1 EURIPIDES.
2 MAD. DE MAINTENON.
Well then benevolent and patient reader, it is here my duty to confess that there is a passage in the last chapter which I am bound to retract. For since that chapter was written I have found cause to apprehend that in vindicating Guy's daughter I have wronged Job's wife, by accrediting a received calumny founded upon a mistranslation. I did not then know, what I have now learnt, that a judicious and learned writer, modest enough to conceal his name and designate himself only as a private gentleman, had many years ago, in a Review of the History of Job, stated his reasons for regarding her as a much injured woman.
Every one knows that the wife of Job in our Bible says to her husband, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!” Now this writer asserts that the Hebrew verb which our translators render in this place to curse, means also to bless, to salute, or give the knee, and that there are but four more places in all the Bible where it can be supposed to have an opposite meaning, and that even in those places it may admit of the better signification. It is not surprizing that many verbal difficulties should occur in a book, which if of later date than the books of Moses, is next to them in antiquity. Such difficulties might be expected whether we have it in its original language, or whether it were written, as many have opined, by Job himself in Syriac, Arabic or Idumean, and translated into Hebrew; much more if the opinion of Dr. Wall could be admitted, that it was written at first in hieroglyphics, against which the length of the book is a conclusive objection. “I should imagine,” says the anonymous defender, “she had so high an opinion of her husband's innocence that she might mean to advise him, seeing notwithstanding his uprightness he was thus amazingly afflicted, to go and kneel or bow down before God, and plead or as it were expostulate with him concerning the reason of these dreadful calamities,—even though he should die. If this sense of her expressions be allowed, it will justify Job's wise rebuke for her inconsiderateness, while, as he still possessed his soul in submissive patience, crying out—‘Thou speakest as a rash, thoughtless, or foolish woman: what, shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ Indeed it should seem that God himself did not behold her as an impious or blasphemous woman, inasmuch as we find she was made a great instrument in Job's future and remarkable prosperity, becoming after their great calamity the mother of seven sons and three most beautiful daughters. I say she was their mother, because we have no intimation that Job had any other wife.”
Now upon consulting such authorities as happen to be within my reach, I find that this interpretation is supported by the Vulgate,—benedic Deo, et morere; and also by the version of Junius and Tremellius—“adhuc tu retines integritatem tuam, benedicendo Deum atque moriendo.” Piscator too renders the word in its better sense, as I learn from the elder Wesley's elaborate collation of this most ancient book, from which I collect also that the Chaldee version gives the good meaning, the Arabian and Syriac the bad one; and that the words of the Septuagint ἀλλὰ εἰπόν τι ῥῆμα εἰς κύριον καὶ τελεύτα, are interpreted by the Scholiast κατάρασον τον θέον.
Moreover a passage of some length which is in no other translation except that of St. Ambrose, is found in three manuscripts of the Septuagint, one of them being that from which the text of the Oxford edition of 1817 is taken. It is as follows. “But after much time had elapsed, his wife said unto him, ‘how long wilt thou endure thus saying, “I will expect yet a little while, awaiting the hope of my salvation?” Behold thy memory hath past away from the earth, the sons and daughters of my womb, whom I have with pain and sorrow brought forth in vain. Thou thyself sittest among filthy worms, passing the night under the open sky; and I am a wanderer and a servant, from place to place and from house to house, looking for the sun to go down that I may rest from the grief and labour that oppress me. Speak then a word against the Lord, and die!’”
If the text were to be considered singly, without reference to any thing which may assist in determining its meaning, it would perhaps be impossible now to ascertain among these contrariant interpretations which is the true one. But the generous Englishman who in this country first in our language undertook the vindication of this Matriarch and by whom I have been led to make the present pertinent enquiry, has judiciously (as has been seen) observed in confirmation of his opinion, that the circumstance of her having been made a partaker in her husband's subsequent prosperity is proof that she also had been found righteous under all their trials. This is a valid argument deduced from the book itself.
It would be invalidated were there any truth in what certain Talmudists say, that Job came into the world only to receive his good things in it; that when Satan was permitted to afflict him he began to blaspheme and to revile his Maker, and that therefore the Lord doubled his measure of prosperity in this life, that he might be rejected from the world to come. But when we remember that he is called “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil,” we may say with the great Cistercian Rabbinomastix “hæc est magna blasphemia et convicium in Iob.” Other Rabbis represent him as a fatalist, put into his mouth the common argument of that false and impious philosophy, and affirm that there is no hope of his salvation: what they say concerning him may safely be rejected. Others of the same school assert that there never was any such person as Job, in the teeth of the Prophet Ezekiel,—and that his whole history is only a parable: if their opinion were right it would be useless to enquire into the character of his wife; sed isti redarguuntur says Bartolocci, ex nomine ipsius et nomine civitatis ejusdem. Just as, whatever inconsiderate readers may suppose who take these my reminiscences of the Doctor for a work of fiction, Daniel Dove was Daniel Dove nevertheless, and Doncaster is Doncaster.
There is nothing then among the Jewish traditions, so far as my guides lead me, that can throw any light upon the subject of this enquiry. But there is among the Arabian, where it was more likely to be found; and though the Arabic translation supports the evil meaning of the equivocal text, the tradition on the contrary is in favour of Job's wife. It is indeed a legend, a mere figment, plainly fabulous; but it is founded upon the traditional character of Job's wife in Job's own country. There are two versions of the legend. The one Sale has given as a comment upon the text of the Koran,—“Remember Job when he cried unto his Lord, saying, Verily evil hath afflicted me; but Thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy!”
When Job, says this legend, was in so loathsome a condition that as he lay on a dunghill none could bear to come near him, his wife alone attended him dutifully with great patience, and supported him with what she earned by her labour. One day the Devil appeared to her, reminded her of their former prosperity, and promised to restore all they had lost if she would worship him. He had overcome Eve by a less temptation; the Matriarch did not yield like the Mother of Mankind, but neither did she withstand it; she took a middle course, and going to her husband repeated to him the proposal, and asked his consent: whereat he was so indignant that he swore if he recovered to give her an hundred stripes; and then it was that he uttered the ejaculation recorded in the Koran. Immediately the Lord sent Gabriel, who took him by the hand and raised him up; a fountain sprung up at his feet, he drank of it, and the worms fell from his wounds, and he washed in it, and his health and beauty were restored. What his wife had done was not imputed to her for sin, doubtless in consideration of the motive, and the sense of duty and obedience to her lord and master which she had manifested. She also became young and beautiful again; and that Job might keep his oath and neither hurt her nor his own conscience, he was directed to give her one blow with a palm branch having an hundred leaves.