and how cogent is the censure of a wise man!
Think ye to censure words,
and the passionate speech of one who is desperate? (vi. 25, 26.)
With an assertion of his innocence, and a renewed challenge to disprove it, this, the easiest part of Job’s first reply, concludes.
And now, having secured his right to complain, Job freely avails himself of his melancholy privilege. A ‘desperate’ man cares not to choose his words, though the reverence which never ceased to exist deep down in Job’s nature prompts him to excuse his delirious words by a reference to his bitter anguish (vii. 11). Another excuse which he might have given lies on the very surface of the poem, which is coloured throughout by the poet’s deep sympathy with human misery in general. Job in fact is not merely an individual, but a representative of mankind; and when he asks himself at the beginning of chap. vii.—
Has not frail man a warfare [hard service] upon earth,
and are not his days like the days of a hireling?—
it is not merely one of the countless thoughts which are like foam bubbles, but the expression of a serious interest, which raises Job far, very far above the patriarchal prince of the legend in the Prologue. It is the very exaggeration of this interest which alone explains why the thought of his fellow-sufferers not only brings no comfort[[15]] to Job, but fails even to calm his excitement.
Am I the sea (he says) or the sea monster,
that thou settest a watch over me? (vii. 12.)