The correction of the last couplet is important as a supplement of the explanation of ver. 8 given in the text. To other nations God gave protective angels, but He reserved Israel for Himself. (See Bickell, Zeitschrift f. kathol. Theologie, 1885, pp. 718-19, and comp. his Carmina V. T. metricè, 1882, p. 192, where he adheres in both verses to the received text.)
9. Page [92].—No student of the Hebrew of Job will overlook the admirable ‘studies’ on the style of Elihu by J. G. Stickel (Das Buch Hiob, 1842, pp. 248-262) and Carl Budde (Beiträge sur Kritik des Buches Hiob, 1876, pp. 65-160). The former succeeded in obtaining the admission of such an eminent critical analyst as Kuenen, that style by itself would be scarcely sufficient to prove the later origin of the Elihu speeches. It also, no doubt, assisted Delitzsch to recognise in Elihu the same ‘Hebræoarabic’ impress as in the rest of the book. In spite of this effective ‘study,’ Dillmann’s brief treatment of the same subject in 1869 made it clear that the subject had not yet by any means been threshed out, and perhaps no more powerful argument against chaps. xxxii.-xxxvii. has been produced than that contained in a single closely-printed page (289) of his commentary. There was therefore a good chance for a Privatdocent to win himself a name by a renewed attempt to state the linguistic facts more thoroughly and impartially than before. This indeed fairly expresses Budde’s object, which is not at all to offer a direct proof that the disputed chapters belong to the original poem, but merely to show that the opposite view cannot be demonstrated on stylistic grounds. His method is to collect, first of all, points of resemblance and then points of difference between ‘Elihu’ and the rest of the book. Last among the latter appear the Aramaisms and Arabisms. Budde rejects the view, adopted from Stickel (see p. [92]) by Canon F. C. Cook, that the deeper colouring of Aramaic is only the poet’s way of indicating the Aramæan origin of Elihu. He denies that there is any such greater amount of Aramaism as can form a real distinction between ‘Elihu’ and the undisputed chapters. I will not inquire whether the subjectivity of a writer may impress itself on his statistics, and willingly grant that the Aramaic colouring in ‘Elihu’ may perhaps affect the reader more owing to the faults of style to which Budde himself alludes on p. 157, and which, to me, indicate an age or at least a writer of less taste and talent than the original author. The Aramaisms may be thrown into stronger relief by these infirmities, and so the colouring may seem deeper than it is. I am not however sure that there is an illusion in the matter. Among the counter-instances of Aramaism given by Budde from the speeches of Eliphaz, there are at least two which have no right to figure there, viz. מַנְלָם, xv. 29, and אֻיִ for אַיִן, xxii. 30, both which forms are probably corrupt readings. Until Dillmann has published his second edition I venture to retain the statement on p. [92]. There is a stronger Aramaising element in Elihu, which, with other marks of a peculiar and inferior[[434]] style, warrants us in assigning the section to a later writer. This is, of course, not precluded by the numerous Hebraistic points of contact with the main part of the book, which Carl Budde has so abundantly collected (Beiträge, pp. 92-123). No one can doubt that the original poem very early became an absorbing study in the circles of ‘wise men.’
As to the words and phrases (of pure Hebrew origin) in which Elihu differs from the body of the work, I may remark that it is sometimes difficult to realise their full significance from Budde’s catalogue. Kleinert has thrown much light on some of them in a recent essay. He has, for instance,[[435]] shown the bearings of the fact that the disputed chapters persistently avoid the juristic sense of צָדַק (Kal), except in a quotation from speeches of Job (xxxiv. 5), Elihu himself only using the word of correctness in statement (xxxiii. 12), or of moral righteousness (xxxv. 7), and that הִרְשִׁיעַ has the sense of ‘acting wickedly’ only in a passage of Elihu (xxxiv. 12). The use of צֶרֶק, צַרִּיק, and צְרָקָה in xxxii, 1, xxxiii. 26, xxxv. 8, xxxvi. 3, is also dwelt upon in this connexion. It is true that Budde does not conceal these points; he tabulates them correctly, but does not indicate the point of view from which they can be understood. Kleinert supplies this omission. The body of the poem, he remarks, is juristic in spirit; the speeches of Elihu ethical and hortatory. This brings with it a different mode of regarding the problem of Job’s sufferings. ‘Die Reden Elihu’s haben zu dem gerichtlichen Aufriss der Buchanlage nur das alleräusserlichste Verhältniss. Sie verlassen die scharfgezogenen Grundlinien der rechtlichen Auseinandersetzung, um in eine ethisch-paränetische, rein chokmatisch-didaktische Erörterung der Frage überzulenken.’ Kleinert also notes one peculiar word of Elihu’s which I have not met with in Budde, but which, from Kleinert’s point of view, is important—כֹּפֶר, ‘a ransom’ (xxxiii. 24, xxxvi. 18). Why did not the juristic theologians of the Colloquies use it? Evidently the speeches of Elihu are later compositions.
10. Page [99].—The critic, no less than the prophet, is still with too many a favourite subject of ironical remark; ‘they say of him, Doth he not speak in riddles’?[[436]] The origin of Job, upon the linguistic as well as the theological side, may be a riddle, but the interest of the book is such that we cannot give up the riddle. We may not all agree upon the solution; the riddle may be one that admits of different answers. All that this proves is the injudiciousness of dogmatism, which specially needs emphasising with respect to the bearings of the linguistic data. To say, with Nöldeke,[[437]] ‘We have no ground for regarding the language of Job as anything but a very pure Hebrew’ seems to me as extreme as to assert with G. H. Bernstein (the well-known Syriac scholar) that the amount of Aramaic colouring would of itself bring the book into the post-Exile period. Bernstein carried to a dangerous extreme a tendency already combated by Michaelis and Eichhorn;[[438]] but his research is thorough-going and systematic. Those who, like the present writer, have no access to it, may be referred to L. Bertholdt’s Historisch-kritische Einleitung[[439]] (Erlangen, 1812-1819), where it is carefully examined, and its arguments, as it would seem, reduced to something like their just proportions. Bertholdt does not scruple to admit that distinctively Aramaising constructions are wanting in Job, and that words with Aramaic affinities may have existed in Hebrew before the Exile. Still he decides that though part of the argument fails to pieces, yet for most there is a real foundation. This too, is substantially the judgment of Carl Budde. ‘Despite all deductions from Bernstein’s list it remains true that just the Book of Job is specially rich in words which principally belong to the Aramaic dialects.’[[440]] Dillmann, too, who takes pains to emphasise the comparative scarcity of Aramaisms in the strictest sense of the word, yet finds in the body of the work (excluding the Elihu portion) Aramaising and Arabising words enough to suggest that the author lived hard by Aramaic- and Arabic-speaking peoples.[[441]] By taking this view, Dillmann (whose philological caution and accuracy give weight to his opinion) separates himself from those who, like Eichhorn and more recently the Jewish scholar Kaempf,[[442]] confidently maintain that the peculiar words in Job are genuine Hebrew ‘Sprachgut.’ To make this probable, we ought to be able to show that they have more affinities with northern than with southern Semitic (see p. [99]), a task as yet unaccomplished. Dillmann, too, would certainly dissent from Canon Cook’s opinion that the Aramaisms of Job are only ‘such as characterise the antique and highly poetic style.’ According to him, they are equally unfavourable to a very early and to a very late date.
Various lists of Aramaising words have been given since Bernstein’s. I give here that of Dr. Lee in his Book of the Patriarch Job (p. 50), which has the merit of having been constructed from his own reading of Job. It refers to the whole book:—
נהרה (iii. 4); מנהו (iv. 12); לאויל (v. 2); אדרש (ib. 8), occur in the Aramaic, not the Hebrew sense; תמלל (viii. 2); ישׂגה (ib. 7); מנהם (xi. 20); עמם (xii. 2); מלין (ib. 11); משׂגיא (ib. 23); מלתי ואחותי (xiii. 17); אחוך (xv. 17); וזה for ואשר (ib.); שׁלהבת (ib. 31); גלדי (xvi. 15); חמרמרה (ib. 16); קנצי (xviii. 2); יגעל ... עבר (xxi. 10); בחיין (xxiv. 22); בחבי (xxxi. 33); אחוה (xxxii. 10, 18); פרע (xxxiii. 24); אאלפך (ib. 33); כתר (xxxvi. 2); בחרת (ib. 21); גבר (xxxviii. 3); נחיר (xli. 12). I will not criticise this list, which no doubt contains some questionable items. We might, however, insert other words in exchange, e.g. טושׂ (ix. 26); רׂהד (xvi. 19); כפים (xxx. 6); and כפן (v. 22, xxx. 3); and perhaps רקב (xiii. 28), which Geiger plausibly compares with Syr. rakbo ‘wineskin’ (so the tradition represented by the Septuagint, the Peshitto, and Barhebræus). Some supposed Arabisms may also in all probability be transferred to the list of Aramaisms; but the Arabisms which remain will abundantly justify what has been stated in the section on Job. I have not attempted to decide precisely where the poet heard both Arabic and Aramaic. Dillmann accepts the view mentioned on p. [75]. But Gilead, too, was at all times inhabited by Arab tribes, both nomad and settled,[[443]] and the region itself was called Arabia.[[444]]
11. Pages [106]-111.—Herder (to whom I gladly refer the student) is perhaps the best representative of the modern literary point of view. Whatever he says on the Hebrew Scriptures is worth reading, even when his remarks need correction. No one felt the poetry of Job more deeply than Herder; to the religious ideas of the poem his eyes were not equally open. Indeed, it must have been hard to discern and appreciate these adequately in the eighteenth century; the newly-discovered sacred books of the East, with their deep though obscure metaphysical conceptions, for a time almost overshadowed the far more sobre Hebrew Scriptures. Like Carlyle (who is to some extent his echo) Herder underrates the specifically Hebrew element in the book, which is of course not very visible on a hasty perusal. One point, however, that he sees very dearly, though he does not use the expression, is that Job is a character-drama. He denies that the speeches are monotonous.
‘So eintönig für uns alle Reden klingen, so sind sie mit Licht und Schatten angelegt und der Faden, oder vielmehr die Verwirrung der Materie, nimmt zu von Rede zu Rede, bis Hiob sich selbst fasset und seine Behauptungen lindert. Wer diesen Faden nicht verfolgt und insonderheit nicht bemerkt, wie Hiob seinem Gegner immer den eigenen Pfeil aus der Hand windet; entweder das besser sagt, was jener sagte, oder die Gründe jenes eben für sich braucht—der hat das Lebendige, Wachsende, kurz die Seele des Buchs verfehlet’ (Hiob als Composition betrachtet, Werke, Suphan, ii. 318).
He has also clearly perceived the poet’s keen sympathy with mythology, and this, combined with the (supposed) few imitations of Job in the Old Testament, confirmed him in the erroneous view that the original writer of Job was an Edomitish Emeer. On the limited influence of Job he has some vigorous sentences, the edge of which, however, is turned by more recent criticism. It is of the prophets he is chiefly thinking, when he finds so few traces of acquaintance with Job in the Scriptures, and of the pre-Exile prophets. ‘Wie drängen und drücken sich die Propheten! wie borgen sie von einander Bilder in einem ziemlich engen Kreise und führen sie nur, jeder nach seiner Art, aus! Diese alte ehrwürdige Pyramide steht im Ganzen unnachgeahmt da und ist vielleicht unnachahmbar.’ This passage occurs in the fifth conversation in his Geist der Ebräischenn Poesie (Werke, ed. Suphan, xi. 310). The student of Job will not neglect this and also the two preceding very attractive chapters. The description of Elihu is not the least interesting passage. Herder does his best to account for the presence of this unexpected fifth speaker, but really shows how unaccountable it is except on the theory of later addition. Prof. Briggs’s theory (p. [93]) that the poor speeches of Elihu are intended ‘as a literary foil’ was suggested by Herder. ‘Bemerken Sie aber, dass er nur als Schatte dasteht, dies Gottes-Orakel zu erheben’ (Werke, xi. 284).
12. Pages [113], [114].—The latest study on the original Septuagint text of the Book of Job is by Bickell in the Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 1886, pp. 557-564. As to the date of the Alexandrine version, Hody’s remark, De Bibliorum Textibus, p. 196, deserves attention, viz. that Philo already quotes from it,—Τίς γὰρ, ὡς ὁ Ἰώβ φησι, καθαρὸς ἀπὸ ῥύπου, καὶ ἂν μία ἡμέρα ἐοτίν ἡ ζωή (Sept. of Job xiv. 4 ὁ βίος); De Mutatione Nominum, § 6 (i. 585).