[42] Also called the Thebaic Version.
[43] As a translation it is a poor performance.
* * * * *
INTERPOLATIONS
Having thus briefly sketched the instruments by means of which the reconstruction of the poem of Job was undertaken, it may not be amiss to illustrate the manner in which they are employed in the light of a few examples. To begin with the structure of the metre. In the Authorised Version we find (chap. xii. 12) the words: "With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days understanding." This in Hebrew is
Bishíshim chókhma
Veórekh yámim t'búna.
The first line therefore has five instead of seven syllables and is consequently defective; something must have fallen out. This conclusion, based upon the laws of the metre, is fully borne out by a study of the context; for it is enough to read Job's reply from the beginning to see that he could not have set himself to prove, as he is here made to do, that God is as wise as man; his contention really being that man's knowledge is ignorance compared with the wisdom of the Being who governs the universe. For he is arguing against the traditionalists who assert that justice is the essential characteristic of the conduct of the world, a thesis refuted by almost everything we see and hear around us. Bildad besought his sorely tried friend to learn of bygone generations and to view things through their eyes. "Shall they not teach thee?" he asks (viii. 10), to which Job's reply is an emphatic negative: "There is no wisdom with the ancient, nor understanding in length of days." To agree with his "friend" would be to throw up his case, and this the Authorised Version makes him do. God alone is endowed with wisdom; but is He likewise good? To this question His government of the universe alone can furnish an answer. There must evidently then have been a negative particle in the text which a copyist, shocked at the seemingly rash assertion, expunged. If now we add the words "for not" the metre is in order and the sense perfect:
Ki én bishíshim chókhma
Veórekh yámim t'búna.
Take another instance. The first part of v. 14, chap. xiv. is rendered in our version as follows: "If a man die shall he live again?" and the translation would be faithful enough if the Hebrew word were hayichyä, as our MSS. testify, but as an interrogation would destroy the parallelism of the strophe, it is evident that the syllable ha, which in Hebrew consists of one and not two letters, is an interpolation, and the word should be yichyä and the strophe (composed of v. 13 and 14a).
"Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave!
That thou wouldst secrete me till thy wrath be passed!
That thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If so be man could die and yet live on."