INDEX.

Footnotes

[1]. ‘Toleranz sollte eigentlich nur eine vorübergehende Gesinnung sein; sie muss zur Anerkennung führen.’—Goethe.

[2]. See essay on ‘Miracles’ in Christian Remembrancer (list of works recommended to theological honour-students in Oxford).

[3]. The self-humiliation of Christ is described (need I remark?) by St. Paul as a κένωσις (Phil. ii. 7). How far this κένωσις extended is a theological problem which in the sixteenth century, and again in our own, has exercised devout thinkers. For the modern form of the Kenotic view or doctrine the English reader will naturally go to Dorner’s History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, vol. iii., in Clark’s Library. Dorner’s opposition to this view is a weighty but not, of course, a decisive fact. We must be loyal to the facts of Christ’s humanity reported in the Gospels. The question as to the extent of the κένωσις is an open one.

[4]. Jerome already saw this. He represents the Book of Job as composed mainly in hexameters with a dactylic and spondaic movement (Præf. in Job). Does he mean double trimeters?

[5]. Where is the ‘Uz’ spoken of in Job i. 1? The ‘land of Uzza’ seems to have been not far from the Orontes (Shalmaneser’s Obelisk; see Friedr. Delitzsch’s Paradies, p. 259). Tradition places the home of Job in the fertile volcanic region called the Haurân (see the very full excursus in Delitzsch’s Job). But the ‘land of Uz’ might be farther south, nearer to Edom, in connection with which it is mentioned, Lam. iv. 21, Gen. xxxvi. 28 (comp. ver. 21). This is supported by the curious note appended to the Book of Job in the Septuagint. It is true that Uz is called a son of Aram (Gen. x. 23), but ‘Uz’ may have had several branches, or the use of Aramaic may have extended far beyond the limits of Aram proper.

[6]. Of the three friends Eliphaz comes from the Edomitish district of Teman, so famous for its wisdom; Bildad from the land of Shuah (‘Suhu’ lay, according to the inscriptions, between the mouths of the Belich and the Khabur, confluents of the Euphrates); Zophar from Naamah, some unknown district east of the Jordan. How well these notes of place agree with the Aramaic colouring of the book!

[7]. Bishop Lowth (Prælect. xxxiii.) admires the dramatic tact with which the poet makes Job err at first merely by the exaggeration of his complaints, thus inviting censure, which in turn leads to bold misstatements on Job’s part.

[8]. For a late Egyptian incantation of this class see Ancessi, Job et le Rédempteur, pp. 240-1; for the dragon myth itself see Cheyne’s note in the Prophecies of Isaiah (on Isa. xxvii. 1) and in the Pulpit Comm. on Jeremiah (on Jer. li. 34).

[9]. See [Chap. VII]. (end of Section 2).

[10]. The translation follows Bickell’s text. The correction in line 2 of ver. 16 is from the Septuagint; the transposition in line 4 is suggested by 1 Kings xix. 12.

[11]. So xv. 15. M. Lenormant compares Gen. vi. 1-4 (an incomplete fragment). See above on the ‘sons of the Elohim’ of the prologue, and comp. Chap. X.

[12]. Compare the Hebrew ne’ūm in a common prophetic formula.

[13]. The following lines develope what Job may be supposed to have had in his mind.

[14]. Thomson has finely but inaccurately paraphrased this, changing the localities:—

‘In Cairo’s crowded streets

The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,

And Mecca saddens at the long delay.’

(Summer, 980-2; of the caravan which perished in the storm.)

[15]. Contrast the touchingly natural expressions of an Arabian poet, translated by Rückert (Hamâsa, ii. 315):—

‘Gieng es nicht wie mir vil andern,

Würd’ ich’s nicht ertragen;

Doch wo ich nur will, gibt Antwort

Klage meinen Klagen.’

The same sentiment is expressed more than once again; comp. Buddha’s apologue of the mustard seed.

[16]. So Merx and Bickell. Text, ‘my bones.’

[17]. Bildad more than implies that the fate which overtook Job’s children was the punishment of iniquity (viii. 4). Wonderful harshness!

[18]. See viii. 20. Bildad agrees with the statement in the prologue (i. 1).

[19]. Following Sept., with Merx and Bickell.

[20]. Comp. Isa. xxviii. 29 (Heb.) By a slight error of the ear the copyist whom our Hebrew Bibles follow put a Yōd for an Alef. Hence the Massoretic critics pronounce kiflayim ‘twofold,’ instead of kif’lāim ‘like wonders:’ following this text, Davidson renders, ‘that it is double in (true) understanding.’

[21]. Literally ‘... that God brings into forgetfulness for thee some of thy guilt.’

[22]. Following Sept., with Bickell. Comp. the Hebrew of Job xxxiii. 27.

[23]. This rendering is based on the reading of the Hebrew margin. The Hebrew text has, ‘Behold, should he slay me, for him would I wait,’ implying an expectation of a Divine interposition in Job’s favour after his death. But this idea is against the connection; besides which the restrictive particle ‘only’ (nearly = still) agrees better with the other reading and rendering. ‘Wait’ means ‘wait for a change for the better,’ as in vi. 11, which occurs in a similar context.

[24]. He admits that he is not without sins (comp. ver. 26).

[25]. Comp. the well-known lamentation of Moschus (iii. 106-111).

[26]. See the notices from Wetzstein in Delitzsch.

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

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

[29]. Sur. ix. 119.

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

[31]. The Argument of the Book of Job (1881), p. 200.

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

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

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

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

[36]. On the text see Bickell, Merx, Hitzig; on the use of metal for public notices see Chabas, quoted by Cook in Speaker’s Comm., ad loc.

[37]. On this characteristic word for parallelistic poetry, see on Proverbs.

[38]. Note that xxvii. 13 is repeated from an earlier speech of Zophar (xx. 29). There it concludes a sketch of the ‘impious’ man’s fate; here it begins a similar description. Verses 11 and 12 of the same chapter would stand more properly (Bickell and virtually Hirzel) immediately before chap. xxviii. Mr. B. Wright is very near doing the same; following Eichhorn, he takes vv. 13-23 as a specimen quoted by Job of the friends’ ‘inconsequential’ style of argument (a less natural hypothesis than that adopted here).

[39]. It seems clear that chap. xxii. was not written as the sequel of chap. xxx. Since, however, it bears such a strong impress of originality, one can only suppose that the author placed it here by an afterthought, and omitted to construct a connecting link with the preceding chapter.

[40]. These verses have been misplaced in the Massoretic text (as Isa. xxxviii. 21, 22). They clearly ought to stand at the end of the chapter. So Kennicott, Eichhorn, Merx, Delitzsch.

[41]. But for this tendency of the poem one might follow Delitzsch (art. ‘Hiob’ in Herzog-Plitt, vi. 133) and regard chap. xxviii. as inserted by the author of Job from his ‘portfolio.’

[42]. So M. Derenbourg, who points out that none of the other speakers have a genealogy, and identifies Buz with Boaz, and Ram with an ancestor of David (Ruth iv. 19). The author of chaps. xxxii.-xxxvii. might thus be a descendant of Elihu the brother of David (1 Chr. xxvii. 18).

[43]. On ‘drinks’ see Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 319.

[44]. The text (which has ‘His words’) is generally rendered ‘because He gives not account of any of His matters,’ i.e. of the details of His government. This is very strained; the Sept. has ‘my words,’ the Vulgate ‘thy words,’ either of which readings gives a natural sense.

[45]. See 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, and comp. 1 Chr. xxi. 15, Ps. xxviii. 49, Prov. xvi. 14, Ezek. ix. 1, x. 7; also Jost, Gesch. des Judenthums, i. 304. For Assyria see Records of the Past, i. 131-5: iv. 53-60 (the sinner was thought to be given up in displeasure by his God into the hands of the evil spirits). For Arabia see Korán, lxxix. 1, 2—

‘By those (angels) who tear out (souls) with violence,

And by those who joyously release them:’

for the early Christian, Justin M. Dial. e. Tryph. 105, τὰ αὐτὰ αἰτῶμεν τὸν θεὸν, τὸν δυνάμενον ἀποστρέψαι πάντα ἀναιδῆ πονηρὸν ἄγγελον μὴ λαβέσθαι ἡμῶν τῆς ψυχῆς: and for the medieval, Dante, Inferno, xxvii. 112-123: Purgatorio, v. 103-108. Comp. below, Chap. X.

[46]. Blake seems to have felt Elihu’s strong faith in the angels. The border of his 12th illustration is filled with a stream of delicate angel forms.

[47]. Davidson. Ewald explains the ‘ransom’ partly of the intercession of the angel, partly of the prayer of repentance.

[48]. Turner, Studies Biblical and Oriental, p. 146.

[49]. Cox, Commentary on the Book of Job, p. 489.

[50]. So Lightfoot (see Lowth, Prælect. xxxii.).

[51]. Le livre de Job, p. liv.

[52]. Davidson, The Book of Job, p. xlv.

[53]. See Sayce on ‘Babylonian Astronomy’ (Translations of Soc. of Bibl. Archæology, 1874); Lenormant, La magic chez les Chaldéens, and his Syllabaires cunéiformes (1876), p. 48.

[54]. This is not mere ‘patriarchal simplicity’ (Renan, p. lvi.), but a contradiction of the mythic view that a nature god like Baal is the ‘father’ or producer of the rain and the crops (see Cheyne, Isaiah, ed. 3, i. 28, 294, ii. 295). Elihu no doubt goes further in his explanations; see xxxvi. 27, 28.

[55]. Heb. kima; comp. Ass. kimtu, ‘a family.’ The word occurs again in ix. 9, Am. v. 8 (but are not this verse and the closely related one in iv. 13 additions by a later editor of Amos in the Exile period?)

[56]. Heb. k’sīl, the name of the foolhardy giant who strove with Jehovah. The Chaldeo-Assyrian astrology gave the name kisiluv to the ninth month, connecting it with the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. But there are valid reasons for attaching the Hebrew popular myth to Orion.

[57]. ‘He did not watch the stars of heaven, nor the mazarati.’ So Fox Talbot quotes from a cuneiform tablet (Transactions of Soc. of Bibl. Archæology, 1872, p. 341). The above explanation, however, which is that of Delitzsch on Job, differs from that of Fox Talbot.

[58]. Mr. Bateson Wright’s pointing, lá’ereb for la’ōrēbh, is plausible. The raven is an insignificant companion to the lion, and the birds of prey are mentioned at the end of Job’s picture gallery. Render ‘who provides in the evening his food,’ &c.; but in this case should not lābhī in ver. 39 be rendered ‘lion’ rather than ‘lioness’ (note ‘his young ones’)? The root idea is probably voracity. That lābhī in iv. 11 is the feminine is no objection. Comp. Ps. lvii. 5, and perhaps Hos. xiii. 8. Possibly, however, the ‘raven’ was inserted here to make up the number ten, by a reminiscence of Ps. cxlvii. 9.

[59]. The ‘unicorn’ of A. V. comes from the Sept. and Vulg.; but in Deut. xxxiii. 17 the re’ēm is said to have ‘horns.’ Schlottmann and Delitzsch identify it with the oryx or antelope, but the oryx was tamable (Wilkinson, Egyptians, i. 227), whereas our poet asks, ‘Will the re’ēm be willing to serve thee?’ See Cheyne on Isa. xxxiv. 7.

[60]. Blake, Songs of Experience.

[61]. Purg., iii. 37.

[62]. Inf., iii. 5, 6.

[63]. Parad., xxxiii. 142.

[64]. Parad., xxxiii. 91.

[65]. [All his thinkings seemed like hearsay. This, then, was the real God.] So an anonymous writer well expresses it (Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance, p. 196).

[66]. Etudes sur l’antiquité historique, prem. éd., pp. 391-393.

[67]. Other readers, however, found no difficulty in the close of the story; to such St. James addresses himself in the words, ‘Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord’ (James v. 11), i.e. the blessed end vouchsafed by the Lord to Job. It was also, no doubt, such a reader who composed the beautiful romance of Tobit, to show that, however tried, the righteous man is at last delivered by his God.

[68]. Those rabbis who in later times held this view appear to have assumed that Job was of the Israelitish race (Frankl in Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1872, p. 311).

[69]. Book of Job (1836), E. T. i. 7.

[70]. Baba Bathra § 15, 1. Comp. Frankl in Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1872, pp. 309-310.

[71]. Ewald and Dukes, Beitrage zur Gesch. der ültesten Auslegung, ii. 166.

[72]. Werke (Walch), xxii. 2093.

[73]. De sacrâ poesi (1753), Prælect. xxxii.

[74]. Tractatus theologico-politicus, c. x.

[75]. Liber Jobi (1737), vol. i., in fine Praf.

[76]. Das Buch Hiob (1870-75), i. 35.

[77]. Das Buch Hiob, Vorbemerkungen, p. xxxv.

[78]. In Korán, xxxviii. 16, 29, 44, David, Solomon, and Job are all called, one after another, awwāb, i.e. not ‘penitent,’ but ‘ever turning to God.’ Hitzig remarks that Iyyób (Arabic Ayyàb) will thus be equivalent to the mythic prophet Saleh (= ‘pious’) in the Korán (Das Buch Hiob, Einl., S. x.), on whom see Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, p. 50, where he is identified with Moses. This is bold, and, in any case, must not such a name be comparatively modern?

[79]. This was perhaps first pointed out by Schlottmann, in chap. 1. of the Introduction to his Commentary.

[80]. Nothing can be built upon the occurrence of the name Ayyûb in pre-Islamic times, for Jews and Arabs were in frequent intercourse before Mohammed.

[81]. Davenant.

[82]. Hottinger, referred to by Delitzsch, Iob, p. 7. In the Peshitto, Heb. xii. 3-11 has for a sub-title, ‘In commemoration of Job the righteous.’ The choice of the section shows in what sense Job’s ‘righteousness’ is affirmed—not the Talmudic.

[83]. See especially Job vi. 2, 3, vii. 1-3, xiv. 1-3.

[84]. This view goes back to the last century (Warburton, Michaelis, &c.) It has been remodelled by Seinecke and Hoekstra, who regard Job, not as the people of Israel in general, but the idealised Israel or ‘Servant of Jehovah.’ See especially Hoekstra’s essay, Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1871, p. 1 &c., and Kuenen’s reply, Th. Ti., 1873, p. 492 &c.

[85]. Quoted from Essay ix. in vol. ii. of The Prophecies of Isaiah.

[86]. Blake’s 16th design is devoted to the defeat of Satan. Beneath the enthroned Jehovah and his angels, ‘the Evil One falls with tremendous plummet-force. Hell naked before his face, and Destruction without a covering.’ Another point in which Blake corrects his author is the introduction of Job’s wife into the illustrations of the Colloquies.

[87]. Art. ‘Ecclesiastes,’ Ency. Brit., 9th ed.

[88]. The absence of such a protest is characteristic of the Wisdom-literature in general. The reference to star-worship in Job xxxi. 26 suggests a date subsequent to the origination of the title ‘Jehovah (God) of Hosts.’ See appendix to Isa. i. in my commentary.

[89]. Mr. Tomkins compares Job’s mode of life with that of Abram before his departure from Kharran (Studies on the Times of Abraham, 1878, p. 61).

[90]. I cannot go quite so far as Lagarde, who argues from the use of ‘Eloah’ (instead of ‘Elohim’ and ‘Jehovah’) that the doubters have cast off belief in all the supposed various manifestations of divinity in the world, and merely retain a comfortless belief in τὸ θεῖον. ‘Numen quoddam esse non negant, sed’ &c. Psalterium Hieronymi, pp. 155-6 (‘Corollarium’).

[91]. Job xv. 19 certainly implies the siege and capture of Jerusalem by some foreign foe. Comp. Joel iii. (Heb. iv.) 17.

[92]. Dr. Barth quotes Am. i. 6, ii. 1-3, ix. 11, 15 in proof that ‘deportation’ also took place in the ‘pre-Assyrian’ time. But, in fact, Amos is not ‘pre-Assyrian.’

[93]. It is no sufficient objection that the ravages of the Chaldæans in Job are on a small scale, nor yet that side by side with them are mentioned the Sabeans, surely not those of S. Arabia (Noldeke), but those of N. Arabia (Delitzsch), detachments of whom might have encamped on the borders of Edom. Comp. Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s Iob, ed. 2, p. 596 &c.

[94]. I write this with deference to the contrary opinion of Delitzsch, who is, however, too prejudiced against late dates, and biassed by his belief in the authenticity of the Song of Hezekiah. If the Book of Job be pre-Hezekian, it is of course natural to throw it back to the age of Solomon.

[95]. Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1873, p. 538.

[96]. Das Buch Hiob (1874), p. xlix.

[97]. Das Buch Hiob (1842), p. 276.

[98]. Maspero, Histoire ancienne de l’Orient, ed. 1, p. 30. Comp. Chabas’ translation from the Harris papyrus, Records of the Past, x. 142-146.

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

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

[101]. So rightly Baudissin, Studien, ii. 125.

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

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

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

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

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

[107]. See Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah, ed. 3, ii. 30; art. ‘Isaiah,’ Encyclopædia Britannica, xi. 380.

[108]. The Book of Job (1884), pp. lx.-lxii.

[109]. According to Ewald, the reference is to Sodom and Gomorrah, the story of which, we know, was familiar as early as Hosea’s time (Hos. xi. 8).

[110]. See Bateson Wright’s The Book of Job, Appendix. The author concludes that the poet of Job ‘selects the main threads from the complete treatise of Ps. xxxvii. and interweaves them into the highly poetical discourse of Eliphaz.’

[111]. Presbyterian Review, 1885, p. 353.

[112]. Delitzsch, art. ‘Hiob,’ Herzog-Plitt’s Realencyklopädie, vi. 132.

[113]. Since this wish cannot be realised, Job pleads his cause against an invisible God with the same earnestness as if he stood before His face.

[114]. It is a pleasure to quote the forcible summing-up of Mr. Froude. ‘A difficulty,’ he remarks, ‘now arises which, at first sight, appears insurmountable. As the chapters are at present printed, the entire of the 27th is assigned to Job, and the paragraph from the 11th to the 23rd verses is in direct contradiction to all which he has maintained before—is, in fact, a concession of having been wrong from the beginning. Ewald, who, as we said above, himself refuses to allow the truth of Job’s last and highest position, supposes that he is here receding from it, and confessing what an over-precipitate passion had betrayed him into denying. For many reasons, principally because we are satisfied that Job said then no more than the real fact, we cannot think Ewald right; and the concessions are too large and too inconsistent to be reconciled even with his own general theory of the poem’ (Short Studies, vol. i.) He then proceeds to mention with cautious approbation the theory of Kennicott (see note on Text at end of [Chap. XV.])

[115]. There is a doubt whether the Septuagint postscript or the statement of the Egyptian Jew (?) Aristeas (as given by Eusebius from Alexander Polyhistor in Præf. Evang. l. ix.) be the earlier. The ordinary view is that Aristeas had the Septuagint Job before him; Freudenthal, however, infers from the strange description of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar in Sept. Job ii. 11 (taken verbally from Aristeas) that the reverse was the case, and that the fragment of Aristeas is only a condensed extract from the prologue and epilogue of the Book of Job (Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, 139, 140; Grätz, Monatsschrift, 1877, p. 91). This inference in turn suggests Grätz’ hypothesis that the Septuagint Job is a work of the first century A.D. (see note at end of [Chap. XV.])

[116]. Opera, Delarue, ii. 851, ap. Delitzsch, Iob, p. 603.

[117]. Opera minora (Lugd. Bat. 1769), p. 497.

[118]. Kremer, Herrschende Ideen des Islams, p. 27 &c.; Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, p. 48 &c.

[119]. Prof. Socin once observed to me how useful spoken Arabic would be found for this purpose.

[120]. Arabic literary history presents an example of literary experimenting which will at once occur to the mind—the ‘Maqamas’ or Sessions of Hariri.

[121]. On the mining passage see further p. 40. Stickel, however, though inclining to the above view, thinks that it is still not quite impossible that Palestinian mines are meant, comparing Edrisi’s statements on the iron-mines of Phœnicia and the words of the Deuteronomist in Deut. viii. 9. Das Buch Hiob, pp. 265-6.

[122]. ‘The Church in all ages has regarded the one as a type of the other,’ Turner, Studies Biblical and Oriental, p. 150. But Del. has already dissuaded from insisting too much on the historic character of the story of Job. ‘The endurance of Job’ (James v. 11) is equally instructive whether the story be real (wirklich) or only ideally true (wahr); and if by the phrase ‘the end of the Lord’ St. James refers to the Passion of Jesus (to me, however, this appears doubtful), he can be claimed with as much reason for the view of Job here adopted as for the older theory advocated by Turner.

[123]. On the Elihu-section, see [Chap. XII.]

[124]. Mozley, Essays, ii. 227; comp. Turner, Studies, p. 149.

[125]. Aubrey De Vere. Need I guard myself on the subject of Gen. iii. 15, referred to in a recent memorable debate in the Nineteenth Century? A strict Messianic interpretation is, since Calvin’s time, impossible to the exegete, but the application of the words to Jesus Christ is dear to the Christian heart, and perfectly consistent with a sincere exegesis. M. Réville would, I think, concede this to Mr. Gladstone.

[126]. Migne, Synes. et Theod., col. 698. Comp. Kihn, Theodor von Mopsuestia, p. 68 &c.

[127]. The Reason of Church Government, Book II.

[128]. Comp. Bateson Wright, The Book of Job, pp. 29-31.

[129]. Bunsen observes, not badly, ‘Hiob ist ein semitisches Drama aus der Zeit der Gefangenschaft. Das Dramatische windet sich aber erst aus dem Epos heraus, ohne eine selbstständige Gestalt zu gewinnen.’ Gott in der Geschichte, i. 291.

[130]. Compare Satan after his overthrow with Tasso’s Soldan (Gerus. Lib., c. ix., st. 98.)

[131]. Mr. Sutherland Edwards (Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1885, p. 687) states that Hebrew etymologies have proved failures. But the steps of the change from mastema to Mephistopheles are all proved, beginning with the name Mastiphat, for the prince of the demons, in the chronographers Syncellus and Georg. Cedrenus (comp. Μαστιφαάτ = Mastema in the Book of Jubilees). Comp. Diez, Roman. Wörterbuch, i. pp. xxv., xxvi.

[132]. Turner and Morshead, Faust (1882), pp. 307-8.

[133]. On the parallel phenomena in Job, see [Chap. IX.]

[134]. Sartor Resartus (‘Natural Supernaturalism’).

[135]. ‘A child of the first Christian century,’ Grätz’s Monatsschrift, p. 91. Nöldeke dates this version about 150 B.C. (Gott. gel. Anzeigen, 1865, p. 575).

[136]. Elzas, The Book of Job (1872), p. 83; Grätz inclines to a similar view.

[137]. A similar view has been propounded by Kennicott, and also more recently by Grätz (Monatsschrift, 1872, p. 247). But Kennicott regarded chap. xxviii. as Job’s reply to Zophar, while Grätz would include it in the speech of Zophar.

[138]. The heading ‘the oracle’ &c. in xxx. I is exceptional; so also is the oracle of Eliphaz (Job iv. 12-21).

[139]. The author of Baruch (iii. 22, 23), however, expressly denies that the ordinary Semitic ‘wisdom’ was akin to that of Israel. This represents the Judaism of the Maccabean period.

[140]. Observe that ‘wisdom’ is called khokmōth (plural form) in Prov. i. 20, ix. 11, all the forms of wisdom being viewed as one in their origin. So too Wisdom adorns her house with seven pillars (Prov. ix. 1).

[141]. xxiv. 21 A.V.

[142]. I.e. Perdition; a synonym for Sheól.

[143]. The author of the Introduction however writes, ‘Honour Jehovah with thy substance,’ i.e. by dedicating a part of it to the sanctuary (iii. 9), which the Septuagint translator carefully limits to substance lawfully gained (Deut. xxiii. 19).

[144]. As perhaps they do in Am. v. 10, Isa. xxix. 21 (‘him that rebuketh in the gate’). Observe again in this connection that the endowments of the Messiah include the spirit of wisdom as well as that of might (Isa. xi. 2), and that the wisdom of Jehovah is emphasised in Isa. xxxi. 2, comp. xxviii. 29.

[145]. Die dichter des alten bundes, ii. 12. Ewald refers to xiii. 1, xiv. 6, and other passages in which ‘scorners’ are referred to. But it is not clear that ‘a powerful school’ of wise men is here intended; the title may be given to those who opposed or despised the counsels of the wise men, and broke through the restraints of law and religion; comp. Prov. xv. 12, xxi. 24.’ (The Prophecies of Isaiah, ed. 3, i. 165). Among such persons were the politicians of Isaiah’s day, so far as they opposed the warnings of the prophet; they were popularly considered ‘wise men’ (xxix. 14; comp. Jer. viii. 9), but not in the technical sense with which our present enquiries are concerned.

[146]. Luzzatto renders, ‘o voi uomini insipienti, poeti di questo popolo,’ taking mōshēlīm in the same sense as in Num. xxi. 27 (similarly Barth, in his tract on Isaiah, p. 23, following Rashi and Aben Ezra), a view which receives some support from the parable offered by Isaiah in xxviii. 23-29 as if in opposition to the false parables of unsound teachers. But in Isa. xxix. 20 ‘scorner’ is clearly used, not as a class-name for certain wise men, but in a moral sense.

[147]. Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 91.

[148]. Yet in Prov. iii. 11, 12 there is distinct evidence of deepened experience and progress of moral thought.

[149]. On the orthodoxy of Ecclesiasticus, see later on.

[150]. The Vulg. has, iter autem devium ducit ad mortem (but this pregnant sense of iter devium, is too bold).

[151]. Analogous only, because apparently it had both a tree and a fountain of life, like a New Zealand myth mentioned by Schirren.

[152]. Curtius, History of Greece, ii. 52.

[153]. Ewald infers from xvii. 16 that even in early times it was customary to fee the ‘wise men’ for their advice (comp. Saul and Samuel). At a later time Sirach says, ‘Buy (instruction) for yourselves without money’ (Ecclus. li. 25, but comp. 28). The Rabbis were not allowed to receive fees from their pupils. R. Zadok said, ‘Make not (the Tora) a crown to glory in, nor an axe to live by’ (Pirke Aboth, iv. 9). So the Moslem teachers at the great Cairo ‘university’ (el Azhar).

[154]. In the Midrash-literature, proverbs are often quoted with an express statement that they are from the lips of the people.

[155]. See Smith and Sayce’s Chaldæan Genesis, pp. 140-154. For the Egyptian animal-fables, which may be the originals of those of Æsop, see Mahaffy, Prolegomena to Anc. Hist., p. 390; for the Indian, see the apologues of the Panchatantra by Benfey or Lancereau, and the Buddhist Birth-Stories—‘the oldest, most complete, and most important collection of folk-lore extant’—translated by Rhys Davids, vol. i.

[156]. The Bible for Young People, E. T., iii. 105-6.

[157]. 1 Kings x. 1; comp. Menander’s account in Josephus, Antiq. viii. 5, 3.

[158]. From Max Müller’s translation of the Dhammapada, or ‘Path of Virtue’ (1870).

[159]. Dr. Back gives a list of these in Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1854, pp. 265-7.

[160]. In the Talmudic treatise Soferim xvi. 9, a list of Hillel’s acquirements is given, including the conversations of the mountains, the trees, the animals, the demons, &c. On the Jewish fable literature, the wealth of which seems unparalleled, see Back, Die Fabel in Talmud und Midrash, in Gratz’s Monatsschrift, 1875-1884. Curiously enough the two oldest Jewish fables are similar in character to those of the Old Test.

[161]. Comp. Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 75, 76, 100-103; Mahaffy, Prolegomena to Ancient History, pp. 273-291; Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, p. 91; Records of the Past, viii. 157-160.

[162]. Comp. Weber, Indische Literaturgeschichte, p. 227.

[163]. See Scarborough, Collection of Chinese Proverbs (1875). The Chinese proverbs have no known authors.

[164]. On the riddles referred to, see Wünsche, Die Räthselweisheit bei den Hebräern (1883). Comp. them with the later Arabic proverbs (see Hariri, and comp. Freytag, Proverbia arabica).

[165]. Dr. Grätz is of opinion that Solomon was a fabulist like Jotham; in the text I have followed Josephus (Ant. vii. 2, 5). Legend related how the wise king, like the early men in African folk-lore (Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 116), talked with (not merely of) beasts, birds, and fishes, but delighted most in the birds.

[166]. This was also the opinion of Ewald (History, iii. 281). It might now be urged in its favour that Assurbanipal’s library contained bilingual lists of animals, vegetables, and minerals. But remember that the Assyrians were incomparably more civilised than the Israelites, and had both a lexicographical and a scientific interest in making these lists, and above all that Solomon is not stated to have written, but only to have spoken.

[167]. See the Tosefoth to the Talmudic treatise Baba bathra, 14b, where the name is given both to Proverbs and to Ecclesiastes. It is however more commonly found in Christian than in Jewish literature, often under the fuller form ἡ πανάρετος σοφία (see especially Eusebius, H. E., iv. 22).

[168]. The second line however seems to have intruded from ver. 11, and thus to have supplanted the original.

[169]. Here again the second line is evidently an intruder (from ver. 8). We should doubtless read with Sept., ‘but he that reproves produces welfare.’

[170]. This word (takhbūlōth) also occurs in xxiv. 6, i. 5, Job xxxvii. 12.

[171]. For m’raddēf read m’gaddēf.

[172]. Landberg denies that Maidani’s proverbs were ever really popular, but A. Müller judges that this view is extravagant (Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, xii. 441).

[173]. The text has ‘than he who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.’ With Grätz, I follow the Peshitto and (partly) the Vulgate.

[174]. Pointing ōbhēd, with Hitzig, Ewald, and Bickell; comp. ver, 11. Dijserinck ingeniously emends çōbhēr ‘heaps up’ (i.e. saves).

[175]. Comp. Thomson, The Land and the Book, pp. 336-8.

[176]. The word is behēma (Seneca’s ‘muta animalia’). Schopenhauer, thinking perhaps of the Levitical sacrifices, accuses the Old Testament of cruelty to animals. But see, besides this passage, Gen. i. 27-29, Num. xxii. 28, Jon. iv. 11.

[177]. With Hitzig and others, taking ’îsh as a softened form yēsh (comp. 2 Sam. xiv. 19, Mic. vi. 10); the yōd is kept as in Aramaic. So Targ., Pesh.

[178]. At the end of ver. 19 Bickell nearly follows Sept. Cod. Vat., τὴν ὁδόν σου (A.C.S. αὐτοῦ). But as this takes the place of hayyōm, it would seem that Bickell ought to begin ver. 20 with af ethmōl. This however would not suit his metrical theory.

[179]. The phraseological resemblance of xxiii. 19b to iv. 14b is incomplete. As for khokmōth in xxiv. 7, it means simply ‘wisdom’ (as in xiv. 1, where khakmōth is wrong); the parallelism with i. 20, ix. 1 is not of critical importance. Any real points of contact (such as xxiii. 23a; comp. iv. 5, 7) can be accounted for by imitation, and one could easily bring together points of difference.

[180]. The word for ‘mast’ is a ἅπ. λεγ. The Septuagint and Peshitto have ‘as a steersman (or seaman) in great breakers.’

[181]. xxiv. 23b is no exception; it is merely the first line of a hexastich.

[182]. For ‘and afterwards’ the Hebrew has ‘afterwards and thou shalt build.’ ‘And’ may mean ‘then,’ marking out the perfect as consecutive, but it may also have been intended to join two parts of a sentence.

[183]. ‘These also’ suggests that what follows is a last gleaning of Solomonic proverbs. And in fact xxv. 24, xxvi. 13, 15, 22, xxvii. 12, 13, 21a, seem to be taken from the ‘Solomonic’ collection. Hitzig however rejects this view. Why did not the collectors combine all the Solomonic proverbs they could find in one work? So he supposes this new collection to have been made ‘aus dem Volksmunde,’ and remarks that a commission would be specially appropriate for this task. To me this seems an anachronism. The proverbs of the Hezekian collection are moreover as artistic as those of the first ‘Solomonic.’

[184]. So virtually the Septuagint (ἑξεγράψαντο), followed by the Peshitto and the Targum: Aquila, μετῆραν. The Greek, curiously enough, inserts an epithet for the proverbs, viz. αἱ ἀδιάκριτοι, i.e. either impossible to distinguish, miscellaneous (so Sophocles, Lexicon), or better, difficult to interpret. Symmachus has ἀδιάκριτος for bōhū, Gen. i. 2. The Peshitto and Targum render the Greek of our passage by ‘deep proverbs,’ i.e. enigmatical ones (so too Aquila and Theodotion in the Syro-hexapla).

[185]. Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 228-9 (on Isa. xxxviii. 9).

[186]. Sayce’s ed. of Smith’s Chaldean Genesis, pp. 15, 26, 27.

[187]. Sept., Symm., Pesh., Vulg., however, attach the lost line of ver. 7 to ver. 8 (‘Quæ viderunt oculi tui, ne proferas in jurgio cito’), which makes ver. 7 a distich and ver. 8 a tetrastich.

[188]. Reading b’khōm for b’yōm with Sept.

[189]. Literally, ‘a word spoken (or, perhaps, driven, or sent home) on its wheels,’ i.e. smoothly and elegantly (‘ore rotundo’). So Schultens, who sees a reference to the tropes and figures of elegant Oriental style. Comp. Neil, Palestine Explored, p. 197. The interpretation is an attractive one, though uncertain. Ewald has a slightly different view (see History, ii. p. 14, n. 6).

[190]. Carlyle however borrows an Arabic proverb (Freytag, Prov. Ar., iii. 92).

[191]. It is of course possible that xxviii. 2 may be of northern origin, but why should not a wise man in Judah have watched with sympathy the course of events in Israel?

[192]. Reading, with Grätz, ’āshīr for rāsh ‘poor,’ which makes no sense.

[193]. Sept. well ἀποξενωθεῇ.

[194]. Notice however the remarkable saying, already quoted, in xxix.

[195]. The proverbs xxvi. 1, 3-12, form a string of satirical attacks on the ‘fool’ or stupid man.

[196]. One of these points however is noticed in the earliest part of the Law. The love of one’s enemy is taught in Ex. xxiii. 4, 5.

[197]. See however Mr. Yonge in The Expositor, Aug. 1885, pp. 158-9.

[198]. The received text has ‘vinegar upon nitre;’ but this would be rather an emblem for anger. The correction is Bickell’s, and is partly founded on Sept. (ὥσπερ ὄξος ἕλκει ἀσύμφορον). The opening words of the verse in rec. text arise from the repetition in a corrupt form of the four last words of the preceding verse (Lagarde and Bickell).

[199]. The Septuagint has ‘smooth lips.’

[200]. To have added ‘but perfidious,’ would have made the line too long.

[201]. This seems a combination of two distinct proverbs. The one says that a friend can give more sympathy than a relative; the other, that a neighbour, being on the spot, can give more help than a relative at a distance.

[202]. A humorous picture! Such ostentatious and inopportune salutations are execrable flattery.

[203]. On the conjectural reading, ‘the man of Massa’ (‘Massa,’ instead of ‘the prophecy’), see [Chap. VI.]

[204]. This was the view of St. Jerome, derived of course from his Jewish teacher.

[205]. Pointing lāīthī.

[206]. Reading with Bickell v’lō ūkāl. Another correction of the text is, v’ēkel ‘and have pined away.’

[207]. Q’dōshīm, a word formed on the analogy of elōhīm; comp. ix. 10, Hos. xii. 1.

[208]. It may be objected that ‘hath gone up and come down’ does not suit this explanation, and that, to refer to God, it should run ‘hath come down and gone up.’ But we have ‘angels of Elohim ascending and descending’ in Gen. xxviii. 12; usage, in Hebrew as in English, forbids the phrase ‘to go down and up.’

[209]. ‘More probably;’ because the name of the speaker in viii. 24 has been told.

[210]. Comp. Ewald, Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, iii. 2, pp. 81, 82.

[211]. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 356; comp. Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 316.

[212]. See above, p. [128], and comp. Wünsche, Midrasch Kohelet, p. xiii.

[213]. Sept., followed by Pesh., reads ‘three’ for ‘two.’ Accepting this reading, the second half of the verse becomes an explanation of the first.

[214]. Bickell’s reconstruction of the text makes the proverbs symmetrical with the rest. In lines 5, 6 he makes an ingenious parallelism with mēthīm ‘dead’ and m’thīm ‘men’ (i.e. children).

[215]. F. Johnson’s translation (1848), chap. ii., fable 7; comp. Fritze’s metrical version (Leipz. 1884).

[216]. Muir, Metrical Translations (1879), p. 160.

[217]. On the early importance of the queen-mother, see Cheyne’s Isaiah, i. 47, note 1 (on Isa. vii. 13).

[218]. This hardly recommends the view of Costelli, that this poem is properly the conclusion of the introductory treatise (i.-ix.)

[219]. (Maspero) Records of the Past, ii. 9-16.

[220]. Its close relation to the first of the two great anthologies is shown by the linguistic points of contact between the two works (see [Chap. VI.])

[221]. Rev. J. H. Thorn.

[222]. The poet, we can see, has not arranged the creative works as carefully as the cosmogonist in Genesis.

[223].

Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child,

To play his sweet will, glad and wild.—Emerson, Wood Notes.

[224]. ‘Produced’ seems the best rendering (Sept., ἔκτισε), in the sense of ‘creating,’ not (as Del.) of ‘revealing,’ for which there is no authority. The secondary meaning ‘possessed’ (Aquila &c. ἐκτήσατο, Vulg. possedit; comp. Eccles. xxiv. 6) is less agreeable to the context (see Hitzig’s note). There is the same diversity of rendering in Gen. xiv. 19-22. On the patristic expositions of this passage, see Dean Goode, The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, ed. 1, i. 299. The ante-Nicene Fathers mostly apply it to the divine generation of the Son, the post-Nicene to the generation of the human nature of Christ. Basil and Epiphanius are exceptions. The former applies the passage to ‘that wisdom which the apostle mentions’ (in 1 Cor. i. 21): the latter expresses a strong opinion that ‘it does not at all speak concerning the Son of God.’

[225]. Comp. Milton’s noble conception of the Creator’s golden compasses (Par. Lost, vii. 225, 6).

[226]. Comp. Delitzsch, System der christlichen Apologetik, § 16, where the history of this conception in Jewish literature is traced in connection with that of the Logos-idea; also Ewald, Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, iii. 74-77.

[227]. In Wisd. vii. 22 &c. the language appears to some to rise above poetical personification, and to imply a conscious hypostatising of Wisdom. Dante, a good judge on this point, certainly thought otherwise (Convito, iii. 15); he evidently holds that the Sophia of the Book of Wisdom is precisely analogous to his own very strong personification of divine Philosophy. Still such language may have partly prepared the way for the well-known Gnostic myth of Achamoth or Sophia (comp. Baur, Three First Centuries, E. T., i. 207). It was well, as Plumptre remarks, that Philo adopted Logos rather than Sophia as the name of the creative energy. A system in which Sophia had been the dominant word might have led to an earlier development of Mariolatry (Introduction to Proverbs in the Speaker’s Commentary).

[228]. Ecclus. xxiv. 23. (Comp. a sublime passage of E. Irving, identifying the contents of the ‘sacred volume’ with ‘the primeval divinity of revealed Wisdom,’ Miscellanies, p. 380 &c.) According to late Jewish theology, the Law is one of the seven things produced before the creation of the world. The alphabet-fables in Talmud and Midrash, in which letters of the alphabet converse with God, presuppose the same view (comp. the Mohammedan view of the Koran).

[229]. So Milton (a Hebraist), Paradise Lost, vii. 10 (‘didst play’), and again in Tetrachordon (‘God himself conceals not his own recreations,’ &c.)

[230]. The proof of this cannot be given here.

[231]. See ii. 4, iii. 13-15, iv. 7, vii. 16, 17, 19, 20 (especially), viii. 10, 18-21.

[232]. Comp. i. 32, 33, ii. 21, 22, iii. 1-10, ix. 11, 12, 18.

[233]. Keil qualifies this however by admitting that Solomon may have incorporated many sayings of other wise men.

[234]. Die Sprüche Salomo’s, v. xvii.

[235]. Die biblische Theologie, i. 563.

[236]. The Religion of Israel, ii. 242.

[237]. The passages in II. Isaiah referred to in this paragraph belong to sections most probably of post-Exile origin. (See art. ‘Isaiah’ in Encyclopædia Britannica, new ed.)

[238]. We should perhaps read here v’thigga’ for v’thigra’, following Sept.’s εἰς δε σε ἀφίκετο σοφία; so Merx and Bickell.

[239]. Were the affinities with Gen. i. more definite, critics of Wellhausen’s school would naturally derive from them an argument for the post-Exile origin of Prov. i.-ix. I do not myself attach much weight to these slight parallelisms.

[240]. Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem Neuen, pp. 148-9.

[241]. Geschichte der heiligen Schriften Alten Testaments, p. 494.

[242]. Die alttestamentliche Literatur (1868), p. 159.

[243]. Hitzig, however, almost alone among recent critics, regards the opening chapters as the oldest part of the book.

[244]. This seems to me the earliest probable date, but does not exclude the possibility that early traditional material has been worked into the book.

[245]. History of Israel, iv. 219. It should be mentioned however that Ewald places Job (except the Elihu-portion), Prov. i.-ix., and, last in order, Deuteronomy all in the reign of Manasseh. He fails to recognise the influence of Deuteronomy on the ‘Praise of Wisdom.’

[246]. See Micah in the Cambridge School and College Bible.

[247]. Delitzsch, Proverbs, i. 33; Kuenen, Onderzock, iii. 75.

[248]. In the version known as the Græcus Venetus (14th or 15th cent.) xxx. 1a runs thus, Λόγοι ἀγούρου υἱέως ἰακώως τοῦ μασάου (Jakeh the Massaite). Delitzsch’s view, given above, is taken from his art. on ‘Proverbs’ in Herzog-Plitt’s Encyclopædia; he refers to Friedrich Delitzsch’s Paradies, p. 303; comp. 243.

[249]. On Isa. xxi. 11, 12, see The Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 129, ii. 152. Hitzig’s theory, originally stated in Zeller’s Theol. Jahrbücher, 1844, pp. 269-305, will be found in the well-known short commentary (Kurzgefasstes exeg. Handbuch, 1847) by Bertheau, who substantially accepts it.

[250]. This is a little too strong. We should certainly have expected melek Lemuel (or Lemoel) rather than Lemuel melek, on the analogy of melek Yārēb, Hos. v. 13, x. 6. As it stands in the text, melek (after Lemuel, and without the article) can only be a definition of class. The Lemuel spoken of was quite unknown to the reader, and therefore the editor appends the descriptive title ‘king.’ Comp. Ex. xxxii. 11, where Joshua, son of Nun, being introduced for the first time, is described as na’ar ‘a squire.’

[251]. Referring to Neue Uebersetzung der Denksprüche Salomo’s, 1791, p. 29.

[252]. The addition here is very poetical, and may, as Ewald says, have been extracted from an ancient anthology. But it disturbs the connection.

[253]. So we may venture to paraphrase ‘Wisdom’ in this connection.

[254]. Revelation, p. 365; Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, i. 378.

[255]. Note the phrase in i. 1, ‘who in his life repaired the house,’ implying ‘now indeed he is dead.’ Grätz in fact is the only scholar who doubts the author’s contemporaneousness with Simon (Monatsschrift, 1872, p. 114).

[256]. See, besides the well-known passage in Pirke Aboth (i. 2), the legendary extracts from (Bab.) Yoma, 39b, translated by Wünsche, Der bab. Talmud, i. 1, pp. 368-9; and comp. Derenbourg, Hist. de la Palestine, i. 44 &c.

[257]. So we must paraphrase ἐν τῷ ὀγδόῳ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει ἐπὶ τοῦ Εὐεργέτου Βασίλεως. See Stanley’s note in Jewish Church, iii. 235, and Abbot’s note in the American edition of Smith’s Bible Dict. (I am indebted to Bissell for the latter reference). Comp. Wright, The Book of Koheleth, p. 34 n.

[258]. The Mishna (Pirke Aboth, i. 2) ascribes this saying to Simeon the Righteous: ‘On three things the world stands—revelation (tōra), worship, and the bestowal of kindnesses.’

[259]. See Jos., Ant., xii. 4.

[260]. On the identity of the Ben Sira of the Talmud and our Sirach, see Horowitz in Frankel’s Monatsschrift, 1865, p. 181 &c. The ch in the form Sirach may be due to an old error in the Greek text.

[261]. Hist. of Israel, v. 263-4. Ewald includes xxxix. 12-35 in the portion belonging to the second (supposed) collection.

[262]. See the headings at certain points of the Greek version.

[263]. With vv. 21, 23 comp. St. Paul, Phil. iv. 11, 12.

[264]. See St. Jerome, Præf. ad Libros Salomonis, and comp. Lightfoot’s Clement of Rome, p. 164 &c.

[265]. Keerl, Die Apokryphenfrage (1855), p. 214.

[266]. Sketches of Jewish Social Life, p. 189.

[267]. Ewald, Revelation, p. 364 n.

[268]. Ewald (History, v. 263, n. 3) refers to iv. 15, x. 13-17, xi. 5 sq., xxxii. 17-19, xxxiii. 1-12, xxxvi. 11-17, xxxvii. 25, xxxix. 23, xlviii. 10 sq., but only for a vague Messianism (in the last passage the Greek seems to be interpolated). I would add xxxv. 17-19, xxxvi. 1-10.

[269]. True, the Greek version of Sirach has, at xxi. 27, the words, ‘When the ungodly curseth the Satan, he curseth his own soul;’ but ‘the Satan’ may here be synonymous with the depraved will, the yéçer rā (this seems to have Talmudic authority; see Weber, System der altsynag. pal. Theol., pp. 228-9). In Baba bathra, 15a, Satan is not distinguished from the yéçer rā.

[270]. Chap. xxii. 11. Comp. xiv. 11-19 (correcting by the help of the Syriac), xvii. 27, 28, 30. Contrast the glowing language of the ‘Wisdom of Solomon,’ iii. 1-4.

[271]. The Syriac has, ‘Nevertheless he dieth not, but liveth indeed.’ The Greek version I have quoted farther on. Also the Latin, which probably corresponds most to the original. See Geiger, Zeitschr. d. d. morg. Ges., xii. 536. The false reading κεκοιμημένοι, adopted by A.V., for κεκοσμημένοι, in xlviii. 11a, is due to the same theological motive.

[272]. Antiquities, xii. 3, 3.

[273]. Ch. xi. 17; comp. ii. 7 &c.; xvi. 6 &c.; xl. 13, 14. There are, however, passages in which Sirach betrays some little feeling of the practical difficulties of the older form of the doctrine of retribution: see xxxv. 18 [xxxii. 18].

[274]. See Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, pp. 29, 30; Grätz, Schir ha-schirim, p. 86. Grotius even supposed the author to be a physician.

[275]. καὶ μὴ ἐμποδίσῃς μουσικά. So xlix. 1. ὡς μουσικὰ ἐν συμποσίῳ οἴνου; comp. Ex. xxxii. 18 Sept. That Greek music was known in Palestine very shortly afterwards may be inferred from the Greek names of musical instruments in the Book of Daniel.

[276]. Wessely was one of the most eminent fellow-workers of the great Moses Mendelssohn. See Wogue, Histoire de la Bible et de l’exégèse biblique (1881), pp. 334-337.

[277]. The Mussaph prayer in the liturgy of the Day of Atonement (German ritual) contains a striking imitation of Sirach’s eloquent description of the high priest (see Delitzsch, Gesch. der jüd. Poesie, p. 21), every verse of which closes with the refrain mar’eh kōhēn ‘the appearance of the priest;’ Meshullam bar-Kleonymos is known to be the author.

[278]. Jos., Ant., xiii. 3, 4.

[279]. See Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vorträge, p. 102; Delitzsch, Zur Gesch. der jüdischen Poesie, p. 204 (comp. p. 20, note 5); Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, p. 67 &c. It should be noticed that among these Talmudic m’shālīm there are some, and even long ones, which do not occur in the Greek Sirach.

[280]. Præf. in libr. Sal. ‘Fertur et πανάρετος Jesu filii Sirach liber et alius ψευδεπίγραφος liber .... Quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi, non Ecclesiasticum, ut apud Latinos, sed parabolas prænotatum, cui juncti erant Ecclesiastes et Canticum canticorum.’ Nowhere since has Sirach been found in this position, nor with this title.

[281]. But is not a strophic division sometimes visible, e.g. ii. 7-17? See Seligmann, Das Buch der Weisheit des J. S., &c., p. 34.

[282]. See especially xlvi. 19, with which comp. the Septuagint of 1 Sam. xii. 3.

[283]. Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta (1841), p. 21, note w.

[284]. Wright, Koheleth, p. 48 n.; Strack, art. ‘Kanon des A. T.’ in Herzog-Plitt, Realencyclopädie, vii. 430, 431; Gratz, Kohelet, p. 48.

[285]. Bishop Butler, who is fond of Sirach, quotes this saying in his 4th sermon.

[286]. The ‘many books’ spoken of in xii. 12 were probably less orthodox than Ecclesiastes, but in so far as Ecclesiastes, especially in its uncorrected state, is sceptical, it may be grouped with them.

[287]. In common with most interpreters, I regard Ecclesiastes as a Judæan work.

[288]. Following the precedent of the Epilogue (xii. 9), I designate the author by the name which he has invented for his hero.

[289]. There is a touch of humour in the expression, which can perhaps best be reproduced in our northern Doric, ‘Be not unco’ guid.’

[290]. I follow Sept. and Dr. Merx. The received reading is very harsh.

[291]. Geschichte des Volkes Jisrael, iii. 30.

[292]. Renan, L’Antéchrist, p. 228.

[293]. On the rhythm, comp. Bickell, Der Prediger (1884), pp. 27, 46-53.

[294]. Die alttestamentliche Literatur, p. 173.

[295]. ‘Dazu so ist’s wie ein Talmud aus vielen Büchern zusammengezogen.’ Luther’s Tischreden, quoted in Ginsburg, p. 113.

[296]. See Supplementary Chapter.

[297]. De rerum naturâ, i. 140 (appositely quoted by Mr. Tyler).

[298]. See the passage quoted from Chenery’s translation of Hariri by Dr. Taylor (Dirge of Coheleth, p. 55); comp. Rückert’s rhyming translation (Hariri, i. 104-5).

[299]. Renan’s list is i. 15, 18; ii. 2, 14; iii. 2-8, iv. 5, 14; v. 2; vii. 1-6; 7, 8; 9b; 13b; 24; viii. 1, 4; ix. 16, 17; x. 2, 12, 18; xi. 4, 7; xii. 3-5; 10; 11, 12. Bickell’s, i. 7, 8; 15; 18; ii. 2; v. 9; vi. 7; iv. 5; ii. 14; viii. 8; ix. 16-x. 1; vii. 1-6, vi. 9, vii. 7-9; vii. 11, 12; vii. 20; v. 2; x. 16-20; xi. 6; xi. 4; viii. 1-4, x. 2, 3; x. 6, 7; x. 10-15; ix. 7; xi. 9, 10, xii. 1a; xii. 1b-5; 6. (The order of these passages arises out of Bickell’s critical theory; on which see [Chap. XII.])

[300]. See the fantastic legend to account for the past tense in Midrash Koheleth (transl. Wünsche), or Ginsburg (p. 268; comp. p. 38).

[301]. Dean Plumptre thinks Koheleth (like ἐκκλησιαστής), which is rendered by him ‘the Debater,’ means rather a member of an assembly, than a teacher or preacher, and compares Ecclus. xxxviii. 33, where the son of Sirach says of labourers and artisans that they ‘shall not sit high in the congregation,’ i.e. in the ecclesia or academy of sages. But judging from the parallel line the ‘congregation’ is rather that of the people in general (comp. Ecclus. xv. 5). The Dean’s view that the book embodies the inward debates of a Jewish philosopher may be to a great extent true, but for all that Koheleth is throughout represented as speaking alone and with authority. On the philological explanation of the word, see Appendix.

[302]. This seems a reasonable view. Bickell boldly maintains that i. 1, 12, 16, ii. 7, 8, 9 [12] are interpolations (made presumably to facilitate the recognition of the book as canonical). Observe however that the (fictitious) author is nowhere declared to be Solomon, but only ben-David (i. 1). He claims attention merely as a private person, as an interpreter of the complaints of humanity. Though he does once expressly refer to his royal state (i. 12), it is only to suggest to his readers what ample opportunities he has enjoyed of learning the vanity of earthly grandeur. So, very plausibly, Bloch (Ursprung des Kohelet, p. 17).

[303]. The passage indeed is obscure and possibly corrupt (so Bickell), but the above words probably do justice to the mood described.

[304]. Among the many other interpretations of this difficult passage, two may be mentioned here. (1) ‘He has also set worldliness in their heart, without which man cannot understand the work that God does, from beginning to end.’ So Kalisch (Path and Goal, frequently). This is an improvement upon the translation of Gesenius and others, who render, not ‘without which’ &c., but ‘so that man may not’ &c. The objection to the latter rendering is that it gives ‘worldliness’ a New Testament sense (comp. 1 John ii. 15). Kalisch, however, in full accord with the spirit of Judaism, makes Koheleth frankly accept ‘worldliness’ as a good, understanding by ‘worldliness’ a sense of worldly duties and enjoyments. Had this however been Koheleth’s meaning, would he not have coined another of his favourite abstract terms (comp. the Peshitto’s ’olmoyuthō = αἰὼν in Eph. ii. 2)? (2) ‘Also he has put eternity into their heart, but so that man cannot’ &c. So Ginsburg and Delitzsch (desiderium æternitatis, taking ‘eternity’ in a metaphysical sense = ‘that which is beyond time’); so also Nowack (taking it in the popular sense of years following upon years without apparent limit). Ginsburg’s view is against the context, in which the continuance of the human spirit is doubted; but Nowack’s explanation is not unacceptable. Man has been enabled to form the idea of Time (for the popular view of ‘eternity’ comes practically to this), and has divided this long space into longer and shorter periods; what happens in one period or season, he can compare with what happens in another, thus finding all well-adapted and ‘beautiful.’ But he cannot grasp the whole of Time in one view. But I still prefer the explanation given in the text, as being simpler, in spite of the fact that ’ōlām nowhere else occurs in the sense of ‘world’ (or the present order of things), so common in later Hebrew.

[305]. This is the rendering of the four principal versions and of all the best critics, including Mercier, Ewald, Ginsburg, Grätz and Delitzsch; it agrees with the general tendency of Koheleth, and in particular with vii. 5, where the grave is called man’s ‘eternal home’ (see below). It is no doubt opposed by the vowel-points, which are followed in King James’s Bible. But it is more than probable (considering other parallel phenomena) that the authors of the points were directed by a theological and therefore uncritical motive, that, namely, of effacing as far as possible a trace of Koheleth’s opposition to the doctrine, by that time recognised as orthodox, of the immortality of the soul.

[306]. Swinburne, On the Verge.

[307]. Hitzig in his commentary refers to the history of the high priest Onias and his nephew Joseph. Afterwards he recalled this opinion; but we may be thankful to him for directing attention to this curious and instructive historical episode.

[308]. The mechanical juxtaposition of the two halves of ver. 1 is obvious. The proverb gains considerably, if read with Bickell’s very plausible supplements,

‘Better is a good name than precious ointment,

[but wisdom is still better than fame;

better is not-being than being]

and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.’

The ‘wisdom’ meant will be that of resignation and renunciation.

[309]. ‘Hereafter’ is, literally, ‘after him’ (for the meaning of which see iii. 22, vi. 12); ‘experience,’ literally ‘find’ (comp. Prov. vi. 33). For other views, see Wright, who objects to the above explanation that it ‘is opposed to the teaching of Koheleth respecting a future judgment.’ But the question is, Did Koheleth believe in a future judgment?

[310]. Eccles. Polity, i, 2, § 3.

[311]. There is a touch of humour here; comp. the wretch in the fable who called Death to his aid, but refused him when he came. Klostermann has done well in reviving this interpretation, which, in Germany at least, had been generally abandoned. (Delitzsch thinks the ‘angel’ is the priest whom the man who has vowed approaches with a request to be released from his vow. This is supported by Mal. ii. 7, where the priest is called ‘the messenger of Jehovah Sabáoth;’ but see the notes of Ginsburg and Kingsbury. Renan renders, à l’envoyé des prêtres.) The angel is the destroying angel, whose action is discerned by faith in the judicial calamities which, sometimes at least, overtake the wrong-doer. (So the Targum, but postponing the appearance of the angel to the future judgment.)

[312]. As Plumptre well remarks, the vices thought of and the end to which they lead are those of sensual license (comp. Prov. vii. 25-27).

[313]. In Koheleth’s phrase, ‘that which is;’ comp. Wisd. vii. 17-21, where ‘the infallible knowledge of the things that are’ is equivalent to a perfect natural science. Here a similar phrase means rather philosophy.

[314]. So Klostermann. The ordinary interpretation is, ‘One man among a thousand (men) I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found;’ i.e. I have tested a thousand men and a thousand women; I have found one true man, but not one true woman. The objection is that ’ādām elsewhere (e.g. ver. 29) means human beings without distinction of sex.

[315]. Following Bickell. In viii. 10 it is the linguistic form, and in viii. 12, 13 the contents of the Massoretic text which excite suspicion. The former verse is thus rendered by Delitzsch, ‘And then I have seen the wicked buried, and they entered into (their ‘perpetual house,’ the grave): but they that had done right had to depart (into exile) from the holy place (Jerusalem; cf. II. Isa. xlviii. 2), and were forgotten out of the city: this too is vanity.’

[316]. The view expressed in ix. 10 is, I hope, very far from being the private belief of the many preachers who are accustomed to quote it. See the chapter on Ecclesiastes from a religious point of view.

[317]. Correcting the text in x. 6 with A. Krochmal.

[318]. Altering the points with Klostermann.

[319]. But Goethe may have thought of the Turkish proverb, ‘Do good, throw the loaf into the water; if the fish knows it not, the Creator does,’ or the story from the life of the Caliph Mutewekyil [Mutawakkil?] quoted, with this proverb, from H. F. v. Diez by Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, pp. 73-74. Comp. also the stories in the Midrash Koheleth on our passage.

[320]. What judgment? Present or future (i.e. after death)? The latter gives a more forcible meaning (comp. iii. 17, xii. 14).

[321]. Essays and Reviews (1869), pp. 15-17.

[322]. Does the eastern sun blanch the ‘crimson broidery’ of the almond-blossom? From the language of travellers like Thomson and Bodenstedt it would seem so.

[323]. The Hebrew ’ōlām here expresses perpetuity (comp. Jer. li. 39, Ps. cxliii. 51, Ezek. xxvi. 20), not (as some moderns, after Aben Ezra) long continuance. It is true, that in the Targum of Isa. xlii. 11 an exit from the ‘eternal house’ is spoken of; but no one doubts that the belief in the Resurrection was general in the fourth century A.D.

[324]. Mr. Tyler interprets it in a Stoic sense of absorption in the World-Soul.

[325]. Nowack denies this meaning of rūakh altogether, but this seems a Gewaltstreich.

[326]. The title only belongs to pre-critical writers like Dr. John Smith, who, in his Portrait of Old Age (1666), sought to show that Solomon was thoroughly acquainted with recent anatomical discoveries. In revising my sheets, I observe that even such a fairminded student as Dean Bradley speaks of ‘the long-drawn anatomical explanations of men who would replace with a dissector’s report a painter’s touch, a poet’s melody.’ But the Dean only refers to ver. 6; I understand his language, though I think him biassed by poetic associations.

[327]. Namely, that vv. 3-5 are cited from an authorised book of dirges (comp. 2 Chr. xxxv. 25). There seems, however, no assignable reason for separating these verses from the context. And how can the supposed mourners have sung the latter part of ver. 5?

[328]. This supposes the approach of death to be described under the imagery of a gathering storm.

[329]. Namely, that the evil days of the close of life are described by figures drawn from the ‘seven days of death,’ as the modern Syrians designate the closing days of their winter. In a native Arabic rhyme, February says to March, ‘O March, O my cousin, the old women mock at me: three (days) of thine and four of mine—and we will bring the old woman to singing (another tune).’ Wright, Ecclesiastes, p. 271; Delitzsch, Hoheslied und Kohelet, p. 447.

[330]. Shabbath, 151b, 152b (Wright, Ecclesiastes, p. 262). The anecdote is given in connection with an allegoric interpretation of our poem.

[331]. Dean Plumptre and Dr. Wright, however, make this the opening verse of the Epilogue. But between ver. 8 and that which follows there is no inner connection.

[332]. The object of the article is perhaps to suggest that Koheleth is not really a proper name. In vii. 27 we should correct ām’rāh qōheleth to āmar haqqōheleth. Probably these words are an interpolation from the margin. They are nowhere else used in support of Koheleth’s opinions. The author of the interpolation may have wished to indicate his disagreement with Koheleth’s low opinion of women.

[333]. So Aquila, Pesh., Vulg., Grätz, Renan, Klostermann (v’kāthab).

[334]. I.e. the assemblies of ‘wise men’ or perhaps of Soferim. Surely ba’alē must refer to persons. The meaning ‘assemblies’ is justified by Talmudic passages quoted by Grätz, Delitzsch, and Wright.

[335]. So Klostermann. ‘Shepherd’ must, I think, mean teacher (comp. Jer. ii. 8, iii. 15 &c.); the expression is suggested by the ‘goads.’ ‘One shepherd’ (the text-reading) might mean Solomon; and we might go on to suppose the Solomonic origin of Proverbs as well as Ecclesiastes to be asserted in this verse. But the author of the Epilogue apparently considers Koheleth to be merely fictitiously Solomon, but really a wise man like any other. If so, he cannot have grouped it with Proverbs as a strictly Solomonic work.

[336]. So Klostermann, regarding this verse down to ‘commandments’ as an additional note on this difficult saying of Koheleth’s, which was liable to give offence to orthodox readers. The word ‘(is) vanity’ is supposed to have dropped out of the text. The object of the note is to show under what limitations it can be admitted that ‘all is vanity.’ Then the writer continues, ‘For this (concerns) every man; for every work’ &c., to show that the limiting precept is not less universally applicable than Koheleth’s melancholy formula.

[337]. Thus Delitzsch, who takes the ‘words of the wise’ and the ‘collections’ in ver. 11 to refer at least in part, the former to the detached sayings, and the latter to the continuous passages, which together make up Ecclesiastes. The ‘one shepherd’ is held to be God, so that the clause involves a claim of divine inspiration.

[338]. De Jong’s discussion of the Epilogue deserves special attention (De Prediker, p. 142 &c.); comp. however Kuenen’s reply, Onderzoek, iii. 196 &c.

[339]. Krochmal died in 1840, but his view on the Epilogue first saw the light in 1851 in vol. xi. of the Hebrew journal Morè nebūkē hazzemān (see Grätz, Kohelet, p. 47). His life is to be found in Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, ii. 150 &c.

[340]. See Jost (Gesch. des Judenthums, i. 42, n. 2). Derenbourg too seems to tend in this direction (Revue des études juives, i. 179, note). Reuss, Bickell, and Kleinert too agree in denying that ‘Koheleth’ composed the Epilogue. So also apparently Geiger (Jüd. Zeitschr., iv. 10, Anm.)

[341]. L’Ecclésiaste, p. 73.

[342]. Meditations, ii. 3.

[343]. I designedly refer to the great work of Epictetus, as its adaptation by Christian hands to the use of Christian believers to some extent furnishes a parallel for the editorial adaptation of Ecclesiastes.

[344]. Delitzsch, Hoheslied u. Koheleth, p. 215.

[345]. For the Jewish traditions and theories, see further Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen des Talmud und Midrasch und der jüdischen Erklärer des Mittelalters, Theil 1, Leipzig, 1885; and to complete Dr. Ginsburg’s survey of the literature, see Zöckler’s list in Lange’s Commentary and the additions to this in the American edition; also the preface to Wright’s treatise on Ecclesiastes.

[346]. See Vaihinger’s article in Herzog’s Realencyclopädie, xii. 92-106. I have not seen his book on Ecclesiastes (1858).

[347]. Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 168.

[348]. Ibid., p. 178.

[349]. Werke (Suphan), x. 134.

[350]. Shabbath, 97a (see Ginsburg, p. 98).

[351]. See his Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel (1857).

[352]. Jüdische Zeitschrift, iv. 9 &c.

[353]. David Castelli, a cool and cautious scholar but not original, is naturally better fitted to appreciate Koheleth (see Il libro del Kohelet, Pisa, 1866).

[354]. ‘Die harte, ungefügige, tiefgesunkene Sprache des Buches entzog ihm in Luzzatto’s Auge den verklärenden Lichtglanz; er blickte mit einer gewissen Missachtung auf den Schriftsteller, der sowenig Meister der edlen ihn erfüllenden Sprache war’ (Geiger).

[355]. Not only Geiger, but the learned and fairminded Kalisch, has made this view his own (Bible Studies, i. 65); among Christian scholars it has been adopted by Nöldeke and Bickell (the latter includes iii. 17 among the inserted passages, and I incline to follow him).

[356]. De Prediker vertaald en verklaart door P. de Jong (Leiden, 1861).

[357]. Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1883, p. 114.

[358]. See however Kuenen’s condensed criticism in Theol. Tijdschrift, p. 127 &c.

[359]. Hitzig, for instance, has been passed over in spite of Nöldeke’s judgment that no modern scholar has done so much for the detailed explanation of the text. This may be true, or at least be but a small exaggeration. No critic has so good a right to the name as Hitzig, who, though weak in his treatment of ideas, has the keenest perception of what is possible and impossible in interpretation. But for the larger critical questions Hitzig has not done much; the editor of the second edition of his commentary (Nowack) has therefore been obliged to rewrite the greater part of the introduction. The historical background of the book cannot be that supposed by Hitzig, nor has he hit the mark in his description of Koheleth as ‘eine planmässig fortschreitende Untersuchung.’ Wright fails, I venture to think, from different causes. He is slightly too timid, and deficient in literary art; and yet his scholarly work does honour to the Protestant clergy of Ireland.

[360]. See especially her early sonnet ‘Vanity of Vanities,’ and her striking poem ‘A Testimony.’

[361]. L’Antéchrist, p. 101.

[362]. L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 24, 90.

[363]. Mordecai in Daniel Deronda.

[364]. See his funeral éloge, reprinted in Academy, Oct. 13, 1883, p. 248.

[365]. L’Antéchrist, p. 200.

[366]. Ecclesiastes, p. 8.

[367]. Grätz, Kohelet, p. 33.

[368]. Jewish Church, ii. 256.

[369]. Ecclesiastes, pp. 53, 259.

[370]. See the passage from Herder quoted in Appendix (end).

[371]. Comp. Jacobi’s confession (imitated by Coleridge?) that he was with the head a heathen, and with the heart a Christian.

[372]. Revue des études juives, i. 165-185. I do not myself see why Koheleth, who sought ‘pleasant words,’ should not have written poetry as well as prose.

[373]. L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 83, 84.

[374]. Dean Bradley, Lectures on Ecclesiastes (1885), p. 7.

[375]. See Der Prediger Salomo (1859). Hengstenberg misses, it is true, any direct reference to the Christian hope, but finds the idea of chastisement as a proof of divine love in iii. 18, vii. 2-4, an emphatic affirmation of eternal life in iii. 21, and the resignation of a faith like Job’s in iii. 11, vii. 24, viii. 17, xi. 5. Koheleth’s questionings are therefore according to him ‘eine heilige Philosophie.’

[376]. Preface to vol. iii. of S. Holdheim’s Predigten.

[377]. J. Derenbourg, Revue des études juives, No. 2, Oct. 1880.

[378]. Der Pessimismus, 1876, p. 8. Schopenhauer too calls the Jews the most optimistic race in history.

[379]. See Appendix.

[380]. Wisd. ii. 6; comp. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, p. 71 &c., Wright, Koheleth, pp. 69, 70.

[381]. Letters to Various Persons, p. 25.

[382]. See the extracts in Trench’s Household Book of English Poetry, p. 405.

[383]. I do not of course assent to the form in which Grätz puts this, to serve his hypothesis as to the age of Koheleth. See Appendix.

[384]. Once Koheleth appears as a sharp critic of the female sex (vii. 26-29).

[385]. Lagarde describes Omar as ‘ein schlemmer, der die angst des irdischen daseins und die öde langeweile seiner noch in den anfängen stehenden wissenschaft hinwegzuschwelgen suchte’ (Symmicta, 1877, p. 9). Too hard a judgment perhaps on this changeful and impressionable nature. See Bodenstedt’s version as well as Fitzgerald’s.

[386]. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, chap. i., sect. 3. Parts of this chapter remind us strongly of Koheleth, and are strange indeed in a book of Christian devotion.

[387]. Prose Works, ed. Bohn, ii. 69.

[388]. See the Midrasch Kohelet (ed. Wünsche, 1880), or Ginsburg, p. 38.

[389]. Comp. the glossary at the end of Grätz’s commentary.

[390]. Quoted by Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 197.

[391]. Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes, Theil iv.

[392]. The ‘house of God’ must, I think, mean the temple of Jerusalem. That of Onias IV. was not built till 160 B.C. The synagogues would not be called ‘houses of God’ (on Ps. lxxiv. 8, see Hitzig).

[393]. History of Hebrew Nation and its Literature (ed. 2), p. 344.

[394]. He also published Der Prediger Salomon; ein Lesebuch für den jungen Weltbürger; übersetzt und erklärt (1792). The very title bears the mark of the century.

[395]. Opera, ii. (1699), 765 (Comm. in Ecclesiasten). Comp. the use made of Koheleth’s phraseology by the author of Wisdom (ii. 6-10).

[396]. See Sanhedrin, x. 1:—אלו שאין להם חלק לעולם הבא האומר אין תחית המתים מן התורה ואין תורה מן שמים ואפיקורום.—Comp. Aboth, ii. 14 (10 Taylor), and Genesis Rabbah, 19 (‘the serpent was Epicuros’).

[397]. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, p. 46.

[398]. See his Ecclesiastes, a Contribution to its Interpretation, &c. (1874). The main results of this work were accepted by Prof. Siegfried, who reviewed it in the Zeitschrift f. wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1875, pp. 284-291.

[399]. This discrepancy I had noted down before observing that Dean Plumptre had quoted the very same passage of Lucretius as a parallel to Eccles. ii. 24. For my own view of Koheleth’s recommendations, see p. [253]. Lucretius seems to me, in this strain, to soar higher than Koheleth; Omar Khayyâm to fall below him.

[400]. Ecclesiastes, p. 47.

[401]. Philo alludes, e.g., to the Stoic doctrine of revolutions (which some have found in Koheleth) and remarks that the Stoics think of God as of a boy who builds up sandhills, and then throws them down again.

[402]. Hilgenfeld, Jüdische Apokalyptik, p. 51, &c.

[403]. See Deut. viii. 18, and especially Gen. ii. 7 (Neubürger in Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1873, p. 566).

[404]. For this criticism upon Mr. Tyler’s view of iii. 1-8, I am indebted to Dr. Hatch.

[405]. Path and Goal, p. 116. But see p. 92.

[406]. Ecclesiastes, p. 45.

[407]. Seneca, Ep. 89, quoted by Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer, p. 253, with reference to the teaching of Proverbs.

[408]. R. H. Stoddard, The Morals of M. Aurelius.

[409]. Comp. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, iii. 247.

[410]. The phrase is objectionably modern, but in this connection could not be avoided.

[411]. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, ii. 1, p. 278.

[412]. Records of the Past, iv. 115-118; vi. 127-130.

[413]. ‘Cairo, the Old in the New,’ Contemp. Rev., xliii. 852.

[414]. Records of the Past, vi. 127.

[415]. Geiger, Urschrift, pp. 60, 61; Nöldeke, Die alttestamentliche Literatur., p. 175; Kuenen, Hist.-krit. Onderzoek., iii. 188. Theologisch. Tijdschrift, 1883, p. 143.

[416]. See reference, p. [280].

[417]. In the Theologisches Literaturblatt, Sept. 19, 1884.

[418]. Van der Palm first conjectured that passages had been misplaced, and Grätz has adopted the idea (Kohélet, pp. 40-43).

[419]. Comp. Rashbam’s interpolation theory (Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 42).

[420]. See Budde’s review of Bickell’s work in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, Feb. 7, 1885.

[421]. On Aquila and his theory of interpretation, comp. Renan, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 54; and on his artificial vocabulary, Field’s remarks, Hexapla, Prolegomena, p. xxii.

[422]. Kohélet, Anhang. Before Grätz, Frankel was already inclined to think that the Septuagint version might be really Aquila’s (Vorstudien, p. 238, note w). So more positively Freudenthal. Renan inclines to agree with Grätz.

[423]. Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1873, pp. 168-174.

[424]. Hexapla (1713), i., Præliminaria, p. 42. Montfaucon indicates vii. 23a as manifestly made up of a genuine version, and one interpolated from Aquila. Comp. Clericus’ note on Eccles iv. 1.

[425]. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, pp. 71-74; Wright, Koheleth, pp. 67-70. It is plainly impossible in the light of the history of dogma to place Wisdom before Ecclesiastes. Yet Hitzig has done this. Nachtigal took a sounder view in 1799 when he published a book on Wisdom regarded als Gegenstück des Koheleth. It forms vol. ii. of a singular work called Die Versammlung der Weisen, of which Koheleth forms vol. i.

[426]. See Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen, part i., pp. 100-102.

[427]. Midrasch Koheleth, § 1, 3; comp. Pesikta of R. Kahana, § 8 (Schiffer, pp. 6, 7).

[428]. By Delitzsch; see Wright’s Koheleth, p. 471, and comp. Strack, art. ‘Kanon des A. T.’ in Herzog-Plitt, vol. vii.

[429]. I quote the characteristic closing words, תחילתו דברי תורה וסופו דברי תורה (Shabbath, c. 30b).

[430]. Gesch. der jüdischen Poesie, p. 20.

[431]. Koheleth, p. 46.

[432]. See the passage from Sanhedrin (Jer. Talm.), x. 28a, quoted at length in Wright’s Koheleth, pp. 467-468.

[433]. See Rosenthal, Vier apokryphische Bücher ans der Zeit und Schule Akiba’s (1885), pp. 6-12.

[434]. ‘Ist’s denkbar, dass ein solcher Dichter demjenigen Redner, dem et die Hauptrolle zugedacht, die Charakteristik jenes inferioren Redetypus zugewiesen haben könnte?’ Kleinert.

[435]. Das spezifisch-hebräische im Buch Hiob, Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1886, pp. 299-300.

[436]. Ezek. xx. 49.

[437]. Die alttestamentliche Literatur, p. 192.

[438]. See Eichhorn’s notice of Michaelis in vol. i. of his Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Literatur.

[439]. Pp. 2076, 2077. Bernstein’s title is, Ueber das Alter, den Inhalt, den Zweck und die gegenwärtige Gestalt des Buches Hiob (in Keil and Tzschirner’s Analekten, 1813, pp. 1-137).

[440]. Beiträge sur Kritik des Buches Hiob (1876), p. 140.

[441]. Hiob (1869), Einleitung, pp. xxvii. xxix.

[442]. Die Grabschrift Escamunazar’s (1874), p. 8.

[443]. Blau, Zeitschr. der deutsch. morgenl. Ges., xxv. 540.

[444]. Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s Iob, p. 528.

[445]. On this, see Wright, Ecclesiastes &c. p. 127.

[446]. Strack, Lehrbuch der neuhebr. Sprache, p. 54.

[447]. Hoheslied und Koheleth, pp. 212-3.

[448]. Grammatica arabica, § 284 (i. 167). Comp. Wright, Arabic Grammar, i. 157 (§ 233).

[449]. The mistake was caused by the rarity of קהלת with the article.

[450]. Comp. British Quarterly Review, Oct. 1871.

[451]. Aboth, iii, 1 (ed. Strack); comp, Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen, part i., p. 49.

[452]. Kohelet, p. 29. Certainly this is not the view of Talmudic Judaism, at least not in the sense described by Dr. Grätz. See Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie, p. 323.