וְעֵינַי רָאוּ וִלאׁ־זָר

כָּלוּ כִלְיֹתַי בְּחֵקִי ׃

Bickell does not attempt to make easy Hebrew; the passage ought not in such a connection to be too easy. He renders ver. 26a, ‘Et postea, his præsentibus absolutis, veniet testis meus’ (God, his witness, as xvi. 19), comparing for the sense of נקפה Isa. xxix. 1. Certainly we seem to require in ver. 26 some further development of the idea suggested by the appearance of the Goel on the dust of Job’s burial-place, and such a development is not supplied by the received text. We must not look at any corrupt passage by itself, but take it with the context. Those who defend the text of ver. 26 as it stands have on their side the parallelism of עוֹרִי and בְּשָׂרִי (comp. ver. 20); but this parallelism is counterbalanced by the want of correspondence between נִקְּפוּ־זאׁת and אחֱזֶה אֱלוֹהַּ. Dr. C. Taylor suggests an aposiopesis, and gives the sense intended by the writer thus, ‘When they have penetrated my skin, and of my flesh have had their fill’ (comp. ver. 22b). Is it not more likely that וּמִבְּשָׂרִי came into the text through a reminiscence of ver. 22b? ‘I shall see these things from Shaddai’ will be, on Bickell’s view, equivalent to ‘I shall see these things attested by Shaddai.’ As yet, the sufferer exclaims, I can recognise this, viz. my innocence, for myself alone; mine eyes have seen it, but not another’s (Prov. xxvii 2). The connexion is in every way improved. Job first of all desired an inscribed testimony to his innocence, but now he aspires to something better.

Bickell’s is the most natural reconstruction of the passage as yet proposed; so far as ver. 26b is concerned, it is supported in the main by the Septuagint. More violent corrections are offered by Dr. A. Neubauer, Athenæum, June 27, 1885—As a rendering of the text as it stands, I think R.V. is justified in giving ‘from my flesh’ (with marg., ‘Or, without’); ‘mine eyes shall see’ (= ‘will have seen’) certainly suggests that Job will be clothed with some body when he sees God (Dillmann’s reply is not adequate). ‘Without my flesh’ (so Amer. Revisers) is in itself justifiable (see especially xi. 15); in the use of the privative ז became more and more frequent in the later periods (comp. the Talmudic מֵאוֹר עֵינַיִם = ‘blind’).

5. Page [39]. Job’s catalogue of the sins which he repudiates. The parallel suggested between Job and an Egyptian formulary may be illustrated by a passage in the life of the great Stoic Emperor. A learned Bishop, popular in his day, reminds us of ‘that golden Table of Ptolomy (sic) Arsacides, which the Emperour Marcus Aurelius found at Thebes, which for the worthiness thereof that worthy Emperour caused every night to be laid at his bed’s head, and at his death gave it as a singular treasure to his sonne Commodus. The Table was written in Greek characters, and contained in it these protestations: “I never exalted the proud rich man, neither hated the poor just man: I never denied justice to the poor for his poverty neither pardoned the wealthy for his riches.... I alwaies favoured the poor that was able to do little, and God, who was able to do much, alwaies favoured me.”’ (The Practice of Quietnesse, by George Webbe, D.D., 1699?)

6. Page [52] (On Job xxxviii. 31, 32, ix. 9).—(1) I admit that the identification of כִּימָה and the Pleiades is uncertain. Still it is plausible, especially when we compare Ar. kumat ‘heap.’ And even if it should be shown that kimtu was not the Babylonian name for the Pleiades, this would not be decisive against the identification proposed. The Babylonians did not give the name kisiluv to Orion, yet Stern’s argument (Jüdische Zeitschrift, 1865, Heft 4: comp. Nöldeke, Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexikon, iv. 369, 370) in favour of equating k’sîl and Orion remains valid. (2) As to מֵעֲדַנּוֹת ‘sweet influences’ is fortunate enough to exist by sufferance in the margin of R.V. It is sometimes defended by comparing 1 Sam. xv. 32. But the only possible renderings there are ‘in bonds’ or ‘trembling’ (see Variorum Bible ad loc.). Dr. Driver has shown that ‘sweet influences’ is a legacy from Sebastian Münster (1535). (3) מִזָּרוֹת is probably not to be identified with מַזָּלוֹת (2 Kings xxiii. 5), in spite of the authority of the Sept. and the Targum (see Dillmann’s note). In this I agree with G. Hoffmann, whose adventurous interpretations of the astronomical names in Amos and Job do not however as yet seem to me acceptable. According to him, kîma = Sirius, k’sîl = Orion, Mazzaroth = the Hyades and Aldebaran, ‘Ayish’ = the Pleiades (Stade’s Zeitschrift, 1883, Heft 1). Mazzaroth = Ass. mazarati; Mazzaloth (i.e. the zodiacal signs) seems to be the plural of mazzāla = Ass. manzaltu station.

7. Pages [60]-63.—That the story of Job is an embellished folk-tale is probable, though still unproved. The delightful humour which in the Prologue (see pp. [14], [110]), as in the myths of Plato, stands side by side with the most impressive solemnity of itself points to this view. No one has expressed this better than Wellhausen, in a review of Dillmann’s Hiob, Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, xvi. 552 &c.: ‘Den launigen und doch mürrischen Ton, den der nonchalante Satan Gott gegenüber anschlägt, so ganz auf Du und Du, würde schwerlich der Dichter des Hiob gewagt haben; schwerlich auch würde es ihm gelungen sein, mit so merkwürdig einfachen Mitteln so wunderbar plastische Figuren zu entwerfen.’ He also points out the inconsistencies of the story, precisely such as we might expect in a folk-tale, and concludes (a little hastily) that the Prologue is altogether a folk-story and had no didactic object. Eichhorn, too, in a review of Michaelis on Job (Allgemeine Bibliothek, i. 430 &c.), well points out that the illusion of the poem is much impaired by not admitting an element in the plot derived from tradition. Of course this view of Job as based on a folk-tale is quite reconcileable with the view that the hero is a personification. The latter is much older than the last century; it explains the Jewish saying (p. [60]) that ‘Job was a parable,’ and the fascination which the book possessed for the age preceding the final dispersion of the Jews.[[433]]

8. Page [81] (further correction of text of Deut. xxxii. 8, 9).—The passage becomes more rhythmical if with Bickell we reproduce the Septuagint Hebrew text at the close of ver. 8 as בני אלהים and continue (ver. 9),

וחלק יהוה יעקב [or עמו]

חבל נחלתו ישראל ׃