and the innocent stirs himself up against the impious;
but the righteous holds on his way,
and he who has clean hands waxes stronger and stronger
(xvii. 6, 7, 9).
Here it is difficult not to see that the circumstances of the poet’s age are reflected in his words. The whole Jewish nation became ‘a byword of peoples’ during the exile,[[30]] and the mutual sympathy of its members was continually taxed. It was a paradox which never lost its strangeness that a ‘Servant of Jehovah’ should be trampled upon by unbelievers, and the persecutor was rewarded by the silent indignation of all good Jews. That this is the right view is shown by the depression into which Job falls in vv. 11-16, in spite of the elevating passage quoted above.
Bildad’s speech, with its barbed allusions to Job’s sad history, had a twofold effect. First of all it raised the anguish of Job to its highest point, and, secondly, it threw the sufferer back on that great intuition, already reached by him, of a Divine Witness to his integrity in the heavens. It is a misfortune which can scarcely be appraised too highly that the text of the famous declaration in xix. 25-27 is so uncertain. ‘The embarrassment of the English translators,’ remarks Prof. Green, of Princeton,[[31]] ‘is shown by the unusual number of italic words, and these of no small importance to the meaning, which are heaped together in these verses.’ It is scarcely greater, however, than that of the ancient versions, and we can hardly doubt that the text used by the Septuagint translator was already at least as corrupt as that which has descended to us from the Massoretic critics.[[32]] This would the more easily be the case since, as Prof. Green says again, ‘Job is speaking under strong excitement and in the language of lofty poetry; he uses no superfluous words; he simply indicates his meaning in the most concise manner.’ Without now entering on a philological discussion, we have, I think, to choose between these alternatives, one of which involves emending the text, the other does not. Does Job simply repeat what he has said in xvi. 18, 19 (viz. that God will avenge his blood and make reparation, as it were, for his death by testifying to his innocence), without referring to any consequent pleasure of his own, or does he combine with this the delightful thought expressed in xiv. 13-15 of a conscious renewal of communion with God after death?[[33]] The context, it seems to me, is best satisfied by the former alternative. Job’s mind is at present occupied with the cruelty, not of God (as when he said, ‘O that thou wouldst appoint me a term and then remember me,’ xiv. 13), but of his friends. His starting-point is, ‘How long will ye (my friends) pain my soul?’ &c. (xix. 2.) We may admit that the best solution of Job’s problem would be ‘the beatific vision’ in some early and not clearly defined form of that deep idea; but if Job can say that he not merely dreams but knows this (‘I know that ... I shall see God,’ xix. 25, 26), the remainder of the colloquies ought surely to pursue a very different course; as a matter of fact, neither Job nor his friends, nor yet Jehovah Himself, refers to this supposed newly-won truth, and the only part of ‘Job’s deepest saying’ which the next speaker fastens upon (xx. 3) is the threatening conclusion (xix. 29). Ewald himself has drawn attention to this, without remarking its adverse bearing on his own interpretation.[[34]]
Here, side by side, are Dr. A. B. Davidson’s and Dr. W. H. Green’s translations of the received text of vv. 25-27, and Dr. Bickell’s version of his own emended text.
But I know that my redeemer liveth,
and in after time he shall stand upon the dust[[35]]
and after this my skin is destroyed