[927] 1 Chron. xxi. 1.
[928] i. 6b.
[929] See Davidson in Cambridge Bible for Schools on Job i. 6–12, especially on ver. 9: “The Satan of this book may show the beginnings of a personal malevolence against man, but he is still rigidly subordinated to Heaven, and in all he does subserves its interests. His function is as the minister of God to try the sincerity of man; hence when his work of trial is over he is no more found, and no place is given him among the dramatis personæ of the poem.”
[930] Cheyne, The Origin of the Psalter, p. 272. Read carefully on this point the very important remarks on pp. 270 ff. and 281 f.
[931] Cf. chap. vii. 3: the priests which were of the house of Jehovah.
[932] Jer. xli. 2; 2 Kings xxv. 25.
[933] The Hebrew text is difficult if not impossible to construe: For Bethel sent Sar’eser (without sign of accusative) and Regem-Melekh and his men. Wellhausen points out that Sar’eser is a defective name, requiring the name or title of deity in front of it, and Marti proposes to find this in the last syllable of Bethel, and to read ’El-sar’eser. It is tempting to find in the first syllable of Bethel the remnant of the phrase to the house of Jehovah.
[934] To stroke the face of.
[935] The fifth month Jerusalem fell, the seventh month Gedaliah was murdered: Jer. lii. 12 f.; 2 Kings xxv. 8 f., 25.
[936] So LXX. Heb. has acc. sign before words, perhaps implying Is it not rather necessary to do the words? etc.