Job · Chapter 2

Verse 1. Again there was a day] How long this was after the former trial, we know not: probably one whole year, when, as the Targum intimates, it was the time of the annual atonement; which, if so, must have been at least one whole year after the former; and during which period the patience and resignation of Job had sufficient scope to show themselves. This appearance of the sons of God and Satan is to be understood metaphorically—there could be nothing real in it—but it is intended to instruct us in the doctrine of the existence of good and evil spirits; that Satan pursues man with implacable enmity, and that he can do no man hurt, either in his person or property, but by the especial permission of God; and that God gives him permission only when he purposes to overrule it for the greater manifestation of his own glory, and the greater good of his tempted followers.

Verse 1. Again there was a day — Another appointed season, some convenient time after the former calamities. Heath translates µywh yhyw, vajehi hajom, Again it was the day. Of this and the two next verses, see notes on Job 1:6-8.

Verse 1. There was a day when the sons of God &c. As on the former chapter, ver. 6.

V. 3. Still-Notwithstanding all his afflictions, and thy suggestion to the contrary. Movedst-This, as the rest of this representation, is not to be understood literally: But the design is to signify both the devil’s restless malice in promoting man’s misery and God’s permission of it for wise and holy ends.

Verse 3. To destroy him without cause.] Thou wishedst me to permit thee to destroy a man whose sins have not called for so heavy a judgment. This seems to be the meaning of this saying. The original word, לבלעו leballeo, signifies to swallow down or devour; and this word St. Peter had no doubt in view in the place quoted on verse 7 of the preceding chapter: {Job 1:7} “Your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may DEVOUR; zhtwn, tina katapih, seeking whom he may SWALLOW or GULP DOWN. See Clarke’s note on “1 Peter 5:8”.

Verse 3. Hast thou considered, &c. — Hebrew, Ëbl tmvh, hashamta libbecha, Hast thou set thy heart on my servant? &c. And still he holdeth fast his integrity — Notwithstanding all his trials and tribulations, and thy malicious suggestion to the contrary, he continues to be the same perfect and upright man he was before; and all thy efforts to wrest from him his integrity, and draw him into sin, have been fruitless. Although thou movedst me, &c. — It is justly observed by a late writer, that the translation of this verse will be more agreeable to the Hebrew, if, with the vulgar Latin, we place the interrogation after the word integrity; namely, Timens Deum, et recedens a malo, et adhuc retinens innocentiam? Fearing God, departing from evil, and still holding fast his integrity? For thus do the three participles in Hebrew follow one another. Instead then of rendering the next word, although thou movedst me; he proposes reading, And yet thou movest me; or, to continue the interrogation, namely, And dost thou, or, wilt thou, move me against him to destroy him without cause? This, and the rest of this representation, respecting Satan’s moving, that is, persuading and prevailing with God, to bring, or to suffer this his enemy to bring, these grievous calamities upon Job, is not to be understood literally; as if God could be moved by any of his creatures, especially by Satan, to alter or depart from his own wise and holy purposes, which are all eternal and unchangeable, to gratify that evil spirit by granting his desires: but the design is simply to signify the devil’s restless malice, in promoting man’s misery, and God’s permission of it, for his own glory. To destroy him without cause — Without any signal guilt or special provocation, whereby he, more than others, deserved to be chastised by such heavy calamities; not but that there might be other very weighty causes for them: for the divine wisdom, we may be sure, neither does nor suffers any thing without cause; that is, without a sufficient reason. That good men are sometimes extremely afflicted, and that not only in their outward estate, but in their persons, as Job was, is too plain to be denied; (see John 9:3;) and, whether God permits wicked spirits, or wicked men, or any thing else, to be the immediate instrument of a good man’s sufferings, makes no alteration as to the nature or degree of his sufferings. But the word µnj chinnam, here rendered, without cause, may, with equal propriety, be translated, as it is Proverbs 1:17; Ezekiel 6:10, and elsewhere, in vain; and be referred, not to God’s destroying him, but to Satan’s moving God so to do. And then the reading will be, Thou hast in vain moved, or dost, or wilt, in vain move me to destroy him; that is, without effect, or to no purpose; for thou art not able to take away his integrity, which, in spite of all thy art and malice, he still holds fast. Thus Junius and Tremellius translate the words: Hast thou considered my servant Job — that he still retains his integrity? and, in vain hast thou excited me to destroy him: and Houbigant, He still retains his integrity, after thou hast excited me against him, that I might trouble him, in vain.

3. Holdeth fast his integrity — As a soldier his shield, because his life is wrapped up in it. Movedst me — For the test and maturing of the godly character of men, the devices of Satan are tolerated in the divine scheme. To destroy him without cause — “This points to a very important rule in the divine administration, according to which the cause of a destructive temptation is something in a man’s self — a sin, for example, leading on to a larger and larger. There was no such cause in Job why he should be tempted to destruction.” — Chalmers. The bias of the heart to any peculiar sin invites trial or temptation; while the cherishing of secret sin subsequently lands us in a larger temptation. The metallic rock hidden in the each attracts not one, but many lightning strokes. The strokes of trial, in the mercy of God, are meant not to scathe, but to burn out the subtle springs of sin’s disease. That the malicious aspersions of Satan may be confounded, and Job become an exemplar to the Church in all ages, God is moved, of his own free will, to permit the trial of Job, though without cause.

V. 4. Skin, &c.-The sense is, this is so far from being an evidence of Job’s sincere and generous piety, that it is only an act of mere self-love; he is contented with the loss of his estate, and children too, so long as he sleeps in a whole skin; and he is well pleased, that thou wilt accept of these a ransom in his stead; and it is not true patience which makes him seem to bear his crosses so submissively, but policy, that he may appease thy wrath against him, and prevent those farther plagues, which, for his hypocrisy, he fears thou wilt otherwise bring upon his own carcase.

Verse 4. Skin for skin] That is, A man will part with all he has in the world to save his life; and he will part with all by piecemeal, till he has nothing left on earth, and even be thankful, provided his life be spared. Thou hast only destroyed his property; thou hast left him his life and his health. Thou hast not touched his flesh nor his bone; therefore he is patient and resigned. Man, through the love of life, will go much farther: he will give up one member to save the rest; yea, limb after limb as long as there is hope that, by such sacrifices, life may be spared or prolonged. This is the meaning given to the passage by the Targum; and, I believe, the true one; hence, Job 2:6, the Lord says, Save his life.

Verse 4. Skin for skin, &c. — The design of these words is plain, which was to detract from Job, and to diminish that honour and praise which God gave him, by pretending that he had done no more than the meanest men commonly do by the law of self-preservation. And it is equally clear that this was a proverbial speech then in use, to denote the great value in which life is held, insomuch that, to preserve it, a man would suffer even his skin to be torn off. It may signify also that a man, in order to save his life, would willingly suffer himself to be stripped of all his property. But the words wvpn d[b begnad naphsho, rendered here, for his life, ought rather to be rendered, for his person. For the question was not about his life, which Satan had not the impudence to desire; nor indeed could the trial be made, by taking away his life, whether he would hold fast his integrity; but rather by smiting him in his bone, and in his flesh. And Satan, in these words, insinuates that severe bodily pain was much more grievous to the human nature, and would be less patiently borne by Job, than any outward calamities which did not affect his own person. It is as if he had said, How dear soever a man’s goods, or servants, or children, may be to him, yet still his own person is dearer; and seeing that Job is still under no pain of body, and in no danger of losing his life, his constancy is not to be boasted of: nor is his holding fast his integrity amidst his losses, nor his patience under them, an evidence of his sincere and generous piety, but these things are rather effects of mere self-love: he is content with the loss of his estate, and even of his children too, so long as he sleeps in a whole skin; and is well pleased that thou wilt accept of these as a ransom in his stead. And it is not true patience which makes him seem to bear his troubles so submissively, but rather policy, that he may in this way appease thy wrath against him, and prevent those further plagues, which, for his hypocrisy, he fears thou wouldst otherwise bring upon his body.

Ver. 4. Skin for skin. Septuagint, “skin after skin.” Men’s riches in the first periods of society very much consisted in cattle and skins; and the honest man would sooner give up his skins to the Arabian robbers than his life. But as the Hebrew language labours under many difficulties from the bearing of its prepositions, those who follow the LXX, “skin after skin,” make the sense to be, that providence takes away our dearest comforts, as cattle and children, by a succession of strokes. This phrase being so antique, marks the antiquity of the book.

4. Skin for skin — Among the conflicting interpretations of this difficult verse are, first, that a man will readily give the skin, that is, the life of others for his own skin or life. Just as by “life for life,” in Exodus 21:23, is meant the giving of one life for another, Job would gladly yield up every thing — property, friends, relatives even, (so Satan meant to say,) if so be that his own precious life might be preserved. Such sacrifice, Satan insinuates, is no proof of godly fear; it is no more than what any one else would do under like circumstances. Touch his own life, and we shall see how he will curse thee. The second theory may be called that of mercantile exchange, as if the passage read “like for like,” “an equivalent for an equivalent,” “as one dead thing (=skin) resembles another dead thing.” — Ewald. Thus so long as Job keeps his life, he is only half tried. Hitzig also interprets: One gives skin for skin; that is, every thing has its price, but a man will take nothing, and will give every thing, for his life: as in a storm the most precious freight is cast into the sea that the human freight may be saved. The Jewish expositors take the meaning to be, One gives up skin to preserve skin; that is, parts with a diseased limb for the sake of the rest; “one holds up the arm,” as Raschi suggests, “to avert the fatal blow from the head.” Third. Olshausen makes the saying to hinge upon the idea of person: “As long as thou leavest his person untouched, he will leave thee personally unassailed.” Renan regards it as a proverb, the sense of which is, that man is only moderately sensible to exterior losses, which do not touch his person. Fourth. Carey’s view is, that the proverb contains a sort of reductio ad absurdum argument, thus: Never expect a man to part with his skin unless you supply him with another; an impossible condition, and therefore equivalent to never expect that a man will part with his skin on any conditions whatever; in other words, On no terms will a man part with his life. To save his life, a man will part with every thing else. Fifth. A writer in Jour. of Sac. Literature, (January, 1859, p. 337) discards the idea of a proverb. He would translate d[b, around or about, instead of for, as it is in Job 1:10. The idea then would be, skin around skin, (meaning a succession of skins,) yea, all that a man hath around HIMSELF, will he surrender; but put forth thine hand now, and reach unto his bone and flesh. (Comp. Job 10:11.) The first of these opinions, which is also substantially that of Vaihinger, Dillmann, Heiligstedt, Canon Cook, etc., is unquestionably the most satisfactory. It is in keeping with the malicious aspersion upon human virtue that inaugurated the preceding trials, and is a charge of basal inhumanity upon our whole race. The selfish feelings, it means to say, are ever uppermost in man’s heart. The stoicism that Job has already shown is proof that he cares not if his whole family perish, so long as he can keep a whole skin.

Verse 5. He will curse thee to thy face.] Literally, If he will not bless thee to thy face or appearances. His piety to thee will be always regulated by thy bounty to him. See Clarke’s note on “Job 1:11”.

Verse 5. But touch his bone and his flesh — That is, smite him, not slightly, but to the quick, to the bones and marrow, so that he may feel pain and anguish indeed: and he will curse thee to thy face — Will openly and daringly blaspheme thy perfections, and reproach the dispensations of thy providence, and so will let go his integrity. Satan knew, and we find by experience, that nothing has a greater tendency to ruffle the mind, and put its passions into disorder, than acute pain and distemper of body.

5. Touch his bone — Among the most painful diseases are those that have their seat in the bone. Job touchingly refers to this feature of his disease. (Job 30:17, 30.) The association of [gn, touch, with la, (into or even to,) rather than b, as in Job 1:11, Delitzsch has well remarked, “expresses increased malignity.”

V. 6. In thine hand-If God did not chain up the roaring lion, how soon would he devour us! As far as he permits the wrath of Satan and wicked men, to proceed against his people, he will make it turn to his praise and theirs, and the remainder thereof he will restrain. Job, in being thus maligned of Satan, was a type of Christ. He had permission to bruise his heel, to touch his bone and his flesh; yea, and his life also; because by dying he was to do what Job could not do, to destroy him that had the power of death.

Verse 6. But save his life.] His body thou shalt have permission to afflict, but against his life thou shalt have no power; therefore take care of his life. The original, rmv wvpn naphsho shemor, may be translated, keep his soul; but the word also signifies life; yet in the hands of the destroyer the life of this holy man is placed! How astonishing is the economy of salvation! It is so managed, by the unlimited power and skill of God, that the grand adversary of souls becomes himself, by the order of God, the preserver of that which the evil of his nature incessantly prompts him to destroy!

Verse 6. The Lord said, Behold, he is in thy hand — I give thee permission to try him even in this way: do thy worst at him; afflict him to the uttermost of thy power. But save his life — Do not attempt to take that away which I will not suffer thee to do. God had mercy in store for Job, after this trial, and therefore he must survive it; and how much soever he may be afflicted, his life must be given him for a prey. If God did not chain up the roaring lion, how soon would he devour us! As far as he permits the wrath of Satan and wicked men to proceed against his people, he will make it turn to his own praise and theirs, and the remainder thereof he will restrain. Job, in being thus maligned and afflicted by Satan, was a type of Christ; whose heel that infernal serpent was permitted to bruise, to touch even his bone and his flesh, yea, and his life also; because, by dying, he was to do what Job could not do, to destroy him that had the power of death.

6. In thine hand — “God did not himself smite Job lest Satan should carpingly say, Thou hast spared and not tried him to the utmost.” — Chrysostom. But save his life — Only (margin) spare his life; wvpn, naphsho; according to others, his soul, that which gives life. Apart from its union with the spirit, there is no life of the body. (James 2:26.) According to Maimonides, (in Moreh,) God stipulated that his mind should not be touched, because it is of divine substance. “This limiting of his power — that the mind should be spared,” the Talmud says, “was more grievous to Satan than to Job. As if one should permit the breaking of a flask on the condition that the wine be preserved.” The meaning here, however, must, as in verse 4, be “life.”

V. 7. Boils-Like those inflicted upon the Egyptians, which are expressed by the same word, and threatened to apostate Israelites, Deuteronomy 28:27, whereby he was made loathsome to himself, and to his nearest relations, and filled with consuming pains in his body, and no less torments and anguish in his mind.

Verse 7. Sore boils] [r ˆyjcb bischin ra, “with an evil inflammation.” What this diabolical disorder was, interpreters are not agreed. Some think it was the leprosy, and this is the reason why he dwelt by himself, and had his habitation in an unclean place, without the city, (Septuagint, exw thv pwlewv,) or in the open air: and the reason why his friends beheld him afar off, Job 2:12, was because they knew that the disorder was infectious.

His scraping himself with a potsherd indicates a disease accompanied with intolerable itching, one of the characteristics of the smallpox. Query, Was it not this disorder? And in order to save his life (for that he had in especial command) did not Satan himself direct him to the cool regimen, without which, humanly speaking, the disease must have proved fatal? In the elephantiasis and leprosy there is, properly speaking, no boil or detached inflammation, or swelling, but one uniform disordered state of the whole surface, so that the whole body is covered with loathsome scales, and the skin appears like that of the elephant, thick and wrinkled, from which appearance the disorder has its name. In the smallpox it is different; each pock or pustule is a separate inflammation, tending to suppuration; and during this process, the fever is in general very high, and the anguish and distress of the patient intolerable. When the suppuration is pretty far advanced, the itching is extreme; and the hands are often obliged to be confined to prevent the patient from literally tearing his own flesh.

Verse 7. Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord — Or, from the Lord, apo tou Kuriou, as the LXX. render it. Compare Acts 5:41, They departed, apo proswpou tou sunedriou, from the presence of the council that is, from the council. And smote Job with sore biles — Elkei ponhrw, with a foul ulcer, or evil inflammation, say the Seventy; breaking out and spreading itself over all his body. The biles, it seems, were like those inflicted upon the Egyptians, which are expressed by the same word, and threatened to the apostate Israelites, (Deuteronomy 28:27,) whereby he was made loathsome to himself and to his nearest relations, and filled with consuming pains in his body, and no less torments and anguish in his mind. From the sole of his foot unto his crown — In all the outward parts of his body. “His tongue,” says Poole, “he spared, that it might be capable of uttering those blasphemies against God which Satan desired and expected him to utter.” One boil, when it is gathering, is very distressing, and gives a man abundance of pain and uneasiness. What a condition was Job then in, who had biles all over his body, no part being free, and those as much inflamed, and of as raging a heat, as Satan could make them! If at any time we be exercised with sore and grievous distempers, let us not think ourselves more hardly dealt with than God has sometimes dealt with the best of his saints and servants. We know not how far Satan may have a hand, by God’s permission, in the diseases with which mankind, especially the children of God, are afflicted; or what infections that prince of the air may spread, what inflammations may come from that fiery serpent. We read of one whom he had bound for many years, Luke 13:10. And should God suffer him to have his will against us, he would soon make the best and bravest of us very miserable. It is a judicious remark of Dr. Mede here, that it is not Job himself or his friends, but the author of the book, who attributes his calamities to Satan; for this writer’s intention seems to have been to show, by a striking example, that the world is governed by the providence of God; and as the holy angels, whose ministry God makes use of in distributing his bountiful gifts, punctually execute all his commands; so Satan himself, with his agents, are under the power of God, and cannot inflict any evils on mankind without the divine permission.

7. Sore boils — The word ˆyjv, translated boils, in the verbal form signifies to be hot. Dr. Good, a learned physician, translates it “a burning ulceration.” That it was terrible is indicated by the addition of the word [r, ra’h, evil, or malignant. The features of the disease with which Job was afflicted most resemble the black leprosy, or elephantiasis, as it is called by the Greeks. It takes the latter name from its rendering the skin “scabrous, dark-coloured, and furrowed all over with tubercles,” (Dr. Good;) or, as others say, because in some of its stages the feet swell, and take the shape of those of the elephant. The Arabians and Syrians call it the lion disease, (leontiasis,) because of its producing in the countenance of the afflicted grim, distorted, and lion-like features. It is regarded as the most foul, painful, and incurable of all diseases. “It begins beneath the knee” (W. Scholtze) with tubercular boils, which, in time, resemble a cancer, and thence spreads itself over the whole body. In its slow and destructive course all the members of the body, fingers, toes, hands, feet, gradually decay and fall off, on which account the Arabians call it also the maiming disease. The dread the disease inspires appears in the title it bears throughout the East — “the first-born of death.” Its victim, even the Icelanders, among whom it prevails, say, resembles “a rancid, putrefying corpse.” Maundrell, an old but judicious Oriental traveller, describes the “distemper as so noisome that it might well pass for the utmost corruption of the human body on this side the grave.” The features and course of the disease may be traced in the incidental descriptions given by Job 3:24; 6:2, 4, 9, 11-14; 7:4, 5, 14, 15, 19; 9:17, 18; 13:20, 27, 28; 16:8, 16, 22; 17:1; 19:17, 18, 20; 30:17, 30; 33:20. The entire diagnosis thus given answers to the elephantiasis.

V. 8. Scrape-This he did not with soft linen clothes, either because he had not now a sufficient quantity of them; or because therein he must have had the help of others who abhorred to come near him. Nor with his own hands or fingers, which were also ulcerous, and so unfit for that use; but with potsherds, either because they were next at hand, and ready for his present use; or in token of his deep humiliation under God’s hand, which made him decline all things that favoured of tenderness and delicacy. Heb. in dust or ashes, as mourners used to do. If God lay him among the ashes, there he will contentedly sit down. A low spirit becomes low circumstances, and will help to reconcile us to them.

Verse 8. And he took a potsherd, &c. — His children and servants were all dead, his wife unkind, and none of those whom he had formerly befriended had so much sense of honour and gratitude as to minister to him in his distress, to furnish him with linen clothes, or lend a hand to cleanse or dress his running sores; either because the disease was loathsome and offensive, or because they apprehended it to be infectious. Being therefore deprived of other relief, he laid hold on what was next at hand, a piece of a broken pot, or tile, to press out, or remove, the purulent matter which was under his ulcers, or flowed from them, and was the great cause of his pain; or to rub them, and allay the itching, which, as they began to die away, probably became intolerable. The Hebrew word drgthl, le-hithgared, here used, which we translate to scrape himself, occurs nowhere else in the Bible, but is said to be frequently used in Chaldee and Arabic in the sense of pulling off bark or leaves from trees, and is here rendered by the LXX. ina ton icwra xuh, that he might wipe off, or cleanse away, the corrupt matter. And sat down among the ashes — Epi thv kopriav exw thv polewv, upon the dung-hill without the city, say the Seventy. Here he would easily find a potsherd at hand, but not any clean and soft linen clothes, much less any ointments, salves, or plasters, proper for the healing of his sores. But it is probable, if he had had such things at hand he would not have used them; for as he sat down in this place, in dust and ashes, as mourners used to do, humbling himself under the mighty hand of God, so, in the same spirit of self-abasement and humiliation, he would have declined all things that savoured of tenderness and delicacy, and have still used his potsherd.

8. Potsherd — The Septuagint renders, “And he took a shell to scrape away the ulcerous discharge, and sat upon a dung heap outside the city.” As the sores were too loathsome to touch, he took a piece of earthenware, (potsherd, or shard — Old English for fragment.) that he might remove the filth of the sores, and allay the extreme itching. Among the ashes — In the Hauran, dung being unneeded for agricultural purposes, is burned from time to time in an appointed place outside the town. The heaps of ashes and filth soon attain a height greater than that of the highest buildings of the village. — Wetzstein. Something of this kind the Septuagint may have had in view. This act of Job was, among the Orientals, a common symbol of extreme distress. Ulysses, after suffering shipwreck, placed himself mourning on a heap of ashes. Odyssey, 5:153, 160. (See note, 16:15.) Job, not unlike his divine Saviour, is the smitten of God. (Isaiah 53:4.) Leprosy was regarded by the ancients as a divine visitation. The Hebrews named it, “The stroke of the scourge,” a meaning that our own word plague (“stroke”) originally bore. Hence Jerome translates Isaiah, (chapter 53:4,) “We did esteem him smitten” — by leprosus, — or the leprous one, a name the Messiah bears also in the Talmud. Christ “bare our sins in his own body,” and on this account “there was a hiding of faces from him,” as from a leprous person. (Isaiah 53:3, margin.) Job, a type of Christ, is to all appearance rejected of God. The ban of God and man alike rests upon him. “If a Persian has the leprosy he is not allowed to enter into a city, or to have any dealings with the other Persians; he must, they say, have sinned against the sun.” — Herodotus, 1:139. (See note, Job 19:21.)

V. 9. Then said his wife-Whom Satan spared, to be a troubler and tempter to him. It is his policy, to send his temptations by the hands of those that are dear to us. We must therefore carefully watch, that we be not drawn to any evil, by them whom we love and value the most. Die-I see thou art set upon blessing of God, thou blessest God for giving, and thou blessest God for taking away, and thou art still blessing God for thy loathsome diseases, and he rewards thee accordingly, giving thee more and more of that kind of mercy for which thou blessest him. Go on therefore in thy generous course, and bless God, and die as a fool dieth.

Verse 9. Then said his wife] To this verse the Septuagint adds the following words: “Much time having elapsed, his wife said unto him, How long dost thou stand steadfast, saying, ‘Behold, I wait yet a little longer looking for the hope of my Salvation?’ Behold thy memorial is already blotted out from the earth, together with thy sons and thy daughters, the fruits of my pains and labours, for whom with anxiety I have laboured in vain. Thyself also sittest in the rottenness of worms night and day, while I am a wanderer from place to place, and from house to house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I may rest from my labours, and from the griefs which oppress me. Speak therefore some word against God, and die.” We translate ומת אלהים Ërb barech Elohim vamuth, Curse God, and die. The verb Ërb barach is supposed to include in it the ideas of cursing and blessing; but it is not clear that it has the former meaning in any part of the sacred writings, though we sometimes translate it so.

Here it seems to be a strong irony. Job was exceedingly afflicted, and apparently dying through sore disease; yet his soul was filled with gratitude to God. His wife, destitute of the salvation which her husband possessed, gave him this ironical reproof. Bless God, and die—What! bless him for his goodness, while he is destroying all that thou hast! bless him for his support, while he is casting thee down and destroying thee! Bless on, and die.

The Targum says that Job’s wife’s name was Dinah, and that the words which she spake to him on this occasion were tymw yyd armym Ëyrb berich meymera dayai umith. Bless the word of the Lord, and die. Ovid has such an irony as I suppose this to have been:— Quid vos sacra juvant? quid nunc Ægyptia prosunt

Sistra?————

Cum rapiant mala fata bonos, ignoscite fasso,

Sollicitor nullos esse putare deos.

Vive plus, moriere pius; cole sacra, colentem

Mors gravis a templis in cava busta trahet.

AMOR. lib. iii., Eleg. ix. ver. 33.

“In vain to gods (if gods there are) we pray,

And needless victims prodigally pay;

Worship their sleeping deities: yet death

Scorns votaries, and stops the praying breath.

To hallow’d shrines intruding fate will come,

And drag you from the altar to the tomb.”

STEPNEY.

Verse 9. Then said his wife — Whom Satan had spared, that she might be a troubler and tempter to him. For it is his policy to send his temptations by those that are dear to us. We ought, therefore, carefully to watch, that we be not drawn to any evil by them whom we love and value the most. Dost thou still retain thine integrity? — Art thou so weak as still to persist in the practice of righteousness, when it is not only unprofitable to thee, but the chief occasion of all these thy insupportable miseries, and when God himself not only forsakes and leaves thee in this helpless and hopeless condition, but is turned to be thy greatest enemy? This is evidently the meaning of the expression, holding fast his integrity, when used by God, speaking of Job, verse 3, and, it seems, must be its meaning here; and not, as some commentators have supposed, the maintaining that he was innocent of those secret sins with which his friends appeared to have charged him; a sense of the words which would not at all suit the connection in which this, or the third verse, stands with the verses following. Curse God and die — Seeing thy blessing and praising God avail thee so little, it is time for thee to change thy language. Reproach him to his face, and tell him of his injustice and unkindness to thee; and that he loves his enemies and hates his friends, and that will provoke him to take away thy life, and so end thy torments. Or, Curse God, though thou die for it. This is the sense in which the same Hebrew word is evidently used by Satan, (Job 1:11,) and, as it appears from the next verse, that Job’s wife was now under Satan’s influence, and was an instrument employed by him to tempt her husband, and so to forward his design, which certainly was to prevail with Job to curse or reproach God; this seems to be her meaning. Inasmuch, however, as the original word, although it sometimes evidently signifies to curse, yet generally means to bless, it may be so interpreted here if we consider Job’s wife as speaking ironically, as many, even pious, persons, are represented in the Scriptures to have spoken. The meaning then will be, Bless God and die — That is, I see thou art set upon blessing God; thou blessest him for giving, and thou blessest him for taking away: and thou art even blessing him for thy loathsome and tormenting diseases, and he rewards thee accordingly, giving thee more and more of that kind of mercy for which thou blessest him. Go on, therefore, in this thy generous course, and die as a fool dieth. And, this being her meaning, it is not strange that he reproves her so sharply for it in the next words.

Ver. 9. Curse God and die. Ërb barack, to bless, to curse, to devote, to blaspheme. The word is used by the witnesses against Naboth: “we heard him blaspheme God and the king.” The sense determines that the English reading is correct, and that the French reading, “Bless God and die,” is an erroneous acceptation of the word.

9. His wife — There is an old tradition among the Jews, which also appears in the Chaldee Paraphrast, that his wife was Dinah, the frail daughter of Jacob. This is of value only as showing an ancient belief that Job lived in the patriarchal age. This unfortunate woman, who had not the living faith of her husband, and who, perhaps, did not believe in his God, has been bitterly denounced in every age, and has given point to many a stinging epigram from the days of the German Alters to Coleridge. “Why,” asks Chrysostom, “did the devil leave him this wife? Because he thought her a good scourge by which to plague him more acutely than by any other.” Augustine calls her the “helper of the devil;” Ebrard, “a tool of the tempter;” Spanheim, “a second Xantippe;” Calvin, (cited by Delitzsch,) “Proserpina, an infernal fury;” and J.D. Michaelis thinks she alone remained to Job in order that the measure of his sufferings might be full. Among others. Kitto (Daily Bib. Illus.) and Hengstenberg have taken a more pleasing view of the woman, whom others seem to have forgotten was a sufferer who had been as terribly bereaved as Rachel herself. (Jeremiah 31:15.) “It must be taken into consideration that her despair was rooted in the heartiest and tenderest love to her husband. In all their previous losses she had allowed herself to be kept in restraint by Job’s own submissiveness, and had the pains of disease befallen herself, she would probably still have resisted her despair.” — HENGST., Lec. on Job. It was a favourite thought with the fathers that as Satan had successfully employed woman for the ruin of man in Paradise, he feels sure of success in this, his last stake, as he wields the same instrument against Job in the ashes. The moral elements of the two temptations were similar to each other. There was the preceding wreck of woman’s heart, together with the subtle leverage of man’s affection, as well as the contagious influence of evil example; all which unitedly constituted a temptation of inestimable power. Curse God… die — (See Job 1:5.) She evidently alludes to what Job had said, (Job 1:21,) and, strangely enough, employs the very words that the tempter had expected Job would use as he sank in despair. By Ewald, among others, the expression is taken as ironical, “say farewell to God, and die;” by others (Rosenmuller, Hirtzel) as an insolent and defiant demand, “Renounce God, and die.” Schultens suspects it to have been a common saying among spare worshippers of the Deity of that day, like that of the Latin, “Eat, drink: to-morrow we die.” It practically said, Religion is of no account. Such sentiments prevail under visitations of the plague and kindred calamities. Thucydides thus moralizes over the plague at Athens: “Men were restrained neither by fear of the gods nor by human law; deeming it all one whether they paid religious worship or not, since they saw that all perished alike.” The wife of Job is now swept away into a similar maelstrom. The Septuagint informs us “that much time had passed” when she uttered these taunting words, “Curse God, and die;” and, displeased at the idea that an angry woman should say so little, puts a long speech into her mouth, recounting her sufferings, and closing with the tame words, “but say some word against the Lord, and die.”

V. 10. Shall we-Shall we poor worms give laws to our supreme Lord, and oblige him never to afflict us? And shall not those great and manifold mercies, which from time to time God hath given us, compensate these short afflictions? Ought we not to bless God for those mercies which we did not deserve; and contentedly bear those corrections which we do deserve. And if we receive so much good for the body, shall we not receive some good for our souls? That is, some affliction, whereby we may be made partakers of his holiness? Let murmuring therefore, as well as boasting, be forever excluded. Sin with his lips-By any reflections upon God, by any impatient or unbecoming expression.

Verse 10. Thou speakest as one of the foolish] Thou speakest like an infidel; like one who has no knowledge of God, of religion, or of a future state.

The Targum, who calls this woman Dinah, translates thus: “Thou speakest like one of those women who have wrought folly in the house of their father.” This is in reference to an ancient rabbinical opinion, that Job lived in the days of the patriarch Jacob, whose daughter Dinah he had married. Shall we receive good] This we have received in great abundance for many years:—

And shall we not receive evil?] Shall we murmur when He afflicts us for a day, who has given us health for so many years? Shall we blaspheme his name for momentary privations, who has given us such a long succession or enjoyments? His blessings are his own: he never gave them to us; they were only lent. We have had the long, the free, the unmerited use of them; and shall we be offended at the Owner, when he comes to reclaim his own property? This would be foolish, ungrateful, and wicked. So may every one reason who is suffering from adversity. But who, besides Job, reasons thus? Man is naturally discontented and ungrateful.

In all this did not Job sin with his lips.] The Chaldee adds, But in his heart he thought words. He had surmisings of heart, though he let nothing escape from his lips.

Verse 10. But he said, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh — That is, like a rash, inconsiderate, and weak woman, that does not understand nor mind what she says: or rather, like a wicked and profane person, for such are frequently called fools in the Scriptures. Shall we receive good, &c., and shall we not receive evil? — Shall we poor worms give laws to our supreme Lord, and oblige him never to afflict us? And shall not those great and manifold mercies, which from time to time God hath given us, compensate these short afflictions? Ought we not to bless God for those mercies which we did not deserve, and contentedly bear those afflictions which we do deserve, and stand in need of, and by which, if it be not our own fault, we may get so much good. Shall we not receive — Shall we not expect to receive evil, namely, the evil of suffering? If God give us so many good things, shall we be surprised, or think it strange, if he sometimes afflict us, when he has told us, that prosperity and adversity are set the one against the other? 1 Peter 4:12. If we receive so many comforts, shall we not receive some afflictions, which will serve as foils to our comforts, to make them the more valuable? Shall we not be taught the worth of our mercies, by being made sometimes to want them, and as allays to our comforts, to make them the less dangerous, to keep the balance even, and to prevent our being lifted up above measure? 2 Corinthians 12:7. If we receive so much good for the body, shall we not receive some good for the soul? That is, some affliction, by which we may be made partakers of God’s holiness? Hebrews 12:10. Let murmuring, therefore, as well as boasting, be for ever excluded. In all this did not Job sin with his lips — By any reflections upon God, by any impatient or unbecoming expression. In other words, he held fast his integrity in the sense explained above; which this demonstrates to be the true sense of that phrase.

10. As one of the foolish women — twlbn, perverse, corrupt, or godless women; having respect not so much to the want of intellectual as of moral qualities. The word is one of the strongest in Hebrew, and is used to express utter worthlessness. It is to be remarked that Job does not charge his wife with being such, but with talking like such women. There is no evidence that Job sympathized with those mean views of woman that the Orientals cherish even to the present day, and which the Koran has done so much to promote. It is evident from the Vedas and the Gathas, her position was vastly more honourable in the earlier ages of the world. (See WILKINSON’S Egypt, P. A. 1:4, and BLEECK’S Avesta, 2:118.) It is equally clear that she and her condition everywhere, under the influence of the best of pagan religions, have been constantly deteriorating. Between three and four thousand years ago, woman, whether in Egypt, Persia, or India, at home or abroad, was as free as Trojan dame or the daughters of Judea. She was the honoured of man — nearly, if not altogether, his equal; now, everywhere in the East she is the spurned of man — a mere tool, if not a slave. The institutes of Manu early struck the keynote of woman’s sad declension throughout the East: “Women have no business with the texts of the Vedas.… Even if a husband be devoid of good qualities, or enamoured of another woman, yet must he be revered as a god by a virtuous wife.” Job 9:2, 3, etc. (See also MUIR’S Sanscrit Texts, 1:26; 3:42, 68.) That woman is not trodden in the dust in Christian as in eastern countries, is due to the conserving and equalizing doctrines of the cross. (Comp. John 19:26, and Galatians 3:28. See also notes on 1 Corinthians 14:34. 35.) Shall we not receive evil — As beings worth disciplining for another life, each one may assume that the elements of evil will, sooner or later, be wrought into his mortal life. His sinful condition should lead him to the reflection that more of evil than good might be his reasonable allotment. If there be, on the contrary, a preponderance of good, it is simply due to the goodness of God. The heathen themselves could see that evil may subserve the most desirable ends, and, by pruning the soul, prepare it for the higher good. Thus Plutarch: “It is likely that the Deity perfectly understands the condition of the soul to whose disease his justice is to be applied, whether it is such as is inclined to repentance.… He knows how much of the virtue which he gave them at their birth they still retain, and in what degree that in them which is noble still remains, as not having been obliterated, but merely overgrown by evil education and bad connexions, and may be restored to its natural habit by due attention.” — Providence of God, book 6. The storm has swept over Job as over an oak of the mountain. He still stands majestically, the roots of his faith having struck more deeply, and grasped more firmly, the Rock of Ages. Sin with his lips — St. James, who dwelt at large upon the right use of the tongue, makes such reference to Job as to show that he must have had in mind the responsibility implied in these and similar words of this book. As language is but the vehicle of thought, and may readily become the winged promoter of that which is evil, God holds even words to solemn account. (Matthew 12:36, 37.) In the present age, as facilities for doing good or evil through the tongue, pen, press, or electric wire are so much multiplied, our responsibility is correspondingly increased.

V. 11. They-Who were persons eminent for birth and quality, for wisdom and knowledge, and for the profession of the true religion, being probably of the posterity of Abraham, a-kin to Job, and living in the same country. Eliphaz descended from Teman, the grandson of Esau, Genesis 36:11. Bildad probably from Shuah, Abraham’s son by Keturah, Genesis 25:2. Zophar is thought to be same with Zepho, (Genesis 36:11.) a descendant from Esau. The preserving of so much wisdom and piety among those who were not children of the promise, was an happy presage of God’s grace to the Gentiles, when the partition wall should be taken down.

Verse 11. Job’s three friends] The first was Eliphaz the Temanite; or, as the Septuagint has it, Elifaz o Qaimanwn basileuv, Eliphaz the king on the Thaimanites. Eliphaz was one of the sons of Esau; and Teman, of Eliphaz, Genesis 36:10, 11. Teman was a city of Edom, Jeremiah 49:7-20; Ezekiel 25:13; Amos 1:11, 12. Bildad the Shuhite] Or, as the Septuagint, Baldad o Sucewn turannov, Baldad, tyrant of the Suchites. Shuah was the son of Abraham by Keturah: and his posterity is reckoned among the Easterns. It is supposed he should be placed with his brother Midian, and his brother’s sons Sheba and Dedan. See Genesis 25:2, 3. Dedan was a city of Edom, see Jeremiah 49:8, and seems to have been situated in its southern boundary, as Teman was in its western. Ezekiel 25:13. Zophar the Naamathite] Or, according to the Septuagint, Swfar Minaiwn basileuv, Sophar king of the Minaites. He most probably came from that Naamah, which was bordering upon the Edomites to the south and fell by lot to the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:21-41. These circumstances, which have already been mentioned in the introduction, prove that Job must have dwelt in the land of Edom, and that all his friends dwelt in Arabia Petræa, or in the countries immediately adjacent. That some of those Eastern people were highly cultivated, we have at least indirect proof in the case of the Temanites, Jeremiah 49:7: Concerning Edom thus saith the Lord of hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman? Is counsel perished from the prudent? Is their wisdom vanished? They are celebrated also in Baruch 3:22, 23. Speaking of wisdom he says: It hath not been heard of in Chanaan; neither hath it been seen in Theman. The Agarenes that seek wisdom upon earth, the merchants of Meran and of Theman, the expounders of fables, and searchers out of understanding, none of these have known the way of wisdom. It is evident enough from these quotations that the inhabitants of those districts were celebrated for their knowledge; and the sayings of Job’s three friends are proofs that their reputation for wisdom stood on a very solid foundation.

Verse 11. When Job’s three friends heard of all this, &c. — Who were persons eminent for birth and quality, for wisdom and knowledge, and for the profession of the true religion, being probably, as has been observed on Job 1:1, of the posterity of Abraham, akin to Job, and living in the same country with him. See that note. The preserving so much wisdom and piety among those that were not children of the promise was a happy presage of God’s grace to the Gentiles, when the partition wall should, in the latter days, be taken down. Esau lost the birthright, and when he should have regained it, was rejected, yet it appears many of his descendants inherited some of the best blessings.

Ver. 11. Eliphaz the Temanite. The LXX read, king of the Thaimanites. See on Genesis 36:4.—Bildad the Shuhite. The LXX read, “tyrant,” which in a good sense, as used here, signifies governor of the Shuhites.— Zophar the Naamathite. The LXX call him also “king,” as Job was king in the host: Job 29:25. These four persons were all kings or chiefs in their respective cities.

THE VISIT OF CONSOLATION, 11-13.

11. Three friends — Their conduct, as seen in this verse, shows them to have been sincere in their friendship at first, however they may have failed and become subsequently involved in angry dispute and bitter recriminations. Eliphaz the Temanite — The word Eliphaz signifies “God the dispenser of riches.” (Furst,) or, according to J.D. Michaelis, “My God is gold.” Since an Eliphaz appears in Genesis 36:4, 11, as one of the sons of Esau, and the father of Teman, we are justified in supposing that the home of Eliphaz was in the Idumaean region bearing that name. (1 Chronicles 1:43, 45.) Teman was probably the capital of Edom, (Amos 1:12) and lay, according to Eusebius, fifteen Roman miles from Petra, or, more probably, about five miles, as in Jerome. “This part of Arabia always had the most excellent philosophers.” — Grotius. (See Jeremiah 49:7; Baruch 3:22.) The Septuagint calls Eliphaz the king of the Thaemans. Bildad the Shuhite — So called after a national deity of the Edomites, according to Furst, though Gesenius (Thesaurus) renders the name, the Strenuous Defender. The Septuagint makes him the ruler of the Sanchaeans. Shuah was the youngest son of Keturah by Abraham, (Genesis 25:2,) who sent Shuah and the other children of the concubines “eastward into the east country.” The Shuhites probably dwelt not far from Edom, though Rawlinson conjectures that they may have been the Tsukhi, who dwelt on the northern confines of Babylon, both sides of the Euphrates. (Herodotus, i, p. 380.) Zophar the Naamathite — Zophar, the shaggy, the rough, (Furst.) The place of his residence is uncertain. It could not have been the Naamah spoken of in Joshua 15:41. The Septuagint calls him the king of the Minaeans. This leads Dillmann to suggest the identity of Naamah with Maan, an ancient city whose ruins still remain, somewhat to the east of Petra. (Comp. EWALD, Hist. of Israel, 1:239.) An appointment together — When a calamity befalls a family among the Arabs of the present day, all their relations, connexions, and friends immediately hasten together to console them. — PIEROTTI. Customs, p. 240. To mourn with him — dwn, noudh; English, nod, to shake (the head.) Among highly excitable races deep grief is expressed by the movement of the head.

Verse 12. They rent every one his mantle] I have already had frequent occasions to point out and illustrate, by quotations from the ancients, the actions that were used in order to express profound grief; such as wrapping themselves in sackcloth, covering the face, strewing dust or ashes upon the head, sitting upon the bare ground, &c., &c.; significant actions which were in use among all nations.

Verse 12. When they lifted up their eyes afar off — Namely, at some convenient distance from him; whom they found sitting upon the ground, probably in the open air. And knew him not — His countenance being so dreadfully changed and disfigured by the ulcers. They lifted up their voice and wept — Through their sympathy with him, and great grief for his heavy affliction. And they rent every one his mantle — As it was usual for people to do in great and sudden calamities. And sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven — Either on the upper part of their heads toward heaven, or threw it up into the air, so that it fell upon their heads, and showed the confusion they were in: all which things were marks of great grief and affliction, and were the usual ways of expressing sorrow in those days.

Ver. 12. They rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads. So the ancients expressed their grief in the strongest characters. The poets abound with examples of this sort. When Nestor’s illustrious son told Achilles, that Patrocles lay among the slain; at once on the chief, a dark cloud of sorrow arose. He raised the ashes in both his hands; poured them profusely on his head, and disfigured his face. To his garments divine, the dark dust copiously adhered. He covered a wide space on the earth, and as he lay rolling, he tore his heavy locks with his hands.—Iliad 18:22. Macpherson.

12. They lifted up their voice — Sir John Chardin (year 1676) says of the people of Asia, that “their cries are long in the case of death, and frightful, for the mourning is right-down despair, and an image of hell.” The moment the mistress of the house next to his (at Ispahan) expired, “all the family, to the number of twenty-five or thirty people, set up such a furious cry that I was quite startled, and was above two hours before I could recover myself. These cries continue a long time, then cease all at once; they begin again as suddenly at daybreak, and in concert. It is this suddenness which is so terrifying, together with a greater shrillness and loudness than one could easily imagine. This enraged kind of mourning, if I may call it so, continued forty days — not equally violent, but with diminution from day to day.” Sprinkled dust upon their heads — In a funeral procession, depicted on one of the tombs of ancient Egypt, there first come eight men throwing dust upon their heads, and giving other demonstrations of grief. The procession closes with eight or more women beating themselves, throwing dust on their heads, and singing the funeral dirge. — Wilkinson. (See also Joshua 7:6; 1 Samuel 4:12.) “For after the death of any of them, [the Egyptians,] all the friends and kindred of the deceased throw dirt upon their heads, and run about through the city mourning and lamenting.” — Diodorus Siculus, vol. i, chap. 7. A like custom prevailed among the Greeks (Iliad, 18:21-27) and the Ninevites, as appears in the annals of Assurbanipal. The friends threw the dust heavenward, that, falling, it might cover the entire body; and thus, as Homer says, “deform it with dust;” or the act may have been symbolical — being either a solemn recognition of God, as the author of the evil, or an acknowledgment of man’s frailty and dependence.

V. 13. Upon the ground-In the posture of mourners condoling with him. Seven days-Which was the usual time of mourning for the dead, and therefore proper both for Job’s children, and for Job himself, who was in a manner dead, while he lived: not that they continued in this posture so long together, which the necessities of nature could not bear; but they spent the greatest part of that time in sitting with him, and silent mourning over him. None spake-About his afflictions and the causes of them. The reason of this silence was the greatness of their grief for him, and their surprize and astonishment at his condition; because they thought it convenient to give him time to vent his own sorrows, and because as yet they knew not what to say to him: for though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly good man, and came with full purpose to comfort him, yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries, and that hand of God which they perceived in them, made them now question his sincerity, so that they could not comfort him as they had intended, and yet were loth to grieve him with reproofs.

Verse 13. They sat down with him upon the ground seven days] They were astonished at the unprecedented change which had taken place in the circumstances of this most eminent man; they could not reconcile his present situation with any thing they had met with in the history of Divine providence. The seven days mentioned here were the period appointed for mourning. The Israelites mourned for Jacob seven days, Genesis 50:10. And the men of Jabesh mourned so long for the death of Saul, 1 Samuel 31:13; 1 Chronicles 10:12. And Ezekiel sat on the ground with the captives at Chebar, and mourned with and for them seven days. Ezekiel 3:15. The wise son of Sirach says, “Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead;” Ecclus. 22:12. So calamitous was the state of Job, that they considered him as a dead man: and went through the prescribed period of mourning for him.

They saw that his grief was very great.] This is the reason why they did not speak to him: they believed him to be suffering for heavy crimes, and, seeing him suffer so much, they were not willing to add to his distresses by invectives or reproach. Job himself first broke silence.

JOB

Verse 13. So they sat down with him upon the ground — In the same mournful posture wherein they found him, which indeed was the usual posture of mourners, condoling with him. Sitting on the ground, in the language of the eastern people, signifies their passing the time in the deepest mourning. Seven days and seven nights — Which was the usual time of mourning for the dead, Genesis 50:10; 1 Samuel 31:13, and therefore proper, both for Job’s children, who were dead, and for Job himself, who was in a manner, dead while he lived: not that they continued in this posture so long together, which the necessities of nature could not bear: but they spent a great, or the greatest, part of that time in sitting with him, and silent mourning over him. And none spake a word to him — About his afflictions or the cause of them, or, perhaps, about any thing. “A long silence,” says Dr. Dodd, “is a very natural effect of an extraordinary grief, which overwhelms the mind, and creates a sort of stupor and astonishment. Thus we find the Prophet Ezekiel 3:15, sitting with his brethren of the captivity by the river Chebar, for seven days, astonished, silent among them, as the Chaldee renders it; struck dumb, as it were, at the apprehension of their present miseries, and the still greater calamities coming on his country.” And thus were Job’s friends affected on this occasion; their long silence arising from the greatness of their grief for him, and their surprise and astonishment at the condition in which they found him. They probably, also, thought it proper to give him some further time to vent his own sorrows; and might, as yet, not know what to say to him: for though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly good man, and came with a full purpose to comfort him; yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries, and that hand and apparent displeasure of God which they perceived in them, made them now question his sincerity, so that they could not comfort him as they had intended, and yet were loath to grieve him with reproofs.

Ver. 13. Seven days, the usual time of mourning for the dead. Not only Job’s children, but most of his servants were slain. These men, following custom, opened not their conversations till the time of decency was past. Genesis 50:10. 1 Samuel 31:13. Eschylus, in his description of parental sorrows, represents Niobè, as sitting three days together disconsolately upon the tomb of her children, and observing a profound silence.

13. Seven days and seven nights — The Orientals not only bemoaned the event of death for a period of seven days, (Genesis 50:10; Ecclesiasticus 22:12,) but other calamities — those of a national. (Ezekiel 3:15,) and, as in this case, those of a more private, character. The “Bedawi Romance of Antar” thus describes the lamentation of the tribes of Abs and Adnam over their great discomfiture, and the many kings and chiefs that had been slain in battle: “They threw down their tents and pavilions, and thus they continued seven days and seven nights.” The obsequies of a Jewish king were celebrated with peculiar honours: “among others,” says Maimonides, “a company of students in the law were appointed to sit at his sepulchre, and to mourn seven days together.” (Cited by LEWIS, Antiq., 3:88.) Dillmann, Hirtzel, and others, deny that custom prescribed a seven days’ silence. This they attribute to deep compassion and awe for Job’s sorrow. The counter view of Ewald and Rosenmuller, that such mourning was in conformity with the custom of the times, may be illustrated by a similar usage that to the present time prevails among the Hindus: “Those who go to sympathize with the afflicted are often silent for hour’s together. As there were seven clays for mourning in the Scriptures, so here, and the seventh is always the greatest, the chief mourner, during the whole of these days, will never speak, except when it is absolutely necessary. When a visitor comes in, he simply looks and bows down his head.” — ROBERTS, Orient. Illus. The Rabbins tell us that among the Jews the mourner always sat chief; and the comforters, who were the neighbours, were not to speak a word till he broke silence first. — LEWIS, Ibid.

EXCURSUS No. I.

SATAN.

This word Satan — Septuagint, diabolos, “devil” — is a word purely Semitic, (Arabic, Shatanah,) signifying “adversary,” and is from the same form, ˆcc, Satan, “to attack,” “lie in wait,” “hate.” It is used in Job and in Zechariah with the article, “the Satan,” either for emphasis, “the adversary “pre-eminently, (for the word appears elsewhere a few times as a designation of human beings,) or, more properly, as a proper name of a being at that time well known.

He first appears in Scripture under the guise of the serpent, (a name he afterwards bears,) as the agent in encompassing man’s fall. On the reasonable supposition that Adam, in his subsequent reflections if not in the hour of his temptation, must have peered through this bestial disguise and apprehended the superbestial agency involved in the act of intelligent speech, we may presume that the being of this profoundly mysterious adversary must have as deeply impressed the descendants of Adam as any other of the antediluvian facts whose traditions still linger among men. The Arabs, for instance, still “call a serpent Satan, especially if he be conspicuous in the crest, the head, and repulsive looks.” — Schultens. There are very few, if any, of the essential characteristics of the Satan of this book that are not to be found in the diabolic actor in the garden. So that the serious objection urged by some against the antiquity of the Book of Job because of its “full-fledged Satan,” as they are pleased to call this most malicious enemy of our race, really finds its refutation in the records of the Fall. And it may be as easy to account for the fact that during the many centuries included in the Book of Genesis no further mention is made of Satan, as for the silence respecting the actual instrument in beguiling Eve. A detailed comparison of the two Satans of Genesis and Job would show them to be not only one in being but in the amount of disclosure of character made, and that the supposed progress of doctrine in regard to Satan is without a valid basis.

A general knowledge of this evil spirit is implied in the Azazel of Leviticus, chapter xvi, translated scapegoat, who is represented as the antithesis to God, which necessitates a spiritual personality — “a personification of abstract impurity as opposed to the absolute purity of Jehovah.” — Roskoff. The very desert to which the goat “to Azazel” was to be sent, was in the popular belief the home of evil spirits. (Isaiah 13:21; 34:14.) This view of Azazel as Satan is confirmed by the etymology of the word Azazel, the might or “power of God,” (Furst and Gesenius,) perhaps the name of the evil spirit before his fall, (compare Gabriel,) or “defiance to God,” another etymology suggested by Gesenius. (Thesaurus, 1012.) Origen declared Azazel to be the devil. (See Hengstenberg’s “Egypt and the Books of Moses,” 159-174.)

In 1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan (without the article) “stands up against Israel,” and that he may involve a whole nation in the wrath of God, persuades its royal head into the pride and presumption of numbering the people. The Satan is here disclosed as operating within the domain of the mind, and moving mind directly by solicitations from within. This is the most important disclosure of the Old Testament with regard to Satanic agency.

The same idea of adversary appears in Zechariah 3:1, where Satan stands as accuser (Revelation 12:10, kathgwr) at the right hand of the high priest — the proper place of an accuser — and antagonizes (literally, Satanizes) him in his official capacity of bearing the sins of the people before the Lord.

In these four chief places of the Old Testament where Satan is disclosed we have, therefore, a oneness and consistency of character answering to the generic meaning of the word Satan. The position of adversary to such a being as God, makes possible all that the Bible reveals of his nature. He stands at the head of fallen beings, who, in the New Testament, are called demons, daimonia — the one great, powerful, and infinitely malicious personality, who, for some reasons not fully revealed, seeks the injury and ruin of our race — an object of overwhelming terror unless restrained by the grace and power of God. In the New Testament he bears the names Satan, Beelzebub, Belial; and the titles “devil,” (diabolov;) “slanderer,” (one who sets at variance;) the “wicked one;” “prince of this world;” the “destroyer;” “prince of the demons,” (twn daimoniwn, Mark 3:22;) “prince of the power of the air;” “lord of the dwelling;” “worthlessness,” or “wickedness;” and is the author of evil, John 8:44, the enemy of mankind, Matthew 13:39, and the tempter of the faithful, 1 Thessalonians 3:5. Satan is a created spirit, subordinate in every sphere to God, and destined to be subjugated by Christ, and has but little in common with the dualistic conception of an evil spirit coeternal and coequal with the good. The disclosures concerning our great foe are confined to the word of God. Traces, indeed, there are, in the most ancient mythologies, that plainly reach back to the garden of Eden, of a spirit pre-eminently evil, but they are so overgrown with puerile conceptions of suryas: devs, fervers, etc., that the scriptural idea of Satan is almost lost. The evil spirit most nearly resembling the Satan of the Old Testament is Set, or Typhon, of the Egyptian mythology. Under the ascription of an “adversary,” he is invoked on a papyrus as “the god who is in the void, the almighty destroyer and waster.” — DOLLINGER, Gentile and Jew, 1:453. The features of resemblance on the part of Set, or the Vritra of the Vedas, Tiamat of the Babylonians, Angra Mainyus (Ahriman) of the Avesta, or Loki of the Scandinavians, are too few to need notice. See pp. 277, 278. EXCURSUS No. II.

SATAN AMONG THE SONS OF GOD.

The confessedly strange scene of Satan in the midst of “the sons of God” has called forth various theories: —

1. That it is to be regarded as a mere vision, after the manner of the vision of Micaiah. (1 Kings 22:19.)

2. That the scene has not even the basis of a vision, but God employs the figure of an earthly court in accommodation to our ideas of things. According to Mercerus, while “engaged in their ministry the angels cease not to stand before the Lord. They are said, after a human way, to return to him when they praise him,” etc. Quaint Job Caryl, the most copious of the many writers on this book, takes this view: “This I say, God doth here after the manner of men; for, otherwise, we are not to conceive that God doth make certain days of session with his creatures, wherein he doth call the good and bad angels together about the affairs of the world. We must not have such gross conceits of God; for he needs receive no information from them, neither doth he give them or Satan any formal commission; neither is Satan admitted into the presence of God, to come so near God at any time; neither is God moved at all by the slanders of Satan, or by his accusations, to deliver up his children and servants into his hands for a moment; but only the Scripture speaks thus to teach us how God carries himself in the affairs of the world, even as if he sat upon his throne, and called every creature before him, and gave each directions what and when and where to work, how far and which way to move in every action.” Kitto (Daily Bib. Illust. in loc.) endorses this view.

3. That the Satan, here, is a good spirit, to whom has been assigned the work of trying and proving men. This was the opinion of Dathe, Eichhorn, Schultens, and Herder. The last mentioned regarded him as a kind of censor morum, or an attorney or solicitor general, (Staats-Anwalt Gottes.) This view, which savours more of trifling than of serious discourse, is destined to a like fate with that of Dathe, of which Gesenius says it is now universally exploded.

4. That his presence is tolerated as a culprit, or as a transgressor as yet unexposed except to God himself. Thus St. Augustine, (Serm. in loc.): “Satan was in the midst of the good angels, even as a criminal stands in the midst of bailiffs awaiting judgment.” Delitzsch suggests, “that Satan here appears among the good spirits, resembling Judas Iscariot among the disciples until his treachery was revealed.” This thought Birks (Difficulties of Belief, p. 99) expands: “If Judas remained long undetected among the twelve apostles, it is conceivable that the crime of the arch deceiver may have remained concealed for a time except from the eye of the Omniscient alone. We may conceive that the adversary was still permitted to appear among the sons of God, and to seek, in the courts of heaven itself, to veil his dark malice under the show of a zeal for the divine justice, and his fraudulent temptations under the specious show of genuine benevolence towards angels and men.” A plausible theory! but one requiring that the temptation of Job should have taken place prior to the fall of man; for at that time the character of Satan must have been fully revealed. Another theory is that of Dachsel: “Satan appears among the children of God before the Lord, on the one part, because all his hostile doing stands under God’s holy will and his permission,… on the other part, because Satan and his angels have a right to accuse believers before the Lord as long as an unforgiven sin remains in the Church of God. Revelation 12:10.” (See also Delitzsch, under verse 9, who maintains the same view.) The gist of this whole difficulty lies in the problem of the place where the scene transpired. The intimation that Satan could have insinuated himself into the heaven of the sainted dead is a pure assumption, at once contrary to the entire analogy of the Scriptures and offensive to our thoughts. The subject has been embarrassed by the too limited view taken of the dominion of God. The innumerable company (muriadev) of angels, (Hebrews 12:22,) may be assigned to divers worlds, and subjected to different economies of the divine government. Under some one of these, the visible appearing of Satan may be no more abnormal than is his invisible presence in kindred assemblages in this world. Indeed, our present economy, no less than that which opened in Eden, discloses not only the juxta-residence of good and evil spirits, but their casual association. Analogy justifies us in accepting a similar economy for at least one other world, and this would meet the demands the scene before us makes upon our faith. The scene, however, which is remarkable for its downright naturalness, has been overlaid with “cabinets” and “councils” and the paraphernalia of Eastern courts, to the prejudice of sound criticism.