“How long, then, will you afflict my soul, and break me in pieces with your words?... Have pity, have pity upon me, at least you my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.... Who will grant me that my words may be written? who will grant me that they may be marked down in a book with an iron pen, and in a plate of lead; or be graven with an instrument in the rock? For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at last upon the dust. That these bones shall again be covered with their skin; that in my flesh I shall see God. I myself shall behold him; mine eyes shall behold him, and not another.”
This rapid incursion into the world beyond the tomb, with which the Semitic races were never familiar, and which they appeared in thought to avoid with a singular reserve, contains all the solution of the redoubtable problem; but though the question was settled, the arguments of the pitiless sages began again with renewed volubility, until the voice of God himself interposed, on behalf of his servant, to silence them.
The words quoted above contain evident allusions to traditions and dogmas which appear to have become obscure or been forgotten among the Semitic races. This profession of faith remains isolated, without a precedent which explains it; there is, in fact, nothing analogous to it in the most ancient texts of the Pentateuch, in the Songs of Israel, or the promises and teachings of the prophets.
In the family of Israel, with the Mosaic legislation, the primitive world closes and another begins. The doctrines and hopes freshly implanted by God develop like a plant from its seed, each part being necessary to the other parts; but amidst all the Hebraic literature the Book of Job and his profession of faith remain isolated, and on this account the value of both have been disputed by persons interested in lessening their importance. From this point of view, therefore, it is of moment to find an analogous doctrine in the outlying records of a remote antiquity, and to discover the edifice from which this fragment has been detached.
On the rolls of linen and papyrus preserved in the tombs of Thebes or of Serapeum we find not only the belief mentioned in the Book of Job, but the very expressions there made use of. On these rolls not only is this belief repeated in a multitude of forms, but a community of traditions in the two great families of Sem and Cham is also proved.
Long centuries had elapsed since their dispersion; they were separated not only by their intervening deserts, but by their difference of language, customs, laws, and worship; and yet, where the Semitic text is obscure, we have but to compare it with the writings left by the old Egyptians to make clear its meaning.
The opening words of the quotation above apparently allude to some contemporary usage well known to the patriarch and his friends, but still not in use among themselves: “Who shall grant that my words may be written ... and engraved in the flint-stone?” M. Ancessi asks if we have not here an allusion to the styles or small obelisks which then abounded in the temples and tombs of Egypt, and which, if not in use among the tribes of the land of Uz, had nevertheless been seen by these families of shepherds in their distant wanderings. Besides the great inscriptions commemorating the conquests of the Pharaos, there are, in or near the Egyptian temples, at the gates of the tombs, or within the sepulchral chambers, innumerable smaller monuments placed there by private individuals, and inscribed with their confession of faith. Of this we shall speak further on.
Numerous passages in the Book of Job seem to indicate that he had visited the land of Egypt,[[135]] and, among these, allusion is made to the tombs of the “kings and counsellors of the earth,” with whom he would fain “be at rest,” and “with princes, who possess abundance of gold and fill their dwellings with silver”[[136]] (alluding to the Egyptian custom of heaping precious objects in the tombs for the use of the departed at the resurrection). Like them, Job desired to leave his tablet, in which, after the manner of the commemorative obelisks of the valley of the Nile, he would declare the innocence of his life, his faith in a divine Avenger, in the resurrection of the body, and the vision of Him who recompenses the just and punishes the wicked.
The funereal inscriptions of ancient Egypt are of two kinds: those written on rolls of papyrus or linen bands, enveloping the body of the mummy or enclosed with it inside the sarcophagus; and the incised monuments of stone or granite, erected in the chambers or cut in the walls of the tombs and temples and at the entrance of the pyramids.
Almost all the texts[[137]] found upon the mummies are extracts from a book which Champollion called the Ritual, but which is now styled the Todtenbuch, or Book of the Dead; the term “ritual” being confined to the liturgical manuals relating to the ceremonies of inhumation, etc., some curious copies of which may be seen in the Louvre.