and the pursuit of wind.[91] Existence in all its myriad forms is an aimless, endless, hopeless endeavour. The very clod of earth manifests its striving, in gravitation, for the attainment of a central point without dimensions, which, if realised, would entail its own annihilation; the solids tend to become liquids, the liquids to resolve themselves in vapour. The plant grows from germ through stem and leaf to blossom and fruit, which last is but the beginning of a new germ that again develops through flower to fruit, and so on for ever and ever. In animals, life is the same restless, aimless, unsatisfied striving, in the first place after reproduction, followed by the death of the individual and the appearance of a new one which in turn runs through all the stadia of the old. The very matter of all organisms is ever changing. As for man, his whole life is but one long series of yearnings after objects, each one of which presents itself to his will as the one great goal until attained, whereupon it is cast aside to make way for another. We know what we long for to-day, we shall know what we shall seek to-morrow; but what the human race supremely desires, its ultimate aim and end, no man can say. Existence is a futile beating of the air, a clutching of the wind. The living make way for the unborn, the dead nourish the living; no one possesses ought that was not torn from some other being; strife and hate, evil and pain are the commonplaces of existence; life and death follow each other everlastingly. All striving is want and therefore suffering, until it is satisfied, when it assumes the form of disappointment; for no satisfaction is lasting. In a word, the universe is a wheel that revolves on its axis for ever--and there is no ultimate aim or end in it all.[92] Knowledge, wisdom, and enjoyment, each of which Koheleth characterises by a distich, are likewise vain, or worse. What, then, is the secret of "happiness"? Surely not wealth, which the Preacher himself having possessed and applied to "useful" and "good" purposes, proved emptiness in the end.[93] Wealth, indeed, is nothing if not a means to happiness, yet experience tells us that the pains endured in striving for it, and the anxiety suffered in preserving it, effectually destroy our capacity for enjoying the bliss which it is supposed to insure, long before misfortune or death snatches it from our grasp.[94]

Vain as pleasure is, in a world of positive evils it is at least a negative good, in that it helps to make us forget the vanity of the days of our life.[95] For this reason, no doubt, it is well-nigh unattainable, the many being deprived of the means, the few of the capacity, of enjoyment.[96]

Passing on to the consideration of wisdom, the Hebrew philosopher finds it equally empty and vain, because subject to the same limitations and characterised by the same drawbacks. It is caviare to the million, and a fresh source of sorrow to the few. Man is tortured with a thirst for knowledge, and yet all the springs at which it might have been allayed are sealed up. Unreal shadows are the objects of human intuition, we are denied a glimpse of the underlying reality. For it is unknowable.

Even the little we can know is not inspiriting. Take our fellow-men, their ways and works, for instance, and what do we behold? Their own evil-doing, injustice, and violence, drag them down to the level of the brute; and that this is their natural level is obvious, if we bear in mind that the end of men is that of the beasts of the fields,[97] and that the ruling power within them, the mechanism, so to say, of these living and feeling automata is love of life. Consider men at their best--when cultivating such relative "virtues" as industry, zeal, diligence in their crafts and callings, and we find these "good" actions tainted at the very source: love of self and jealousy of others being the determining motives.[98] In any case we see that work is no help to happiness, for it is too evident that toil and moil--even that of the writer himself, who knows full well that he is labouring for a stranger--is but the price we pay, not for real pleasure, but for carking care and poignant grief.[99] Such being the bitter fruits of knowledge, the tree on which they flourish is scarcely worth cultivating.

Wisdom in its ethical aspect, as a rule of right conduct, is unavailing as a weapon to combat the Fate that fights against man. Nay, it is not even a guarantee that we shall be remembered by those who come after us, and whose lot we have striven to render less unbearable than our own. The memory of the dead is buried in their graves,[100] and the wheels of the vast machine revolve as if they had never lived. For a man's moral worth goes for nothing in the scale against Fate, whose laws operate with crushing regularity, unmodified by his virtues or his crimes.[101] Indeed, if there be any perceptible difference between the lot of the upright and that of the wicked, it is often to the advantage of the latter, who are furthered by their fierce recklessness and borne onwards by ambition.[102] The knowledge of this curious state of things serves but to encourage evil-doers.[103] The obvious conclusion is that instead of fighting against Fate which is unalterable--"I discovered that whatever God doeth is forever"[104]--we should resign ourselves to our lot and draw the practical inference from the fact that life is an evil.

Wisdom in its practical aspect is equally unpromising. In no walk of life is success the meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work of years.[106] In a word, the wise man is often worse off than the fool; and in any case, no degree of wisdom can influence the laws of the universe; what happens is foredoomed; a man's life-journey is mapped out beforehand, and it is hopeless to struggle with the Will which is mightier than his own. As we know not what is pre-arranged, we can never find out what will dovetail with our true interests or is really good for man.[107]

Footnotes:

[91] i. 2-11

[92] _Cf._ Schopenhauer, vol. i. 401-402, and _passim_.

[93] ii. 3-11.

[94] v. 9-16.

[95] Pain, then, for Koheleth, as for a greater than Koheleth, is something positive; pleasure, on the contrary, negative. "We feel pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but not exemption from it; fear, but not safety.... Only pain and privation are perceived as positive and announce themselves; well-being, on the contrary, is merely negative. Hence it is that we are never conscious of the three greatest boons of life--health, youth, and freedom as such, so long as we possess them, but only when we have lost them: for they too are negations.... The hours fly the quicker the pleasanter they are; they drag themselves on the slowlier the more painfully they are passed, because pain, not enjoyment, is the something positive whose presence makes itself felt."--Schopenhauer, ed. Grisebach, ii. 676, 677.

[96] v. 17-vi. 7; iii. 9, 12-13.

[97] iii. 19-iv. 3.

[98] iv. 4-6.

[99] iv. 7, 8; ii. 18-23.

[100] ii. 13-16.

[101] iii. 1-8, viii. 6-8.

[102] viii. 9-14.

[103] viii. 14, ix. 3.

[104] iii. 14.

[105] ix. 11-12.

[106] ix. 13-18, x. 1.

[107] vi. 8, 10-12.

* * * * *

PRACTICAL WISDOM

Having thus cleared the ground in the first part of the treatise, Koheleth proceeds to erect his own modest system in the second. As life offers us no positive good, those who, in spite of this obvious fact, desire it, must make the best of such negative advantages as are within their grasp. Although so far from being a boon, it is an evil, yet it may, he points out, be rendered less irksome by following certain practical rules; and warming to his subject, he winds up with an exhortation to snatch such pleasures as are within reach, for when all accounts have been finally cast up and everything has been said and done, all things will prove vanity, and a grasping of wind.

The ethics open with six metrical strophes composed, so to say, in the minor key, which harmonises with the disheartening conclusions of the foregoing. The theme is the Horatian _Levius fit patientia quicquid corrigere est nefas._ Death is better than life, grief more becoming than mirth, contemplation preferable to desire, deliberation more serviceable than haste.[108] The fleeting joys and the abiding evils of existence, are to be taken as we find them, seeing that it is beyond our power to alter the proportions in which they are mixed, even by the practice of virtue and the application of knowledge. Hence even in the cultivation of righteousness the rule, _Ne quid nimis_, is to be implicitly followed: "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise."[109] On the other hand, wisdom is not to be despised, for it hardens us against the strokes of Fate, and renders us insensible to the insults of our fellows.[110] It also teaches us the drawbacks of isolation, the benefits of co-operation, and the advantage of being open to counsel.[111] The basis of all practical wisdom being resignation to the inevitable, obedience to God is better than sacrifices destined to influence His action. What He does, is done for ever, and our efforts are powerless to alter it, or to induce Him to change it.[112] God is far off, unknowable, inaccessible, and man is here upon earth, and such prayers as we feel disposed to offer, had best be short and few; vows too, although to be carried out if once made, serve no good purpose, and are to be avoided. In a word, wild speculations and many words in matters of religion and theology are vain and pernicious.[113] That work and enterprise are beneficial in public and private life is obvious from a study of the results engendered by their opposites.[114] Simple individuals, no less than rulers, may benefit by enterprise and initiative, provided that prudence, by multiplying the possibilities of profit, leaves as little as possible to the vagaries of chance.[115] But prudence is especially needed in order to avoid the seductive wiles of woman, against whom one must be ever on one's guard.[116] It also enjoins upon us submission to the political ruler of the day, who possesses the power to enforce his will, and is therefore a living embodiment of the inevitable.[117] In a word, this practical wisdom assumes the form of a careful adjustment of means to the end in all the ups and downs of existence.[118]

After this follows the recommendation of the negative good: the sensuous joys within our reach. Seeing that no man knows what evil is before him, nor what things will happen after him, he cannot go far astray, supposing him to be actuated by a desire to make the best of life, if he tastes in moderation of the pleasures that lie on his path, including those of labour.[119] The young generation should, in an especial manner, take this to heart and pluck the rosebuds while it may, for old age and death are hurriedly approaching to prove by their presence that all is vanity and a grasping of wind.[120]

Footnotes:

[108] vii. 1-6, vi. 9, vii. 7-9.

[109] vii. 10, 13-14, 15-18.

[110] vii. 21-22.

[111] iv. 9-16.

[112] iii. 14.

[113] v. 1-7.

[114] v. 7-8, x. 16-20.

[115] x. 1-3, 6, 4, 5.

[116] vii. 26-29.

[117] viii. 1-4, x. 2-7.

[118] x. 8-14a, 15.

[119] x. 14b, ix. 3-10, xi. 7-10.

[120] xi. 9, xii. 8.

* * * * *

KOHELETH'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Koheleth, who agrees with Job in so many other essential points, is likewise at one with him in his views on human knowledge, or, as he terms it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] The scenes it reveals in the moral as well as the material order are of a nature to make us hate existence. "Then I loathed life."[122] Indeed, the so-called moral order which, were it, in theory, what it is asserted to be in truth, might reconcile us to our lot and kindle a spark of hope in the human breast, is but the embodiment of rank immorality. "All things come alike to all indiscriminately; the one fate overtaketh the upright man and the miscreant, the clean and the unclean, him who sacrifices and him who sacrifices not, the just and the sinner."[123] What then is life?

To this question the answer is, in effect, "The shadow of a thing which is not." The sights and sounds of the universe are the only materials upon which the human intellect can work; and they are all alike empty, shadowy, unreal. They are the creation of the mind itself, the web it weaves from its own gossamer substance; and beyond this are nothing. Space and time, or, as Koheleth expresses it, the universe and eternity, were placed in our consciousness from the very first, and are as deceptive as the mirage of the desert.[124] Kant would define them to be functions of the brain. A projection of the organ of human thought, the world is woven of three threads--space, time, and causality--which, being identical with the mind, appear and vanish with it. The one underlying reality, whether we term it God, Nature, or Will, is absolutely unknowable,[125] and everything else is Maya or illusion.

Strange as this doctrine may sound in orthodox ears, it contains, so far, nothing incompatible with Christianity, which teaches that time and space will disappear along with this transitory existence, and that the one eternal and incomprehensible Will is outside the sphere of both and exempt from the operation of the law of cause and effect. The only difference between the two is that Christianity admits the existence of many beings outside the realm of space and time, whereas without space and time multiplicity is inconceivable, impossible.

We cannot hope to know the one reality which is and acts underneath the appearances of which our world is made up, because knowledge is for ever formed, coloured and bounded by time, space, and causation, and all three are unreal. They alone constitute succession and multiplicity, which are therefore only apparent, not existent. We can conceive nothing but what is, was, or will be (and therefore in time), nothing outside ourselves but what is in space, and absolutely nought that is not a cause or an effect. "Far off is that which is, and deep, deep, who can fathom it?"[126]

But we possess insight and understanding enough to enable us to perceive that life is a positive evil, as, indeed, all evil, pain, and suffering are positive; that pleasures are few, and being negative by their nature, merely serve to make us less sensible of the evils of existence; that happiness is a chimaera, birth a curse, death a boon,[127] and absolute nothingness (Nirvana) the only real good. The hope of improvement, progress, evolution, is a cruel mockery; for the present is but a rehearsal of the past; the future will be a repetition of both;[128] everything that is and will be, was; "what came into being had been long before, and what will be was long ago."[129] In a word, what we term progress is but the movement of a vast wheel revolving on its axis everlastingly.

But may we not hope for some better and higher state in the future life beyond the tomb where vice will be punished and virtue rewarded? To this query Koheleth's reply, like that given by Job, is an emphatic negative; and yet the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection were rapidly making headway among the writer's contemporaries. But he descries nothing in the material or moral order of the world to warrant any such belief. What is there in material man that he should be immortal? "Men are an accident, and the beasts are an accident, and the same accident befalleth them all; as these die even so die those, and the selfsame breath have they all, nor is there any preeminence of man above beast; for all is nothingness."[130] Nor can any such flattering hope be grounded upon the moral order, because there are no signs of morality in the conduct of the world. "To righteous men that happeneth which should befall wrong-doers, and that betideth criminals which should fall to the lot of the upright."[131] Nay, "there are just men who perish _through_ their righteousness, and there are wicked men who prolong their lives _by means_ of their iniquity."[132] Of divine promises and revelations Koheleth--who can hardly claim to be considered a theist, and whose God is Fate, Nature, eternal Will--knows nothing. The most favourable judgment he can pass upon such theological speculations is far from encouraging: "in the multitude of fancies and prattle there likewise lurketh much vanity."[133] In eternal justice, however, he professes a strong belief, and, like Job, he formulates his faith in the words: "Fear thou God."[134]

To accuse Koheleth of Epicureanism is to take a one-sided view of his philosophy. His conception of life, its pleasures and pains, is as clearly and emphatically expressed as that of the Buddha or of Schopenhauer. He is an uncompromising pessimist, who sees the world as it is. Everything that seems pleasant or profitable is vanity and a grasping of wind; there is nothing positive but pain, nothing real but the eternal Will, which is certainly unknowable and probably unconscious. These truths, however, are not grasped by every one; they are the bitter fruits of that rare knowledge, increase of which is increase of sorrow. The few who taste thereof cling too tenaciously to life, though life be wedded to sorrow and misery, to renounce such deceitful pleasures as are within their reach; and the bulk of mankind revel in the empty joys of living. To all such, Koheleth offers some practical rules of conduct to enable them to make the best of what is to be had; but the gist of his discourse is identical with those of Jesus, of the Buddha, of Schopenhauer--renunciation.

Human pleasures, whatever their origin, are limited in degree by man's capacity for enjoyment; and this is an inborn gift, varying in different individuals but unchanging in each. Some dispositions, cheerful and sanguine by nature, tinge even the blackest clouds of misfortune with the rainbow hues of hope; others impart a sombre colour to the most auspicious event, and descry cause for dread in the most complete success, just as the bee sucks honey from the flower which yields only poison to the adder. All joys, although produced by the chemistry of our consciousness, are drawn either from within its inner sphere or from without. The former, known as intellectual pleasures, are relatively lasting because they emanate from what man is; the latter are fleeting because their source is either what he has or what he seems. These are never free from alloy; preceded by the pain of desire, they are accompanied by that of disenchantment and followed by tedium, the worst pain of all; those are exempt from all three, because instead of gratifying passing whims they free the intellect from drudging for the will and afford it momentary glimpses of truth. Wisdom therefore, for Koheleth as for Job, is the greatest boon that can fall to man's lot.[135] And yet the law of compensation, operating here as in all other spheres, sensibility to pain is always proportionate to capacity for intellectual enjoyment.

With regard to the pleasures of possession, seeing that they are often difficult of attainment and always precarious, we must be moderate in their pursuit and make the most of such as fall to our lot. Contentment here is everything, and contentment is the result of an even balance between desire and fulfilment, the former being always in our power and the latter generally beyond our control. To such happiness as possession can bestow, it is immaterial whether our demands are lowered or our prosperity increased, just as in arithmetic it matters not whether we divide the denominator of a fraction or multiply its numerator by the same number. Therefore, "Better look with the eyes than wander with desire."[136] The golden rule is to keep our wishes within the bounds of moderation, and to adjust them to unfavourable circumstances. The rich man who wants nothing and covets a mere trifle which is beyond his grasp, is supremely wretched, while the poor man who needs much but longs for nothing, is cheerful and contented. But even if wealth were as easily obtained as it is difficult, the law of compensation should deter us from seeking it. "Sweet is the sleep of the toiler, but his wealth suffereth not the rich man to slumber."[137] The only enjoyments common to all men are those which consist in the satisfaction of natural wants; the pleasures which wealth can purchase over and above these are trifling, and more than outweighed by the pain of carking care which it brings in its train. He who labours for this is, therefore, cutting a stick for his own back: "all his days are sorrows and his work grief."[138] "There is no good for man," then--for the common run of mankind who, debarred from intellectual enjoyment, yet cling tenaciously to life--"save that he should eat and drink, and make glad his soul in his labour."[139] Health being the condition of all enjoyment, and one of the greatest of earthly boons, care should be taken to preserve it by eating, drinking, labour, and rest, and by moderation in all things. For painlessness, which is positive, is always to be preferred to pleasure, which is negative. It matters little to the strong man that he is otherwise hale and thriving, if he suffer from an excruciating toothache or lumbago. He forgets everything else and thinks only of his misery. The world, then, being a terrestrial hell, they who love it as a dwelling-place cannot do better than try to construct a fireproof abode therein. To hunt for pleasures while exposing oneself to the risk of pain is folly; to escape suffering even at the sacrifice of enjoyments is worldly wisdom. As Aristotle put it, [Greek: _ho phronimos to alupon diokei, ou to haedu_.] But when all has been said and done, the highest worldly wisdom is but a less harmful species of folly. Existence is an evil, and the sole effective remedy renunciation.

Footnotes:

[121] i. 17, 16b.

[122] ii. 17.

[123] ix. 2.

[124] iii. 11.

[125] vii. 24, _cf_. also v. 1.

[126] vii. 24, _cf_. also viii. 16, 17.

[127] "I appraised the dead who died long since, as happier than the quick who are yet alive; but luckier than both him who is still unborn, who hath not yet witnessed the evil doings under the sun," iv. 2, 3.

[128] In truth, time existing only in the intellect as one of the forms of intuition, there can be neither past nor future, but an everlasting now.

[129] iii. 15.

[130] iii. 19.

[131] viii. 14.

[132] vii. 15.

[133] v. 7.

[134] _Ibid._

[135] vii. 11, 12.

[136] vi. 9.

[137] v. 12.

[138] ii. 23.

[139] ii. 24.

* * * * *

THE SOURCES OF KOHELETH'S PHILOSOPHY

To what extent are these pessimistic doctrines the fruits of Koheleth's own meditations, and how far may they be supposed to reflect the views of the nation which admitted his treatise into its sacred canon? The latter half of this question is answered by the desperate efforts made from the very beginning to correct or dilute his pessimism, and by the grave suspicion with which Jewish doctors continued to regard it, long after the "poison" had been provided with a suitable antidote. Thus the book known as the Wisdom of Solomon, which is accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholic Church, contains a flat contradiction and emphatic condemnation of certain of the propositions laid down by Koheleth, as, for instance, in ch. ii. 1-9, which is obviously a studied refutation of Koheleth's principal thesis, couched mainly in the identical words used by the Preacher himself:

"For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: the time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell.

"For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke; and speech a spark to move our hearts.

"Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof.

"And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works.

"For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth.

"Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.

"Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments; and let not the flower of the time pass by us.

"Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered; let no meadow escape our riot.

"Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us everywhere leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot."

Although the book was accepted as canonical by generations of Hebrew teachers and was quoted as such by men like Gamaliel, there was always a strong orthodox party among the Jews opposed to its teachings and apprehensive of its influence;[140] nor was it until the year 118 A.D. that the protracted dispute on the subject was at last definitely settled at the Synod which admitted Koheleth into the Canon. It was natural enough that Hebrew theologians should have hesitated to stamp with the seal of orthodoxy a book which the poet Heine calls the Canticles of Scepticism and in which every unbiassed reader will recognise a powerful solvent of the bases of theism; and the only surprising thing about their attitude is that they should have ever allowed themselves to be persuaded to abandon it.

For Koheleth's pessimistic theory, which has its roots in Secularism, is utterly incompatible with the spirit of Judaism, whichever of its historical phases we may select for comparison. It is grounded upon the rejection of the Messianic expectations and absolute disbelief in the solemn promises of Jahveh Himself. Koheleth cherishes no hope for the individual, his nation, or the human race. The thing that hath been is the same that shall be, and what befell is the same that shall come to pass, and there is no new thing under the sun....[141] "I surveyed all the works that are wrought under the sun, and behold all was vanity and the grasping of wind."[142] Persians had succeeded Chaldeans; Cyrus, the Anointed of Jahveh, had come and gone; Greeks had wrested the hegemony of the East from Persians, but no change had brought surcease of sorrow to the Jews. They were even worse off now than ever before. Jahveh, like Baal of old, was become deaf to His worshippers, many of whom turned away from Him in despair, exclaiming, "It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance?"[143] Koheleth, like Job, never once mentions Jahveh's name, but always alludes to the Eternal Will, which alone is real and unknowable, under the colourless name of Elohim. To say that he believed in a personal God in any sense in which a personal God is essential to a revealed religion, is to misunderstand ideas or to play with words.[144] And Koheleth was a type of a class. Literary men of his day having mockingly asked for the name of the Creator,[145] Koheleth answers that He is inaccessible to men, and that prayer to Him is fruitless.[146] The Jewish aristocracy of his day, desirous of embodying these views in a practical form, sought to abolish once for all the national religion, as a body of belief and practices that had been weighed in the balances and found wanting; while the party that still remained faithful to the law was composed mainly of narrow-minded fanatics, whose wild speculations, long-winded prayers and frequent vows, Koheleth considers deserving objects of derision. He himself held aloof from either camp. He took his stand outside the circle of both, surveying life from the angle of vision of the philosophical citizen of the world. But it would be idle to deny that he had far more in common with the "impious" than with the orthodox.

Thus he scornfully rejects the old doctrine of retribution, and he is never tired of affirming premisses from which the obvious and indeed only conclusion is that the popular conception of a deity who spontaneously created the universe and vigilantly watches over the Hebrew nation, is erroneous, incredible, inconceivable. The Jahveh of olden times, with His grand human passions and petty Jewish prejudices, he simply ignores. He naturally rejects the immortality of the soul--a tenet or theory which was then for the first time beginning to gain ground and to be relied upon as the only means of ultimately righting the wrongs of existence. The fact is that he had no belief in a soul as we understand it. Modern theology regards the indestructible part of man as essentially intelligent, while admitting the fact that intellect is indissolubly associated with the brain, partaking of its vicissitudes during life and vanishing with it apparently for ever at death. Job, Koheleth, and many other writers of the Old Testament hold that if anything of the man persists after the death of the individual, it is unconscious. "The living know at least that they shall die, whereas the dead know not anything at all."[147] In a word, no other philosopher, poet, or proverb-writer of the Old Testament is less orthodox in his beliefs or less Jewish in his sentiments--and Agur alone is more aggressive in his scepticism--than Koheleth.

Much has been written about the sources from which this writer may and even must have drawn his peculiar mixture of pessimism and "Epicureanism," and considerable stress has been laid upon the profound influence which Greek culture is supposed to have exerted upon Jewish thinkers towards the second century B.C., when the moral atmosphere was choked with "the baleful dust of systems and of creeds." The "Epicureanism" of the man who said: "Better is sorrow than laughter," "the heart of the wise is in the mourning house,"[148] hardly needs the hypothesis of a Greek origin to explain it. My own view of the matter, which I put forward with all due diffidence, differs considerably from those which have been heretofore expressed on the subject. I cannot divest myself of the notion that Koheleth was acquainted, and to some extent imbued, with the doctrines of Gautama Buddha, which must have been pretty widely diffused in the civilised world towards the year 205 B.C., when the present treatise was most probably composed.[149]

Buddhism, the only one of the world-religions which, springing from an abstruse system of metaphysics, brought forth such practical fruits as truthfulness, honesty, loving-kindness and universal pity, spread with extraordinary rapidity not only throughout the Indian continent but over the entire civilised world. Its apostles[150] visited foreign countries, touching and converting by their example the hearts and minds of those who were incapable of weighing their arguments, or unwilling to listen to their exhortations. They introduced a mild, tolerant, humane spirit whithersoever they went, preaching entire equality, practising perfect toleration, founding houses for meditation, erecting hospitals and dispensaries for sick men and beasts, cultivating useful plants and trees, gently suppressing cruelty to animals under any pretext,[151] and generally sowing seeds of sympathy and brotherly love of which history has noticed and described but the final fruits. From the earliest recorded period Indian culture manifested a natural tendency to expand, which was intensified at various times by the comparatively low ebb of civilisation in the adjoining countries. One can readily conceive, therefore, the effects of the strenuous and persevering efforts of one of the most powerful Indian monarchs, Açoka Piyadassi,[152] king of Magadha, to propagate that aspect of his country's civilisation which is indissolubly bound up with the doctrines of the Buddha.

Açoka, grandson of the great king Tshandragupta, was the first monarch who openly accepted the tenets and conscientiously practised the precepts of the profoundest religious teacher ever born of woman; and no more eloquent testimony could well be offered to the sincerity of the royal convert than the well-nigh miraculous self-restraint with which he forebore to cajole or coerce those of his subjects whom his arguments failed to convince. Satisfied with the progress of the new religion in his native place, he despatched his son, Mahindo, to introduce it into Ceylon; and so successful were the young prince's missionary efforts that that island became and remains the chief seat of Buddhism to this day. Açoka next turned his attention to foreign countries, in which traders, travellers, emigrants and others had already sparsely sown the seeds of the new faith, and making political power and prestige subservient to zeal for truth and pity for suffering humanity, he induced his allies and their vassals to purchase his friendship by seconding his endeavours to inculcate the philosophic doctrines and engraft the humane practices of Buddhism on their respective subjects. The results he obtained are recorded in his famous inscriptions composed in various Indian dialects and engraven upon rocks all over the continent, from Cabul in the West to Orissa in the East; and among the monarchs whom he there enumerates as having co-operated with him in his apostolic labours, are Antiochus,[153] Turamaya,[154] Alexander, Magas[155] and Antigenes;[156] into whose hospitable dominions he despatched zealous Buddhist missionaries, empowered to found monasteries, to open dispensaries and hospitals, at his expense, and to preach the saving word to all who cared to hear.

The following literal translation of one of Açoka's inscriptions[157] will help to convey an idea of the nature of his activity as the royal apostle of Buddhism, the Constantine of India: "All over the realms of the god-favoured king, Priyadarsin, and (the realms of those) who (are) his neighbours, such as the Codas, Pandyas, the Prince of the Sâtiyas,[158] the Prince of the Keralas, Tamraparnî, the King of the Javanas, Antiochus, and (among the) others who (are) vassals of the said King Antiochus, everywhere the god-beloved, king, Priyadarsin, caused two kinds of hospitals to be erected: hospitals for men and likewise hospitals for animals.[159] Wherever there were no herbs beneficial to men or animals, he everywhere gave orders that they should be procured or planted. In like manner, where there were no health-giving roots and fruits, he everywhere commanded that they should be procured or planted. And on the highways he had trees put down and wells dug for the behoof of men and beasts."[160]

History confirms Açoka's testimony and declares him to have been no less successful in sowing the seeds of medicinal plants than those of the "saving doctrine." Buddhism enrolled numerous converts and zealous apostles all over the civilised world, and in Ceylon, Egypt, Bactria, and Persia, the yellow flag floated aloft from the roofs of the monasteries of _Bhikshus_.[161] But its influence, in other ways equally powerful while considerably more subtle, has oftentimes escaped the vigilance of the historian. None of the great religions of ancient or modern times succeeded in escaping its contact, or failed to be improved by its spirit. In the second century B.C. there were flourishing Buddhist communities in inhospitable Bactria, where they maintained a firm footing for nearly a thousand years. A Greek,[162] who wrote about the year 80 B.C., and a Chinese pilgrim,[163] who passed through the land in the beginning of the seventh century A.D., allude to them as important elements of the population of the country in their respective ages, and the Buddhist monastery founded in Balkh, the capital of Bactria, in the second century B.C., was become a famous pilgrimage in the days of Hiuen Thsang. The Zoroastrian priests of Erân hated and feared the followers of the strange creed while silently adopting and unconsciously propagating many of its institutions. Several of the Eranian kings incurred the censure involved in the nickname of "idolaters" in consequence of the favour they extended to the preachers of Nirvana.[164] No religion of antiquity was less favourable to a life of passive contemplation than Zoroastrianism, which defined life as a continuous struggle, and considered virtue as a successful battle with the powers of darkness; and yet little by little Zoroastrian monasteries sprang up by the side of the Fire Temples, and offered a quiet refuge from the turmoil of the world to the pious worshippers of Ahura Mazda.[165]

So saturated were the Eranian populations with the spirit of Buddha--antagonistic though it was to their own--that the two great Eranian sects,[166] one of which bade fair to become a universal religion,[167] were little else than adaptations of the creed of the Buddha to the needs of a different time and people. Mânî, for instance, prohibited marriage, which was one of the principal duties and holiest acts of a true servant of Ahura Mazda; forbade the killing of animals which, in the case of ants, serpents, gnats, &c., was enjoined by the priests of Zoroaster, and discouraged agriculture lest plants should be destroyed in the process. And the two classes of perfect and imperfect disciples in Mânî's community were copied from those of Buddhism, which divides all believers into two categories: those who sincerely and fervently seek to attain to Nirvana and are termed Bhikshus, and the Upasakas or laymen who, while holding on to life, practise such virtues as are compatible with this unholy desire.

The Jewish religion, in certain of its phases, reveals in like manner unmistakable traces of the influence of the religion of the Buddha. To take but one instance, the Essenians in Judaea, near the Dead Sea and the Therapeutes in Egypt, practised continence, eschewed all bloody sacrifices, encouraged celibacy, and extreme abstemiousness in eating and drinking. They formed themselves into communities, and lived, after the manner of Buddhist Bhikshus, in monasteries. During the life of Jesus, the Essenians, who lived mostly in cloistered retirement on the shores of the Dead Sea, played no historic role; but after the destruction of Jerusalem, they embraced Christianity in a body, and originated the ascetic movement of the Ebionites, which did not finally subside until it had deposited the germs of monasticism in the Church of Christ.

Koheleth, who lived either in Jerusalem or in Alexandria--more probably in the latter city--about the year 205 B.C., had exceptional opportunities for becoming acquainted with the tenets and precepts of the religion of Buddha. He was evidently a man of an inquiring mind, with a pronounced taste for philosophical speculation; and the social and political conditions of his day were such that a person even of a very incurious disposition would be likely to be brought face to face with the sensational doctrine which was responsible for such amazing innovations as hospitals for men and for animals. Alexandria, the museum and library of which had already been founded, was one of the principal strongholds of non-Indian Buddhists. It is mentioned in the Milindapanho, a Pali work which deals with events that took place in the second century B.C.;[168] it is expressly included by Açoka in the list of cities into which he introduced a knowledge of the "path of duty," and so devoted were its inhabitants to the creed of Sakhya Mouni,[169] that thirty years after Augustine had died at Hippo, thirty thousand Bhikshus set out from Alasadda[170] to annex new countries to the realm of truth.

Footnotes:

[140] _Cf._ the epilogue (xii. 9-14), for example, which is one of the most timid and shuffling apologies ever penned.

[141] i. 9.

[142] i. 14.

[143] Malachi iii. 14.

[144] Professor Cheyne remarks: "To me, Koheleth is not a theist in any vital sense in his philosophic meditations."--"Job and Solomon," p. 250.

[145] _Cf._ Proverbs xxx. 4.

[146] iii. 14, v. 2.

[147] Eccles. ix. 5.

[148] vii. 3, 4.

[149] The view of several of the most authoritative scholars--in which I entirely concur--is that Koheleth was written in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes), who came to the throne as a boy under the guardianship of tutors and was alluded to in the verse: "Woe, land, to thee whose king is a child."

[150] Some of them were foreigners resident in India who, after their conversion, preached the new doctrine to their fellow-countrymen. Thus, one of the earliest and most successful missionaries was a Greek, whose Indian name was Dharmarakshita.

[151] Plants, too, were included in their care and profited by their protection.

[152] Açoka is a Sanskrit word, which means "free from care;" and Piyadassi a dialectic form of the Sanskrit word Priyadarsin, which means lovable, amiable. It was applied as an epithet to King Açoka, who reigned from 259-222 B.C.

[153] Antiochus II., called Theos, who was poisoned by his divorced wife Laodike in 247 B.C. I am aware that some scholars identify the Antiochus here mentioned with Antiochus the Great. Although both views make equally for my contention, I fail to see how Açoka, who died in all probability in the year 222 B.C., could have carried on important negotiations with Antiochus the Great, who came to the throne of Syria two years later.

[154] Ptolemy of Egypt, probably Ptolemy Philadelphos, who founded the Museum and Library of Alexandria, and his successor Ptolemy Euergetes (247-221 B.C.).

[155] Magas, king of Cyrene.

[156] The identity of this monarch is uncertain.

[157] The second Edict of Girnar, Khalsi version.

[158] A South Indian people.

[159] Usually a dispensary was opened for the distribution of simples, and a hospital hard by for those who could not move about. The Buddhists were almost as anxious to relieve the physical pain and illness of animals as of human beings.

[160] _Cf._ Bühler, "Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft," Band xxxvii. folg. p. 98.

[161] The monks or real disciples of Buddha who endeavour to attain Nibbana or Nirvana. The bulk of the population contents itself with almsgiving and the practice of elementary morality, the reward for which will be a less unhappy existence after death; but not Nirvana, to which only the perfect can hope to attain.

[162] Alexander Polyhistor, quoted by Cyrillus (_contra Julianum_); _cf._ also Clemens Alexandrinus, _Stromata I._, p. 339.

[163] Hiuen Thsang.

[164] Their names and deeds are preserved in the Persian epic known as the Book of Kings (Firdoosi, Shah-Nameh, _cf_. 1033, v. 4, 1160, v. 2, &c.).

[165] Ormuzd. An instructive instance of the way in which foreign institutions become nationalised in Bactria is afforded by the Buddhist monastery in Balkh, which was at first known by its Indian name, _nava vihâra_, a term that was gradually changed to _naubehar,_ which in Persian means "new spring."

[166] Mânî and Mazdak.

[167] The religion of Mânî.

[168] Ed. Trenckner, p. 327.

[169] Buddha.

[170] Alexandria.

AGUR, THE AGNOSTIC

* * * * *

AGUR, SON OF YAKEH

Embedded in the collection of the Book of Proverbs[171] is an interesting fragment of the philosophy of a certain "Agur, son of Yakeh, the poet," which for scathing criticism of the theology of his day and sweeping scepticism as to every form of revealed religion, is unmatched by the bitterest irony of Job and the most dogmatic agnosticism of Koheleth. Unfortunately it is no more than a mere fragment, the verses of which are thoughtfully separated from each other by strictures, protests, and refutations of the baldest and most orthodox kind. Indeed, it is in all probability precisely to the presence of the infallible antidote that we owe the preservation of the deadly poison; and if we may found a conjecture as to the character of the whole work on a comparison of the fragments with what we know generally of the sceptical schools of philosophy prevalent among the Jews of post-Exilian days, we shall feel disposed to hold the seven strophes preserved in our Bibles as that portion of the poem which the compiler considered to be the most innocent because the least startling and revolutionary.

To the thinking of the critics of former times the Proverbs displayed unmistakable traces of the unique and highly finished workmanship of the great and wise king Solomon. At the present day no serious student of the Bible, be he Christian or Rationalist, would raise his voice on behalf of this Jewish tradition which, running counter to well-established facts, is devoid even of the doubtful recommendation of moderate antiquity. A more accurate knowledge of history and a more thorough study of philology have long since made it manifest to all who can lay claim to either, that however weighty may have been Solomon's titles to immortality, they included neither depth of philosophic thought nor finish of literary achievement. And an average supply of plain common-sense enables us to see that even had that extraordinary monarch been a profound thinker or a classic writer, he would hardly have treated future events as accomplished facts without being endowed with further gifts and marked by graver defects which would involve a curious combination of prophecy and folly.

The Proverbs themselves, when properly interrogated, tell a good deal of their own story; sacred and profane history supply the rest. In their present form they were collected and edited by the author of the first six verses of the first chapter, who drew his materials from different sources. The first and most important of these was the so-called "Praise of Wisdom" which, until a comparatively recent period, was erroneously held to be a rounded, homogeneous poem. Professor Bickell conclusively showed that it consists of ten different songs composed in the same metre as the Poem of Job, each chapter being coextensive with one song, except the first chapter, which contains two.[172] The fifth collection, containing the proverbs copied "by the men of Hezekiah," is characterised by the strong national spirit of the writers. Most of the others make frequent mention of God, give a prominent place to religion, and adapt themselves for use as texts for sermons; these, on the contrary, never once mention His name, reflect religion as it was--viz., as only one of the many sides of national existence, and deal mainly with the concrete problems of the everyday life of the struggling people. The other sayings may be aptly described as the pious maxims of a sect; these as the thoughts of a nation. The seventh part of the Book of Proverbs contains the remarkable sayings of Agur,[173] which were quite as frequently misunderstood by the Jews of old as by Christians of more recent times, the former heightening the impiety of the author and the latter generously identifying him with the pious and fanatical writer to whose well-meant refutations and protests we owe the preservation of this interesting fragment of ancient Hebrew agnosticism.

Footnotes:

[171] The Book of Proverbs begins with ten songs on wisdom, which constitute the first part of the work. The second part is made up of distichs, each one of which, complete in itself, embodies a proverbial saying (x. i-xxii. 16). The third section is composed of the "sayings of the wise men," which are enshrined in tetrastichs or strophes of four lines, among which we find an occasional interpolation by the editor, recognisable by the paternal tone, the words "My son," and the substitution of distichs for tetrastichs. Then comes the appendix containing other proverbial dicta (chap. xxiv. 23-34. chap. vi. 9-19, chap. xxv. 2-10), followed by the proverbs "of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah copied out" (xxv. 11-xxvii. 22), and wound up with a little poem in praise of rural economy. Chaps. xxviii. and xxix. constitute another collection of proverbs of a more strictly religious character, and then come the sayings of Agur, written in strophes of six lines, the rules for a king and the praise of a good housewife.

[172] Prov. i. 7-19 and i. 20-33.

[173] Chap. xxx.

* * * * *

FORM AND CONTENTS OF THE SAYINGS OF AGUR

It is needless to discuss the condition and the contents of the entire Book of Proverbs, seeing that each one of its component parts has an independent, if somewhat obscure, history of its own. The final compiler and editor, to whom we are indebted for the collection in its present form, undoubtedly found the sweeping scepticism of the poet Agur and the pious protestations of his anonymous adversary, the thesis and the antithesis, inextricably interwoven in the section now known as the thirtieth chapter. He himself apparently identified the two antagonists--the scoffing doubter and the believing Jew; most modern theologians have cheerfully followed his example. The fact would seem to be that the orthodox member of the Jewish community, who thus emphatically objected to aggressive agnosticism, was a man who strictly observed the "Mosaic" Law, and sympathised with the people in their hatred of their heathen masters and their hopes of speedy deliverance by the Messiah; in a word, an individual of the party which later on played an important role in Palestine under the name of the Pharisees. Possessing a copy of Agur's popular philosophical treatise, this zealous champion undertook to refute the theory before he had ascertained the drift of the sayings in which it was enshrined, or grasped their primary meaning. Thus, in one passage[174] he fancies that the taunts which Agur levelled against omniscient theologians who are well up in the history of everything that is done or left undone in heaven, while amazingly ignorant of the ascertainable facts of earthly science, are really aimed at God; and he seeks to parry the attack accordingly. His numerous and amusing errors are such as characterise the fanaticism that would refute a theory before hearing it unfolded, not those which accompany and betray pious imbecility. Hence it would be unfair to tax him with the utter incoherency of the prayer which our Bibles make him offer up, when warding off the supposed attack upon God: (8) "Feed me with food convenient for me, (9) Lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God _in vain_." The mistake is the result of the erroneous punctuation of the Hebrew words,[175] which may be literally rendered into English as follows:

"Feed me with food suitable for me, Lest I be sated and deny thee, And say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and yield to seduction, And sin against the name of my God.'

In the ensuing verse the controversialist, full of his own Pharisaic[176] views of politics, and fancying he detects in certain of Agur's words,[177] an apology for the heathen rulers and contempt for the orthodox people of God, inveighs against the traitor who would denounce his fellow-subjects to their common master,[178] and holds him up to universal odium.

One or two other false constructions put upon Agur's sayings by the champion of the "Law of Jahveh," are likewise worthy of attention. In the second sentence, which can be traced back to the proverbial philosophy of the Hindoos, Agur, enumerating the four things that are never satisfied, lays special stress upon two which are, so to say, the beginning and end of all things, the alpha and omega of human philosophy--viz., the grave and the womb;[179] the latter the bait as well as the portal of life, the former the bugbear and the goal of all things living. The idea, no less than the form, is manifestly Indian. Birth and death constitute the axis of existence; the womb is the symbol of the allurement that tempts men to forget their sorrows, to keep the Juggernaut wheel revolving and to supply it with fresh victims to be mangled and crushed into the grave. The lure and the deterrent--love of sensuous pleasure and fear of dissolution--are as deceitful as all the other causes of pain and pleasure in this world of appearance. Schopenhauer puts it tersely thus: "As we are decoyed into life by the utterly illusory impulse to voluptuousness, even so are we held fast therein by the fear of death, which is certainly illusory in an equal degree. Both have their immediate source in the Will, which in itself is unconscious."[180]

The only reward which life offers to those who crave it, is suffering and death. The desire of life--the Indian _tanha_ or thirst of existence--Agur represents in the form of the beautiful but terrible Ghoul of the desert who has two daughters: birth and death. By means of her fascinating charms she entices the wanderer to her arms, but instead of satiating his soul with the promised joys, she ruthlessly flings him to her two daughters who tear him to pieces and devour him on the spot. Desire is the source of life which in turn is the taproot of all evil and pain; insight into this truth--the knowledge or wisdom lauded by Job and prized by Koheleth--affords the only means of breaking the unholy spell, and escaping from the magic circle.

This ingenious and profound philosophical image was wholly misunderstood by Agur's orthodox adversary, who founds upon the deprecatory allusion to the womb a general accusation of lack of reverence for maternity and a specific charge of disrespect for Agur's own mother.[181]

Agur's third saying has been likewise sadly misconstrued by the ancient Pharisaic controversialist and by his faithful modern successors. He enumerates therein four things which to him seem wholly incomprehensible, the fourth and last being the darkest mystery of all: the flying of an eagle in the air, the movement of a serpent--which is devoid of special organs of locomotion--along a rock, the sailing of a ship on the ocean, and "the way of a man with a maid."[182] It is very hard to believe what is nevertheless an undeniable fact, that the bulk of serious commentators classify these as the trackless things, whereby, strangely enough, they understand the last of the four in a moral instead of a metaphysical sense. The error is an old one: it was on the strength of this arbitrary and vulgar interpretation that Agur was accused by his Jewish antagonist of a criminal lack of filial piety towards his own father,[183] and threatened with condign punishment, to be inflicted by the eagles that fly so wonderfully in the air;[184] while another scribe, unaware that the mystery of generation could be chosen as the text for a treatise on metaphysics, and firmly convinced that the philosopher was condemning unhallowed relations between the sexes, penned a gloss to make things sufficiently clear which was afterwards removed from the margin to the text where it now figures as the twentieth verse.

In truth, Agur gives utterance to a natural sentiment of awe and wonder at the greatest and darkest of all mysteries whose roots lie buried in the depths of the two worlds we conceive of. What could be more awe-inspiring than the instantaneous metamorphosis of pure immaterial will into concrete flesh and blood, throbbing with life hastening to decay, the incarnation in the sphere of appearances of an act of the one being which is not an appearance only, but the denizen of the world of reality? Will is primary, real, enduring; intellect secondary, accidental, fleeting; the one, abiding for ever, is identical in all things; the latter varies in different beings, nay in the same individuals at various times, and perishes with the brain, of which it is a function. Will is devoid of intellect, as intellect is deprived of velleity. We know will through our inner consciousness which has to do exclusively with it and its manifold manifestations; all other things--the world of appearances--we know through what may be termed our outer consciousness.

Now in our self-consciousness we apprehend the fierce, blind, headstrong sexual impulse as the most powerful motion of concentrated will. The act is marked by the spontaneity, impetuosity, and lack of reflection which characterises the agent, will being by nature unenlightened and unconditioned. And yet that which in our inner consciousness is a blind, vehement impulse, appears in our outer consciousness in the form of the most complex living organism we know. Generation, then, is manifestly the point at which the real and the seeming intersect each other.

Birth and death--the inevitable lot of each and every one--would seem to affect the individual only, the race living on without change or decay. This, however, is but the appearance. In reality the individual and the race are one. The blind striving to live, the will that craves existence at all costs, is absolutely the same in both, as complete in the former as in the latter, and the perpetuity of the race is, so to say, but the symbol of the indestructibility of the individual--_i.e._, of will.

Now this all-important fact is exemplified quite as clearly by the phenomenon of generation as by the process of decay and death. In both we behold the opposition between the appearance and the essence of the being, between the world as it exists in our intellect as representation, and the world as it really is, as will. The act of generation is known to us through two different media: that of the inner consciousness which is taken up with our will and all its movements, and that of our outer consciousness which has to do with impressions received through the senses. Seen through the former medium, the act is the most complete and immediate satisfaction of the will--sensual lust; viewed in the light supplied by the outer consciousness, it appears as the woof of the most intricate texture, the basis of the most complex of living organisms. From this angle of vision, the result is a work of amazing skill, designed with the greatest ingenuity and forethought, and carried out with patient industry and scrupulous care; from that point of view it is the direct outcome of an act which is the negation of plan, forethought, skill, and ingenuity, a blind unreasoning impulse. This contrast or rather opposition between the seeming and the real, this new view of birth and death, this sudden flash of light athwart the impenetrable darkness, is what provokes the wonder of this scoffing sceptic.[185]

In the fourth saying, Agur mentions, among the persons whom the earth cannot endure, a low-bred fellow who is set to rule over others, and a fool when he acquires a competency and becomes independent. The anonymous Pharisee, who keeps a vigilant watch for doctrinal slips and political backslidings and frequently finds them where they are not, descries in the first of the four unbearable things a proof that Agur was a Sadducee and an aristocrat who would rather obey a monarch who is "every inch a king"--even though he be a heathen--than a native clodhopper who should climb up to the throne on the backs of a poor deluded people and grind them down in the sacred name of liberty and independence. Agur is therefore duly reprimanded and classed with the shameless oppressors of the multitude and the devourers of the substance of the poor,[186] as the Sadducees generally were by their Pharisaic opponents.

The sentence that follows, enumerating the things "which are little upon the earth,[187] is not from the pen of our philosopher, but a harmless passage inserted subsequently as a _pendant_ to the four things which "are comely in going." The main considerations that point to this conclusion and warrant us in ascribing the verses to a different author are these: all the other "numerical sayings" which are admittedly the work of Agur, contain first of all the number three and in the parallel verse four,[188] whereas this sentence speaks of four only. Again, all Agur's proverbs are in the form of strophes of six lines each; but this passage consists of five distichs. Lastly, it is a manifest digression, leads nowhither, and, what is still more important, has no point, as all Agur's sayings have.[189]

The final sentence of this interesting fragment needs no elaborate explanation: it contains the pith of Agur's practical philosophy in the form of an exhortation to renounce honour, glory, the esteem of men, &c., if we possess legitimate claims to such, and still more if we have none; the acquisition of peace and quiet is cheap at the price of obscurity; freedom from care and worry and from the evils they bring in their train, being of infinitely greater value than the chance and even the certainty of so-called "positive" enjoyments.

Footnotes:

[174] Prov. xxx. 4.

[175] The Hebrew text consists of vowelless words. The correct vowels must be ascertained before the meaning of a word or sentence can be definitely established. The vowel points of our Hebrew Bibles are not older than the seventh century A.D., and are frequently erroneous. In the present case the word stealing does not occur in the text, but only the being stolen--viz., seduction, temptation.

[176] I employ the word in its natural, not in its conventional, sense.

[177] Prov. xxx. 21, 22.

[178] _Ibid_ xxx. 10.

[179] The word "barren" added in our Bibles (Hebrew _'oçzer_, "barrenness") is not only excluded by the metre, but is also wanting in the Septuagint version--conclusive proofs that it is a later interpolation.

[180] _Cf_. Schopenhauer, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," herausg. v. E. Grisebach, ii. p. 585. Grisebach's is the only correct edition of Schopenhauer's works.

[181] Prov. xxx. 11.

[182] _Ib_. xxx. 18, 19.

[183] _Ib_. xxx. 11.

[184] _Ib_. xxx. 17.

[185] _Cf_. Schopenhauer, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," vol. ii. p. 583 fol.; also vol. i. pp. 424-426; and Bickell, "Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes," 1891.

[186] Prov. xxx. 19.

[187] _Ib_. xxx. 24-28.

[188] For example, Prov. xxx. 15:

"There are three things that are never satisfied, Yea, four things say not, 'It is enough!'"

[189] _Cf_. Bickell, "Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes," 1891.

* * * * *

DATE OF COMPOSITION

The sayings of Agur cannot possibly be assigned to a date later than the close of third century B.C. The ground for this statement is contained in the circumstance that Jesus Sirach found the Book of Proverbs in existence, with all its component parts and in its present shape, about the year 200 B.C. He mentions a collection of proverbial sayings when alluding to Solomon and his proverbs. Jesus Sirach's canon--if we can apply this technical term to the series of scriptures in vogue in his day--comprised the books contained in our Bibles from Genesis to Kings, further Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, the twelve Minor Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. Moreover, it is no longer open to doubt that the arrangement of the various parts of the Book of Proverbs which he read was identical with that of ours. For the last part of this Book contains an alphabetical poem in praise of a good housewife,[190] and Jesus Sirach concluded his own work with a similar poem upon wisdom, in which he imitated this alphabetical order. It is obvious, therefore, that Proverbs in their present form could not have been compiled later than the date of Jesus Sirach's work (about 200 B.C.). This conclusion is borne out by the circumstance that the final editor of Proverbs in his introduction,[191] mentions the Words of the Wise, which occur in chapters xxii. 17-xxiv., and "their dark sayings," or riddles, by which he obviously means the sentences of Agur. For Proverbs and for Agur's fragment, therefore, the latest date is the beginning of the second century B.C. Chapter xxx., in which, on the one hand, Agur develops very advanced philosophical views, some of them of Indian origin, and, on the other, his anonymous antagonist breathes the narrow, fanatic spirit so thoroughly characteristic of the later "Mosaic" Law, is among the very latest portions of Proverbs. For it is in the highest degree probable that the sayings of Agur are of a much later date even than the promulgation of the Priests' Code;[192] and the circumstance that the anonymous stickler for strict orthodoxy already begins to accentuate the political and religious opposition between the two great parties known as Pharisees and Sadducees, as well as other grounds of a different order, disposes me to assign the fragment of Agur to the third century B.C. This conclusion would be borne out by the influence upon Agur's scepticism of comparatively recent foreign speculation. Some of his sayings have an unmistakable Indian ring about them. A few are even directly traceable to the philosophical sentences of the Hindoos. The enumeration of the four insatiable things, for instance, is but a slight modification of the Indian proverb in the Hitopadeça which runs: "Fire is not satiated with fuel; nor the sea with streams; nor death with all beings; nor a fair-eyed woman with men."[193] Still more striking and suggestive is the correspondence between the desire of life, personified in Agur's fragment by the beautiful Ghoul, and the thirst of existence denoted by the Buddha and his countrymen as _tanha_--the root of all evil and suffering. "Through thirst for existence (_tanha_)," the Buddha is reported to have said to his disciples, "arises a craving for life; through this, being; through being, birth; through birth are produced age and death, care and misery, suffering, wretchedness and despair. Such is the origin of the world.... By means of the total annihilation of this thirst for existence (_tanha_) the destruction of the craving for life is compassed; through the destruction of the craving for life, the uprooting of being is effected; through the uprooting of being, the annihilation of birth is brought about; by means of the annihilation of birth the abolition of age and death, of care and misery, of suffering, wretchedness and despair is accomplished. In this wise takes place the annihilation of this sum of suffering."[194] The same doctrine is laid down by the last accredited of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputto: "What, brethren, is the source of suffering?" he is reported to have said. "It is that desire (_tanha_) which leads from new birth to new birth, which is accompanied by joy and passion, which delights now here, now there; it is the sexual instinct, the impulse towards existence, the craving for development. That, brethren, is what is termed the source of suffering."[195]

Footnotes:

[190] Prov. xxxi. 10-31.

[191] Prov. i. 6.

[192] 444 B.C.

[193] _Cf_. Hitopadeça, book ii. fable vi.; ed. Max Müller, vol. ii. p. 38.

[194] Samyuttaka-Nikayo, vol. ii. chap. xliv. p. 12; _cf_. Neumann "Buddhistiche Anthologie," Leiden, 1892, pp. 161-162.

[195] Majjhima-Nikayo; _cf_. Neumann, _op. sit.,_ p.25.

* * * * *

AGUR'S PHILOSOPHY

Of the three Hebrew thinkers of the Old Testament who ventured to sift and weigh the evidence on which the religious beliefs of their contemporaries were based, Agur was probably the most daring and dangerous. He appealed directly to the people, and set up a simple standard of criticism which could be effectively employed by all. Hence, no doubt, the paucity of the fragments of his writings which have come down to us and the consequent difficulty of constructing therewith a complete and coherent system of philosophy. To what extent he assented to the theories and approved the practices which constitute the positive elements of the Buddha's religion, is open to discussion; but that he was a confirmed sceptic as regards the fundamental doctrines of Jewish theology, and that his speculations received their impulse and direction from Indian philosophy, are facts which can no longer be called in question.

To the theologians of his day he shows no mercy; for their dogmas of retribution, Messianism, &c., he evinces no respect; nay, he denies all divine revelation and strips the deity itself of every vestige of an attribute. Proud of their precise and exhaustive knowledge of the mysteries of God's nature, the doctors of the Jewish community had drawn up comprehensive formulas for all His methods of dealing with mankind, and anathematised those who ventured to cast doubts upon their accuracy.

"Whatever sceptic could inquire for, For every why they had a wherefore,"

the unanswerable tone of which lay necessarily and exclusively in the implicit and tenacious faith of the hearer. Now, faith may be governed by conditions widely different from those that regulate scientific knowledge, but if its object be something that lies beyond the ken of the human intellect it must be based either upon a supernatural intuition accorded to the individual or upon a divine revelation vouchsafed to all. In the former case it cannot be embodied in a religious dogma; in the latter it cannot--or should not--be accepted without thorough discussion and due verification of the alleged historical fact of the divine message.

This is the gist of Agur's reasoning against the allwise theologians of the Jewish Church.

These sapient specialists, whose intellects were nurtured upon the highest and most abstruse speculations and who could readily account for all the movements of the Deity with a wealth of detail surpassing that of a French police _dossier_, were utterly and notoriously ignorant of the rudimentary laws of science which every inquisitive mind might learn and every educated man could verify. Now, as truth is one, Agur reasoned, how comes it that the persons who thus lay claim to a thorough knowledge of the more difficult, are absolutely ignorant of the more simple? Whence, in a word, did they obtain their perfect acquaintance with the mysteries of the divine nature and the mechanism of the universe, the elementary laws of which are yet unknown to them? Surely not from any source accessible to all; for Agur, possessing equally favourable opportunities for observation and quite as keen an interest in the subject, not only failed to make any similar discoveries, but even to find any confirmation of theirs. For this he sarcastically accounts by admitting that he must be considerably more stupid than the common run of mankind, in fact, that he is wholly devoid of human understanding--a confession which he evidently expects every reasonable man to repeat after him to those who assert that crass ignorance of fundamental facts is an aid to the highest kind of knowledge.

"I have worried myself about God, and succeeded not, For I am more stupid than other men, And in me there is no human understanding: Neither have I learned wisdom, So that I might comprehend the science of sacred things."

Still he is a very docile disciple, and, having failed to make any discoveries of his own, would gladly accept those of a qualified master--of one who endeavours to know before setting out to teach and who prefaces his account of the wonders of the unseen world by pointing out the bridge over which he passed thither, from this. But does such a genuine teacher exist?

"Who has ascended into heaven and come down again? Who can gather the wind in his fists? Who can bind the waters in a garment? Who can grasp all the ends of the earth? Such an one would I question about God: 'What is his name? And what the name of his sons, if thou knowest it?'"

And if even specialists do not fulfil these conditions, are we not forced to conclude that their so-called knowledge is a fraud and its subject-matter unknowable?

Agur's views of right conduct--if we may judge by the general tenour of his fragmentary sayings and by the principle embodied in his sixth and last sentence, in which he rejects as a motive for action "a high hope for a low heaven"--are marked by the essential characteristics of true morality. An action performed for the sake of any recompense, human or divine, transitory or eternal, is egotistic by its nature, and therefore not moral; and the difference between the man who, in his unregenerate days, cut his neighbours' throats in order to enjoy their property, and after his conversion gave all his goods to feed the poor, in order to enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, is more interesting to the legislator than to the moralist. But, were it otherwise, Agur holds that, even from a purely practical point of view, all the honours and rewards which mankind can bestow upon their greatest benefactor would be too dearly purchased by a ruffled temper; in other words, mere freedom from positive pain is a greater boon than the highest pleasure purchased at the price of a little suffering.

Agur's politics gave as much offence to the priests as his theology. Like most original thinkers, he is a believer in the aristocracy of talent, and he makes no secret of his preference of a hereditary nobility to those upstarts from the ranks of the people who possess no intellectual gifts to recommend them. For the former have at least training and heredity to guide them, whereas the latter are devoid even of these recommendations. These views furnished the grounds for the charge of Sadduceeism preferred against him by his adversary.

To what extent Indian thought, and in particular the metaphysics and ethics of Buddhism, influenced Agur's religious speculations, it is impossible to do more than conjecture. Personally I am disposed to think that he was well acquainted and indeed thoroughly imbued with the teachings of the Indian reformer. In the third century B.C., as already pointed out, the spread of the new religion through Bactria, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor was rapid. Moreover, the turn taken by the speculations of cultured Hebrews of that epoch was precisely such as we should expect to find, if it stood to Buddhistic preaching in the relation of effect to cause. The scepticism of the philosophers of the Old Testament, not excepting that of Agur who may aptly be termed the Hebrew Voltaire, was not wholly destructive. Its sweeping negations in the spheres of metaphysics and theology were amply compensated for--if one can speak of compensation in such a connection--by the positive, humane, and wise maxims it lays down in the domain of ethics. And the cornerstone of the morality of all three--Job, Koheleth, and Agur--would seem to be virtually identical with that formulated in the Indian aphorism:

"Alone the doer doth the deed; alone he tastes the fruit it brings; Alone he wanders through life's maze; alone redeems himself from being."

Buddhistic influence in the case of Agur, therefore, is all the more probable that it admirably dovetails with all the circumstances of time and place known to us, even on the supposition, which I am myself inclined to favour, that Agur lived and wrote in Palestine. This probability is greatly enhanced by the striking affinity between the Buddhist conception of revealed religions, of professional priests and of practical wisdom, and that enshrined in the few verses of Agur which we possess. It is raised to a degree akin to certainty by the actual occurrence of Indian images, similes, and even concrete aphorisms in the short fragment of seven strophes preserved to us in the Book of Proverbs.

* * * * *

THE POEM OF JOB

TRANSLATION OF THE RESTORED TEXT

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

CHAP. I. A.V.]

1 _There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil._

2 _And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters._

3 _His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east._

4 _And his sons went and feasted_ in their _houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them._

5 _And it was so, when the days of_ their _feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings_ according _to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually._

6¶ _Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them._

7 _And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it._

8 _And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that_ there is _none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?_

9 _Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?_

10 _Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land._

11 _But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face._

12 _And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath_ is _in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord._

13¶ _And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:_

14 _And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses were feeding beside them:_

15 _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._

16 _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._

17 _While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee._

18 _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:

19 _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._

20 _Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshipped,_

21 _And 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._

22 _In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly._

CHAP. II. A.V.]

1 _Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord._

2 _And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it._

3 _And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that_ there is _none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause._

4 _And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life._

5 _But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face._

6 _And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold he is in thine hand; but save his life._

7¶ _So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown._

8 _And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes._

9¶ _Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die._

10 _But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips._

11¶ _Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him._

12 _And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven._

13 _So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that_ his _grief was very great_.

CHAP. III. A.V.

1 _After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day_.

2 _And Job spake, and said_:

I

JOB:

Would the day had perished wherein I was born, And the night which said: behold, a man child! Would that God on high had not called for it, And that light had not shone upon it!

II

Would that darkness and gloom had claimed it for their own; Would that clouds had hovered over it; Would it never had been joined to the days of the year, Nor entered into the number of the months!

III

Would that that night had been barren, And that rejoicing had not come therein; That they had cursed it who curse the days,[196] That the stars of its twilight had waxed dim!

IV

Would it had yearned for light but found none, Nor beheld the eye-lids of the morning dawn! For it closed not the door of my mother's womb, Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

V

Why died I not straight from the womb? Why, having come out of the belly, did I not expire? Why did the knees meet me? And why the breasts, that I might suck?

VI

For then should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept and now had been at rest, With the kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built desolate places for themselves.

VII

Or with princes, once rich in gold, Who filled their houses with silver, I should be as being not, as an hidden untimely birth, Like infants which never saw the light!

VIII

There the wicked cease from troubling, And there the weary be at rest; There the prisoners repose together, Nor hear the taskmaster's voice.

IX

Why gives he light to the afflicted, And life unto the bitter in soul, Who yearn for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for buried treasures?

X

Hail to the man who hath found a grave! Then only hath God "hedged him in."[197] For sighing is become my bread, And my crying is unto me as water.

XI

For the thing I dreaded cometh upon me, And that I trembled at befalleth me. I am not in safety, neither have I rest; Nor quiet, but trouble cometh alway.

XII

ELIPHAZ:

Lo, thou hast instructed many, Thy words have upholden him that was stumbling. Now hath thine own turn come, And thou thyself art worried and troubled.

XIII

Was not the fear of God thy confidence? And the uprightness of thy ways thy hope? Bethink, I pray thee, who ever perished guiltless? Or where were the righteous cut off?

XIV

I saw them punished that plough iniquity, And them that sow sorrow reap the same; By the blast of God they perish, And by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.[198]

XV

Now a word was wafted unto me by stealth,[199] And mine ear received the whisper thereof; In thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon man.

XVI

Fear came upon me and trembling, Which made all my bones to shake. Then a spectre sped before my face; The hair of my flesh bristled up.

XVII

It stood, but I could not discern its form. I heard a gentle voice:-- "Shall a mortal be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker?

XVIII

Behold, in his servants he puts no trust,-- Nay, his angels[200] he chargeth with folly;-- How much less in the dwellers in houses of clay, Whose foundations are down in the dust.

XIX

Between dawn and evening they are destroyed: They perish and no man recketh. Is not their tent-pole torn up?[201] And bereft of wisdom, they die."

XX

Call now, if so be any will answer thee; And to which of the angels wilt thou turn? For his own wrath killeth the foolish man, And envy slayeth the silly one.

XXI

His children are far from safety; They are crushed, and there is none to save them. The hungry eateth up their harvest, And the thirsty swilleth their milk.

XXII

For affliction springeth not out of the dust, Nor doth sorrow sprout up from the ground;-- For man is born unto trouble, Even as the sparks fly upward.

XXIII

But I would seek unto God, And unto God would I commit my cause, Who doth great things and unfathomable, Marvellous things without number.

XXIV

He giveth rain unto the earth, And sendeth waters upon the fields; To set up on high those that be low, That they who mourn may be helped to victory.

XXV

He catcheth the wise in their own craftiness, And the counsel of the cunning is thwarted; Wherefore they encounter darkness in the daytime, And at noonday grope as in the night.

XXVI

The poor he delivereth from the sword of their mouth, And the needy out of the hand of the mighty; Thus the miserable man obtaineth hope, And iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

XXVII

Happy is the man whom God correcteth; Therefore spurn not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore and bindeth up; He smiteth, and his hands make whole.

XXVIII

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.

XXIX

Thou shall be hid from the scourge of the tongue,[202] Neither shalt thou fear misfortune when it cometh; At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh, Nor shalt dread the beasts of the earth.

XXX

For thy tent shall abide in peace, And thou shalt visit thy dwelling and miss nought therein; Thou shalt likewise know that thy seed will be great, And thine offspring as the grass of the earth.

XXXI

Thou shalt go down to thy grave in the fulness of thy days, Ripe as a shock of corn brought home in its season. Lo, this have we found out, so it is! This we have heard, and take it thou to heart.

XXXII

JOB:

Oh that my "wrath" were thoroughly weighed, And my woe laid against it in the balances! For it would prove heavier than the sands of the sea; Therefore are my words wild.

XXXIII

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; My spirit drinketh in the venom thereof. The terrors of God move against me, He useth me like to an enemy.

XXXIV

Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Would one eat things insipid without salt? Is there taste in the white of raw eggs?

XXXV

Oh that I might have my request, And that God would grant me the thing I long for! Even that it would please him to destroy me, That he would let go his hand and cut me off!

XXXVI

Then should I yet have comfort, Yea, I would exult in my relentless pain. For that, at least, would be my due from God, Since I have never withstood the words of the Holy One.

XXXVII

What is my strength that I should hope? And what mine end that I should be patient? Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

XXXVIII

Am I not utterly bereft of help? And is not rescue driven wholly away from me? Is not pity the duty of the friend, Who, else, turneth away from the fear of God?

XXXIX

My brethren have disappointed me as a torrent, They pass away as a stream of brooks, Which were blackish by reason of the ice, Wherein the snow hideth itself.

XL

The caravans of Tema sought for them, The companies of Sheba hoped for them. But when the sun warmed them they vanished; When it waxed hot they were consumed from their place.

XLI

Did I say: Bestow aught upon me? Or give a bribe for me of your substance? Or deliver me from the enemy's hand? Or redeem me from the hand of the mighty?

XLII

Teach me and I will hold my tongue; And cause me to discern wherein I have erred. How cutting are your "righteous" words! But what doth your arguing reprove?

XLIII

Do ye imagine to rebuke words? But the words of the desperate are spoken to the wind. Will ye even assail me, the blameless one? And harrow up your friend?

XLIV

But now vouchsafe to turn unto me, For surely I will not lie to your face. I pray you, return; let no wrong be done. Return, for justice abideth still within me.

XLV

Is there iniquity in my tongue? Cannot my palate discern misfortunes? Hath not man warfare upon earth? And are not his days like to those of an hireling?

XLVI

As a slave panting for the shade, and finding it not, As an hireling awaiting the wage for his work, So to me months of sorrow are allotted, And wearisome nights are appointed to me.

XLVII

Lying down I exclaim: When shall I arise? And I toss from side to side till the dawning of the day;[203] My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust, My skin grows rigid and breaks up again.

XLVIII

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, And have come to an end without hope;[204] Remember, I pray, that my life is wind, That mine eye shall see good no more.

XLIX

As the cloud is dispelled and vanisheth away, So he that goes down to the grave shall not come up again; He shall never return to his house, Neither shall his place know him any more.

L

I too will not restrain my mouth, I will speak out in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea or a sea-monster,[205] That thou settest a watch over me?

LI

When I say: "My bed shall comfort me, My couch shall ease my complaint;" Then thou scarest me with dreams, And terrifiest me with visions.

LII

Then my soul would have chosen strangling, And death by my own resolve: But I spurned it, for I shall not live for ever; Let me be, for my days are a breath.

LIII

What is man that thou shouldst magnify him? And that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him? That thou shouldst visit him every morning, And try him every moment?[206]

LIV

Why wilt thou not look away from me? Nor leave me in peace while there is breath in my throat? Why hast thou set me up as a butt, So that I am become a target for thee?

LV

Why dost thou not rather pardon my misdeed, And take away mine iniquity? For now I must lay myself down in the dust, And thou shalt seek me, but I shall not be.

LVI

BILDAD:

How long wilt thou utter these things, And shall the words of thy mouth be like a storm wind? Doth God pervert judgment? Or doth the Almighty corrupt justice?

LVII

If thou wouldst seek unto God, And make thy supplication to the Almighty, He would hear thy prayer, And restore the house of thy blamelessness.

LVIII

For inquire, I pray thee, of the bygone age, And give heed to the search of the forefathers; Shall they not teach thee, And utter words out of their heart?

LIX

Can the papyrus grow without marsh? Can the Nile-reed shoot up without water? Whilst still in its greenness uncut, It withereth before any herb.

LX

Such is the end of all that forget God, And even thus shall the hope of the impious perish, Whose hope is as gossamer threads, And whose trust is as a spider's web.

LXI

For he leans upon his house, And has a firm footing to which he cleaves; He is green in the glow of the sun, And his branch shooteth forth in his garden.

LXII

But his roots are entangled in a heap of stones, And rocky soil keeps hold upon him; It destroyeth him from his place, Then that denying him saith: "I have not seen thee."

LXIII

Behold, this is the "joy" of his lot, And out of the dust shall others grow. Lo! God will not cast out a perfect man, Neither will he take evil-doers by the hand.

LXIV

He will yet fill thy mouth with laughing And thy lips with rejoicing. They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame, And the tent of the wicked shall disappear.

LXV

JOB:

I know it is so of a truth; For how should man be in the right against God? If he long to contend with him, He cannot answer him one of a thousand.

LXVI

Wise is he in heart and mighty in strength: Who could venture against him and remain safe?-- Against him who moveth mountains and knoweth not That he hath overturned them in his anger.

LXVII

He shaketh the earth out of her place, And the inhabitants thereof quake with fear; He commandeth the sun and it riseth not, And he sealeth up the stars.[207]

LXVIII

He alone spreadeth out the heavens, And treadeth upon the heights of the sea; He doth great things past finding out, Yea, and wonders without number.[208]

LXIX

Lo, he glideth by me and I see him not; And he passeth on, but I perceive him not. Behold, he taketh away, and who can hinder him? Who will say unto him: "What dost thou?"

LXX

God will not withdraw his anger; The very helpers of the sea-dragon[209] crouch under him. How much less shall I answer him, And choose out my words to argue with him?

LXXI

I must make supplication unto his judgment, Who doth not answer me, though I am righteous, Who would sweep me away with a tempest, And multiply my wounds without cause!

LXXII

He will not suffer me to take my breath, But filleth me with bitterness. If strength be aught, lo, he is strong, And if judgment, who shall arraign him?

LXXIII

Though I were just, my own mouth would condemn me: Though I were faultless, he would make me crooked. Faultless I am, I set life at naught; I spurn my being, therefore I speak out.

LXXIV

He destroyeth the upright and the wicked, When his scourge slayeth at unawares. He scoffeth at the trial of the innocent: The earth is given into the hand of the wicked.

LXXV

My days are swifter than a runner: They flee away, they have seen no good; They glide along like papyrus-boats, Like the eagle swooping upon its prey.

LXXVI

If I say: "I will forget my complaint, I will gladden my face and be cheerful;" Then I shudder at all my sorrows: I know thou wilt not hold me guiltless.

LXXVII

If I washed myself with snow, And cleansed my hands with lye, Thou wouldst plunge me in the ditch, So that mine own garments would loathe me.

LXXVIII

Would he were like unto myself, that I might answer him, That we might come together in judgment! Would there were an umpire between us, Who might lay his hand upon us both!

LXXIX

Let him but withdraw from me his rod, And let not dread of him terrify me; Then would I speak and not fear him, For before myself I am not so.[210]

LXXX

My soul is aweary of life, I will let loose my complaint against God; I will say unto God: Hold me not guilty; Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.

LXXXI

Is it meet that thou shouldst oppress, Shouldst thrust aside the work of thine hands? Seest thou as man seeth? Are thy days as the days of mortals?

LXXXII

For thou inquirest after mine iniquity, And searchest after my sin, Though thou knowest that I am not wicked, And that there is none who can deliver out of thine hand.

LXXXIII

Thine hand hath made and fashioned me, And now hast thou turned to destroy me; Remember, I pray thee, that thou hast formed me as clay; And now wilt thou grind me to dust again?

LXXXIV

Didst thou not pour me out as milk, And curdle me like cheese? Hast thou not clothed me with skin and flesh? And knitted me with bones and sinews?

LXXXV

Thou enduedst me with life and grace; And thy care hath cherished my spirit. And yet these things hadst thou hid in thy heart! I know that this was in thee!

LXXXVI

Had I sinned, thou wouldst have watched me, Nor wouldst have acquitted me of my wrongdoing. Had I been wicked, woe unto me! And though righteous, I dare not to lift up my head.

LXXXVII

As a lion thou huntest me, who am soaked in misery, And ever showest thyself marvellous[211] against me! While I live, thou smitest me ever anew, And lettest thy wrath wax great against me.

LXXXVIII

Wherefore, then, didst thou bring me out of the womb? Would I had then given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! I should now be as though I had never been; I had been borne from the womb to the grave.

LXXXIX

Are not the days of my life but few, So that he might let me be, while I take heart a little Before I depart whence I shall not return, To the land of darkness and of gloom?

XC

ZOPHAR:

Shall the multitude of words be left unanswered? And shall the prattler[212] be deemed in the right? Should men hold their peace at thy babbling? And when thou jeerest, shall none make thee ashamed?

XCI

But oh that God would speak, And open his lips against thee, And that he would show thee the secrets of wisdom That they are as marvels to the understanding!

XCII

It[213] is high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, And broader than the ocean.

XCIII

For he knoweth men of deceit; He seeth wickedness and needeth not to gauge it. Thus[214] the empty man gets understanding, And the wild-ass' colt is born anew as man.

XCIV

If thou make ready thine heart, And stretch out thine hands towards him, Then shalt thou lift up thy face, And in time of affliction be fearless.

XCV

For then shalt thou forget thy misery, And remember it as waters that have passed away; The darkness shall be as morning, And thine age shall be brighter than the noonday.

XCVI

Thou shalt be secure because there is hope, Thou shalt look around and take thy rest in safety; Thou shalt lie down and none shall startle thee, Yea, many shall make suit unto thee.

XCVII

But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, And refuge shall vanish from before them; Their hope shall be the giving up of the ghost; For with him is wisdom and might.

XCVIII

JOB:

No doubt but ye are clever people, And wisdom shall die with you; I too have understanding as well as ye; Just, upright is my way.

XCIX

He that is at ease, scorneth the judgments of Shaddai.[215] His foot stands firm in the time of trial. The tents of robbers prosper, And they that provoke God are secure.

C

But ask, I beseech you, the beasts, And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; Or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee, And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

CI

Is not the soul of every living thing in his hand, And the breath of all mankind? Doth not the ear try words As the mouth tasteth its meat?

CII

For there is no wisdom with the aged,[216] Nor understanding in length of days; With him is wisdom and strength; He hath counsel and understanding.

CIII

Behold he breaketh down and it cannot be builded anew: He shutteth up a man, and who can open to him? Lo, he withholdeth the waters and they dry up, He letteth them loose and they overwhelm the earth.

CIV

With him is strength and wisdom, The erring one and his error are his, Who leadeth away counsellors barefoot, And rendereth the judges fools.

CV

He bringeth back kings into their mausoleums, And overthroweth the nobles; He withdraweth the speech of the trusty, And taketh away the understanding of the aged.

CVI

He poureth scorn upon princes, And looseth the girdle of the strong; He discovereth deep things out of darkness, And bringeth gloom unto light.

CVII

He stealeth the heart of the chiefs of the earth, And maketh them wander in a pathless wilderness So that they grope in the dark without light, And stagger to and fro like a drunken man.

CVIII

Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, Mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also; I am nowise inferior to you.

CIX

But now I would speak to the Almighty, And I long to argue with God; For ye are weavers of lies, Ye all are patchers of inanities.

CX

Oh that ye would all of you hold your peace, And that should stand you in wisdom's stead! Hear, I beseech you, the reasoning of my mouth, And hearken to the pleadings of my lips!

CXI

Will ye discourse wickedly for God? And utter lies on his behalf?[217] Will ye accept his person by dint of trickery? Will ye contend for God with deception?

CXII

Were it well for you should he search you out? Can ye dupe him as ye dupe men? Will he not surely rebuke you, If ye secretly[218] accept his person?

CXIII

Shall not his majesty, then, make you afraid? And his dread seize hold of you? Will not your adages become as ashes, Your arguments even as bulwarks of clay?

CXIV

Hold your peace that I may speak, And let come upon me what will! I shall take my life in my teeth, And put my soul in mine hand.

CXV

Lo, let him kill me, I cherish hope no more, Only I will justify my way before his face. This too will aid my triumph, That no wicked one dares appear in his sight.

CXVI

Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified. Who is he that will plead with me? Only do not two things unto me!

CXVII

Withdraw thine hand from me, And let not dread of thee make me afraid. Then call thou and I will answer, Or let me speak and answer thou unto me.

CXVIII

How many are mine iniquities? Make me to know my misdeeds. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, And holdest me for thine enemy?

CXIX

Wilt thou scare a leaf driven to and fro? And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? That thou writest down bitter things against me, And imputest to me the errors of my youth.

CXX

Thou observest all my paths, And puttest my feet into the stocks, Thy chain weigheth heavy upon me, And cutteth into my feet.[219]

CXXI

Man that is born of a woman, Poor in days and rich in trouble; He cometh forth like a flower and fadeth, He fleeth as a shadow and abideth not.

CXXII

And upon such an one dost thou open thine eyes! And him thou bringest into judgment with thee! Though he is gnawed as a rotten thing, As a garment that is moth-eaten.

CXXIII

If his days are determined upon earth, If the number of his months are with thee; Look then away from him that he may rest, Till he shall accomplish his day, as an hireling.

CXXIV

For there is a future for the tree, And hope remaineth to the palm: Cut down, it will sprout again, And its tender branch will not cease.

CXXV

Though its roots wax old in the earth And its stock lie buried in mould, Yet through vapour of water will it bud, And bring forth boughs like a plant.

CXXVI

But man dieth, and lieth outstretched; He giveth up the ghost, where is he then? He lieth down and riseth not up; Till heaven be no more he shall not awake.

CXXVII

Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave! That thou wouldst secrete me till thy wrath be passed! That thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me! If so be man could die and yet live on!

CXXVIII

All the days of my warfare I then would wait, Till my relief should come; Thou wouldst call and I would answer thee, Thou wouldst yearn after the work of thine hands.

CXXIX

But now thou renumberest my steps, Thou dost not forgive my failing; Thou sealest my transgressions in a bag, And thou still keepest adding to my guilt.

CXXX

ELIPHAZ:

Should a wise man utter empty knowledge, And fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with bootless prattle? Or with speeches that profit him nothing?

CXXXI

Yea, thou makest void the fear of God, And weakenest respect before him; For thine own iniquity instructeth thy mouth, And thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.

CXXXII

Art thou the first man born? Or wast thou made before the hills? Wast thou heard in the council of God? And hast thou drawn wisdom unto thyself?

CXXXIII

What knowest thou that we know not? What understandest thou which is not in us? Doth the solace of God not suffice unto thee, And a word to thee whispered softly?

CXXXIV

Why doth thine heart carry thee away, And what do thine eyes wink at, That thou turnest thy spirit against God, And lettest go such words from thy mouth?

CXXXV

Behold he putteth no trust in his saints; Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight; How much less the foul and corrupt one,-- Man, who lappeth up wickedness like water.

CXXXVI

What the wise announce unto us, Their fathers did not withhold it from them; Unto them alone the land was given, And no stranger passed among them.[220]

CXXXVII

The wicked man travaileth all his days with pain, And few are the years appointed to the oppressor: A sound of dread is in his ears: In prosperity the destroyer shall overtake him.

CXXXVIII

He has no hope of return out of darkness, And he is waited for by the sword. The day of gloom shall terrify him, Distress and anguish shall fasten upon him.

CXXXIX

For he stretched out his arm against God, And girded himself against the Almighty: Rushing upon him with a stiff neck, Guarded by the thick bosses of his buckler.

CXL

The glow shall dry up his branches, And his blossom shall be snapped by the storm-wind. Let him not trust in vanity--he is deluded, For his barter[221] shall prove worthless.

CXLI

His offshoot shall wither before his time, And his branch shall not be green; He shall shake off his unripe grape, like the vine, And shall shed his flower like the olive.

CXLII

For the tribe of the wicked shall be barren, And fire shall consume the tents of bribery: They conceive mischief, and bring forth disaster, And their belly breeds abortion.

CXLIII

JOB:

Many such things have I heard before. Stinging comforters are ye all! Shall idle words have an end? What pricks thee that thou answerest?

CXLIV

I, too, could discourse as ye do, If your souls were in my soul's stead. I would inspirit you with my mouth, Nor would I grudge the moving of my lips.

CXLV

But he hath so jaded me that I am benumbed; His whole host[222] hath seized me. His wrath hackles me and pursues me, He gnashes upon me with his teeth.

CXLVI

The arrows of his myriads have stricken me, He whets his sword, fixing his eyes upon me. They smite me on the cheek outrageously, They mass themselves together against me.

CXLVII

God hath turned me over to the ungodly, And delivered me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he clove me asunder, He throttled me and shook me to pieces.

CXLVIII

He sets me up for his target; His archers compass me round about; He rives my reins asunder, and spareth not, He poureth out my gall upon the ground.

CXLIX

With breach upon breach he breaketh me, He rusheth upon me like a warrior; Sackcloth and ashes cover me, And my horn has been laid in the dust.

CL

My face is aglow with weeping And darkness abides on my eyelids; Though on my hands there is no evil, And my prayer is pure!

CLI

Oh earth! cover not thou my blood! And let my cry find no resting-place! Even now behold my witness is in heaven, And my voucher is on high.

CLII

My friends laugh me wantonly to scorn; Mine eye poureth tears unto God. Let him adjudge between man and God, And between man and his fellow.

CLIII

Soon will the wailing-women come, And I go the way I shall not return. My spirit is spent, the grave is ready for me Truly I am scoffed at.

CLIV

Hold still my pledge in thy keeping, Who then will be my voucher?[223] He yielded his friends as a prey, And the eyes of his children must shrivel up.

CLV

He hath made me a by-word of the peoples, And they spit into my face. My eye is dim by dint of sorrow, And all my members are as a shadow.

CLVI

At this the upright are appalled, And the just bridles up against the impious. But the righteous holds on his way, And the clean-handed waxeth ever stronger.

CLVII

But as for you all--do ye return, For I discern not one wise man among you. My days, my thoughts have passed away; My heart's desires are cut asunder.

CLVIII

If I still hope, it is for my house--the tomb. I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said unto the grave, "My Mother," And to the maggot, "Sister mine."

CLIX

And my hope--where is it now? My bliss--who shall behold it?[224] They go down to the bars of the pit, When our rest together is in the dust.

CLX

BILDAD:

When wilt thou make an end of words? Reflect, and then let us speak! Wherefore are we counted as beasts? Deemed silenced in thy sight?

CLXI

Shall the earth be deserted for thy sake? And shall the rock be removed from its place? Still the light of the wicked shall be douted, And the spark of his fire shall not twinkle.

CLXII

The light in his tent shall be dark; And his taper above him shall be put out. The steps of his strength shall be straitened, And his own design shall ruin him.

CLXIII

For he is tangled in the net by his own feet, And he walketh upon a snare. The slings shall catch him; Many terrors rage menacingly round him.

CLXIV

Hunger shall dog his footsteps; Misery and ruin stand ready by his side: The limbs of his body[225] shall be gnawed, Devoured by the firstborn of death.[226]

CLXV

He shall be dragged out from his stronghold, And he shall be brought to the king of terrors;[227] The memory of him shall vanish from the earth, He shall be driven from light into darkness.

CLXVI

He shall have nor son nor offspring among his people, And he shall have no name above the ground; None shall survive in his dwellings; Strangers shall dwell in his tent.

CLXVII

They of the west are astonied at him, And those of the east stand aghast: Such are the dwellings of the wicked, And this his place who knoweth not God.

CLXVIII

JOB:

How long will ye harrow my soul, And crush me with words? Already ten times have ye insulted me, Ever incensing me anew.

CLXIX

If indeed ye will glorify yourselves above me, And prove me guilty of blasphemy; Know, then, that God hath wronged me, And hath compassed me round with his net!

CLXX

Lo, I cry out against violence, but I am not heard; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass; And he hath set darkness in my paths.

CLXXI

He hath stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head. On all sides hath he ruined me, and I am undone; And mine hope hath he felled like a tree.

CLXXII

He hath kindled against me his wrath, And looketh on me as one of his foes. His troops throng together on my way, And encamp round about my tent.

CLXXIII

He hath put my brethren far from me, And mine acquaintance are estranged from me; My kinsfolk stay away from me, And my bosom friends have forgotten me.

CLXXIV

They that dwell in my house, and my maids, As an alien am I in their eyes. I call my servant, and he giveth me no answer, I must supplicate unto him with my mouth.

CLXXV

My breath is irksome to my wife, And my entreaty to the children of my body.[228] Yea, mere lads despise me: When I arise, they talk about me.

CLXXVI

All my cherished friends abhor me, And they whom I loved are turned against me; My skin cleaveth to my bones, And my teeth are falling out.

CLXXVII

Have pity, have pity on me, O my friends! For the hand of God hath smitten me. Why do ye persecute me like God, And are not satiated with my flesh?

CLXXVIII

Oh would but that my words, Oh would that they were written down! Consigned to writing for ever, Or engraven upon a rock!

CLXXIX

But I know that my avenger liveth, Though it be at the[229] end upon my dust; My witness will avenge these things, And a curse alight upon mine enemies.

CLXXX

My reins within me are consumed, Because you say: "How we shall persecute him!" Fear, for yourselves, the sword, For "wrath overtaketh iniquities."

CLXXXI

ZOPHAR:

It is not thus that my thoughts inspire me, Nor is this the eternal law that I have known.[230] No; the triumph of the wicked is shortlived, And the joy of the ungodly is but for a twinkling.

CLXXXII

Though his height tower aloft to the heavens, And his head reach up to the clouds, Yet shall he perish for ever like dung, They who have seen him shall ask: "Where is he?"

CLXXXIII

He flitteth like a dream and shall not be found, Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night; His hands having crushed the needy, Must restore the substance, and he cannot help it.

CLXXXIV

He hath swallowed down riches and shall disgorge them anew; They shall be driven out of his belly. He hath sucked in the poison of asps, The viper's tongue shall slay him.

CLXXXV

He shall not gaze upon the rivers, The brooks of honey and milk; He must restore the gain and shall not swallow it, His lucre shall be as sand which he cannot chew.

CLXXXVI

For the poor he had crushed and forsaken; Had robbed an house but shall not build it up. Nought had escaped from his greed, Therefore shall his wealth not endure.

CLXXXVII

In the fulness of his abundance he shall be in straits, Every hand of the wretched shall come upon him: He[231] shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, And shall rain down upon him terrors.

CLXXXVIII

When he fleeth from the iron weapon, Then the arrow of steel shall transfix him; He draweth, and it cometh out of his back, And the glittering steel out of his gall.

CLXXXIX

Terrors will trample upon him, All darkness is hid in store for him; A fire not kindled[232] shall consume him, What remaineth in his tent shall be devoured thereby.

CXC

The heavens reveal his iniquity, And the earth riseth up against him: This is the wicked man's portion from God, And the heritage appointed him by Elohim.

CXCI

JOB:

Hearken diligently to my speech, And let that stand me in your comfort's stead! Suffer me that I may speak; And after that I have spoken, mock on!

CXCII

As for me, is my complaint to men? And how should not my spirit be impatient? Look upon me, and tremble, And lay your hand upon your mouth![233]

CXCIII

Even when I remember, I am dismayed, And trembling taketh hold on my flesh. Wherefore do the wicked live? Become old, yea, wax mighty in strength?

CXCIV

Their houses are safe from fear, Neither is the rod of God upon them; Their bull genders and faileth not, Their cow casteth not her calf.

CXCV

Their seed is established in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes; They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children skip about.

CXCVI

They take down the timbrel and the harp, And delight in the sound of the bagpipe; They while away their days in bliss, And in a twinkling go down to the grave.[234]

CXCVII

And yet they say unto God: "Depart from us, We desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Yet hold they not happiness in their own hands? Is he not heedless of the counsel of the wicked?

CXCVIII

How oft is "the lamp of evil-doers put out"? And how often doth "ruin" overwhelm them? How oft are they as stubble before the wind, And as chaff that the storm carries away?

CXCIX

Ye say, "God hoards punishment for the[235] children." Let him rather requite the wicked himself that he may feel it! His own eyes should behold his downfall And he himself should drain the Almighty's wrath!

CC

If his sons are honoured,[236] he will not know it, And if dishonoured, he will not perceive it. Only in his own flesh doth he feel pain, And for his own soul will he lament.

CCI

Is the wicked taught understanding by God? And does he judge the man of blood? Nay, he[237] filleth his milk vessels with milk, And supplieth his bones with marrow.

CCII

But the guiltless dies with embittered soul, And hath never enjoyed a pleasure; Then they alike lie down in the dust, And the worms shall cover them both.

CCIII

Behold I know your thoughts, And the plots which ye wrongfully weave against me. And how will ye comfort me in vain, Since of your answers nought but falsehood remains?

CCIV

ELIPHAZ:

Can a man be profitable unto God? Only unto himself is the wise man serviceable. Is it a boon to the Almighty that thou art righteous? Or is it gain to him that thou makest thy way perfect?

CCV

Will he reprove thee for thy fear of him? Will he enter with thee into judgment for that? Is not rather thy wickedness great? Are not thine iniquities numberless?

CCVI

For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, And stripped the naked of their clothing; Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, And hast withholden bread from the hungry.

CCVII

But as for the mighty man, he held the land, And the honoured man dwelt in it. Thou hast sent widows away empty, And the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

CCVIII

Therefore snares are round about thee, And sudden fear troubleth thee; Thy light hath become darkness, thou canst not see, And a flood of waters covereth thee.

CCIX

Doth not God look down from the height of heaven, And crush the mighty for that they are grown haughty, Which say unto God: "Depart from us," And "What can the Almighty do against us?"

CCX

And he forsooth "shall fill their houses with goods," And "be heedless of the counsel of the wicked": No; the righteous shall look on and be glad, And the innocent shall laugh them to scorn.

CCXI

Befriend now thyself with him, and thou shalt be safe, Thereby shall good come unto thee. Receive, I pray thee, instruction from his mouth, And treasure up his words in thine heart.

CCXII

If thou turnest to God and humblest thyself, If thou remove iniquity from thy tent, Then shalt thou have delight in the Almighty, And shalt lift up thy face unto God.

CCXIII

Thou shalt pray unto him and he shall hear thee, And thou shalt pay thy vows; If thou purpose a thing, it shall prosper unto thee, And a light shall shine upon thy ways.

CCXIV

JOB:

Oh, I know it already: I myself am to blame for my misery,[238] And his hand is heavy upon me by reason of my groaning! Oh that I knew where I might find him, That I might come even unto his seat!

CCXV

I would plead my cause before him, And fill my mouth with arguments; I would fain know the words which he could answer me, And learn what he would say unto me.

CCXVI

Will he plead against me with his almighty power? If not, then not even he would prevail against me. For a righteous one would dispute with him; So should I be delivered for ever from my judge.

CCXVII

Behold I go forward, but he is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive him. For he knoweth the way that I have chosen: If he would try me, I should come forth as gold.

CCXVIII

My foot has held his steps, His way have I kept and swerved not; I have not gone back from the precept of his lips, I have hid the words of his mouth in my bosom.

CCXIX

But he is bent upon one thing and who can turn him away? And what his soul desireth even that he doeth. Therefore am I troubled before his face; When I consider, I am afraid of him.

CCXX

God hath crushed my heart, And the Almighty hath terrified me. For I am annihilated because of the darkness, And gloom enwrappeth my face.

CCXXI

Why do the times of judgment depend upon the Almighty, And yet they who know him do not see his days?[239] The wicked remove the landmarks; They rob flocks and lead them to pasture.

CCXXII

They drive away the ass of the fatherless, The widow's ox they seize for a pledge; They turn the needy out of the way, All the poor of the earth have to hide themselves.[240]

CCXXIII

Lo, these things mine ear hath heard, Mine eye hath seen them, and so it is.[241] And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar, And render my speech meaningless?

CCXXIV

BILDAD:

Dominion and fear are with him, Who maketh peace in his high places. Is there any number to his armies? And upon whom doth his light not arise?

CCXXV

By his power the sea groweth calm, And by his understanding he smiteth the sea-dragon. By his breath the heavens become splendour; His hand hath pierced the bolt-serpent.

CCXXVI

But the thunder of his power, Who understands its working? And how can man be deemed just before God, And how can he be clean who is born of a woman?

CCXXVII

Behold, even the moon shineth not, Yea, the stars are not pure in his sight; How much less man, the worm; And the son of man, the maggot!

CCXXVIII

JOB:

How hast thou helped him that is without power? How upholdest thou the arm that hath no strength? To whom hast thou uttered words? And whose spirit went out from thee?

CCXXIX

As God liveth who hath taken away my right, And the Almighty who hath made my soul bitter, Never shall my lips confess untruth, Nor my tongue give utterance to falsehood!

CCXXX

Far be it from me to agree with you! Till I die I will not yield up my integrity! My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go, My heart doth not censure any one of my days.

CCXXXI

I will teach you about the hand of God, The counsel of the Almighty will I not conceal. Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it.[242] Why then do ye utter such empty things?

CCXXXII

For there is a mine for silver, And a place for gold where they fine it; Iron is taken out of the dust, And copper is smolten out of the stone.

CCXXXIII

He that hovers far from man hath made an end to gloom,[243] He turneth the mountains upside down. He cutteth out stulms among the rocks, And the thing that is hid he bringeth forth to light.

CCXXXIV

But wisdom--whence shall it come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hid from the eyes of all living, Our ears alone have heard thereof.[244]

CCXXXV

God understandeth its way, And he knoweth its dwelling-place; For he looketh to the ends of the earth, And seeth under the entire heaven.

CCXXXVI

When he made the weight for the winds, And weighed the waters by measure, Then did he see and declare it, He prepared it, yea, and searched it out.

CCXXXVII

Then he said unto man, "Desist! Worry not about things too high for thee. Behold, fear of me, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil, that is understanding."

CCXXXVIII

ZOPHAR:

May the lot of the wicked befall mine enemy, And that of the ungodly him who riseth up against me! For what can be the hope of the iniquitous, When God cutteth his soul away?

CCXXXIX

Will God hear his cry, When trouble overtaketh him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?

CCXL

If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword, And his offspring shall not be sated with bread; They that survive him shall be buried in death, And their widows shall not weep.

CCXLI

Though he heap up silver as the dust And store up raiment as the clay, He may indeed prepare it, but the just shall put it on, And the guiltless shall divide the silver.

CCXLII

He buildeth his house as a spider; Rich shall he lie down, but rich he shall not remain. Terrors take hold on him like waters; A tempest sweepeth him away in the night.

CCXLIII

JOB:

Oh that I were as in months gone by, As in the days when God preserved me; When his lamp shined upon my head, And when I walked by his light through darkness!

CCXLIV

For then I moved in sunshine, While God was familiar with my tent; While I washed my steps in cream, And the rock poured me out rivers of oil.

CCXLV

When I went to the gate at the city,[245] When I prepared my seat on the public place, Then the young men, seeing me, hid themselves, And the aged arose and remained standing.

CCXLVI

Princes desisted from talking, And laid their hands upon their mouths; For the ear heard me and blessed, The eye saw me and bore me witness.

CCXLVII

For I delivered the poor that cried aloud, And the orphan and him that had none to help him; The blessing of him that was perishing came upon me, And I gladdened the heart of the widow.

CCXLVIII

I put on righteousness and it clothed me; My judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I became eyes to the blind, And I was feet unto the lame.

CCXLIX

I was a father to the poor, And the cause which I knew not I searched out; And I brake the grinders of the wicked. And plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

CCL

Unto me men gave ear and waited, And kept silence at my counsel. After my words they spake not again, And my speech fell upon them as a shower.

CCLI

But now they laugh me to scorn, Shepherd boys approach me with insolence, Whose fathers I would not have deigned To set with the dogs of my flock.

CCLII

Yea, what booted me the strength of their hands? Pity upon them was thrown away. They were children of fools, yea, men of no name, They were driven forth from the land.

CCLIII

And now I am become the song of these! Yea, I am become their byword! They loathe me, they flee far from me, And withhold not spittle from my face.

CCLIV

For he hath dissolved my dignity and humbled me, And he hath taken away my renown. He hath opened a way to my miseries; They enter and no one helpeth me.

CCLV

With rumbling and booming they bounded along; Terrors are turned upon me; Thou scatterest my dignity, as with a wind, And my welfare passeth as a cloud.

CCLVI

The night gnaws away my bones, And my devourers need no repose; By swellings is my garment misshapen, And I am grown like unto dust and ashes.

CCLVII

I cry and thou hearest me not, Thou art become ruthless towards me; With the strength of thy hand thou assailest me, And thou meltest my salvation away.

CCLVIII

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, And to the house appointed for all living. But shall not a drowning man stretch out his hand? Shall he not cry out in his destruction?

CCLIX

Did I not weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? I looked for good and waited for light; Behold days of sorrowing are come upon me.

CCLX

I go mourning without sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry aloud; I am become a brother unto jackals, And a comrade unto ostriches.

CCLXI

My skin hath grown black upon me And my bones are scorched with heat; My harp is turned to mourning, And my bagpipe into the wail of the weeping.[246]

CCLXII

If I have walked with men of wickedness, Or if my feet have hastened to deceit, Let him weigh me in balances of justice, That God may know mine integrity!

CCLXIII

If my steps have swerved from the way, And mine heart followed in the wake of mine eyes, Let me now sow and another eat, Yea, let my garden be rooted out!

CCLXIV

If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, Or if I have lain in wait at my neighbour's door, Then let my wife turn the mill unto another And let others bow down upon her!

CCLXV

For adultery is a grievous crime, Yea, a crime to be punished by the judges: It is a fire that consumeth to utter destruction, And would root out all mine increase.

CCLXVI

Had I despised the right of my man-servant Or of my maidservant, when they contended with me, What could I do, when God rose up? And when he visiteth, what could I answer him?

CCLXVII

For perdition from God was a terror to me, And for his highness' sake I could not do such things. Did not he that made me in the womb, make him?[247] And did he not fashion us in one belly?

CCLXVIII

Never have I withheld the poor from their desire, Nor caused the widow's eyes to fail; Nor have I eaten my morsel alone, Unless the fatherless had partaken thereof.

CCLXIX

If I saw one perish for lack of clothing, Or any of the poor devoid of covering; Then surely did his loins bless me, And he was warmed with the fleece of my sheep.

CCLXX

If I lifted up my hand against the fatherless, When I saw my backers in the gate,[248] Then let my shoulder fall from its setting, And mine arm from its channel bone!

CCLXXI

I have never made gold my hope, Nor said to the fine gold: "Thou art my trust;" Never did I rejoice that my wealth was great, And because mine hand had found much.

CCLXXII

Never did I gaze upon the sun, because it shone brightly, Nor upon the moon floating in glory, So that my heart was secretly enticed, And I wafted kisses to them, putting my hand to my mouth.[249]

CCLXXIII

Never did I rejoice at the ruin of my hater, Nor exult when misery found him out; Neither have I suffered my throat to sin, By wreaking a curse upon his soul.

CCLXXIV

Never had the guests of my tent to say: "Oh, that we had our fill of his meat!" I suffered not the stranger to lodge out of doors, But I opened my gates to the traveller.

CCLXXV

I covered not my failings after the manner of men, By locking mine iniquity in my bosom, As if I feared the vast multitude, Or because the scorn of families[250] appalled me.

CCLXXVI

And I, forsooth, should keep silence, should not come forward! Oh, that one would hear me! Here is my signature; let the Almighty answer me, And hear the indictment which my adversary hath written![251]

CCLXXVII

Surely I would hoist it upon my shoulder, And weave it as a crown unto myself; I would account to him for the number of my steps; As a prince would I draw near unto him.

CCLXXVIII

JAHVEH:

Who is this that darkeneth my counsel, With words devoid of knowledge? Now gird up thy loins like a man, For I shall ask of thee, and do thou teach me!

CCLXXIX

When I laid the earth's foundation where wast thou? Declare, if thou hast understanding! Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest, Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

CCLXXX

Where are its sockets sunk down, Or who laid the corner-stone thereof? When the morning stars exulted together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy.

CCLXXXI

Who shut in the sea with doors, When it brake forth as issuing from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness for its swaddling-band.

CCLXXXII

Then I brake up for it its appointed place, And set it bars and portals, And said: "Hitherto shalt thou come, And here shall thy haughty waves be stayed!"

CCLXXXIII

Was it at thy prompting that I commanded the morning, And caused the dawn to know its place? That it might seize hold of the ends of the earth, That the wicked might be shaken out?[252]

CCLXXXIV

Then the earth changes as clay under the seal, And all things appear therein as an embroidery;[253] But from the wicked is withholden their hiding-place, And the raised arm shall be shattered.

CCLXXXV

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in search of the abysses? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee, Or hast thou seen the doors of darkness?

CCLXXXVI

Hast thou surveyed the breadth of the earth? Declare, if thou knowest, its measure! Thou must needs know it, for then wast thou already born, And great is the number of thy days!

CCLXXXVII

Which way leadeth to the dwelling of light? And of darkness, where is the abode? That thou shouldst take it to its bounds, And that thou shouldst know the paths to its house?

CCLXXXVIII

Hast thou entered into the granaries of the snow, Or hast thou seen the arsenals of the hail, Which I have laid up for the time of trouble, Against the day of battle and of war?

CCLXXXIX

By what way is the mist parted? And the east wind scattered upon the earth? Who hath divided its course for the rain-storm? And its path for the lightning of thunder?

CCXC

Out of whose womb issued the ice? And who gendered the hoar-frost of heaven? The waters are as stone, And the face of the deep condensed like clots together.

CCXCI

Canst thou bind the knots of the Pleiads, Or loose the fetters of Orion? Canst thou send lightnings that they may speed, And say unto thee: Here we are?

CCXCII

Who in his wisdom can number the clouds, Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, That the dust may thicken into mire, And the clods cleave close together?

CCXCII

Canst thou hunt its prey for the lion, Or sate the appetite of the young lions, When they couch in their dens, And abide in the covert to lie in wait?

CCXCIV

Who provideth his food for the raven, When his young ones cry unto God? It hovereth around nor groweth weary, Seeking food for its nestlings.

CCXCV

Canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months when they bring forth? They cast out their burdens, Their little ones grow up out of doors.

CCXCVI

Who hath sent out the wild ass free, Whose dwelling I have made the wilderness, Who scorneth the noise of the city, Nor heedeth the driver's cry?

CCXCVII

Will the wild ox be willing to serve thee, Or abide by thy grip? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, Or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?

CCXCVIII

Dost thou bestow might upon the horse? Dost thou clothe his neck with a waving mane? Dost thou make him to bound like a locust, In the pride of his terrible snort?

CCXCIX

He paws in the vale and rejoices; Goes with strength to encounter the weapons; He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, And recoileth not from the sword.

CCC

The quiver clangs upon him, The flashing lance and the javelin; Furiously bounding, he swallows the ground, And cannot be reined in at the trumpet-blast.

CCCI

When the clarion soundeth he crieth, "Aha!" And sniffs the dust raised by the hosts from afar; He dasheth into the thick of the fray, Into the captains' shouting and the roar of battle.

CCCII

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, And spread her pinions towards the south? She builds her nest on high, dwelling on the rock, And abideth there, seeking prey.

CCCIII

Will the caviller still contend with the Almighty? He that reproves God, let him answer! Wilt thou even disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me that thou mayst be in the right?

CCCIV

If thou hast an arm like God, If thou canst thunder with a voice like his, Deck thyself now with majesty and grandeur And array thyself in glory and splendour!

CCCV

Scatter abroad the rage of thy wrath, And hurl down all that is exalted! The haughty bring low by a glance, And trample down the wicked in their place!

CCCVI

Hide them together in the dust, And bind their faces in secret! Then will I, too, confess unto thee That thine own right hand can save thee!

CCCVII

JOB:

Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will do so no more, Yea, twice, but I will proceed no further.

CCCVIII

I know that thou canst do everything, And that nothing is beyond thy reach; Hence I say: I have uttered that I understand not, Things too wonderful for me, which I know not.

CCCIX

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, But now mine eye hath beheld thee; Therefore I resign and console myself, Though in dust and ashes.

EPILOGUE

CHAP. XLII. A.V.]

7¶ _And if was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 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.

8 _Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you_ after your _folly, in that ye have not spoken of me_ the thing which is _right, like my servant Job._

9 _So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the Lord commanded them: the Lord also accepted Job._

10 _And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before._

11 _Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold._

12 _So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses_.

13 _He had also seven sons and three daughters_.

14 _And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch_.

15 _And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren_.

16 _After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations_.

17 _So Job died, being old and full of days_.

Footnotes:

[196] _I.e._, the magicians by means of incantations.

[197] Allusion to the Satan's remark in the Prologue, chap. i. to: "Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?"

[198] The strophe which follows in Prof. Bickell's text I consider a later insertion, and have therefore struck it out. It runs thus:

"The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, And the teeth of the young lions are broken; The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, And the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad."

[199] The prophetic vision which Eliphaz now describes is relied upon by him as the sanction for his whole discourse. To his seeming, it is a direct revelation from God.

[200] The sons of God, sons of the Elohim. _Cf._ Genesis vi. 4. There is no analogy between these sons of God and the angels or saints of Christianity. _Cf._ also Prof. Cheyne, "Job and Solomon," p. 81: Baudissin, Studien, II.

[201] The human body is likened to a tent of which the tent-pole is the breath of life; this gone, all that remains is the natural prey of the elements.

[202] Calumny.

[203] Allusion to his sufferings at night from elephantiasis. This terrible malady, which was first described by Rhazes, in the ninth century, under the name _dâ-l-fîl_ ("disease of the elephant"), was for a long time erroneously believed to be confined to Arabia. As a matter of fact, it is found in an endemic state in all warm countries, and sporadically even in Europe. In tropical and sub-tropical lands it progresses with alarming rapidity. Every new crisis is preceded by a shivering sensation and violent fever, frequently accompanied with headache, delirium, and nervous and gastric suffering. A violent attack of this kind may last seven or eight days. The seat of the disease is generally the foot or the reproductive organs. In the former case the foot swells to a monstrous size, instep, toes and heel and ankle all merging in one dense mass that reminds one of the foot of an elephant.

[204] Job feels that death is nigh.

[205] Allusion to an ocean myth. A watch had to be set upon the movements of the monsters of the sea and the firmament.

[206] The irony of these words addressed by Job to Jehovah would be deemed blasphemous in a poet like Byron or Shelley. As a matter of fact, they constitute a parody of Psalm viii. 5. as Prof. Cheyne has already pointed out ("Job and Solomon").

[207] The firmament, being a solid mass, has paths cut out along which the stars move in their courses, just as there are channels made for the clouds and rain.

[208] This entire speech is ironical.

[209] Allusion to a myth.

[210] In the light of my own conscience I am not an evil-doer.

[211] Ironical.

[212] _Lit_., the man of lips.

[213] Wisdom.

[214] _I.e_., God's wisdom enables him to discern the deceit of those who appear just, and the punishment which he deals out to them makes the result of his knowledge visible to the dullest comprehension.

[215] A name for God.

[216] The current versions of the Bible make Job say the contrary: "With the ancient _is_ wisdom; and in length of days understanding" (Job xii. 12, Authorised Version). _Cf. ante_, "Interpolations."

[217] _I.e_., Will ye persist in maintaining that God rewards the good and punishes the wicked (as Zophar has just done, strophe xcvii.) in spite of the fact that ye know it is untrue?

[218] _I.e_., not on grounds obvious to all, but because your own particular lot is satisfactory.

[219] Compare this with the extraordinary verse in our Authorised Version: "Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet"! (Job ii. 27).

[220] This is one of the very few passages in the Poem which throw light upon the date of its composition.

[221] _I.e_., the object for which he bartered righteousness.

[222] Host of evils which has attacked me from all sides.

[223] Ironical.

[224] An allusion to the promises made by the friends on the part of God that Job would, if he repented and asked for pardon, recover his former prosperity.

[225] _Lit_., the pieces of his skin.

[226] Probably an allusion to elephantiasis.

[227] The personification of death.

[228] Either "the sons of the womb which has borne me," as in iii. 10, or else "my own children," the poet forgetting that in the prologue they are described as having been killed.

[229] _I.e_., when it is too late.

[230] Zophar discerns perfect moral order in the world.

[231] God.

[232] _I.e_., by man.

[233] _I.e_., be silent.

[234] Job's ideal of a happy death was identical with that of Julius Caesar--the most sudden and least foreseen.

[235] Literally, "his."

[236] _I.e_., after his death.

[237] _I.e._, God.

[238] Ironical.

[239] If there be a God who rules the world, punishes evil, and rewards good, how comes it that we descry no signs of such just retribution?

[240] About seven strophes in the same quasi-impious strain, characterising the real reign of Jehovah upon earth as distinguished from the optimistic delineations of Job's friends, are lost. The verses that have taken their place in our manuscripts are portions of a different work, which has no relation whatever to our poem. They are not even in the same metre as Job, but contain strophes of three lines only.

[241] Conjecture of Professor Bickell; these two lines are not found in the MSS.

[242] I will judge ye out of your own mouths. Ye maintained, all of you, that the principles on which the world is governed are absolutely unintelligible. How then can ye reason as if the moral order were based upon retribution, and from my sufferings infer my sins?

[243] The miner who descends into the abyss of the earth, and carries a lamp.

[244] Wisdom is here identified with God, of whom we know nothing and have only vaguely heard from those who knew less, i.e., former generations, for whom Job has scant respect.

[245] To mete out justice.

[246] Two strophes are wanting here, in which Job presumably says that this great change of fortune is not the result of his conduct. The LXX offers nothing here in lieu of the lost verses; but the Massoretic text has the strophes which occur in the Authorised Version (xxxi. 1-4), and which would seem to have been substituted for the original verses. The present Hebrew text is useless here. If the four Massoretic verses which it offers had stood in the original, so important are they that they would never have been omitted by the Greek translators, who evidently did not possess them in their texts. They remind one to some extent of certain passages of the Sermon on the Mount, and are manifestly of late origin.

[247] _I.e._, my servant.

[248] The concourse of people and partisans at the gate where justice was administered.

[249] _I.e._, I never adored them as gods.

[250] Of the nobles.

[251] This is the passage become famous in the imaginary form: "That mine adversary had written a book!" (xxxi. 35).

[252] Daylight is hostile to criminals, and the manner in which it operates is here compared to a tossing of them off the outspread carpet of the earth.

[253] On a carpet, to which the earth is still compared.

* * * * *

THE SPEAKER

TRANSLATION OF THE RESTORED TEXT

* * * * *

THE SPEAKER