Grace
Theological Journal 13.3 (Fall 1972) 3-33.
Copyright © 1972 by Grace
Theological Seminary; cited with permission.
THE BOOK OF JOB AND ITS
DOCTRINE OF GOD
R. LAIRD HARRIS
Professor
of Old Testament
Covenant
Theological Seminary
A few years ago, there was a man of
the East--the eastern
rather
famous play called J. O. B., taking his theme from that ancient
man
from a distant eastern country, Job. The play was in no sense a
commentary
on Job, and it gave a radically different treatment of the
problems
of the relation of God, man and evil. But at least we may say
that
MacLeish's choice of his title underlines the
perennial fascination
of
the book of Job, even to those who may not agree with its teaching
land
conclusions. It is in every respect a great book. It deals with
some
of the deepest problems of man and directs us to the existence of
a
sovereign God for their solution. It treats these problems not in a
doctrinaire
fashion, but wrestles with them and gives us answers to pro-
claim
to a troubled age, to a generation that recognizes the antinomies
of
life, but cannot find a meaningful solution for them. We hope in these
studies
to see how the ancient godly philosopher and prophet explores
deeply
the basic questions of life and offers to the man of faith answers
far
wiser than much which passes for wisdom today. But first to turn
to
some technical questions.
The Date of Job
Probably the most common view of the date of Job
in conservative
circles
has been that the book is very old. For example, the Scofield
Reference
Bible points to the patriarchal period. The Jewish tradition
enshrined
in the Talmud (Baba Bathra 14b) says Moses was its
author.
This
Jewish tradition is quite late. The Talmud was not codified until
The
material in this article was originally presented at Grace Theological
Seminary
as comprising the Louis S. Bauman Memorial Lectures, February
8-11,
1972.
4
GRACE
JOURNAL
the
5th century A. D., and our manuscripts of it come from a still later
period.
The tradition may have some value however. It may not be
that
the data on authorship was correctly remembered by the Jews
but
that they came to the conclusion of early authorship from various
factors
that we too can observe.
That there was an ancient worthy by the name of
Job is sure a
from
Ezekiel
The
reference is similar to that in Jeremiah 15:1, which uses Moses and
Samuel
as ancient types of righteousness. It used to be remarked that
the
verses in Ezekiel mean little because Daniel is one of the trio, and
the
book of Daniel is now regularly placed in the second century B. C.
We
are, of course, not willing to concede the late date of Daniel. A
newly
discovered Targum, a Targum
of Job, interestingly, argues that
the
Aramaic of Daniel does not reflect the language of the second cen-
tury B. C. in
that
this Targum of Job was translated about 100 B. C. and
shows a later
stage
of Aramaic than Ezra or Daniel. In any case, this passage in
Ezekiel
is no longer held to be against the early date of Job, for the
reference
to Daniel is now differently understood. It is now said that
the
Daniel of Ezekiel refers not to the canonical Daniel, but to the Daniel
mentioned
in the Ugaritic Texts as an ancient wise man, the
father of
the
hero, Aqhat. Here again, we may enter a disclaimer.
The Daniel
of
tually Ezekiel does not appeal to these men because they
were ancient,
but
because they were righteous. But in any case, the verses do assure
us
that Ezekiel, about 600 B. C., did know the story of Job.
The
only other external evidence for the antiquity of the book
would
come from cross references and allusions in other Biblical books.
Proverb
Job
Proverbs
says, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord." The
wording
of the two passages is identical in Hebrew, except that Job has
the
divine name, Shaddai, which it very frequently uses,
and Proverbs
uses
the more common name, the Tetragram. It also adds a charac-
teristic proverbial touch, "my son." The
force of such a parallel is
debatable,
because it is hard to know which book quoted the other,
granted
that there was some verbal dependence. The whole chapter is
an
encomium of wisdom in terms of a search for wisdom in places which
only
God knows. The conclusion is that "the fear of the Lord that is
wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding." This conclusion is
quite
like Proverbs 1:7;
is,
did Job build a beautiful poem on the subject of wisdom as defined in
Proverbs
and use it in his context? Or did Proverbs and the Psalms take
a
theme already developed in Job and allude to it In various verses? We
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 5
cannot
be sure, but it does seem a little more probable that Proverbs
and
Psalms did the borrowing. The matter is somewhat complicated by
the
problem of the position of Job 28 itself. Critical commentators feel
that
the whole chapter is intrusive. It is indeed distinctive, but there
is
no need to object to such a poem being included in Job's asseveration
of
his righteousness. Actually the chapter is an important part of Job's
argument.
It builds up to a great climax in which Job establishes his
ethical-
and moral standard.
Another parallel is between. Job" 71:17 and
Psalm 8:5. Job says,
“What
is man that you magnify him? The Psalm says, "What is man
that
you remember him?" The word "man" in each case is the less
used
word for man, ‘enosh making literary interdependence more likely.
Another
parallel is Job 2:13 and Proverbs 10:28. Job says, "The hope I
of
a profane man shall perish." Proverbs puts it. "The hope of a
wicked
man shall perish." The two statements differ only in the words
for
a wicked man. The word "profane" is found several times in Job.
It
would be more natural for the somewhat unusual word to be found
in
the original passage. Another parallel is Isaiah 19:5 with Job 14:11.
The
last half of each verse "the waters shall fail from the sea" is iden-
tical. The verses are in different contexts, however,
and it would be it
hard
to prove which is copied from the other. Another passage showing
a
literary parallel is the section in which Job curses his day (Job 3:1-11).
Jeremiah
does likewise (Jer.
sage,
quotes Dillmann as arguing that Job is earlier
because more power-
ful and vivid. Driver questions this conclusion
because, he says, Job
was
written by a greater poet in any case (Introduction
to the Literature
of the O.T.,
now
support Dillman's argument by reference to allusions
in this pas-
sage
to Ugaritic motifs (Vs. 8 refers to Leviathan) of
which we shall
speak
again later. Also, there is a parallel between Job 18 :5, 6 and
Proverbs
13:9. Driver believes that Bildad borrowed from
Proverbs.
But
Bildad has a four line poem against the "lamp of
the wicked.” Pro-
verbs
uses only this one phrase as a contrast to the bright shining of
the
lamp of the righteous. It is just as likely, perhaps more so, that
Proverbs
did the borrowing.
There are also interesting verbal parallels of
Job 27:1 and 29:1
With
Numbers 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15. Four times the book of Numbers says
Balaam
"took up his parable and said." It is probable that the verbal
parallel
is only due to a common linguistic usage. But it is interesting
to
date that the parallel is with Balaam, another man of the eastern area,
and
one living in Moses' day. To sum up, there are a few interesting
verbal
parallels with Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, and the Balaam oracles.
These
are not conclusive, but incline somewhat toward a pre-monarchy
date
for the writing.
6
GRACE
JOURNAL
There is also considerable internal evidence for
a pre-monarchy
date,
or even for Mosaic times. This evidence is of two kinds--com-
parison of the book with Biblical data and
comparison with the general
archaeological
picture of early times. On the first point, it has been
widely
noticed that the picture of Job's sacrificial ritual is like that of
the
patriarchs and bears no relation to the tabernacle ritual of Moses'
day
and later. Job served as a priest in his own house, as Abraham
did,
and as Melchizedek seems to have done. Of course, this may have
been
due to Job's locale as a righteous man off in the East believing
in
the
scene is patriarchal. At the same time, the book mentions names
of
the patriarchal circle. The
Abraham's
nephew (Gen. 22:21) and Elihu the Buzite
belonged to the clan
headed
by the brother of Oz. Bildad the Shuhite
was a descendant of
Abraham
himself, by Keturah (Gen. 25:2). Presumably, the
reason this
record
got into the circle of
were
distant cousins of the Israelites. We may even get a glimpse here
of
those other godly men of Abraham's day who like Melchizedek, Wor-
shipped
the true God though they were not in Abraham's immediate family.
When
God called Abraham to found the theocracy, there were others
around
who shared Abraham's faith.
There is another ancient touch, hard to
evaluate. It is the use
of
the divine name Shaddai. This and Eloah
are the characteristic names
for
God in Job and are used sparingly elsewhere. Shaddai
occurs some
thirty
times in Job, six times in the Pentateuch and seldom elsewhere.
The
matter is complicated first because we are not sure of its origin,
and
secondly, critics have argued that the P document teaches in Exodus
6:3
that all instances of "Jehovah" before Moses are anachronistic and
are
therefore useful for separating out Pentateuchal
documents.
Personally, I am of the opinion that the word is
borrowed from
the
Akkadian or Amorite and was indeed used early in
feel
the derivation from the word for "breast" is fanciful and does not
explain
what seems to be an archaic Lemedh-He ending. The
hard "d"
need
not be a doubling, but a preservation of the old Akkadian
pronun-
ciation which had no soft "d." And the
Akkadian shalu means mountain,
which
would be a very suitable expression of the eternality of God. The
Psalmist
often applies the Hebrew word, mountain, zur to God. If this
be
the etymology of the word, its use would be an archaic touch.
We
need not agree with critical source division of Genesis to be-
lieve that "Jehovah" was more widely used
in late Hebrew than in early
times.
It may have been a Hebrew word and if so, would have been
less
used by the patriarchs who learned Canaanite as their second
language.
It is notable that none of the patriarchal families use the
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 7
element
Jehovah in their names. Shaddai--names also are rare,
though
the
two we know are Pentateuchal, Zurlshaddal
and Shedeur.
There is little else internally to date the
book. The mention of
domesticated
camels in 1:3 would indicate to the Albright: school that the
book
was later than the 13th century. But the date of domestication of
camels
is in dispute. It may be that in the settled areas camels were
not
common, but that nomads of the desert used them earlier. At least
Abraham
also had his camels. The mention of iron (
40:18;
41 :27) also might indicate a date after 1200 B. C. when the iron
age
began. But the occasional mention of iron at an earlier day is not
surprising
for iron was used in small amounts long before the discovery
of
better methods of iron working which made its use common in about
1200
B. C. Two talents of iron--about 150 pounds--are mentioned in a
Ugaritic tablet from Moses' day. Marvin Pope, in
his Anchor Bible
Commentary
on Job, points out that the unit of money (or item of jew-
elry) mentioned Job
33:19
and its parallel, Josh. 24:32. Job's
longevity also--140 years after
his
trial--is of the patriarchal vintage.
Secondly, as to the historical background of
Job, it seems to fit
well
with ideas and literature of the second millennium B. C. Pope re-
marks
that "the ideas championed by Job's friends were normative in
Mesopotamian
theology from the early second millennium B. C." (p.
XXXV)
and he compares several works on suffering: From Egypt, the
Dispute over Suicide and the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and from
Akkadian work I
will Praise the Lord of Wisdom, also called The Baby-
lonian Job, describes a sufferer who recovers, and the Dialogue About
Human Misery sometimes called the Babylonian
Ecclesiastes is on a
similar
topic. Pope offers extracts from these works. They can be
read
conveniently in ANET. It should be noted that these works con-
sider the problem of suffering, as does the book of
Job, but their answer
is
quite different. Pope -is accurate in stating that they agree by and
large
with the viewpoint of the three comforters. That is, they teach
that
wickedness brings suffering and righteousness blessing. But the real
answer
of Job was distinctive and far above his comforters and different
from
these early treatments. However, it is of importance to notice that .
the
Subje.ct received extensive treatment in early times
and thus Job fits
well
agamst the background of that day.
Many, however, including Pope, have given a
later date. Pfeiffer
(Introduction to the O. T. ) gives a date
of about 600 B. C. Driver dated
think
"most probably to the period of the Babylonian captivity" (Intro-
duction to the Literature of the O. T.,
1892,
p. 405). A. Bentzen
is uncertain. He places the date of the book
8
GRACE
JOURNAL
after
the discussion of retribution in Ezekiel 18 and before the refer- c
ences to "the prophet Job who maintained all the
ways of righteousness" ft ,
in
Ecclesiasticus 49:9. (Introduction to the O.T. 4th
ed.
G.E.C.
Gad, 1958 Vol. II, p. 179). Eissfeldt is not
positive, but says
"we
should probably think of the post-exilic period, and perhaps most
probably
of the later period rather than the earlier, i. e.,
about the
fourth
century. The language of the book fits in with this, for it often
reveals
an Aramaic coloring," (The O.T., an
Introduction tr. by Peter
R.
and
his arguments seem now to be invalidated by the Dead Sea Scrolls
and
better knowledge of the Aramaic language. Fragments of Job are
found
among the Dead Sea Scrolls actually dating from about 200 B. C.
They
are written in the paleo- Hebrew Script implying that
there was a
considerable
history of copying behind them. And now to the further
surprise
of many, the Targum referred to above, an Aramaic
trans la-
tion of Job, has been found among the Dead Sea
Scrolls. The copy is
from
about A. D. 50, but the translation itself is dated by the editors at
about
100 B. C. Evidently Job was already a loved and famous book in
the
second century B.C.
More scholars have now veered toward a pre-exilic
date. Al-
bright
dated it in "the sixth or fifth century B. C." (Supplement to Vetus
Testamentum 3, -1960, p. 14). Pope hesitatingly
suggests the seventh
century
B. C. before the movements that brought the destruction of
(p.
xxxvii) as the date of the dialogue but does not commit himself on the
unity
of the book. As we hope to show later, there are cross references
from
the main body of the book to every other part. There is therefore
no
need to question its unity and to say that it existed for centuries in
partial
form. Some have declared that the references to Satan betray
Persian
influence. Strange then that there are no Persian words in the
book!
Satan is a name of Hebrew derivation,
not Persian. Actually,
the
theology of the book should not be used as a datum for dating be-
cause
opinions will differ as to whether advanced theology indicates late
borrowing
or early revelation.
It wouid be nice if
the language of Job could be used to indicate
the
date, but we do not have contemporary Hebrew--or eastern--dialects
to
use as a standard. The language of Job is difficult and must be dis-
cussed
shortly, but it has been variously evaluated and can give us little
help
on the problem of dating.
In the absence of definite evidences for late
dating and in view
of
numerous indications of a patriarchal milieu, it seems possible to
hold
to a Mosaic or slightly pre-Mosaic date in accord with much old
Jewish
and Christian sentiment. However, the New Testament does not
speak
on either Job's authorship or date, and the date is not of theological
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 9
concern.
We may therefore hold our conclusion provisionally expecting
further
light, especially from linguistic studies.
Job and the Canon
In our Hebrew Bibles, Job is the second or the
third book in the
third
division called the writings. Practically all the works on O. T.
introduction,
both conservative and critical, trace this three-fold divi-
sion back as far as the prologue to Ecclesiasticus about 130 B. C. Crit-
ical scholars suppose that the third division in the
canon was placed last
in
the collection because it was latest in time. The canon is said to
have
developed in three stages with the law being canonized first at about
400
B.C., the prophets second at 200 B.C., and the writings last at
about
A. D. 90. This final canonization was the work of the council of
Jamnia. The idea is that the books of the third
division were not gen-
erally enough accepted to be included in the second
division at 200 B. C .,
On
this view, Job was finished at least at a relatively late date and at-
tained canonical status only after 200 B. C. Some more
recent scholars
who
would place Job in pre-exilic times do not face the question as to
why
it was not included in the earlier canonical divisions.
Conservative scholars like E. J. Young and R. K.
Harrison sug-
gest that the tri-partite division was due to
different types of authorship,
rather
than to different stages of canonization. (E. J. Young, An Intro-
duction to the O.T.,
Harrison,
Introduction to the O.T.,
p.
284.) The claim is that the second division was written by prophets
and
the third division by men who had the prophetic gift, but not the
prophetic
office. This characterization would apparently apply to the
author
of Job. I have elsewhere argued against this view (R. L. Harris,
Inspiration and
Canonicity of the Bible,
pp-129ff,
170ff). There is no biblical support for the distinction made
between
a prophet by office and a prophet by gift. Of course, in the
case
of Job, the matter is the more uncertain because, if Job were not
the
author, we have no valid information as to who was. Ecclesiasticus
speaks
of "the prophet Job" but his witness is too late to help, except
that
it reveals the attitude of Judaism of the second century B. C.
authenticating
character of the Biblical books. These books and no others
Won
their way first into Hebrew hearts, and therefore into the Jewish
canon.
Job is surely a book that would have commanded wide acceptance
by
the people of God.
A further point, however, is important and is
usually neglected
by
O. T. students. It is by no means certain that the division of books
10
GRACE
JOURNAL
found
in Our Hebrew Bibles is the division common among the ancient
Jews.
Indeed, there is positive evidence that it was not. The present
three-fold
division with five books in the law, eight in the prophets, and
eleven
in the writings, cannot be traced back of the Talmud which was
codified
in the fifth century. There is a three-fold division mentioned
in
Ecclesiasticus, as stated above, but there is no
proof that it was our
three-fold
division. On the contrary, Josephus, earlier than the Talmud,
evidences
a differing three-fold division with five books in the law, thir-
teen
in the prophets, and only four in the writings. From his termin-
ology, it is clear that Josephus regarded such a book
as Job-also Chron-
icles, Daniel and others--as among the prophets. This
evidence fits
much
better the reference in Ecclesiasticus to Job as a
prophet and in
Matthew
24:15 to Daniel as a prophet. Far too long, the Talmud has
been
used as the point of reference in canonical studies. Earlier Wit-
ness
leads to quite different results.
Actually the three-fold division of the canon
was not the only one.
The
N. T., the LXX and the
was
also an ancient two-fold division of the canon into the Law and the
prophets.
This too I have argued elsewhere and need not pursue. But,
according
to this division, Job would Pave been from early times accorded
the
place of a prophetic book. As a consequence, we cannot use the
position
of Job in the Hebrew Bible to argue either for a late or early
date
of its composition. Job was accepted, as far as our scanty evi-
dence goes, from the time of its writing. If its
prophetic authorship
were
acknowledged then, as it was believed later, this would doubtless
have
settled the matter of the acceptance of the book. In any case, the
majesty
of the style of Job and its .other marks of divine inspiration
would
have commended itself to the ancient Hebrews. We need not doubt
that
it was accepted as canonical from the time of its writing, although
the
details are lost in the mists of antiquity.
The Language of Job
It is agreed on all sides that Job is a great
book, as well as a
beautiful
one. It is also agreed by students beginning work in Hebrew
poetry
that Job is a difficult book to translate. Those who specialize in
statistics
say that there are more hapax legomena used
in Job than in
any
other O. T. book. And the problems of translation are not entirely
lexical
either. There are unusual forms and some strange usages which,
unless
recognized, will lead the translator astray. An extreme example:
of
the difficulty of translation is exhibited in the strange verse of the
A
V in 36:33. "The noise of it showeth concerning
it; the cattle also
concerning
the vapor"--a verse which as it stands is quite meaningless!
The
language is so unusual that some (F. H. Foster referred to in M.
Pope,
Job- The Anchor Bible, Garden City:
Doubleday, 1965, p. XLIV
JOB AND ITS OOCTRINE OF GOD 11
hereafter
called: Pope, Job) have supposed that
the book was written in
Arabic
and what we have is a translation into Hebrew. If this be true,
I
would suggest that the translator did a poor job of rendering the work
into
Hebrew! On the face of it, such a view is unnatural. The first
written
Abrabic we have is from the 5th century A. D., and
the first lit-
erature of any extent comes after the Hejira. It would be odd if our
only
monument of ancient written Arabic were in Hebrew!
It is true, however, that there are some words in
Job that are
neatly
explained by reference to Arabic. For instance in 23:9, the words
"work"
and "hide" in the AV may be derived from words meaning
"turn"
in
the Arabic. Also the word "drops" in the AV of 38:28, "the drops
of
dew" is found elsewhere only in Arabic. Again in 30:7, 17, the word
for
"flee" or "rest" in the AV and found only here has an
Arabic cognate
"gnaw."
(Though the sense hardly fits--to gnaw the wilderness! Com-
mentators must supply something!) Actually, the Syriac has the same
word,
so an Arabic origin is not proved. Indeed, this example shows
the
difficulty of proving an Arabic original for a word. A root may be
known
at present only in Arabic and in Job, but our known vocabulary of
ancient Aramaic is woefully small and the word
in question may have been
used
in Aramaic also. Only occasionally can the phonetic differences
between
Aramaic, Arabic and other languages be used to identify the
original
language of the word concerned.
An example may be given from Job 35:10. The word
"songs"
of
A V is translated by Pope as "protection" deriving it from the Arabic
root
d m r "who gives protection in
the night." But the root also is
now
recognized in this sense in Ugaritic as a name of
Baal (though not
so
recognized in Cyrus Gordon's Ugaritic Textbook,
Glossary) (Pope,
Job in loc.).
A word on the place of Aramaic. There have been
others who
thought
Job was written in Aramaic and translated into Hebrew. On the
face
of it, this view would be more natural, for Aramaic was used to
the
east and north of
esis 31:47, Laban spoke
Aramaic and it would be quite possible to hold
that
Job did too. There are several Aramaic touches in the book. In
16:19,
the same pair of words for witness is found, as is used by Jacob
and
by Laban in Genesis 31:47, Galeed
and Jegar-Sahadutha, and the
word
sahed is
used nowhere else in the Bible. Students of beginning
Hebrew
will be relieved to find that the verb qatal does occur in Biblical
Hebrew--twice
in Job and once in Psalm 139, which has several Aramaic
touches.
By contrast, it occurs seven times in the short Aramaic sec-
tions of Daniel and Ezra. Again, milla meaning word occurs several
times
in Job. This in itself is not surprising. It also occurs a number
of
times in other Hebrew poetry as a synonym of dabar. But in Job,
12
GRACE
JOURNAL
the
plural of milla
thirteen times has the typical ending of the Aramaic
noun--iyn. Job also
uses the Hebrew masc. pl. form in--iym ten times.
The
force of this example is slightly blunted by the fact that Phoenician
and
Moabite also use this ending. It was not peculiar to Aramaic.
Other words cited as rare in Hebrew, but
appearing in Aramaic
are
hap "clean" (33:9); naka
"smite" (30:8) and zacak "'extinguish" (Job
17:1).
The last example is curious for it presents an argument in re-
verse.
This word is the same as another word dacak "extinguish" which
is
used five times in Job, three in Proverbs, and once in Isaiah and in
Psalms.
The two words are cognate roots. But according to ordinary
Semitic
phonetic law, the root with "d" should be Aramaic and the one
with
"z" should be Hebrew. So it is Job that shows a variety of usage
and
the other books which use only the Aramaic form.
There is another Aramaic form of some interest
for it shows
mixture.
In 37:4, the AV "stay them" (yecaqqebem)
comes from an
Aramaic
root cqb meaning to "hold back."
But it now seems that the
final
"m" is not the pronoun "them" but the enclitic
"m" common in
Ugaritic. It would therefore seem that the form
is not an Aramaism
but
an archaic form sharing some features of Ugaritic and
some of later
Aramaic.
It should be pointed out that several grammatical features
formerly
thought to be Aramaic are now seen to be native to old Can-
aanite, as evidenced in Ugaritic--so
much so that Albrecht Goetze even
classified
Ugaritic as Aramaic. Most now hold that these
features were
simply
early Canaanite, some of which survived in or were borrowed
into
Aramaic. In short, many features formerly called Aramaisms
(and
words
called "late and poetic" in Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew Lex-
icon)
are now seen to be archaic.
It should be recognized that Job's peculiarities
are not limited to
Arabic
and Aramaic evidences. The word for "vapor" in Job 36:27 (A V)
is
used elsewhere only in Genesis 2 :6. The old translation "mist" or
"vapor"
was a guess. The word can now be identified as borrowed
through
the Akkadian from the Sumerian. It means
"river" and refers
to
the
Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society, Vol. II, (1968) p. 177).
Another
Sumerian word may be concealed in the word for the constella-
tion Mazzaroth (39:32 and
"north" in 37:9 A V). It is possible that the
reflects
the "1" of the Sumerian word for stars which still appears
in
the Jewish greeting "Mazal tov"--good
luck!
There are also Akkadian
influences in Job. In 33:6, man is said
to
be a creature "nipped from clay" i. e.,
created from, or of, the earth.
The
same expression occurs in the Gilgamesh Epic. Interestingly, it
also
occurs in the hymns of the Dead Sea Community, doubtless in
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 13
dependence
on Job. (Pope, lob in loco and T. H. Gaster, The
Scriptures, rev. ed. Garden City:
Doubleday, 1964, p. 133).
In
29:4, the word "secret" in A V is difficult but is cognate to the
Akkadian sadadu meaning "to protect." "The protection
of God was over
my
home."
In other cases, however, words in Job which are
cognate to Akka-
dian are also found in Ugaritic.
An example given by Pope (Job in loc.)
is
the root cmq which usually means
"valley" and is so translated by AV
in
39:21. But a better sense is gotten from the meaning "strength" at-
tested
in Akkadian and Ugaritic
both.
One could well wonder if the peculiarities of
Job were due more
to
similarities to the old Ugaritic material than to
either Arabic, Ara-
maic or Akkadian. The
borrowed Akkadian words concerned are few,
although
we have an extensive Akkadian vocabulary for
comparison. Our
vocabulary
of old North Arabic is nil, and of Aramaic is limited. Even
our
Ugaritic comprises only a fraction of that dialect.
So it is well to
be
cautious. But Ugaritic influences are of various
kinds, both in vo-
cabulary, grammar, and concept. It would seem
more likely that Job
was
more indebted to the northern and western Ugaritic
neighbors.
Only a few of the Ugaritic
parallels need be given --more are
pointed
out by Pope who has made an important contribution to the study
of
Ugaritic in his book El in the Ugaritic Texts etc. The word
"ac-
quaint"
of AV in
shaphel conjugation in Ugaritic.
The word "one" of A V in
perhaps
be the Ugaritic )hd cognate to Hebrew )hz_and the phrase
would
mean
"He, when he takes hold of a person. . .
Pope prefers a slight
emendation
looking in a different direction. In 36:28, the word "abun-
dantly" of AV is better taken as the Ugaritic rb
"showers." In 39:14,
the
word "leaveth" of A V is better taken as
the Ugaritic cdb cognate to
Hebrew
czb meaning "set," "part"
(Gordon, Ugaritic Studies in Glossary)
and
refers-according to Pope (Job, in loc.) following M. Dahood
to the
ostrich
laying her eggs in the sand. In 39:25, the word "among" of the
AV
is read bd
by Pope and
trumpet
"blast"--"at the blast of the trumpet he saith
Aha!"
A more significant borrowing from the Ugaritic is found in 36:30,
33
where the preposition "upon" or "concerning" of AV is taken
to be a
shorter
form of Elyon, the Most High as is witnessed to in Ugaritic.
This
rendition of the preposition cal is used repeatedly by Dahood in his
studies
on the Psalms, also in the Anchor Bible Series. The difficult
vs.
33 would read: "The Most High speaks in thunder; his anger burns
against
evil."
14
GRACE
JOURNAL
There are other similarities of Job to the Ugaritic literature.
The
use of an enclitic "m" on the end of verbs Occurs in Ugaritic as it
does
in Akkadian. The occasional use of this feature in
Biblical poetry
is
now widely recognized and several instances where "m" formerly was
thought
to be a 3 masc. pl. objective pronoun are now classed as the
enclitic
"m." One instance has been noted above, job 37:4. Other prob-
able
cases are
Ugaritic Studies--Grammar,
that
"waw" always stands first in a coordinating
situation, but may be
delayed
if it is in a subordinate clause. The Masoretes
punctuated 36:7
so
that the second "waw" began a new clause.
Pope gets better sense
by
translating "with kings on the throne he seats them." Also the later
"waw" in this verse may be so treated: "and they
are exalted forever."
There are some cases of Ugaritic
phrases used in Job. In the
difficult
poem on wisdom, 28:11 the AV says "He binds the floods from
overflowing."
The context apparently speaks of mining operations where
precious
stones are found but not wisdom. The phrase in 28:11 mibbekiy
neharot has been taken as the
preposition min, plus the root "to weep."
But
there is another root nebek
meaning "spring" used only in Job 38:16.
This
root was suggested already in Brown. Driver, Briggs for 28:11 and now
the
phrase is found in Ugaritic as the word for the
"sources of the two
Ivers" where the dwelling of the Ugaritic deity El stood. The idea is that
the
miners reach the deep springs of water in their search for treasures.
Another such instance is 36:13, .where the
phrase "hypocrites in
heart"
AV is the same phrase "impious-minded" (Pope, Job in loc.),
applied
to the evil actions of the goddess Anath.
From this brief survery
of lexical and grammatical features, we
come
to the astonishing conclusion that the book of Job is difficult He-
brew'!
But it may be said with some confidence that it is not difficult
because
it is late and aramaic,
or late and Arabic in flavor. It shares
some
of these peculiarities regardless of their date or origin. But it ,
also
evidences touches of Mesopotamian language and clearly shows sim-
ilarities to the old Canaanite dialect of
that
the author lived in
was
a crossroads of caravans from
and
from
gentleman
of the sons of the East, he would have had an international
outlook
and connections such as the book of job shows. We do not know
enough
about ancient dialects to date Job by its language. But there are
indications
that it would fit an early date, better than the later.
The Literature of Job
The structure of the book is well known. There
is a prose in-
troduction and conclusion. In between, there is an
extensive poetic di-
alogue. Job, in great affliction raises the problem of
innocent suffering.
JOB AND ITS DOCTRINE OF GOD 15
There
are two rounds of speeches of Job and his three friends, Eliphaz,
Bildad and Zophar. On the
third circuit, Eliphaz speaks, then Job, then
Bildad speaks very briefly. Job gives a long speech ending
with an oath
of
innocency.
The place of a third speech by Zophar is taken by a young upstart,
Elihu, who is amazed that older heads have not put
Job in his place.
When
Elihu is finished, or perhaps interrupting Elihu, Jehovah speaks to
Job
out of the storm. He speaks twice with Job and Job briefly responds
each
time in faith and humility. This leads to the final prose section
chronicling
Job's restoration to God's favor, to health, and to prosperity.
There is no Biblical parallel to the structure
of Job, and no close
parallel
in ancient literature to the format, although, as mentioned ear-
lier, there are other treatments of the problems
raised. The problems
of
the suffering of the innocent and the prosperity of the wicked have
perplexed
many and are treated by the Psalmists. Asaph asked
"Will
the
Lord cast off forever?" but confessed "this is my infirmity, but I
will
remember the years of the right hand of the Most High" (Ps. 77:
7-10).
He trusted that his affliction would be removed in God's time.
Psalm
88 is full of complaint, but does not see through the problem to
an
answer. Psalm 37:35 complains that the wicked prosper "like a
green
bay tree." But the answer is that the wicked man is soon gone.
Psalm
73 comes closest to the thought of Job. The double problem of
the
suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked is solved
in
the sanctuary of God and, like Job, the Psalmist's thought is directed
to
God alone in heaven. But Job draws out the argument in extensu and
reaches
a grander expression of his conclusion.
Efforts, of course, have been made to fragment
the book of Job,
as
has been done with almost every other O. T. book. The prose parts
at
the beginning and end have been cut off. The speeches of Elihu
and
of
Jehovah at the end have been called additions. Chapter 28 on wisdom
has
been questioned as an intrusion.
Some conclusions are not only unnecessary, they
go against the
positive
indications in the book of a unity. And there are other ancient
compositions
(e. g., the Protests of the Eloquent Peasant, ANET, pp.,
405ff)
which have a poetic body sandwiched between a prose introduction
and
conclusion.
It is true that the Tetragram
YHWH is used in the introduction
and
conclusion, but not in the poetry. But 38:1 uses it to introduce
Jehovah's
highly poetic reply to Job from the storm. Also it seems that
Bildad in Job 8:4 refers to the catastrophe that
killed Job's sons as re-
lated in the introduction. There are many places
where one speaker in
the
dialogue refers to what another has said. The reference to man born
16 GRACE
JOURNAL
of
woman being born to trouble is given by Eliphaz in
5:7, by job in
14:1
and by Eliphaz again in
speech in 38 :34 quotes a line of Eliphaz