That the received text of our Hebrew Bible has a long history behind it, is generally recognised; and few will deny that its worst corruptions arose in the pre-Massoretic and pre-Talmudic periods (comp. The Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii., Essay vii.) The popularity of the Book of Job may not have been equal to that of many other books, but we have seen reason to suppose that within the circles of the ‘wise men’ it was eagerly studied and imitated. In those early times such popularity was a source of danger to the text, and hasty copyists left their mark on many a corrupt passage. Is there any remedy for this?
Dr. Merx’s book, Das Gedicht von Hiob (1871), has the merits and defects of pioneering works, but his introduction should by all means be studied. Two points in it have to be examined, (1) the relative position given by Merx to the chief ancient versions, and (2) the use which he makes of his own strophic arrangement for detecting interpolations or gaps in the text. More, I think, is to be gained from his discussion of the use of the versions than from his strophic arrangement; and yet before quite so much importance is attached to the text of the Septuagint, ought we not to be surer than we are of the antiquity and of the critical value of the Septuagint Job? That version may not be of as recent origin[[135]] as Grätz would have it, but can hardly be much earlier than the second century B.C. Before this date the text of Job had time to suffer much from the usual causes of corruption. Besides this, there are special reasons for distrusting the literal accuracy of the translator. He seems to have been in his own way an artist, and to have sought to reproduce poetry in poetical language. In this respect his vocabulary differs from that of all the other Septuagint translators; he thinks more of his Greek readers than of his Hebrew original. Had he been more mechanical in his method, the critical value of his work would have been greater. I agree therefore with H. Schultz that even where the Septuagint and the Peshitto are united against the Massoretic reading, the decisive arguments for the reading of the former will be, not the external one of testimony, but the internal one (if so be it exists) of suitableness.
Mr. Bateson Wright goes almost farther than Dr. Merx in his opinion of the corruptness of the received text. His work on Job (1883), however unripe, shows remarkable independence, and contains, among many rash, a few striking emendations. That he does not restrict himself to corrections suggested by the versions, is not in the least a defect; the single drawback to his work is that he has not pondered long enough before writing. Purely conjectural emendation was doubtless often resorted to by the old translators themselves; it was and still is perfectly justified, though to succeed in its use requires a singular combination of caution and boldness which even older critics have not always attained. Special attention is devoted by Mr. Wright to the poetical features of the speeches in Job. Dr. Merx had already observed that most of the στίχοι contain eight syllables, to read which, however, it is often needful to dispense with Metheg and with the Chateph vowels, and contract the dual terminations. Mr. Wright, building upon Dr. Merx’s foundation, offers a more elaborate scheme, which cannot be discussed here. It was a misfortune for him that he had not before him the ambitious metrical transliteration of Job by G. Bickell, in his Carmina Vet. Test. metrice, of which I would rather say nothing here than too little.
Subsequent editors of the text of Job will have one advantage, which will affect their critical use of the Septuagint. It is well known that the Alexandrine version was largely interpolated from that of Theodotion. The early Septuagint text itself can however now be reconstructed, through a manuscript of the Sahidic or Thebaic version from Upper Egypt. (Comp. Lagarde, Mittheilungen, pp. 203-5; Agapios Bsciai, art. in Moniteur de Rome, Oct. 26, 1883.) Dr. Merx was well aware of the necessity of expurgating the Septuagint, and would have hailed this much-desired aid in the work (see p. lxxi. of his introduction).
So much must suffice in my present limits on the subject of metre and textual emendation. I need not thus qualify the list which follows of gaps and misplacements of text in our Book of Job. Observe (1) that Bildad’s third speech (chap. xxv.) is too short. Probably, as Mr. Elzas has suggested,[[136]] the continuation of it has been wrongly placed as xxvi. 5-14; the affinity of this passage to chap. xxv. is obvious. Probably the close of Bildad’s speech is wanting. If so (2), something must have dropped out of Job’s reply, since xxvi. 4 has no connection with xxvii. 2. (3) Zophar’s third speech appears to be wanting, but may really be contained in chap. xxvii. (ver. 8 to end). The student should not fail to observe that xxvii. 13 is a repetition of xx. 29. As the text stands, Job is made to recant his statements in chaps. xxi., xxiv., and to assert that there is (not merely ought to be) a just and exact retribution. The tone, moreover, of xxvii. 9, 10 is not in accordance with Job’s previous speeches. If this view be correct, an introductory formula (‘And Zophar answered and said’) must have fallen out at the beginning of ver. 7, and probably one or more introductory verses.[[137]] (4) The verses which originally introduced chap. xxviii. must (on account of the causal particle ‘for’ in ver. 1) either have dropped out, or else have been neglected by the person who inserted the chapter in the Book of Job. (5) The passage xxxi. 38-40 has at any rate been misplaced (Delitzsch), and probably, as Merx has pointed out, should be inserted between ver. 32 and ver. 33. Thus verses 35-37 will furnish an appropriate and impressive close to the chapter. (6) xxxvi. 31 should probably go after ver. 28 (not ver. 29, as Dillmann misstates the conjecture); verses 30, 32 have a natural connection (Olshausen). (7) The passage xli. 9-12 destroys the connection, and should probably be placed immediately before chap. xxxviii. 1, as an introductory speech of Jehovah. In that case, we must, with Merx, supply the words, ‘And Jehovah said,’ before ver. 9.
AIDS TO THE STUDENT.
There are many books and articles of importance besides the commentaries. Among these are Hupfeld, Commentatio in quosdam Jobeïdos locos (1855); Bickell, De indole ac ratione versionis Alexandrinæ in interpretando libro Iobi (1862); G. Baur, ‘Das Buch Hiob und Dante’s Göttliche Comödie,’ Theol. Studien und Kritiken (1856), p. 583 &c. (with which may be grouped Quinet’s splendid chapter, in his early work on religions, entitled Comparaison du scepticisme oriental et du scepticisme occidental’); Seinecke, Der Grundgedanke des Buches Hiob (1863); Froude, ‘The Book of Job,’ Short Studies, Series 1 (1867), p. 266 &c.; Reuss, Das Buch Hiob (1869); Plumptre, ‘The Authorship of the Book of Job,’ Biblical Studies (1870), p. 173 &c.; C. Taylor, ‘A Theory of Job xix. 25-27,’ Journal of Philology (1871), pp. 128-152; Godet, ‘Le livre de Job,’ Etudes bibliques, prem. partie (1873), p. 185 &c.; Turner, ‘The History of Job, and its Place in the Scheme of Redemption,’ Studies Biblical and Oriental (1876), p. 133 &c.; Grätz, chapter on Job in Geschichte der Juden, Bd. iii.; Studer, ‘Ueber die Integrität des Buches Hiob,’ Jahrbücher für protestant. Theologie (1875), p. 688 &c., comp. 1877, p. 540 &c.; Budde, Beiträge zur Kritik des Buches Hiob (1876), reviewed by Smend in Studien u. Kritiken (1878), pp. 153-173; Giesebrecht, Der Wendepunkt des Buches Hiob (1879); Derenbourg, ‘Réflexions détachées sur le livre de Job,’ Revue des études juives (1880), pp. 1-8; Claussen, ‘Das Verhältniss der Lehre des Elihu zu derjenigen der drei Freunde,’ Zeitschr. f. kirchl. Wissenschaft und Leben (1884), pp. 393 &c., 449 &c., 505 &c.; W. H. Green, The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded (1881); Cheyne, ‘Job and the Second Part of Isaiah,’ Isaiah, ii. 259 &c., with which compare the very full essay of Kuenen, Job en de lijdende knecht van Jahveh,’ Theologisch Tijdschrift (1873), p. 492 &c.; Delitzsch, art. ‘Hiob,’ Herzog-Plitt’s Realencyclopadie, bd. vi. (1880).
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.
CHAPTER I.
HEBREW WISDOM, ITS NATURE, SCOPE, AND IMPORTANCE.
We have studied the masterpiece of Hebrew wisdom before examining the nature of the intellectual product which the Israelites themselves graced with this title. The Book of Job is in fact much more than a didactic treatise like Ecclesiastes or a collection of pointed moral sayings like the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. Its authors were more than thinkers, they were poets, ‘makers,’ great imaginative artists. But we must not be unjust to those who were primarily thinkers, and only in the second degree poets. The phase of Hebrew thought called ‘wisdom’ (khokma) can be studied even better in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes than in the poetry of Job. Let us then enquire at this point, What is this Hebrew wisdom? First of all, it is the link between the more exceptional revelations of Old Testament prophecy and the best moral and intellectual attainments of other nations than the Jews. ‘Wisdom’ claims inspiration (as we have seen already), but never identifies itself with the contents of oracular communications.[[138]] Nor yet does it pretend to be confined to a chosen race. Job himself was a non-Israelite (the Rabbis were even uncertain as to his part in the world to come); and the wisdom of the ‘wise king’ is declared to have been different in degree alone from that of the neighbouring peoples[[139]] (1 Kings iv. 30, 31; comp. Jer. xlix. 7, Obad. 8). It is to be observed next, that the range of enquiry of this ‘wisdom’ is equally wide, according to the Biblical use of the term.[[140]] ‘Wisdom,’ as Sirach tells us, ‘rains forth skill’ of every kind; ‘the first man knew her not perfectly: no more shall the last trace her out’ (Ecclus. i. 19, xxiv. 28). Nothing is too high, nothing too low for Wisdom ‘fitly’ to ‘order’ (Wisd. viii. I). Law and government (Prov. viii. 15, 16), and even the precepts of husbandry (Isa. xxviii. 23-29) are equally her productions with those moral observations which constitute in the main the three books of the Hebrew Khokma. The fact that the subject of practical ethics ultimately appropriated the technical name of ‘wisdom’ ought not to blind us to the larger connotation of the same word, which throws so much light on the deeply religious view of life prevalent among the Israelites. For religious this view of wisdom is, though it may seem to be so thoroughly secular. The versatility of the mind of man is but an image of the versatility of its archetype. ‘The spirit of man is a lamp of Jehovah,’ says one of the ‘wise men’ (Prov. xx. 27), by an anticipation of John i. 9. ‘Surely it is the spirit in man,’ says another (Job xxxii. 8), ‘and the breath of Shaddai which gives them understanding.’ Isaiah, too, says that the ‘spirit of wisdom’ is one of the three chief manifestations of the ‘Spirit of Jehovah’ (Isa. xi. 2), and the introductory treatise, which gives the editor’s view of the original Book of Proverbs, expressly declares that the ‘wise men’ are but the messengers of divine Wisdom (ix. 3).