Job · Chapter 3

1-10. Complaining that he did not die as soon as he was born, ver. 11-19. Complaining that his life was continued, now he was in misery, ver. 20-26. V. 1. His day-His birth-day, in vain do some endeavour to excuse this and the following speeches of Job, who afterwards is reproved by God, and severely accuseth himself for them, Job 38:2 40:4 13:3,6. And yet he does not proceed so far as to curse God, but makes the devil a liar: but although he does not break forth into direct reproaches of God, yet he makes indirect reflections upon his providence. His curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to a thing, which was not capable of blessing and cursing, and because it cast a blame upon God for bringing that day, and for giving him life on that day.

Verse 1. After this opened Job his mouth] After the seven days’ mourning was over, there being no prospect of relief, Job is represented as thus cursing the day of his birth. Here the poetic part of the book begins; for most certainly there is nothing in the preceding chapters either in the form or spirit of Hebrew poetry. It is easy indeed to break the sentences into hemistichs; but this does not constitute them poetry: for, although Hebrew poetry is in general in hemistichs, yet it does not follow that the division of narrative into hemistichs must necessarily constitute it poetry. In many cases the Asiatic poets introduce their compositions with prose narrative; and having in this way prepared the reader for what he is to expect, begin their deevans, cassidehs, gazels, &c. This appears to be the plan followed by the author of this book. Those who still think, after examining the structure of those chapters, and comparing them with the undoubted poetic parts of the book, that they also, and the ten concluding verses, are poetry, have my consent, while I take the liberty to believe most decidedly the opposite.

Cursed his day.] That is, the day of his birth; and thus he gave vent to the agonies of his soul, and the distractions of his mind. His execrations have something in them awfully solemn, tremendously deep, and strikingly sublime. But let us not excuse all the things which he said in his haste, and in the bitterness of his soul, because of his former well established character of patience. He bore all his privations with becoming resignation to the Divine will and providence: but now, feeling himself the subject of continual sufferings, being in heaviness through manifold temptation, and probably having the light of God withdrawn from his mind, as his consolations most undoubtedly were, he regrets that ever he was born; and in a very high strain of impassioned poetry curses his day. We find a similar execration to this in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 20:14-18, and in other places; which, by the way, are no proofs that the one borrowed from the other; but that this was the common mode of Asiatic thinking, speaking, and feeling, on such occasions.

Verse 1. After this Job opened his mouth — The days of mourning being now over, and no hopes appearing of Job’s amendment, but his afflictions rather increasing, he bursts into a severe lamentation; he wishes he had never existed, or that his death had immediately followed his birth; life under such a load of calamity appearing to him the greatest affliction. Undoubtedly Satan, who had been permitted to bring the fore-mentioned calamities upon him, and to torment his body so dreadfully, had also obtained liberty to assault his mind with various and powerful temptations. This he now does with the utmost violence, injecting hard thoughts of God, as being severe, unjust, and his enemy; that he might shake his confidence and hope, and produce that horror and dismay, which might issue in his cursing God. For, as is justly observed by Mr. Scott, unless we bring these inward trials into the account, during which we may conclude that he was deprived of all comfortable sense of God’s favour, and filled with a dread of his wrath, we shall not readily apprehend the reason of the change that took place in his conduct, from the entire resignation manifested in the preceding chapters, to the impatience which appears here, and in some of the subsequent parts of this book. But this consideration solves the difficulty: the inward conflict and anguish of his mind, added to all his outward sufferings, caused the remaining corruption of his nature to work so powerfully, that at length it burst forth in many improper expressions. And cursed his day — His birth-day, as is evident from verse

Verse 1. After this opened Job his mouth. The Masoretic Jews, as well as our modern divines, seem agreed that Job now began the drama, and spake in poetic effusions of verse. They say the same of the prophets; and our infidels call the prophets all poets. The psalms we know have a poetic character, and mostly run in metaboles. But where shall we find in the prophetic writings, with the exception of certain passages, any thing analogous to ancient poësy? We have Greek poetry of various metres. The Sibyline verses are hexameters, and the Voluspa of our northern prophetess or pythoness, is in biameters; two feet, or four syllables in a line. The poetry of the holy prophets is then left without a name; for the poetic accents and numbers which they use were not allowed to disturb the sense. Fenelon, in his Telemaque, has admirably succeeded in a similar kind of flowing metre, lively in figures, and impressive in sentiment.—Job cursed his day; that is, his birthday. The ancient princes made great feasts at their birthdays. The Trojans called Helen’s son, “prince of the city.” Jeremiah, in anguish of heart for a despised ministry and a lost country, uses if possible, still stronger language than Job. Jeremiah 20:14-18. The cloud of darkness for the time was too impervious for the eye of faith; yet he arraigns not the Almighty at his bar. The language, as was usual with the ancients, is strong; but self-murder is abhorred. God sends sunshine after the darkest day.

1. After this — With the close of the Historical Introduction, Satan, as an open actor, disappears from the scene; the supernatural passes into abeyance; and we are for awhile left alone with Job, notwithstanding his friends still sit by in formal etiquette, and with professional sympathy. Faith has been triumphant in every conflict, and the very language of the original, and of our own beautiful English version, seems to partake of the spirit prevailing around — the calmness and serenity of the victory towards which all had tended. We are as little prepared for the impending violent outburst of grief and despair, as Job was for the storm that destroyed his family and home. A dyke may for a long time hold the vast volumes of a flood in check, only to make the devastation the more disastrous when once it breaks away. Such is the flood, long kept back by the power of faith, that now bursts forth. We are borne along amid the wreck of broken thoughts, struggling images, and impassioned cries. It is the one lamentation of all literature overwhelming us with its awfulness, and leading us to grasp the rock that is higher than we.

The question naturally arises as to the immediate cause for Job’s so sudden precipitation from the assured heights of trust and resignation into the yawning depths of despair. However sincere the friends may have been at the outset of their ministrations, they somewhere failed in these, and dashed the cup of consolation with lees of bitterness. Their breedings over his peculiar afflictions must in some way have betrayed themselves to the keen eyes of Job. (See notes on verse 2 and 6:14.) The failure of the friends was the failure of Job’s last earthly hope. The strained “back” of the sufferer was not equal to this, “the last straw” of grief. His cursing of every phase of existence proclaims that nothing now remains to Job but his grave and his God. The lamentation divides itself, according to Hahn, into, first, a wild cursing of life. which has brought his calamity; verses 3-10. Second, an ardent desire for death, to bring him rest; verses 11-19. Third, reproachful questioning of life, if indeed it must bring sorrow; verses 20-26. Job opened his mouth — A formula used when a speech of more than usual gravity is expected. And cursed his day — His birthday. (Verse 3; Hosea 7:5.) He does not curse God. The issue made by Satan was, that he would “curse” (renounce) “God.” The word here used is llq, to speak ill, or make light of. — Gesenius. (See note on barak, to curse, or renounce, Job 1:5.) “Job’s cursing the day may be viewed as simply an Oriental glowering over his misery, stopping at the second causes, and never dreaming of impeaching the divine First Cause. A logician might tell him that his words implicated the First Cause, and but for his paroxysm of woe he would be responsible; but he thinks no such implication. After the human probationary measure he is innocent — still “perfect;” but tried by the absolute, as he soon will be, he is guilty.” Compare with this lament the more brief and polished, but less impressive, one of Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 20:14-18,) which of all Scriptures more nearly approaches the solemnly majestic and tragic wail of Job; and while “that of Jeremiah is milder, softer, and more plaintive, peculiarly calculated to excite pity,” (LOWTH, Hebrews Poet.,) it is evidently modelled after this, the vastly older pattern. In this we are painfully affected by the intense subjectiveness of the protracted outcry which, better than any descriptive language, discloses the great deep of Job’s misery. Dean Swift, at the height of his glory, upon the return of his birthday, was wont to “lament it” by repeating this chapter. — ROSCOE’S Life of Swift.

2. Job spake — Hebrew, answered. Not their words, but their thoughts, as he had divined them. Or it may have respect to the occurrences of the last seven days (Comp. Matthew 11:25.) Umbreit regards the word as intensive, and intended to increase the force of the following word. First long strophe — JOB CURSES HIS EXISTENCE, 3-10.

a. He curses his birthday, 3-5.

V. 3. Let the day-Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost.

Verse 3. There is a man-child conceived.] The word hrh harah

signifies to conceive; yet here, it seems, it should be taken in the sense of being born, as it is perfectly unlikely that the night of conception should be either distinctly known or published.

3. In vain do some endeavour to excuse this and the following speeches of Job, who afterward is reproved by God, and severely accuses himself for them, Job 38:2; 40:4; 42:3, 6. And yet he does not proceed so far as to curse God, and therefore makes the devil a liar: but although he does not break forth into direct reproaches of God, yet he makes indirect reflections upon his providence. His curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to what was not capable of receiving blessing or cursing, and because it reflected blame on God for bringing that day into existence, and for giving him life on that day. Some other pious persons, through a similar infirmity, when immersed in deep troubles, have vented their grief in the same unjustifiable way. See Jeremiah 20:14.

Verse 3. Here the metrical part of this book begins, which in the original Hebrew is broken into short verses, and is very beautiful, thus: wb dlwa µwy dbac — Jobad jom ivaled bo,

rbg hrh rma hlylhw — Vehalailah amar horah geber.

Let the day perish wherein I was born,

And the night which said, A man child is conceived.

Let the day perish, &c. — So far from desiring, according to the general and prevailing custom, that my birth-day should be celebrated; that any singular tokens of joy and gratulation should be expressed on it, in remembrance of my coming into the world, my earnest and passionate desire is, that it may not so much as be reckoned one of the days of the year, but that both it and the remembrance of it may be utterly lost. And the night in which it was said — With joy and triumph, as happy tidings, There is a man-child conceived — Or rather, brought forth, as the word hrh, harah, signifies, (1 Chronicles 4:17,) for the exact time of conception is commonly unknown to women themselves, and certainly is not wont to be reported among men, as this day is supposed to be. Indeed, this latter clause is only a repetition of the former, expressing that, whether it was day or night when he was born, he wished the time to be forgotten. Heath translates the words, And the night which said, See, a man-child is born; and he observes, from Schultens, “that the bearing of a son was considered a matter of great consequence among the Arabians; the form of their appreciation of happiness to a new-married woman being, ‘May you live happy, and bring forth male children.’“

3. Let the day perish — Literally, Perish the day! I was to be born in it! Hitzig renders, wb dlwa, in which I should be born. “The speaker, by a bold figure, places himself before his birth, and prays that the day which was to give him existence might be annihilated, so that he might be saved from the misery of living.” The fathers, who were disposed to palliate this entire lamentation, call attention to the thought that it is the day of his birth, and not that of his prospective death, that he execrates; which Isidorus beautifully illustrates by the tears of Christ, “who wept,” he says, “not so much that Lazarus had died, as that he must call back to waves and storms him who had reached the port, and bring again the crowned victor into the battlefield of life.” And the night… it said — Not, in which it was said, which takes away the startling abruptness of the original. Like a conscious existence, night personified has the power of speech. In the sublime conception of the poet, night makes report to the Most High of whatever takes place within its wide domain. The speculation is not unworthy of science, that all the deeds of the day are embodied in the reflected rays of light, from which they can never die out, at least so long as the light of the day continues to shine on through infinite space. In a similar manner night has a voice. Psalm 19. 2. On which Stier remarks: “We are to understand not merely what we see by day and night in the heavens, but, as the expression naturally imports, (that is, if viewed without respect to the connexion,) the whole that is done by day and night under the heavens.” A man child — rbg, literally, a man. The birth of a son was one of the three great occasions of festivity among the Arabs. The two others, according to Pococke, were the birth of a foal of valued race, and the rising up of a poetical genius in any of their tribes. (Spec. Hist. Ar., pp. 160, 367.)

V. 4. Darkness-I wish the sun had never risen upon that day, or, which is all one, that it had never been; and whensoever that day returns, I wish it may be black, and gloomy, and uncomfortable. Regard-From heaven, by causing the light of the sun which is in heaven to shine upon it.

Verse 4. Let that day be darkness] The meaning is exactly the same with our expression, “Let it be blotted out of the calendar.” However distinguished it may have been, as the birthday of a man once celebrated for his possessions, liberality, and piety, let it no longer be thus noted; as he who was thus celebrated is now the sport of adversity, the most impoverished, most afflicted, and most wretched of human beings. Let not God regard it from above] whvrdy la al yidreshehu, “Let Him not require it”—let Him not consider it essential to the completion of the days of the year; and therefore he adds, neither let the light shine upon it. If it must be a part of duration, let it not be distinguished by the light of the sun.

Verse 4. Let that day be darkness — I wish the sun had never risen on that day; or, which is the same thing, that it had never been: and whensoever that day returns, instead of the cheering and refreshing beams of light arising upon it, I wish it may be covered with gross, thick darkness, and rendered black, gloomy, and uncomfortable; let not God regard it from above — From heaven, by causing the light of heaven to visit it; or, let God make no more inquiry after it than if such a day had never been. Dr. Waterland renders it, Let not God take account of it.

4. Let… regard it — Literally, not seek it out, vrd. That is, not concern himself about it; “so that it may remain without light, on the supposition that each single day owes its light to an especial care of God.” — Dillmann.

V. 5. Death-A black and dark shadow like that of the place of the dead, which is a land of darkness. Slain-Take away its beauty and glory. Terrify-That is, men in it. Let it be always observed as a frightful and dismal day.

Verse 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it] whlagy yigaluhu, “pollute or avenge it,” from lag gaal, to vindicate, avenge, &c.; hence lag goel, the nearest of kin, whose right it was to redeem an inheritance, and avenge the death of his relative by slaying the murderer. Let this day be pursued, overtaken, and destroyed. Let natural darkness, the total privation of the solar light, rendered still more intense by death’s shadow projected over it, seize on and destroy this day, eklaboi authn, Septuagint; alluding, perhaps, says Mr. Parkhurst, to the avenger of blood seizing the offender.

Let a cloud dwell upon it] Let the dymme cloude fall upon it.—Coverdale. Let the thickest clouds have there their dwelling-place—let that be the period of time on which they shall constantly rest, and never be dispersed. This seems to be the import of the original, hnna wyl[ תשכנ tishcan alaiv ananah. Let it be the place in which clouds shall be continually gathered together, so as to be the storehouse of the densest vapours, still in the act of being increasingly condensed.

Let the blackness of the day terrify it.] And let it be lapped in with sorrowe.— Coverdale. This is very expressive: lap signifies to fold up, or envelope any particular thing with fold upon fold, so as to cover it everywhere and secure it in all points. Leaving out the semicolon, we had better translate the whole clause thus: “Let the thickest cloud have its dwelling-place upon it, and let the bitterness of a day fill it with terror.” A day similar to that, says the Targum, in which Jeremiah was distressed for the destruction of the house of the sanctuary; or like that in which Jonah was cast into the sea of Tarsis; such a day as that on which some great or national misfortune has happened: probably in allusion to that in which the darkness that might be felt enveloped the whole land of Egypt, and the night in which the destroying angel slew all the first-born in the land.

Verse 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death — Let the most dismal darkness, like that of the place of the dead, which is a land of darkness, and where the light is darkness, Job 10:21, 22; or darkness so gross and palpable, that its horrors are insupportable; stain it — Take away its beauty and glory, and render it abominable as a filthy thing; or, rather, challenge or claim it, as the word whlagy, jigaluhu, here used, may properly be rendered, the verb lag, gaal, signifying, primarily, to avenge, redeem, rescue, deliver, claim, possess. Indeed, as Houbigant justly observes, “There enters nothing of pollution into the idea of darkness.” Let a cloud dwell upon it, &c. — Let the thickest clouds wholly possess it, and render it terrible to men. Dr. Waterland renders the last clause, Let the blackness make it hideous.

5. The shadow of death — twmlx tsal-maweth, was regarded by the ancients as one of the very few Hebrew compound words; but now, by De Dieu and many moderns, it is taken to be a derivative from µlx, to be dark. Compare Arabic, Zalima, of the same meaning. Ewald and Dillmann point differently, and read tsalmouth, “black darkness;” the latter of whom looks upon the idea of shadow in connexion with sheol as a feeble word to express the extreme darkness of Orcus, (Sheol.) Its gradational use here in connexion with darkness, as well as elsewhere in Scripture, (chapters 10:21; 28:3; 34:22; Psalm 107:14,) points to its true meaning of deep and terrible darkness, such as the popular imagination in that day associated with the regions of the dead. It also appears in contradistinction to light, (Job 12:22;) as an attributive of sheol, (Job 10:21;) and in connexion with the gates of the world of the dead, (Job 38:17.). It is also used metaphorically for affliction, Job 16:16; and for evil and calamity, Psalm 44:19; Isaiah 9:2. On the supposition that it is a compound word, the idea of “shadow of death” may have sprung from the darkness so frequently noticed to creep over the sight of the dying, which even now strikes terror, if so be at evening time it be not light. Zechariah 14:7. (See note on Matthew 4:16.) Stain it — lag, claim or redeem it, the common and accepted meaning of the word. Our translators, following the Targum, probably took their rendering from l[g, a kindred form of the word. The day of Job’s birth was once their possession, (Genesis 1:2,) and as kinsmen the primeval darkness and chaos have a right to redeem and bring it back, as belonging to them, and not to the light. (Leviticus 25:25.) Cloud dwell upon it — “Let the cloud pitch its tent over it.” — Schultens. This is an image common among the Arabs, and is thus illustrated by Schultens from the Arabic history of Tamerlane: “And when the darkness of the night shall dissolve its tents, and the dawn, as if marching forth to banquet, shall unfold her banners.” The blackness — yryrmk, (from rmk, “to be burnt,” “to be black,”) the darkenings or obscurations. The marginal rendering is that of Schultens, Mercer, etc. This is now of as little consideration as will be the proposed emendation of Hitzig, who changes the second r into d, thus making the expression similar to that of Job 24:13, (which see,) “like apostates from the light.” This view, which is not original, Furst had already condemned. The reading as above, “darkenings of the day,” is now generally accepted. Reference is supposed to be made to the darkness caused by an eclipse, which was thought by most ancient nations to forebode disaster. Thus Renan — “Let an eclipse, fill it with terror.” b. Job curses the night of his conception, 6-10.

V. 6. Darkness-Constant and extraordinary darkness, without the least glimmering of light from the moon or stars. Be joined-Reckoned as one, or a part of one of them.

Verse 6. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it] I think the Targum has hit the sense of this whole verse: “Let darkness seize upon that night; let it not be reckoned among the annual festivals; in the number of the months of the calendar let it not be computed.”

Some understand the word lpa ophel as signifying a dark storm; hence the Vulgate, tenebrosus turbo, “a dark whirlwind.” And hence Coverdale, Let the darck storme overcome that night, let it not be reckoned amonge the dayes off the yeare, nor counted in the monethes. Every thing is here personified; day, night, darkness, shadow of death, cloud, &c.; and the same idea of the total extinction of that portion of time, or its being rendered ominous and portentous, is pursued through all these verses, from the third to the ninth, inclusive. The imagery is diversified, the expressions varied, but the idea is the same.

Verse 6. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it — Constant and extraordinary darkness, without the least glimmering of light from the moon or stars; darkness to the highest degree possible. Thus, as Job had thrown out his resentment against the day in which he was both, so now the severity of his censure falls on his birth-right; and his style, we find, increases and grows stronger. Our translation, indeed, makes no difference in the expression of darkness; namely, “Let that day be darkness; as for that night, let darkness seize upon it.” But the Hebrew is very different: for Ëvj, choshec, is applied to the day, and lpa, ophel, to the night, which latter word signifies a much greater degree of darkness than the former. See Joel 2:2; in the Hebrew, where the latter word, hlpa, ophelah, means thick and terrible darkness. Let it not be joined unto the days of the year — Reckoned as one, or a part of one of them. Or rather, Let it not rejoice among the days, &c., for djy, jechad, from hdj, chadah, lætari, to rejoice, may properly be so rendered. Joy here, and terror verse 5, are poetically and figuratively ascribed to the day or night, with respect to men who may either rejoice or be affrighted therein. Let it not rejoice, that is, let it be a sad, and, as it were, a funeral day. Let it not come into the number of the months — May every month be looked upon as perfect and complete without taking that night or day into the number.

6. Darkness — lpa, darkness exceedingly dense. A poetical word, expressive of intenser gloom than Ëvj. Compare Exodus 10:21. Let it not be joined — The marginal reading is more correct: “Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.” The night is here personified, and conceived of as rejoicing in her course as well as the day. Compare the similar personification of the sun, Psalm 19:5. “The night is not considered so much to rejoice on account of its own beauty… as to form one of the joyous and triumphant choral troop of nights that come in, in harmonious and glittering procession.” This view of Davidson is not sufficiently comprehensive, as appears from the following verse. The night that saw the beginning of his existence (his conception) should take upon itself the character of a mourner; it should be clad in darkness; it should still its notes of rejoicing, and forever maintain silence among its joyous kindred. The reader may compare the beautiful passage of Euripides: “Thee I invoke, thou self-created Being, who gavest birth to nature, and whom light and darkness, and the whole train of globes and planets, encircle with eternal music.”

Verse 7. Lo, let that night be solitary] The word hnh hinneh, behold, or lo, is wanting in one of Deuteronomy Rossi’s MSS., nor is it expressed in the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, or Arabic.

The word dwmlg galmud, which we translate solitary, is properly Arabic. From [Arabic] ghalama or jalama, signifying to cut off, make bare, amputate, comes [Arabic] jalmud, a rock, a great stone; and [Arabic] jalameedet, weight, a burden, trouble, from which we may gather Job’s meaning: “Let that night be grievous, oppressive, as destitute of good as a bare rock is of verdure.” The Targum gives the sense, In that night let there be tribulation.

Let no joyful voice come therein.] Let there be no choirs of singers; no pleasant music heard; no dancing or merriment. The word hnnr renanah signifies any brisk movement, such as the vibration of the rays of light, or the brisk modulation of the voice in a cheerful ditty. The Targum has, Let not the crowing of the rural or wild cock resound in it. Let all work be intermitted; let there be no sportive exercises, and let all animals be totally silent.

Verse 7. Let that night be solitary — Destitute of all society of men, meeting and feasting together. Let it afford no entertainment or pleasure of any kind; let no joyful voice come therein — No music, no harmony of sound be heard, no cheerful or pleasing voice admitted! Let no expressions of joy be so much as once attempted, however engaging and affecting they may be.

7. Solitary — dwmlg, barren, as in Isaiah 49:21. “It is a metaphor,” says Gesenius, “taken from the hard, sterile, and stony soil.” Let it be not only a night without Job’s birth, but without any births. With the Arab the birth of male children was celebrated by feasts, dances, and songs. — POCOCKE, ibid., p. 160. That night, with the ancient curse of barrenness upon it, is to sit solitary and alone, in unbroken silence, in the everlasting darkness.

V. 8. The day-Their birth-day: when their afflictions move them to curse their own birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it. Mourning-Who are full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints.

Verse 8. Let them curse it that curse the day] This translation is scarcely intelligible. I have waded through a multitude of interpretations, without being able to collect from them such a notion of the verse as could appear to me probable. Schultens, Rosenmuller, and after them Mr. Good, have laboured much to make it plain. They think the custom of sorcerers who had execrations for peoples, places, things, days, &c., is here referred to; such as Balaam, Elymas, and many others were: but I cannot think that a man who knew the Divine Being and his sole government of the world so well as Job did, would make such an allusion, who must have known that such persons and their pretensions were impostors and execrable vanities. I shall give as near a translation as I can of the words, and subjoin a short paraphrase: לויתנ rr[ העתידים יום אררי whbqy yikkebuhu orerey yom haathidim orer livyathan; “Let them curse it who detest the day; them who are ready to raise up the leviathan.” That is, Let them curse my birthday who hate daylight, such as adulterers, murderers, thieves, and banditti, for whose practices the night is more convenient; and let them curse it who, being like me weary of life, are desperate enough to provoke the leviathan, the crocodile, to tear them to pieces. This version is nearly the same as that given by Coverdale. Let them that curse the daye give it their curse also, then those that be ready to rayse up leviathan. By leviathan some understand the greatest and most imminent dangers; and others, the devil, whom the enchanters are desperate enough to attempt to raise by their incantations.

Calmet understands the whole to be spoken of the Atlantes, a people of Ethiopia, who curse the sun because it parches their fields and their bodies; and who fearlessly attack, kill, and eat the crocodile. This seems a good sense.

Verse 8. Let them curse it that curse the day — That is, their birth-day: when their afflictions move them to curse their own birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it; who are ready to raise up their mourning — Who are full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints. A late writer paraphrases this verse as follows: “So little am I concerned to have my birth-night celebrated by any public demonstrations of joy, by any solemn blessing or giving of thanks, that I would rather choose to hire a set of those men, whose business it is to curse the days that are esteemed inauspicious, and who are always ready on such occasions. Let them be produced, and let them apply all their skill in raising their mournful voices to the highest pitch: and let them study to find out proper expressions to load it with the highest and heaviest imprecations.” If the reader will consult Poole and Dodd on the passage, he will find some reasons adduced which go to justify this exposition; but for which we have not room here.

Ver. 8. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. The plainest reader must suspect that the translation here is unsuccessful. Hebrew, ˆtywl Leviathan, which in anger disturbs the seas, denotes storms of trouble and grief. Therefore Gussetius, in his commentary on Hebrew grammar, reads, under the root hwl, “Let the execrators of days, who are ever ready to excite leviathan, execrate it.” The allusion is to the unhallowed language of mariners, who are apt to curse the tempest, or to the pythonesses and incantators, who execrate unlucky days.

8. That curse the day — Cursers of the day. Pliny says of the Atlantes, (Herodotus calls them Atarantes,) that as they look upon the rising and the setting sun they give utterance to direful imprecations against it as being deadly to themselves and their lands. (Nat. Hist., book v, chap. 8.) Job does not refer to such, but to professional cursers, who imprecate evil on particular days. Superstition in the earliest times had its sorcerers, who were believed to possess the power, through incantations, of working injury to others. Balaam was summoned from his distant home to curse the people of Israel. Job invites those skilled in the art of cursing to join him in cursing that night. Raise up their mourning — Our version yields no intelligible meaning. The Septuagint renders the passage, “he that is ready to attack the great whale,” (or monster,) which is quite as meaningless. The original reads, skilled to rouse up the dragon, (Leviathan.) This word, ˆtywl, has been a stumbling-block to all translators. The Complutensian editors (of the first polyglott, 1517) left it without attempting to translate it. Our own version, “their mourning,” together with that of Piscator and Tyndal, probably followed the Chaldee paraphrase, which may have been suggested by the ancient association of the profession of sorcery with professional mourning. They inferred that as the first clause of the verse meant sorcery, the second must mean “mourning.” 1. Furst, in common with modern lexicographers, gives the ground-form of the word as that which wreathes, or gathers itself into folds. Hence one meaning of the word is serpent, since it moves itself forward by folds. Umbreit and Vaihinger understand by the word a very large serpent. The art of charming serpents is common through the East. The serpent, too, fills a large place in all mythologies. In the last Indian Avatar, as well as in the Eddas, the world is to be destroyed by a serpent vomiting flames. 2. According to Bochartus, Clericus, Carey, etc., the word should be rendered crocodile. This animal was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the emblem of Typhon, the dark genius of their mythology. As it was in the shape of a crocodile that Typhon eluded the pursuit of Horus, they set apart a particular day for the hunt of this animal. They killed as many of them as they could, and afterwards threw their dead bodies before the temple of their god. The following translation of a papyrus found at Thebes gives us a form of the invocation of Typhon: “I invoke thee who livest in empty space: wind, or terrible invisible, all powerful, god of gods: maker of destruction: and maker of desolation: thou who hatest a flourishing family, since thou hast been expelled from Egypt and out of foreign countries. Thou hast been named the all destroyer, and the invincible. I invoke thee Typhon Set: I perform thy magical rites. Because I invoke thee by thy genuine name, by virtue of which thou canst not refuse to hear… come to me entire, and walk, and throw down that man — or that woman — by cold and heat. He has wronged me,” etc. Herodotus (ii, 32, 33) relates of the travels of the Nasamonians in Africa, that they came to a great river which flowed by a town of dwarfs, and which abounded in crocodiles. In this connexion he strangely informs us that they were a nation of sorcerers.

3. Others, (Hirtzel, Furst, Schlottmann, Ewald, etc.,) who cite Van Bohlen, think that the expression refers to the dragon in the heavens, a constellation which, according to eastern mythology, followed the sun and moon like a relentless enemy, sometimes surrounding them with his mighty folds, and so bringing on darkness. Throughout the East the ancients believed that their magicians could work upon this monster. A similar belief with respect to a monster called Rahu prevails among the Hindus to the present time. In times of eclipse the natives (as do the Chinese) raise a great din to compel the dragon to release his prey. Job’s wish, according to this view, was, that these day-cursers might rouse up this dragon, and thus effect a complete obscuration of the night. 4. The fathers looked upon the passage from a spiritual standpoint, and regarded it as referring to a spiritual encounter with Leviathan. They saw in it a prophecy of the incarnated One who should overcome the great serpent, which is hostile not only to the light, but to the God of light. (See extended citations in Wordsworth, who favours this view.) Such an interpretation, however, is unnatural and forced.

V. 9. The stars-Let the stars, which are the glory and beauty of the night, be covered with thick darkness, and that both in the evening twilight, when the stars begin to shine; and also in the farther progress of the night, even ‘till the morning dawns. Look-Let its darkness be aggravated with the disappointment of its expectations of light. He ascribes sense or reasoning to the night, by a poetical fiction, usual in all writers. Dawning-Heb. the eye-lids of the day, the morning-star which ushers in the day, and the beginning, and progress of the morning light, let this whole natural day, consisting of night and day, be blotted out of the catalogue of days.

Verse 9. Let the stars of the twilight thereof] The stars of the twilight may here refer to the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury, as well as to the brighter fixed stars.

Let it look for light] Here the prosopopœia or personification is still carried on. The darkness is represented as waiting for the lustre of the evening star, but is disappointed; and these for the aurora or dawn, but equally in vain. He had prayed that its light, the sun, should not shine upon it, Job 3:4; and here he prays that its evening star may be totally obscured, and that it might never see the dawning of the day. Thus his execration comprehends every thing that might irradiate or enliven it.

Verse 9. Let the stars of the twilight thereof, &c. — That adorn the heavens with so much beauty and lustre, never be seen that night. Let it look for light, but have none — Let it wait with the greatest impatience for some pleasing refreshment from thick, heavy clouds hanging over it; but let not the smallest degree of light appear; neither let it see the dawning of the day — Neither let it perceive the least glimpse of those bright rays, which, with so much swiftness, issue from the rising sun.

9. The dawning of the day — Literally, Let it not see the eyelashes of the dawn; that is, the first rays of the sun. Sophocles speaks of the eyelid of the golden day. (Antig., 103.) The Arab poets call the sun the eye of the day. In his early struggling rays their imagination traces eyebrows for the approaching sun. “Like the sun, before whose face the mantle of clouds is spread, while through the rifts his eyebrows appear.” But this and other citations, made by Schultens from the Arab muse, pale before the striking and tender beauty of our text. Milton has evidently borrowed from it — “Ere the high lawns appeared

Under the opening eyelids of the dawn

We drove afield.” — Lycidas, 50. 26.

Second long strophe — JOB WISHES THAT HE WERE DEAD, 11-19. a. The four following questions form a climax: he follows the course of his life from its commencement in embryo (µjrm) to the birth, and from the joy of his father, who took the new-born child upon his knees, to the fuller development of the infant, and he curses this growing life in four phases.

V. 10. It-The night or the day: to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in poetical writings. Womb-That it might never have brought me forth. Nor hid-Because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing, or experiencing, these bitter sorrows.

Verse 10. Because it shut not up the doors] Here is the reason why he curses the day and the night in which he was conceived and born; because, had he never been brought into existence, he would never have seen trouble. It seems, however, very harsh that he should have wished the destruction of his mother, in order that his birth might have been prevented; and I rather think Job’s execration did not extend thus far. The Targum understands the passage as speaking of the umbilical cord, by which the fœtus is nourished in its mother’s womb: had this been shut up, there must have been a miscarriage, or he must have been dead born; and thus sorrow would have been hidden from his eyes. This seeming gloss is much nearer the letter and spirit of the Hebrew than is generally imagined. I shall quote the words: yncb ytld rgs al yk ki lo sagar dalthey bitni, because it did not shut up the doors of my belly. This is much more consistent with the feelings of humanity, than to wish his mother’s womb to have been his grave.

Verse 10. Because it shut not up my mother’s womb — Because it did not confine me to the dark prison of the womb, but suffered me to escape from thence; nor hid sorrow from mine eyes — Because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing or experiencing those bitter sorrows under which I now groan.

Ver. 10. Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Why had not leviathan, as in the Hebrew text, the crocodile, been prepared to swallow me up?

Verse 11. Why died I not from the womb] As the other circumstance did not take place, why was I not still-born, without the possibility of reviviscence? or, as this did not occur, why did I not die as soon as born? These three things appear to me to be clearly intended here:—1. Dying in the womb, or never coming to maturity, as in the case of an abortion. 2. Being still-born, without ever being able to breathe. 3. Or, if born alive, dying within a short time after. And to these states he seems to refer in the following verses.

Verses 11, 12. Why died I not from the womb? — It would surely have been far better, and much happier for me, had I either expired in the womb where I received my life, or it had been taken from me the very moment my eyes saw the light of this world. Why did the knees prevent me? — Why did the midwife or nurse receive and lay me upon her knees, and not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, till death had taken me out of this sorrowful world, into which their cruel kindness hath betrayed me? Why did the breasts prevent me from perishing through hunger, or supply me that I should have what to suck? — Thus Job unthankfully despises these wonderful mercies of God toward poor, helpless infants.

Ver. 11. Why died I not from the womb? This verse begins the second part of Job’s anguish.

— ARNHEIM and SCHOTTMANN, 11-13.

11. Why died I not — Since for some inexplicable cause it was necessary that I should live, why did I not die before, or immediately when, I was born? Even the gay and frivolous life of the Greek, with all its glamour, could not hide the current of misery that pulsated through and through the nation’s heart. And yet little would we expect from the Greek such a maxim of despair as this of Theognis, (425:) “The best of all things is, not to be born and see the rays of the bright sun, but when born, to die as soon as possible, and lie buried under a load of earth”

V. 12. The knees-Why did the midwife or nurse receive and lay me upon her knees, and not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, ‘till death had taken me out of this miserable world, into which their cruel kindness hath betrayed me? Why did the breasts prevent me from perishing through hunger, or supply me that should have what to suck? Thus Job unthankfully despises these wonderful mercies of God towards poor helpless infants.

Verse 12. Why did the knees prevent me?] Why was I dandled on the knees? Why was I nourished by the breasts? In either of the above cases I had neither been received into a mother’s lap, nor hung upon a mother’s breasts.

Verses 11, 12. Why died I not from the womb? — It would surely have been far better, and much happier for me, had I either expired in the womb where I received my life, or it had been taken from me the very moment my eyes saw the light of this world. Why did the knees prevent me? — Why did the midwife or nurse receive and lay me upon her knees, and not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, till death had taken me out of this sorrowful world, into which their cruel kindness hath betrayed me? Why did the breasts prevent me from perishing through hunger, or supply me that I should have what to suck? — Thus Job unthankfully despises these wonderful mercies of God toward poor, helpless infants.

12. Knees — Metaphorically for lap. Prevent — An old English word, meaning anticipate. It was the custom, at a very ancient period, for the father, while music in the meanwhile was heard to sound, to clasp the new-born child to his bosom, and by this ceremony he was understood to declare it to be his own. Genesis 50:23. (JAHN, Archaeology, 161.) Among many ancient nations the father possessed the power of determining whether the child should be permitted to live. It was thus both in Greece and Rome. In Athens, Solon is said to have allowed the parent of the child to put it to death. The Emperor Augustus followed the sad custom by ordering a great-grandchild to be exposed to death. But child-murder and abortion among the Jews were punishable with death, according to the law. (DOLLINGER, Gentile, etc., 2:246, 271, 342.) It is more natural to interpret the passage as referring to the deep affection which nature has implanted within the bosom of the mother, which anticipates the helplessness and varied wants of the infant. The more pure the religion of the parent, the deeper, the more unselfish and abiding, the parental affection.

Verse 13. For now should I have lain still] In that case I had been insensible; quiet—without these overwhelming agitations; slept— unconscious of evil; been at rest—been out of the reach of calamity and sorrow.

Verses 13, 14. For now should I have lain still, and been quiet — Free from those torments of body, and that anguish of mind, which now oppress me. With kings and counsellors of the earth — I had then been as happy as the proudest monarchs, who, after all their great achievements, go down into their graves; which built desolate places for themselves — Who distinguished themselves for a while, and to show their great wealth and power, and to leave behind them a glorious name, and perpetuate their memories, with great labour and expense erected pompous and magnificent buildings; and, to render themselves the more famous, raised them up in places which seemed before to be forsaken, and abandoned to entire desolation.

13. Then had I been at rest — The gradation is to be remarked — lain still, been quiet, have slept, been at rest. The idea of “rest” in our text, is not one of unconsciousness. The expressions are such as we ourselves continue to use in anticipation of the quiet of the grave. The inscriptions in the Catacombs are in harmony with this passage, (verses 13-20,) which we may not improperly regard as a strain from nature’s oratorio of the grave. “In those inscriptions the Christian is always at peace — in pace. This phrase occurs either at the beginning or at the end of most of them as a necessary formula.” — NORTHCOTE, Catac., p. 162. The idea of immortality was most vivid in the heart of the infant Church, “yet the Christian, not content with calling his burial ground a sleeping place, (cemetery,) pushes the notion of slumber to its fullest extent.” — MAITLAND, Catac., page 42. b. This rest he would have shared with all grades of conscious existence; not only the most prosperous in life, but the mere excrescences of being, 14-16.

V. 14. Kings-I had then been as happy as the proudest monarchs, who after all their great achievements and enjoyments, go down into their graves. Built-Who to shew their wealth and power, or to leave behind them a glorious name, rebuilt ruined cities, or built new cities and palaces, in places where before there was mere solitude and wasteness.

Verse 14. With kings and counsellors of the earth] I believe this translation to be perfectly correct. The counsellors, yx[y yoatsey, I suppose to mean the privy council, or advisers of kings; those without whose advice kings seldom undertake wars, expeditions, &c. These mighty agitators of the world are at rest in their graves, after the lives of commotion which they have led among men: most of whom indeed have been the troublers of the peace of the globe.

Which built desolate places] Who erect mausoleums, funeral monuments, sepulchral pyramids, &c., to keep their names from perishing, while their bodies are turned to corruption. I cannot think, with some learned men, that Job is here referring to those patriotic princes who employed themselves in repairing the ruins and desolations which others had occasioned. His simple idea is, that, had he died from the womb, he would have been equally at rest, neither troubling nor troubled, as those defunct kings and planners of wars and great designs are, who have nothing to keep even their names from perishing, but the monuments which they have raised to contain their corrupting flesh, mouldering bones, and dust.

Verses 13, 14. For now should I have lain still, and been quiet — Free from those torments of body, and that anguish of mind, which now oppress me. With kings and counsellors of the earth — I had then been as happy as the proudest monarchs, who, after all their great achievements, go down into their graves; which built desolate places for themselves — Who distinguished themselves for a while, and to show their great wealth and power, and to leave behind them a glorious name, and perpetuate their memories, with great labour and expense erected pompous and magnificent buildings; and, to render themselves the more famous, raised them up in places which seemed before to be forsaken, and abandoned to entire desolation.

14. Desolate places — twbrj. Michaelis translates temples; Umbreit, ruins; Renan, mausolea; the Vulgate and Targum, solitudes. The word cannot mean ruins, in the proper sense of the term. Hitzig well remarks, that “such work is not characteristic of kings, and if it were, it is here unsuitable to the sense.” Nor is the idea of ruins applied proleptically to palaces and other structures they may have built, as some (Umbreit, Hahn, Noyes, etc.) have thought. To turn aside and speak of buildings that in time should become ruins, would not only be an unreasonable interruption of the thought, but introduce “a sense which does not magnify, but minishes, the reputation of the great dead.” If the idea of desolation be accepted, which is certainly one of the root meanings of the word, it must be applied to the purpose of the structure. This can be none other than the voidness, the desolation, of death. The context unquestionably points to some kind of burial structure. The sentence itself indicates the same: they built for themselves (wml) the house of desolation. Compare the “sepulchre for thyself;” three times repeated, Isaiah 22:16. With this (if we may accept the views of Ewald, Dillmann, and Delitzsch) agrees the derivation of the word horaboth. They regard it as kindred with hiram or ahram, the Arabic, and pi-chram, the Coptic, for pyramids. For the possible transition of the word, consult Dillmann in loc. Job’s frequent allusions to Egyptian matters justify us in presuming that he must have known of the pyramids as burial places of the mighty dead. They built for themselves — They strove to transfer the aristocracy of life into the sad regions of the grave. They separated themselves from “the common herd” of the unknown dead, and by various devices strove to hide their sarcophagus in safety forever from human eye. It is a ghastly pre-eminence to which power and wealth lifted them, that of “lying in state” alone in the grave. These pyramidal and protective structures for the dead do not necessarily, as Sharpe maintains, speak of a resurrection, but of the foreboding, if not despair, under which their builders bent to the behest of death. For their hope was to a great extent, and perhaps entirely, wrapped up in the continued identity of the mummified body. Its destruction entailed a vague but sure calamity upon the soul. In the eighty-ninth chapter of the Egyptian “Book of the Dead,” the body prays that “the guardians of heaven may not be ordered to destroy it… so as to send away my soul from my corpse,” in allusion to the expected re-union of the two. “Fully acknowledging the immortality of the soul,” says Osburn, (Mon. Egypt, 1:446,) “the inventors of the idolatry of Egypt debased this doctrine by teaching that it was closely linked with, and contingent upon, the indestructibility of the lifeless body.” In contrast to the proud isolation of these, the great ones of earth, how simple the God’s-acre where rest the humble and pious dead.

Verse 15. Or with princes that had gold] Chief or mighty men, lords of the soil, or fortunate adventurers in merchandise, who got gold in abundance, filled their houses with silver, left all behind, and had nothing reserved for themselves but the empty places which they had made for their last dwelling, and where their dust now sleeps, devoid of care, painful journeys, and anxious expectations. He alludes here to the case of the covetous, whom nothing can satisfy, as an Asiatic writer has observed, but the dust that fills his mouth when laid in the grave.—SAADY.

Verses 15, 16. Or with princes that had gold, &c. — My repose and security from worldly anxieties would have been the same with that of those princes who were once celebrated for their wealth, and whose birth entitled them to large treasures of gold and silver. Or as a hidden — That is, undiscerned and unregarded; untimely birth — Born before the due time, and therefore extinct. I had not been — To wit, in the land of the living, of which he here speaks; as infants which never saw light — As those fœtuses that were never quickened, and come to nothing, or those infants which are stifled and dead before their birth.

15. Their houses — Meaning, their tombs; thus Rosenmuller, Hirtel, and Hitzig. In like manner Isaiah (Isaiah 14:18) and Diodorus Siculus, (i, 51,) according to whom the Egyptians called their graves houses, oikoi. The ancients buried treasures with their dead. Josephus tells us that immense wealth was interred with David, and that about nine centuries afterward Hyrcanus opened one room of the sepulchre, and took out three thousand talents, part of which he gave to Antiochus, that the siege of the city might be raised. (Antiq., vii, chap. 15.) Canon Cook cites a papyrus from the times of Rameses III., (contemporary with the early Judges,) which contains an account of the trial and execution of robbers who broke into several Egyptian tombs, and despoiled the mummies of large quantities of gold. Job specifies three classes of the fortunate dead: 1. Those whose display is greatest in death, verse 14. 2. Those most successful in life, verse

15. 3. Those who altogether failed of conscious existence in this life, verse

V. 16. Hidden-Undiscerned and unregarded. Born before the due time. Been-In the land of the living.

Verse 16. Or as a hidden untimely birth] An early miscarriage, which was scarcely perceptible by the parent herself; and in this case he had not been—he had never had the distinguishable form of a human being, whether male or female.

As infants] Little ones; those farther advanced in maturity, but miscarried long before the time of birth.

Verses 15, 16. Or with princes that had gold, &c. — My repose and security from worldly anxieties would have been the same with that of those princes who were once celebrated for their wealth, and whose birth entitled them to large treasures of gold and silver. Or as a hidden — That is, undiscerned and unregarded; untimely birth — Born before the due time, and therefore extinct. I had not been — To wit, in the land of the living, of which he here speaks; as infants which never saw light — As those fœtuses that were never quickened, and come to nothing, or those infants which are stifled and dead before their birth.

16. They are all one in the grave, and could he only have died as soon as he was born he would have been equally at rest. The splendid successes of life take upon them a different hue when contemplated from the brink of the grave. That the repose of death should be more to be desired than gold, and silver, and brilliancy of mortal estate, bears witness, not to emotions of envious regret on the part of Job over his own lost grandeur, as some have intimated — nor is it “irony,” as Umbreit would have it, “which often blazes forth from the black cloud of melancholy” — it is rather the view of an enlightened soul, that sees in the rest of the grave the shadow of the eternal “rest that remaineth for the people of God.” Even the heathen philosopher Aristotle, (cited by RAWLINSON, Christianity, etc., page 238,) looked upon man’s final happiness as an “energy of rest;” one single, pure, unchanging, and perpetual energy of thought; the silent contemplation of God and Godlike things.

16. Untimely birth — A like figure appears in Psalm 58:8. A similarity has been traced in other passages between Job and the Psalms. That such resemblance should exist does not necessarily determine which of the works was written before the other. The most it attests is, that the prior work (Job) was received as a sacred book by later writers. c. Then and there, for the first time, the inequalities in life’s allotments are brought to an end, 17-19.

V. 17. There-In the grave. The wicked-The great oppressors and troublers of the world cease from their vexations, rapins and murders. Weary-Those who were here molested and tired out with their tyrannies, now quietly sleep with them.

Verse 17. There the wicked cease] In the grave the oppressors of men cease from irritating, harassing, and distressing their fellow creatures and dependents.

And there the weary be at rest.] Those who were worn out with the cruelties and tyrannies of the above. The troubles and the troubled, the restless and the submissive, the toils of the great and the labours of the slave, are here put in opposition.

Verse 17. There the wicked cease from troubling — In the grave the great oppressors and troublers of the world cease from their vexatious rapines and murders; and there the weary be at rest — Those who were here molested, and tired out with their tyrannies, oppressions, and injuries, now quietly sleep with them.

17. There — In the grave. The wicked — The man who rages. According to Kimchi, such is the idea of the root of the word [vr, to rage, to storm. He is inwardly torn by passions and appetites. The ocean is a befitting emblem of his ever-restless soul. (Isaiah 57:20.) His inward trouble leads him to trouble others. His present life — an unceasing source of misery to himself and of pain to friends — casts a dark shadow upon his own eternal condition and its relationship to others. To such a heart there is but one Being who can give rest. (Matthew 11:28.) The weary be at rest — Dr. Chalmers says of this verse, that “it is one of the Scripture’s prime memorabilia.” The ancient Egyptian called the abode of the dead “the covering of the weary.” — Brugsch. Compare Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.” Those wasted by toil, and those stricken of sorrow, alike long for the grave as a place of rest. There is danger, however, lest the morbid spirit exaggerate the real evils of life, and, sighing for the grave, be guilty of bringing reproach upon the ways of God, his goodness, and his love. We may learn a lesson from the wounded soldier, who, absorbed in the battle, heeds little, and often knows not, the wounds he may have received, but fights on till the battle is over, and then, only then, asks for rest. Life’s soldier, (Job 7:1,) his soul each day filled with duty and laborious love, either heeds not or counts as small the present evil, and looks for repose only when God’s will shall have completed his existence. Those “wearied in strength” (see margin) may be referred to an incident in the life of Arnauld, the intrepid antagonist of the Vatican, and of “the grand monarque.” His friend Nicole, a companion in arms, expressed a wish to retire from the field, and to enjoy repose. “Repose!” replied Arnauld, “will you not have the whole of eternity to repose in?” — Encyclop. Britannica, 8th ed., 1:81.

V. 18. The oppressor-Or, taskmaster, who urges and forces them to work by cruel threatenings and stripes. Job meddles not here with their eternal state after death, of which he speaks hereafter, but only their freedom from worldly troubles, which is the sole matter of his present discourse.

Verse 18. The prisoners rest together] Those who were slaves, feeling all the troubles, and scarcely tasting any of the pleasures of life, are quiet in the grave together; and the voice of the oppressor, the hard, unrelenting task-master, which was more terrible than death, is heard no more. They are free from his exactions, and his mouth is silent in the dust. This may be a reference to the Egyptian bondage. The children of Israel cried by reason of their oppressors or task-masters.

Verse 18. There the prisoners rest together — That is, one as well as another; they who were lately deprived of their liberty, kept in the strongest chains and closest prisons, and condemned to the most hard and miserable slavery, rest as well as those who were captives in much better circumstances. They hear not the voice of the oppressor — Or exactor, or taskmaster, (as the word vgn, nogesh, is translated Exodus 5:6,) who urges and forces them, by cruel threatenings and stripes, to labour beyond their strength. Job does not here take into consideration their eternal state after death, of which he speaks hereafter, but only their freedom from worldly troubles, which is the sole matter of his present discourse.

18. Rest — wnnav, an intensive form of the verb, expressive of deep and abiding rest. The oppressor — cgn, taskmaster. The same word appears in Exodus 5:6.

V. 19. Small and great-Persons of all qualities and conditions. Are there-In the same place and state, all those distinctions being forever abolished. A good reason, why those who have power should use it moderately, and those that are in subjection should take it patiently.

Verse 19. The small and great are there.] All sorts and conditions of men are equally blended in the grave, and ultimately reduced to one common dust; and between the bond and free there is no difference. The grave is

“The appointed place of rendezvous, where all

These travellers meet.”

Equality is absolute among the sons of men in their entrance into and exit from the world: all the intermediate state is disparity. All men begin and end life alike; and there is no difference between the king and the cottager. A contemplation of this should equally humble the great and the small. The saying is trite, but it is true:—

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

HOR. Odar. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. 13.

“With equal pace impartial Fate

Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate.”

Death is that state,

“Where they an equal honour share

Who buried or unburied are.

Where Agamemnon knows no more

Than Irus he contemn’d before.

Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie,

Equally naked, poor, and dry.”

And why do not the living lay these things to heart?

There is a fine saying in Seneca ad Marciam, cap. 20, on this subject, which may serve as a comment on this place: MORS—servitutem invito domino remittit; haec captivorum catenas levat; haec e carcere eduxit, quos exire imperium impotens vetuerat. Haec est in quo nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec quæ nulli paruit; haec quæ nihil quicquam alieno fecit arbitrio. Haec, ubi res communes fortuna male divisit, et æquo jure genitos alium alii donavit, exæquat omnia.

“Death, in spite of the master, manumits the slave. It loosens the chains of the prisoners. It brings out of the dungeon those whom impotent authority had forbidden to go at large. This is the state in which none is sensible of his humiliation. Death obeys no man. It does nothing according to the will of another. It reduces, by a just law, to a state of equality, all who in their families and circumstances had unequal lots in life.”

Verse 19. The small and great are there — It should rather be rendered, are equal there; persons of all qualities and conditions, whether higher or lower, are in the same circumstances. There is no distinction in the grave, but the meanest and most despised peasant is in a situation equal to that of his rich and powerful neighbour. The man of birth and fortune appears there to no advantage: he commands no place; he usurps no authority; neither does he lord it over the poorest or meanest of the human race. And the servant is free from his master — The most contemptible slave, who was entirely subject to the impositions and exactions of his owner, has got his discharge, and is now free from the power of him that tyrannized over him: a good reason this, why those who have power should use it moderately, and why those that are in subjection should take it patiently.

Ver. 19. The servant, the slave, is free from his master. This is a strong word to designate the bitterness of slavery; but assuredly it is more bitter still to deny the poor slaves the consolations of religion, as was heretofore the case in the British colonies.

19. The first clause reads, literally, “The small and great, there (is) he,” in the sense that they are the same, or on the same level. So in Psalm 141, 27. “Thou art he,” that is, the same. (Isaiah 41:4.) Third long strophe — THE IMPENETRABLE MYSTERIOUSNESS OF A LIFE OF MISERY, 20-26.

a. Why is life given to the wretched, when death is so much to be preferred? 20-22.

V. 20. Light-The light of life. Bitter-Unto those to whom life itself is bitter and burdensome. Life is called light, because it is pleasant and serviceable for walking and working; and this light is said to be given us, because it would be lost, if it were not daily renewed to us by a fresh gift.

Verse 20. Wherefore is light given] Why is life granted to him who is incapable of enjoying it, or of performing its functions?

Verse 20. Wherefore is light given — ˆty hml, lama jitten; why doth he give, or hath he given, light, namely, the light of life, to him that is in misery, whose life is a scene of sorrow and distress, loaded and pressed with numberless calamities? and life unto the bitter in soul — Unto those whose life itself is very bitter and burdensome, whose souls are full of heaviness, being overpowered with the weight of affliction? Why doth he obtrude his favours upon those that abhor them?

20. Wherefore is light given — Literally, Wherefore doth he give light? which is far more expressive. The poet omits the name of deity, either because of secret misgiving as to the propriety of asking such a question, or because, in the bitterness of his heart, he grudges to name God. In the same manner, Adam, sullenly referring to his wife, (Genesis 3:12,) calls her she, not deigning to mention the once dear name, Eve. Hirtzel, however, adduces many passages where, in like manner, Job omits the name of God. (Job 8:18; 12:13; 16:7; 20:23; 22:21; 24:22, 23, etc.; also Proverbs 10:24.) Notwithstanding, this significant silence — at least an incipient suspense of faith — already shadows forth the fierce storm in which passion will more directly arraign the ways of God. The most that Job now does, is to intimate that God is at the base of a scheme that thrusts life upon those who are too wretched to live. The poet (Longfellow) has truly sung —

“This life of ours is a wild Eolian harp of many a joyous strain, Yet under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain.” Why has life been given to such? The question cannot be answered apart from belief in another life. The only key which unlocks the mystery of existence is that which faith proffers. This life is meant for soul-discipline. It is a brief but sharp tutelage for the true existence, which commences with death. (See an able sermon by Dr. Olin on “Life Inexplicable Except as a Probation,” page 28.)

V. 21. Dig-Desire with as much earnestness as men dig for treasure: but it is observable, Job durst not do anything to hasten or procure his death: notwithstanding all his miseries, he was contented to wait all the days of his appointed time, ‘till his change came, Job 14:14.

Verse 21. Which long for death] They look to it as the end of all their miseries; and long more for a separation from life, than those who love gold do for a rich mine.

Verse 21. Who long for death — With eagerness and impatience, as the Hebrew means. Who calls aloud for death, as Heath translates it. Qui ægre expectant, inhiant morti, who anxiously long and gasp for death; but it cometh not — They long and gasp in vain. And dig for it more than for hid treasures — Whose thoughts and wishes are so intent on their dissolution, that they expect it with as much earnestness as miners look for their golden treasures, who, being indefatigable in their pursuit, spare neither time nor labour, but penetrate still further into the deep caverns of the earth, to find out and enrich themselves with the secret, wished-for gain. It is observable, that Job durst not do any thing to hasten or procure his death. Notwithstanding all his miseries, he was contented to wait all the days of his appointed time till his change should come, Job 14:14.

21. Which long for death — Of the sufferings of the miserable slaves anciently employed in the Egyptian mines, to whom Hitzig and others think Job refers, Diodorus Siculus gives a long and most painful description. It contains a passage strikingly similar to that of the text: “so that these miserable creatures always expect worse to come than that which they then at present endure, and therefore long for death, as far more desirable than life.” — BOOTH’S Edit., 1:159. Hid treasures — Such is the instability of eastern governments, and the rapacity of monarchs, that it has ever been common for the wealthy to hide their treasures beneath the ground. There are many engaged, even at the present day, in digging for treasures supposed to have been concealed in the remote past. The fortunate finder, Dr. Thomson (Land and the Book, 1:195) tells us, often swoons away. The digger “becomes positively frantic, digs all night with desperate earnestness, and continues to work till utterly exhausted. There are at this hour hundreds of persons thus engaged all over the country.” The figure sets before us the ardour and persistence of the search for death, and the overwhelming joy of discovery, and is one of the most powerful within the compass of literature. The antithesis of death to hidden treasures leads Ewald to remark that death, like such treasures, seems to come out of earth’s most secret womb, even as Pluto is the god of both. Dr. Evans bases upon the “Vav consecutive,” used here, the just observation that the digging for death is consequent upon waiting for it — the passive waiting and longing being succeeded by the more active digging and searching for it. A terrible picture of the progress of human misery. (Compare the address of Eleazar, in JOSEPHUS, Wars of the Jews, b. vii, chap. viii, sec. 7.)

V. 22. Glad, &c.-To be thus impatient of life, for the sake of the trouble we meet with, is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and shews a sinful indulgence of our own passion. Let it be our great and constant care, to get ready for another world: and then let us leave it to God, to order the circumstances of our removal thither.

Verse 22. Which rejoice exceedingly.] Literally, They rejoice with joy, and exult when they find the grave.

There is a various reading here in one of Kennicott’s MSS., which gives a different sense. Instead of who rejoice, lyg yla eley gil, with JOY, it has lg yla eley gal, who rejoice at the TOMB, and exult when they find the grave.

Verse 22. Which rejoice exceedingly, when they can find the grave — To be thus impatient of life, for the sake of the trouble we meet with, is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the Giver of life, and shows a sinful indulgence of our own passion. Let it be our great and constant care to get ready for another world: and then let us leave it to God to order the circumstances of our removal thither.

22. Rejoice exceedingly — Literally, unto exultation, so as to leap for joy. The same figure occurs in Hosea 9:1. As is so frequently the case in Job, this verse furnishes a climax: 1) rejoice; 2) to exultation; 3) bound for joy. Are glad — wcycy, according to both Gesenius and Furst, embodies the figure of a horse (sws) in his joyous gambols. (Compare 39:21, where The same word occurs.)

b. By making an application to himself of the preceding monody, Job brings his generalization to an end, 23-26.

V. 23. Hid-From him; who knows not his way, which way to turn himself, what course to take to comfort himself in his miseries. Hedged in-Whom God hath put as it were in a prison, so that he can see no way or possibility of escape.

Verse 23. To a man whose way is hid] Who knows not what is before him in either world, but is full of fears and trembling concerning both. God hath hedged in?] Leaving him no way to escape; and not permitting him to see one step before him.

There is an exact parallel to this passage in Lamentations 3:7, 9: He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone. Mr. Good translates the verse thus: To the man whose path is broken up, and whose futurity God hath overwhelmed. But I cannot see any necessity for departing from the common text, which gives both an easy and a natural sense.

Verse 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid? — Hid from him; who knows not his way, that is, which way to turn himself, what course to take to obtain comfort in his miseries, or to get out of them. And whom God hath hedged in — Whom God hath put, as it were, in a prison, so that he can see no way or possibility of escape; but all refuge fails him.

Ver. 23. Why is light given to a man? Light is put here for life, because in a morning it cheers and revives a slumbering world by the return of day.

23. To a man — Job means himself, as is seen in the following verse. The antecedent is in verse 20. Verses 21 and 22 are parenthetical. Whose way is hid — That is, so covered or obscure that he cannot see his way before him. “A man’s way is the exit for his energies of action or thought to go in; it is hidden when action and thought are paralyzed, and unable to find a passage through surrounding contradictions.” — Davidson. Umbreit thinks the picture is taken from a wanderer who has lost his way, and, bewildered, falls into the most distressing solicitude. God hath hedged in — (Comp, Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7; which may be regarded as a comment on the passage; and Hosea 2:6.) A gradation in thought; for not only is his “way hid,” but whichever way he may turn there is no egress: Eloah hath “hedged him around.” But a little before he would not mention the name of Deity; now that he does, it helps us to see down into the depth of his despair.

V. 24. Before, &c.-Heb. before the face of my bread, all the time I am eating, I fall into sighing and weeping, because I am obliged to eat, and to support this wretched life, and because of my uninterrupted pains of body and of mind, which do not afford me one quiet moment. Roarings-My loud outcries, more befitting a lion than a man. Poured out-With great abundance, and irresistible violence, and incessant continuance, as waters flow in a river, or as they break the banks, and overflow the ground.

Verse 24. For my sighing cometh] Some think that this refers to the ulcerated state of Job’s body, mouth, hands, &c. He longed for food, but was not able to lift it to his mouth with his hands, nor masticate it when brought thither. This is the sense in which Origen has taken the words. But perhaps it is most natural to suppose that he means his sighing took away all appetite, and served him in place of meat. There is the same thought in Psalm 42:3: My tears have been my meat day and night; which place is not an imitation of Job, but more likely Job an imitation of it, or, rather, both an imitation of nature.

My roarings are poured out] My lamentations are like the noise of the murmuring stream, or the dashings of the overswollen torrent.

Verse 24. For my sighing cometh before I eat — Hebrew, before the face of my bread. Instead of enjoying the satisfaction of being refreshed with the common necessaries that are afforded us, and taking any pleasure in eating and drinking, which are granted for comfort as well as sustenance, my cries and tears are my meat and drink. And my roarings are poured out like the waters — So severe is my pain, and so great my anguish, that the agonies and outcries, which are extorted from me, are of no common sort: they are deep and noisy; hideous and frightful, and such as may be compared to the loud roarings of a lion. And though I strive, and take much pains, to check and silence them, yet I find it is to no purpose; for they force their way with irresistible violence and incessant continuance, in great abundance; like so many sudden and impetuous streams of waters, when a river breaks its banks and overflows the adjacent grounds.

24. Before I eat — Literally, In presence of my bread; that is, at the same time of my eating; or, “instead of my bread.” — Hitzig. In either case the meaning is, “Sighing is my bread.” Juvenal attributes to the successful sinner “a perpetual anxiety, nor does it cease even at his hour of meal.” (Perpetua anxietas, nec mensae tempore cessat.) — Satires, 13. 211. Roarings — Roarings, as of a lion; or since µym, waters, is sometimes used for the great deep, Job may possibly have had in mind the roaring of the sea. The figure is no stronger than ours — “a flood of tears.” Like the waters — In an uninterrupted flow, like water poured forth.

V. 25. Feared-Even in the time of my prosperity, I was full of fears, considering the variety of God’s providences, the changeableness of this vain world, God’s justice, and the sinfulness of all mankind. And these fears of mine, were not in vain, but are justified by my present calamities.

Verse 25. For the thing which I greatly reared] Literally, the fear that I feared; or, l feared a fear, as in the margin. While I was in prosperity I thought adversity might come, and I had a dread of it. I feared the loss of my family and my property; and both have occurred. I was not lifted up: I knew that what I possessed I had from Divine Providence, and that he who gave might take away. I am not stripped of my all as a punishment for my self-confidence.

Verse 25. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me — Before this flood of misery was poured upon me, I was indeed under great and strong apprehensions, which I could not account for, of something or other that would happen to me; something extremely grievous and afflicting; something as bad, nay, worse than death itself. For I considered the variety of God’s providences, the changeableness of this vain world, the infirmities and contingencies to which human nature is liable in the present life, God’s justice, and the sinfulness of all mankind. And it is now evident that these fears of mine were not in vain, for they are justified by my present calamities. I may, therefore, say that I have never enjoyed any sound tranquillity since I was born; and, of consequence, it hath not been worth my while to live, since all my days have been evil, and full of trouble and distress, either by the fear of miseries or by the suffering of them.

25. I greatly feared — Literally, A fear I feared, and it came upon me. The elegance of the Hebrew (ytdjp djp) is lost in the A.V. Compare Psalm 53:5, see margin. A twofold illustration of such alliteration appears to the English reader in Isaiah 27:7, which is well expressed in our translation. (Compare Isaiah 22:17, 18; Micah 2:4.) These quite equal in beauty the most admired alliterations of the classic poets: for instance, ponov ponw ponon ferei. — SOPHOCLES, Ajax, 866. The form of the verb is come, ynytayw, (Vav consecutive,) closely binds the issue with the apprehension, and perhaps justifies Hirtzel and Dillmann in their interpretation: “The trouble he thought of, and which he deprecated, immediately came upon him.” Here Job may possibly refer to his solicitude over his children in connexion with their sudden and overwhelming destruction. Some (DENDY, Philos. of Myst.) have fancifully conceived that the apprehension of misfortune may prove its cause. Thus Montaigne was all his life fearful of “the stone,” and in old age it came upon him with all its terrors. — Essays, ii, chap. 37. On the other hand, Davidson mistakingly suggests that the idea that Job “in the height of his felicity had been haunted by the presentiment of coming calamity, is opposed to the whole convictions of antiquity, and contradicted by the anguish and despair of the man under his suffering, which was to him inexplicable and unexpected.” On the convictions of antiquity, see Herodotus, 1:32; 3:40; 7:10, 46.

V. 26. Quiet-I did not misbehave myself in prosperity, abusing it by presumption, and security, but I lived circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my salvation with fear and trembling. Therefore in this sense also, his way was hid, he knew not why God contended with him.

Verse 26. I was not in safety] If this verse be read interrogatively, it will give a good and easy sense: Was I not in safety? Had I not rest? Was I not in comfort? Yet trouble came. It is well known that, previously to this attack of Satan, Job was in great prosperity and peace. Mr. Good translates, I had no peace; yea, I had no rest. Yea, I had no respite, as the trouble came on; and refers the whole to the quick succession of the series of heavy evils by which he was tried. There is a similar thought in the Psalmist: Deep crieth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me; Psalm 42:7. One evil treads on the heels of another.

IN this chapter Job’s conflict begins. Now, and not before, Satan appears to have access to his mind. When he deprived him of his property, and, what was still dearer, of his sons and his daughters, the hope of his family, he bore all with the most exemplary patience, and the deepest resignation to the Divine will. When his adversary was permitted to touch his body, and afflict it in the most grievous and distressing manner, rendered still more intolerable by his being previously deprived of all the comforts and necessaries of life; still he held fast his integrity; no complaint, no murmur was heard. From the Lord’s hand he received his temporal good; and from that hand he received his temporal evil, the privation of that good. Satan was, therefore, baffled in all his attempts; Job continued to be a perfect and upright man, fearing God, and avoiding evil. This was Job’s triumph, or rather the triumph of Divine grace; and Satan’s defeat and confusion. It is indeed very seldom that God permits Satan to waste the substance or afflict the body of any man; but at all times this malevolent spirit may have access to the mind of any man, and inject doubts, fears, diffidence, perplexities, and even unbelief. And here is the spiritual conflict. Now, their wrestling is not with flesh and blood—with men like themselves, nor about secular affairs; but they have to contend with angels, principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. In such cases Satan is often permitted to diffuse darkness into the understanding, and envelope the heavens with clouds. Hence are engendered false views of God and his providence, of men, of the spiritual world, and particularly of the person’s own state and circumstances. Every thing is distorted, and all seen through a false medium. Indescribable distractions and uneasiness are hereby induced; the mind is like a troubled sea, tossed by a tempest that seems to confound both heaven and earth. Strong temptations to things which the soul contemplates with abhorrence are injected; and which are followed by immediate accusations, as if the injections were the offspring of the heart itself; and the trouble and dismay produced are represented as the sense of guilt, from a consciousness of having, in heart, committed these evils. Thus Satan tempts, accuses, and upbraids, in order to perplex the soul, induce skepticism, and destroy the empire of faith. Behold here the permission of God, and behold also his sovereign control: all this time the grand tempter is not permitted to touch the heart, the seat of the affections, nor offer even the slightest violence to the will. The soul is cast down, but not destroyed; perplexed, but not in despair. It is on all sides harassed; without are fightings, within are fears: but the will is inflexible on the side of God and truth, and the heart, with all its train of affections and passions, follows it. The man does not wickedly depart from his God; the outworks are violently assailed, but not taken; the city is still safe, and the citadel impregnable. Heaviness may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Jesus is soon seen walking upon the waters. He speaks peace to the winds and the sea: immediately there is a calm. Satan is bruised down under the feet of the sufferer, the clouds are dispersed, the heavens re-appear, and the soul, to its surprise, finds that the storm, instead of hindering, has driven it nearer to the haven whither it would be. The reader who closely examines the subject will find that this was the case of Job. The following chapters show the conflict of the soul; the end of the book, God’s victory and his exaltation. Satan sifted Job as wheat, but his faith failed not.

JOB

Verse 26. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet — Three expressions denoting the same thing, which was also signified in the verse immediately preceding, namely, that even in his prosperous days he never esteemed himself secure, or was perfectly free from the torment of fear and anxiety. Or, his meaning is, I did not misbehave myself in prosperity, abusing it by presumption and security; but I lived circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my salvation with fear and trembling. Yet trouble came — As I feared it would. So that between fear and calamity my whole life has been uncomfortable, and I had reason to repent of it. Therefore, in this sense also his way was hid, and he knew not why God contended with him.

26. I was not in safety — I was not at rest, nor was 1 secure; I rested not, yet trouble came. The common interpretation of this passage is, trouble came upon trouble, without any intermission or respite between them. Hitzig follows the Targum in supposing that the four clauses correspond to the four messengers of misfortune, who, by their quick succession, gave Job no opportunity for resting and recovering from the crushing effect of these continual strokes. The Septuagint, however, renders it, I was not at peace nor quiet, nor had I rest; yet WRATH came upon me; which justifies the view that this verse strikes the keynote of self-justification, heard now for the first time; a note to which the rest of the book resounds. He had lived for God, yet trouble came. He had not, like others, been at rest; in no sense had he sunk into spiritual torpor. The lowest depth is now disclosed: God had afflicted one who had been faithful to him. “Job’s self-justification as a man, after the measure of men, and before men, was just; but, as St. Paul says of Abraham, ‘not before God.’ Hence, when in a subsequent chapter God appears and speaks, he is condemned by both God and himself.” Nothing else in this lamentation justifies the apparent assault of Eliphaz, Job 4:6, 7.

The chapter thus concludes with a few startling sentences, each one in the original consisting of two words. The first three are quite the same in meaning, and partake of the tumult of mind through which the servant of God is now passing. Such redundancy or pleonasm is an embellishment common among poets of every age and country, and is often used to express mental perturbation. Comp. Isaiah 8:22.