THE
LITERARY STUDY OF THE BIBLE
AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
LEADING FORMS OF LITERATURE REPRESENTED
IN THE SACRED
WRITINGS
INTENDED FOR ENGLISH
READERS
By
RICHARD G. MOULTON.
PROFESSOR
OF LITERATURE IN ENGLISH IN THE
LATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURER (
1896
Public Domain: Scanned and edited by
Ted Hildebrandt 3/2005
COPYRIGHT, 1895,
By Richard G. Moulton
ENTERED AT
STATIONERS' HALL
J. S. Cushing & Co. --
Berwick & Smith
PREFACE
AN author falls naturally into an
apologetic tone if he is pro-
posing
to add yet one more to the number of books on the Bible.
Yet
I believe the number is few of those to whom the Bible appeals
as
literature. In part, no doubt, this is clue to the forbidding
form
in which we allow the Bible to be presented to us. Let the
reader
imagine the poems of Wordsworth, the plays of Shake-
speare,
the essays of Bacon, and the histories of Motley to be
bound
together in a single volume; let him suppose the titles of
the
poems and essays cut out and the names of speakers and divi-
sions
of speeches removed, the whole divided up into sentences
of
a convenient length for parsing, and again into lessons contain-
ing
a larger or smaller number of these sentences. If the reader
can
carry his imagination through these processes he will have
before
him a fair parallel to the literary form in which the Bible
has
come to the modern reader; it is true that the purpose for
which
it has been split into chapters and verses is something
higher
than instruction in parsing, but the injury to literary form
remains
the same.
Of course earnest students of
Scripture get below the surface of
isolated
verses. Yet even in the case of deep students the literary
element
is in danger of being overpowered by other interests.
The
devout reader, following the Bible as the divine authority for
his
spiritual life, feels it a distraction to notice literary questions.
And
thereby he often impedes his own purpose: poring over a
passage
of Job to discover the message it has for him, and for-
getting
all the while the dramatic form of the book, as a result of
which
the speaker of the very passage he is studying is in the end
iii
iv PREFACE
pronounced
by God himself to have said the thing that is "not
right."
Another has been led by his studies to cast off the
authority
of the Bible, and he will not look for literary pleasure to
that
which has for him associations with a yoke from which he has
been
delivered. A third approaches Scripture with equal rever-
ence
and scholarship. Yet even for him there is a danger at the
present
moment, when the very bulk of the discussion tends to
crowd
out the thing discussed, and but one person is willing to
read
the Bible for every ten who are ready to read about it.
Now for all these types of readers
the literary study of the
Bible
is a common meeting-ground. One who recognises that
God
has been pleased to put his revelation of himself in the form
of
literature, must surely go on to see that literary form is a thing
worthy
of study. The agnostic will not deny that, if every particle
of
authority and supernatural character be taken from the Bible,
it
will remain one of the world's great literatures, second to none.
And
the most polemic of all investigators must admit that appre-
ciation
is the end, and polemics only the means.
The term ‘literary study of the
Bible’ describes a wide field
of
which the present work attempts to cover only a limited part.
In
particular, the term will include the most prominent of all
types
of Bible study, that which is now universally called the
‘Higher
Criticism.’ There is no longer any need to speak of the
splendid
processes of modern Biblical Criticism, nor of the mag-
nitude
even of its undisputed results. I mention the Higher
Criticism
only to say that its province is distinct from that which
I
lay down for myself in this book. The Higher Criticism is
mainly
an historical analysis; I confine myself to literary investi-
gation.
By the literary treatment I understand the discussion of
what
we have in the books of Scripture; the historical analysis goes
behind
this to the further question how these books have reached
their
present form. I think the distinction of the two treatments
is
of considerable practical importance; since the historical analy-
sis
must, in the nature of things, divide students into hostile camps,
PREFACE v
while,
as it appears to me, the literary appreciation of Scripture is
a
common ground upon which opposing schools may meet. The
conservative
thinker maintains that Deuteronomy is the personal
composition
of Moses; the opposite school regard the book as a
pious
fiction of the age of Josiah. But I do not see how either
of
these opinions, if true, or a third intermediate opinion, can pos-
sibly
affect the question with which I desire to interest the reader,
—
namely, the structure of Deuteronomy as it stands, whoever may
be
responsible for that structure. And yet the structural analysis
of
our Deuteronomy, and the connection of its successive parts, are
by
no means clearly understood by the ordinary reader of the Bible.
The historical and the literary
treatments are then distinct: yet
sometimes
they seem to clash. There are two points in particular
as
to which I find myself at variance with the accepted Higher
Criticism.
Historic analysis, investigating dates, sometimes finds
itself
obliged to discriminate between different parts of the same
literary
composition, and to assign to them different periods; hav-
ing
accomplished this upon sound evidence, it then often proceeds,
no
longer upon evidence, but by tacit assumption, by unconscious
insinuations
rather than by distinct statement, to treat the earlier
parts
of such a composition as ‘genuine’ or ‘original,’ while the
portions
of later date are made ‘interpolations,’ or ‘accretions,’ —
in
fact, are alluded to as something illegitimate. Thus, in the case
of
Job, few will hesitate to accept the theory that there is an earlier
nucleus
(to speak roughly) in the dialogue, while the speeches of
Elihu
and the Divine Intervention have come from another source.
But
nearly all commentators who hold this view seem to treat these
later
portions as if they were on a lower literary plane, and — so
sensitive
is taste to external considerations — they soon find them
in
a literary sense inferior. This whole attitude of mind seems to
me
unscientific: it is the intrusion of the modern conception of a
fixed
book and an individual author into a totally different liter-
ary
age. The phenomena of floating poetry, with community of
authorship
and the perpetual revision that goes with oral tradition,
are
not only accepted but insisted upon by biblical scholars. But
vi PREFACE
in
such floating literature our modern idea of 'originality' has no
place;
the earliest presentation has no advantage of authenticity
over
the latest; nor have the later versions necessarily any superi-
ority
to the earlier. Processes of floating poetry produced the
Homeric
poems, and in this case it is the last form, not the first,
that
makes our supreme Iliad. My contention
is that, whatever
may
be the truth as to dates, all the sections of such a poem as
Job are equally ‘genuine.’
And as a matter of literary analysis, I
find
the Speeches of Elihu and the Divine Intervention, from what-
ever
sources they may have come, carrying forward the previous
movement
of the poem to a natural dramatic climax, and in liter-
ary
effect as striking as any part of the book.
My second objection to the
characteristic methods of the Higher
Criticism
has to do with the divisions of the text. In analysing
the
contents of a book of Scripture many even of the best critics
betray
an almost exclusive preoccupation with subject matter, to
the
neglect of literary form; a powerful search-light is thrown upon
minute
historic allusions, while even broad indications of literary
unity
or diversity are passed by. I will take a typical example.
In
the latter part of our Book of Micah
a group of verses (vii.
7–10)
must strike even a casual reader by their buoyancy of tone,
so
sharply contrasting with what has gone before. Accordingly
Wellhausen
sees in this changed tone evidence of a new composi-
tion,
product of an age long distant from the age of the prophet:
"between
v. 6 and v. 7 there yawns a century."1 What really
yawns
between the verses is simply a change of speakers. The
latter
part of Micah is admittedly dramatic,
and a reader attentive
to
literary form cannot fail to note a distinct dramatic composition
introduced
by the title-verse (vi. 9): "The voice of the LORD
crieth
unto the city, and the man of wisdom will fear thy name„"
The
latter part of the title --"and the man of wisdom will fear
thy
name "—prepares us to expect an addition in the ‘Man of
Wisdom’
to the usual dramatis personae of
prophetic dramas, which
are
confined to God, the Prophet, and the ruined Nation. All
1 Quoted in
Driver's Introduction, in loc.
PREFACE vii
that
follows the title-verse bears out the description. Verses 10–16
are
the words of denunciation and threatening put into the mouth
of
God. Then the first six verses of chapter seven voice the woe
of
the guilty city. Then the Man of Wisdom speaks, and the dis-
puted
verses change the tone to convey the happy confidence of
one
on whose side the divine intervention is to take place:
But as for me, I will look unto the
LORD; I will wait for the God of
my salvation: my God will hear me.
Rejoice not against me, 0 mine
enemy: when I fall, I shall arise,
etc.
The
sequence of verses follows quite naturally the dramatic form
indicated
by the title, and no break in the text is required. I have
no
objection in the abstract to the hypothesis of defects in textual
transmission;
but in judging of any alleged example it is reason-
able
to give to indications of literary form a weight not inferior to
that
of suggestions drawn from subject matter.
Besides this historic analysis other
obvious lines of literary treat-
ment
are omitted from this book. I have scarcely touched such
poetic
criticism as was admirably illustrated by the digest of
Hebrew
imagery which Mr. Montefiore contributed some time
since
to the Jewish Quarterly Review. I
have little or nothing
to
say about the style of biblical writers, although I welcome Pro-
fessor
Cook's introduction of the Bible as a model in the teaching
of
Rhetoric. I have even felt compelled to drop the survey of
subject
matter which was at first a part of my plan. The more I
have
studied the Bible from a literary standpoint, and considered
also
the conditions for making such a standpoint generally acces-
sible,
the more one single aspect of the subject has come into
prominence
— the treatment of literary morphology: how to dis-
tinguish
one literary composition from another, to say exactly
where
each begins and ends; to recognise Epic, Lyric, and other
forms
as they appear in their biblical dress, as well as to distin-
guish
literary forms special to the Sacred writers. Hence the
book
is "An account of the leading Forms of Literature repre-
sented
in the Sacred Writings." The whole works up to what I
viii PREFACE
have
called a " Literary Index of the Bible." This ranges from
Genesis to Revelation, including the apocryphal books of Wisdom
and
Ecclesiasticus; it marks off exactly
each separate composition
(or
integral parts of the longer compositions), indicates the liter-
ary
form of each, and, where suitable (as in the case of an essay
or
sonnet), suggests an appropriate title. My idea is that a stu-
dent
might mark these divisions and titles in the margin of his
Revised
Version, and so do for his Bible what the printer would
do
for all other literature. I believe it is almost impossible to
overestimate
the difference made to our power of appreciation when
the
literary form of what we are reading is indicated to the eye,
instead
of our having to collect it laboriously from what we read.
The
underlying axiom of my work is that a clear grasp of the outer
literary
form is an essential guide to the inner matter and spirit.
I am of course not so sanguine as to
suppose that the arrange-
ment
of the Sacred Writings in this Index — involving, as it must,
critical
questions in relation to every book of the Bible — will be
accepted.
I desire nothing better than to set every student to
make
such an arrangement for himself, getting help from every
source
that is open to him and so to tide over the period before
public
opinion permits the Bible to be issued with such aids to
intelligent
reading from the printed page as are taken for granted
in
all other literature.
I have spoken so far from the point
of view of the general or
the
religious reader. But a consideration of a different kind has
had
weight with me in the production of this book: the place in
liberal
education of the Bible treated as literature. It has come
by
now to be generally recognised that the Classics of Greece and
inspiration
of our great masters, and bond of common associations
between
our poets and their readers. But does not such a posi-
tion
belong equally to the literature of the Bible? if our intellect
and
imagination have been formed by the Greeks, have we not in
similar
fashion drawn our moral and emotional training from
PREFACE ix
Hebrew
thought? Whence then the neglect of the Bible in our
higher
schools and colleges? It is one of the curiosities of our
civilisation
that we are content to go for our liberal education to
literatures
which, morally, are at an opposite pole from ourselves:
literatures
in which the most exalted tone is often an apotheosis
of
the sensuous, which degrade divinity, not only to the human
level,
but to the lowest level of humanity. Our hardest social
problem
being temperance, we study in Greek the glorification of
intoxication;
while in mature life we are occupied in tracing law
to
the remotest corner of the universe, we go at school for literary
impulse
to the poetry that dramatises the burden of hopeless fate.
Our
highest politics aim at conserving the arts of peace, our first
poetic
lessons are in an Iliad that cannot
be appreciated without a
bloodthirsty
joy in killing. We seek to form a character in which
delicacy
and reserve shall be supreme, and at the same time are
training
our taste in literatures which, if published as English
books,
would be seized by the police. I recall these paradoxes,
not
to make objection, but to suggest the reasonableness of the
claim
that the one side of our liberal education should have
another
side to balance it. Prudish fears may be unwise, but
there
is no need to put an embargo upon decency. It is surely
good
that our youth, during the formative period, should have
displayed
to them, in a literary dress as brilliant as that of Greek
literature
— in lyrics which Pindar cannot surpass, in rhetoric as
forcible
as that of Demosthenes, or contemplative prose not in-
ferior
to Plato's — a people dominated by an utter passion for
righteousness,
a people whom ideas of purity, of infinite good, of
universal
order, of faith in the irresistible downfall of all moral
evil,
moved to a poetic passion as fervid, and speech as musical,
as
when Sappho sang of love or AEschylus thundered his deep
notes
of destiny. When it is added that the familiarity of the
English
Bible renders all this possible without the demand upon
the
time-table that would be involved in the learning of another
language,
it seems clear that our school and college curricula will
not
have shaken off their medieval narrowness and renaissance
x PREFACE
paganism
until Classical and Biblical literatures stand side by side
as
sources of our highest culture.
My obligations will be obvious to
the main representative works
of
Biblical Criticism, more especially to the works of Cheyne,
Briggs,
George Adam Smith, and the late Professor Milligan; to
the
lectures of President Harper; above all to Canon Driver's
Introduction to Old
Testament Literature,
which has placed the
best
results of modern investigation within easy reach of the ordi-
nary
reader. I have made copious citations from the Revised
Version
of the Bible and Apocrypha, for the use of which I am
under
obligations to the University Presses of Oxford and
bridge.
I am indebted for assistance of various kinds to personal
friends,
amongst whom I ought to mention my brother, Dr. Moulton,
of
the
who
has become to his large circle of friends a universal referee
for
all departments of study. I have other obligations in my
memory,
which it is not so easy to specify; obligations to public
institutions
and private individuals whose encouragement has
assisted
me at every step. For the last four years I have been
lecturing
on Biblical literature in churches of various denomina-
tions,
in theological schools and universities, and in popular lecture
rooms;
my audiences in
clergy
and laity, Christian and Jewish, not without a representa-
tion
of that other public which never reads the Bible and hears
with
surprise its most notable passages. Though I have taken
pains
to inquire, I have never found examples of the difficulties
which
it was feared by some the handling of this topic on the
lecture
platform might create. On the contrary, my experience
has
uniformly confirmed what I have called above the foundation
axiom
of my work — that an increased apprehension of outer
literary
form is a sure way of deepening spiritual effect.
I think it right to state that the
issue of this work — announced
more
than a year ago--has been delayed by circumstances for
which
neither author nor publishers are responsible.
RICHARD
G. MOULTON.
August,
1895.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
THE
BOOK OF JOB: AND THE VARIOUS KINDS OF LITERARY INTEREST
ILLUSTRATED BY IT
3
BOOK FIRST
LITERARY CLASSIFICATION
APPLIED TO THE
SACRED
SCRIPTURES
CHAPTER
I.
VERSIFICATION AND RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 45
II.
THE HIGHER PARALLELISM, OR PARALLELISM OF INTERPRE-
TATION 68
III.
THE LOWER AND THE HIGHER UNITY IN LITERATURE 81
IV.
CLASSIFICATION OF LITERARY FORMS 105
BOOK SECOND
LYRIC POETRY
OF THE BIBLE
V. THE BIBLICAL ODE 127
VI.
OCCASIONAL POETRY, ELEGIES, AND LITURGICAL PSALMS 153
VII. DRAMATIC LYRICS, AND LYRICS OF MEDITATION 174
VIII. LYRIC IDYL:
‘SOLOMON'S SONG’ 194
BOOK THIRD
BIBLICAL HISTORY AND
EPIC
IX.
EPIC POETRY OF THE BIBLE 221
X. BIBLICAL HISTORY IN ITS RELATION WITH
BIBLICAL EPIC 244
xi
xii CONTENTS
BOOK FOURTH
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BIBLE, OR
WISDOM
LITERATURE
CHAPTER PAGE
XI. FORMS OF WISDOM LITERATURE 255
XII.
THE SACRED BOOKS OF WISDOM 284
XIII.
‘THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON’ 305
BOOK FIFTH
BIBLICAL LITERATURE OF
PROPHECY
XIV.
FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE 327
XV.
FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE DOOM SONG 353
XVI.
FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE RHAPSODY 364
XVII.
THE RHAPSODY OF ‘
XVIII. THE WORKS OF THE PROPHETS 417
BOOK
SIXTH
THE BIBLICAL
LITERATURE OF RHETORIC
XX. THE EPISTLES: OR WRITTEN RHETORIC 439
XXI. SPOKEN RHETORIC: AND THE ‘BOOK OF
DEUTERONOMY’ 444
APPENDICES
1. LITERARY INDEX TO THE BIBLE 465
II. TABLES OF LITERARY FORMS 499
III.
ON THE STRUCTURAL PRINTING OF SCRIPTURE 512
IV. USE OF THE DIGRESSION IN ‘WISDOM’ 521
GENERAL
INDEX 527
INTRODUCTION
THE BOOK OF JOB: AND THE
VARIOUS KINDS OF
LITERARY INTEREST ILLUSTRATED BY IT
INTRODUCTION
I
THE story in the Book of Job opens
by telling how there was a
man
in the
and
upright, a man that feared God and eschewed Book of Job:
evil.
It tells of his great substance in sheep and The Story Opens
camels
and oxen, and how he was the greatest of 1, ii
all
the children of the east. Then it speaks of his seven sons
and
three daughters, and describes their joyous family life. And so
scrupulous
was the piety of Job that, when his sons and daughters
had
concluded a round of feastings at one another's houses, Job
rose
early and sanctified them, lest perchance
in their gaiety they
had
offended God.
Then the story passes to a Council in
Heaven, at which the
sons
of God came, each from his several province, to present
themselves
before the Lord; and amongst them came the Adver-
sary
from his sphere of inspection, the Earth. He in his turn
was
questioned as to his charge, and Job was instanced by the
Lord
as a type of human perfection. But the Adversary, as his
office
was, began to raise doubts as to this perfection. God had
made
a hedge of prosperity about the man: if he were to put
forth
his hand, and destroy all at a stroke, Job might yet renounce
his
worship.
The Lord gave consent for this
experiment to be made. So it
came
about that in the midst of Job's prosperity there came a
messenger
to him and said:
3
4 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
The oxen
were plowing,
and
the asses feeding beside them;
and the Sabeans fell upon them
and took them away;
yea, they have slain the servants
with the
edge of the sword;
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee!
While
he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:
The fire of God is fallen from heaven,
and hath burned up the
sheep, and the servants,
and
consumed them;
and I only am
escaped alone to tell thee!
While
he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:
The Chaldeans made three bands,
and fell upon the camels,
and have taken them away,
yea, and slain the servants with the
edge of the sword;
and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee!
While
he was yet speaking there came also another, and said:
Thy sons and thy daughters
were eating and drinking wine in their
eldest brother's house;
and behold,
there
came a great hind from the wilderness,
and smote
the four corners of the house,
and it fell upon the young
men,
and they are dead;
and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee!
Then
Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and
fell
down upon the ground, and worshipped; and he said:
Naked came I out of my
mother's womb,
and naked shall I return thither!
The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away:
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
INTRODUCTION 5
So
the experiment of the Adversary was over, and Job had not
fallen
into sin.
A second Council in Heaven followed,
and a second time came
the
sons of God, and the Adversary among them, and made their
reports.
When the Lord triumphed in the matter of Job, that he
still
retained his integrity notwithstanding the destruction done to
him,
the Adversary did honour to the goodness of the man by
suggesting
a yet severer test:
Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath
will he give for his life. But
put forth thine hand now, and touch
his bone and his flesh, and he
will renounce thee to thy face.
Even
in this case the Almighty had no fear for his servant. So
the
Adversary went forth, and smote Job with sore boils from the
sole
of his foot unto his crown. And Job silently passed out, as
one
unclean, and crept up the ash-mound, and there he sat and
suffered;
until his good wife — who had uttered no word of com-
plaint
when all the substance was swallowed up and her children
perished
— broke down in the presence of this helpless pain:
Dost thou still hold fast thine
integrity? renounce God, and die!
But
Job rebuked this momentary lapse from her wisdom:
What? shall we receive good at the
hand of God, and shall we not
receive evil?
So
the second experiment was over, and still Job sinned not with
his
lips.
But a third trial awaited Job, which
needed no Council in
Heaven
to decree it,—the trial of time. Day followed day, but
no
relief came; and Job sat patiently on the ash-mound, an out-
cast
and unclean. And gradually a reverence grew about the
silent
sufferer: the children no longer jostled him as they sported
to
and fro, and groups of sympathising spectators would gather
about
the mound to gaze for a while on the fallen child of the
east.
And the travellers as they passed by the way smote on
6 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
their
breasts at the sight; and they made a token of it, and
carried
the news into distant countries, until it reached the ears
of
Job's three Friends, all of them great chieftains like himself:
the
stately Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the sturdy Shuhite,
and
Zophar the Naamathite, with his venerable grey hairs. These
three
made an appointment together to visit Job; and, when they
came
in sight of him, with one accord they lifted up their voices
and
wept. And the crowd of spectators made way for the great
men
to ascend the mound; and they sat down upon the ground
opposite
Job. Day after day they took their station there, yet
they
could only weep with their friend; for, though they longed
to
speak, their utter courtesy forbade them to disturb the majesty
of
that silent suffering.
At last it was Job himself who broke
the long silence, in order
to
curse, not God, but his own life. And at this point the intro-
ductory
story in which the poem is framed begins to give place to
dialogue;
but not before the introduction has made its contribu-
(Problem of the tion to the general argument. The
topic of the
poem and
First whole book is the Mystery of Human Suffering:
Solution) the introduction has
suggested a First Solution of
the Mystery: Suffering
presented as Heaven's test of goodness;
the
test being made the severer where the goodness is strong
enough
to stand it.
Job opened his mouth, and cursed the
day of his birth. Would
that
it might be blotted from among the days of the year, that the
cloud,
and the thick darkness, and the shadow of
Jobs curse death, and all the degrees of blackness
might seize
iii for their own! If the best
of all gifts — never to
have
existed—must be denied him, why might not that day of
his
birth have also brought to him the Grave, and the long quiet
sleep
with the stately dead, and with the wicked and the weary,
the
prisoner and his task-master, the small and the great, all at
their
ease together? Why should life be forced upon the bitter
in
soul?
INTRODUCTION 7
In these later thoughts Job seems to
reflect upon the order of
God's
providence: he must be checked, and yet gently; and
Eliphaz
takes this task upon himself. He dreads The Dramatic
to
give pain to his friend, yet how can he refrain Dialogue
from
speaking, and laying down to Job the foun- First cycle
dations
of hope and fear with which Job himself iv-xiv
has
so often comforted the afflicted?
Now a thing was secretly brought to
me,
And mine ear received a whisper
thereof:
In thoughts from the
visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth
on men,
Fear came upon me, and
trembling,
Which made all my bones
to shake.
Then a spirit passed
before my face;
The hair of my flesh
stood up.
It stood still, but I
could not discern the appearance thereof,
A form was before mine eyes:
There was silence, and I
heard a voice, saying,
"Shall mortal man be more just
than God?
Shall a man be more pure than his
Maker?"
With
the awful solemnity of this vision Eliphaz enforces the view
which
the three Friends maintain throughout the discussion, and
which
is put forward as a Second Solution of
the Problem: The
very righteousness of
God (they
think) is involved in the doctrine
that all Suffering is a
judgment upon Sin.
Affliction, Says Eliphaz,
does
not spring up of itself like the grass, but it is they who have
sown
trouble that reap the same. But he puts the doctrine gently,
as
constituting so much hope for Job: when the sinner has once
sought
unto God he will find what great and unsearchable
wonders
God doeth. Then happy will have been the chastening
of
the Almighty, for if he maketh sore he bindeth up.
He shall deliver thee in
six troubles;
Yea, in seven there
shall no evil touch thee.
In famine he
shall redeem thee from death;
And in war
from the power of the sword.
Thou shalt
be hid from the scourge of the tongue;
8 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Neither shalt thou be
afraid of destruction when it cometh.
At destruction and
dearth thou shalt laugh:
Neither shalt thou be
afraid of the beasts of the earth.
For thou shalt be in
league with the stones of the field;
And the beasts of the
field shall be at peace with thee.
And thou shalt know that
thy tent is in peace;
And thou shalt visit thy
fold and shalt miss nothing.
Thou shalt know also
that thy seed shall be great,
And thine offspring as
the grass of the earth.
Thou shalt come to thy
grave in a full age,
Like as a shock of corn
cometh in in its season.
Lo this, we have searched it, so it
is;
Hear it, and know thou it for thy
good.
Job is bitterly disappointed at thus
meeting reproof where he
had
looked for consolation.
My brethren have dealt
deceitfully as a brook,
As the channel of brooks
that pass away;
Which are
black by reason of the ice,
And wherein
the snow hideth itself:
What time
they wax warm, they vanish:
When it is
hot they are consumed out of their place.
The paths of
their way are turned aside,
They go up
into the waste and perish.
The caravans
of Tema looked,
The
companies of
They were ashamed
because they had hoped;
They came thither and
were confounded.
The
comfort Job longs for is the crushing pain that would cut
him
off altogether. And has he not a right to look for it? Is not
man's
life a warfare for a limited time?
As a servant that earnestly desireth
the shadow,
And as an hireling that looketh for
his wages,
so
Job passes his wearisome nights and months of vanity.
If I have sinned, what can I do unto
thee,
0 thou watcher of men?
Why hast thou set me as a mark for
thee,
So that I am a burden to
myself?
INTRODUCTION 9
And why dost thou not
pardon my transgression,
And take
away mine iniquity?
For now shall I lie down
in the dust;
And thou
shalt seek me diligently,
But I shall not be!
Job never claims to be sinless, but
he knows that no sin of his
can
be proportionate to the total ruin that has fallen upon him.
But
this does not satisfy the second speaker.
Doth God pervert
judgement?
Or doth the Almighty
pervert justice?
Will
not Job disentangle himself from the transgression which has
already
found victims in his children? For so surely as the flag
cannot
grow without water: though it be green and spreading
above,
with roots wrapped round and round its solid bed, yet it
perishes
as if it had never been seen: so surely God will not
uphold
the evil-doer. But neither will God cast away a perfect
man.
He will yet fill thy
mouth with laughter,
And thy lips
with shouting.
They that hate thee
shall be clothed with shame,
And the tent
of the wicked shall be no more.
Job knows of a truth that it is so.
Yet how can a man be just
with
God:
Which removeth the
mountains, and they know it not,
When he
overturneth them in his anger.
Which shaketh the earth
out of her place,
And the
pillars thereof tremble.
Which commandeth the
sun, and it riseth not;
And sealeth
up the stars.
What
answer but supplication is possible before that overpower-
ing
Strength? a Strength that can destroy both the perfect and
the
wicked alike: for if it be not God who does this, who is it?
Certain
it is that the earth is given into the hand of the wicked.
However
innocent the accused may be, before that Strength his
own
mouth would condemn him.
10 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
If I wash myself with
snow water,
And make my hands never
so clean:
Yet wilt
thou plunge me in the ditch,
And mine own
clothes shall abhor me.
For he is not a man, as
I am, that I should answer him,
That we should come
together in judgement;
There is no daysman
betwixt us,
That might lay his hand
upon us both.
And
Job appeals to God himself against this oppression of his
own
handiwork.
Thine hands have framed
me
And fashioned me
together round about;
Yet thou
dost destroy me.
Remember, I beseech
thee, that thou hast fashioned me as clay;
And wilt
thou bring me into dust again?
Hast thou not poured me
out as milk,
And curdled me like
cheese?
Thou hast clothed me
with skin and flesh,
And knit me together
with bones and sinews.
It
is but a small boon that the creature asks of his Creator: that
he
may be let alone for a brief space —
Before I go whence I
shall not return:
Even to the land of
darkness
And of the
shadow of death:
A land of thick
darkness,
As darkness itself;
A land of
the shadow of death,
Without any
order,
And where the light is
as darkness.
Zophar is deeply shocked at a
spectacle he has never beheld in
all
his long life, — a good man questioning a visible judgment of
God.
Canst thou by searching
find out God?
Canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection?
It is high
as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than
Sheol; what canst thou know?
The measure
thereof is longer than the earth,
And broader
than the sea.
INTRODUCTION 11
There
is no course for Job but to set his heart aright, and put
iniquity
far away; then shall he again lift up a spotless countenance
before
God.
For thou shalt forget
thy misery;
Thou shalt
remember it as waters that are passed away:
And thy life shall be
clearer than the noonday;
Though there
he darkness, it shall be as the morning.
Before the persistent dogmatism of
the three Friends Job loses
more
and more the patience which had stood the shocks of the
Adversary.
No doubt but
ye are the people,
And wisdom
shall die with you.
But I have understanding
as well as you;
I am not inferior to
you:
Yea, who knoweth not
such things as these?
The
just man is made a laughing-stock, and the tents of robbers
prosper
: and yet the very beasts of the field can tell the inquirer
that
the hand of the Lord is responsible for every breath of every
living
thing. What, do the Friends stand forth as representatives
of
Wisdom? Nay,
With HIM is wisdom and
might;
He hath counsel and
understanding.
Priests
and counsellors spoiled, kings bound and unbound, the
mighty
overthrown, speech reft from the trusty, and understanding
from
the elders, contempt poured upon princes, and the belt of
the
strong loosed: these declare the Wisdom to which alone Job
will
appeal. Will the Friends lie on God's behalf? Will they be
partial
advocates in his cause?
Though he slay me, yet will I wait
for him:
Nevertheless I will maintain my ways
before him.
Job
appeals to God against God's own dealings, and never doubts
the
issue of his appeal. And yet he is so feeble to plead his cause:
a
driven leaf, a fettered prisoner, a moth-eaten rag! And the
time
left for his vindication is so short!
12 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Man that is born of a
woman
Is of few
days, and full of trouble;
He cometh
forth like a flower, and is cut down,
He fleeth
also as a shadow and continueth not.
For there is hope of a
tree, if it be cut down,
That it will
sprout again,
And that the
tender branch thereof will not cease;
Though the root thereof
wax old in the earth
And the stock thereof
die in the ground,
Yet through
the scent of water it will bud,
And put
forth boughs like a plant.
But man dieth, and
wasteth away:
Yea, man giveth up the
ghost, and where is he?
As the
waters fail from the sea,
And the
river decayeth and drieth up,
So man lieth down and
riseth not;
Till the
heavens be no more,
They shall not awake,
Nor be roused out of
their sleep.
A
strange fancy plays for a moment with the emotions of the
sufferer,—the
fancy that the Grave itself might be sweet, if only
there
might come the vindication beyond it.
Oh that thou wouldest
hide me in Sheol,
That thou wouldest keep
me secret, until thy wrath be past,
That thou wouldest
appoint me a set time, and remember me!
—If a man
die, shall he live again?
All the days of my
warfare would I wait,
Till my
release should come;
Thou
shouldest call,
And I would answer thee:
Thou wouldest have a
desire to the work of thine hands.
But
Job dismisses the thought as vain.
Surely the mountain
falling cometh to nought,
And the rock is removed
out of its place,
The waters wear the
stones,
The overflowings thereof
wash away the dust of the earth:
And thou
destroyest the hope of man:
INTRODUCTION 13
Thou
prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth;
Thou
changest his countenance, and sendest him away;
His sons come to honour,
And he
knoweth it not;
And they are brought
low,
But he
perceiveth it not of them;
Only for
himself his flesh hath pain
And for
himself his soul mourneth.
It has come to the turn of Eliphaz
again to speak: he is
shocked
that Job should resist the united appeals Second
cycle
of
his Friends. xv-xxi
Art thou the first man
that was born?
Or wast thou
brought forth before the hills?
Hast thou heard the
secret counsel of God?
And dost
thou restrain wisdom to thyself?
On
his side, Eliphaz says, and perhaps as he speaks he lays his
hand
upon the shoulder of Zophar, are the aged and greyheaded,
men
much older than Job's father. Then he proceeds to formu-
late
again the doctrine of the unfailing judgment upon sin, a judg-
ment
never so certain as when it appears for the time to be delayed.
The wicked man
travaileth with pain all his days,
Even the number of years
that are laid up for the oppressor.
A sound of
terrors is in his ears;
In
prosperity the spoiler shall come upon him:
He believeth
not that he shall return out of darkness,
And he is
waited for of the sword.
Job
cries out against such miserable consolation as this: for his
comfort
he will go to a very different source.
O earth,
cover not thou my blood,
And let my
cry have no resting-place.
Even now,
behold, my Witness is in heaven,
And He that
voucheth for me is on high.
But
once more the certainty of an ultimate vindication is over-
shadowed
by the thought of the rapidly flitting life.
14 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
If I look for Sheol as
mine house;
If I have spread my
couch in the darkness;
If I have said to
corruption, Thou art my father;
To the worm, Thou art my
mother, and my sister;
Where then is my hope?
Bildad rebukes Job's discomposure of
manner.
Thou that tearest
thyself in thine anger,
Shall the earth be
forsaken for thee?
Or shall the rock be
removed out of its place?
He
sternly reiterates the doctrine of judgment, and images of
doom
flow freely. Nets and toils are under the feet of the sinner,
gins
and snares are all about him; his strength is hungerbitten and
the
firstborn of death devours his members; brimstone is scattered
upon
his habitation ; he is driven from light into darkness and
chased
out of the world.
Such reiteration simply drives Job
to stronger and stronger self-
assertion:
in set terms he declares that God subverteth him in his
cause,
and denies him the judgment for which he calls. And
God
has removed all other succour from him: his kinsfolk have
failed
him, his acquaintance are estranged, his very household
look
upon him as an alien.
Have pity upon me, have
pity upon me,
0 ye my
friends,
For the hand of God hath
touched me!
But
the weakness of a moment is transformed into a burst of
strength,
as he proceeds to lay his hopes upon a help from above.
Oh that my words were
now written!
Oh that they were
inscribed in a book!
That with an iron pen
and lead
They were graven in the
rock for ever!
For I know that MY VINDICATOR
LIVETH,
And that he shall stand up at the
last upon the earth;
And after my-skin bath been thus
destroyed,
Yet without my flesh shall I see
God!
Whom I shall see on my side,
And mine eyes shall behold, and not
another!
INTRODUCTION 15
With
the overpowering emotions called up by this thought Job
almost
faints :
— My reins are consumed
within me —
but
after a pause he recovers himself, and is able to bring his
speech
to a conclusion.
Zophar can scarcely wait his
opportunity for speaking; his
thoughts
anticipate his words on the favourite topic.
Knowest thou
not this of old time,
Since man
was placed upon earth,
That the triumphing of
the wicked is short,
And the joy of the
godless but for a moment?
And
many wise saws are poured forth by Zophar, testifying to this
mockery
of the sinner.
His children shall seek
the favour of the poor,
And his hands shall give
back his wealth.
His bones are full of
his youth,
But it shall lie down
with him in the dust.
The heavens shall reveal
his iniquity
And the earth shall rise
up against him.
The doctrine thus thrust upon him
again and again Job at last
begins
to look fairly in the face; and the more he considers it the
more
he trembles at the doubts that come crowding into his mind.
How oft is it that the
lamp of the wicked is put out?
That their calamity
cometh upon them?
That God distributeth
sorrows in his anger?
That they are as stubble
before the wind,
And as chaff that the
storm carrieth away?
One dieth in his full
strength,
Being wholly at ease and
quiet:
His breasts are full of
milk,
And the marrow of his
bones is moistened.
And another
dieth in bitterness of soul,
And never
tasteth of good.
They lie down alike in
the dust,
And the worm covereth
them.
16 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Eliphaz
will not notice these doubts of Job; his righteous
indignation
with his friend has reached a climax,
Third Cycle and casting
restraint aside he openly accuses Job
xxii-xxx of sin.
Thou hast taken pledges
of thy brother for nought,
And stripped the naked
of their clothing.
Thou hast not given
water to the weary to drink,
And thou hast withholden
bread from the hungry.
Therefore
has trouble come upon him: but there is yet a place
for
repentance. If Job will acquaint himself with God and put
unrighteousness
away, he may still delight himself again in the
Almighty.
Job makes no reply as yet to the
cruel accusations: his thoughts
are
upon the heavenly Vindicator.
Oh that I knew where I
might find him:
That I might come even
to his seat!
There
he would have a judge that would not use his greatness to
confound
him.
Behold I go forward,
But he is
not there;
And backward,
But I cannot
perceive him:
On the left hand, when
he doth work,
But I cannot
behold him;
He hideth himself on the
right hand,
That I
cannot see him.
But he knoweth the way
that I take;
When he hath
tried me,
I shall come
forth as gold.
His
spirit purified by this meditation, Job is able with calm delib-
erateness
to lay before his Friends the new thoughts which are
troubling
him: the doubt whether his own is after all an excep-
tional
case, whether it be not rather the truth that in life taken as
a
whole the times of the Almighty are not plainly to be seen. He
INTRODUCTION 17
speaks
of the violence in the world, and the poverty that violence
brings
in its train: how men remove the ancient landmarks and
drive
the needy out of the way, until they have to seek precarious
subsistence
from the inclement wilderness, or labour in the fields
of
which they may never eat. He tells of violence in the city,
and
cries rising to a regardless God; of the thief, the adulterer,
the
murderer, — men who rebel altogether against the light, and
the
dawn comes upon them like a shadow of death. Yet all these
fare
just like the rest of mankind.
They are exalted; yet a little
while, and they are gone;
Yea, they are brought low, they are
gathered in, as all other!
Bildad cannot meet these questionings
of Job: his thoughts
are
filled with the overpowering greatness of God. He rises on
the
wave of a great theme, as he pictures the Ruler xxv. 1-6
of
the Universe engaged in matters of high celestial
policy,
or discovering blemishes in the brightness of the stars;
before
him the Shades beneath the sea tremble;1 Destruction
and
the Abyss reveal their secrets; his work is to hang
the
earth upon nothing, to support the mighty waters in xxvi.
5-14
the
flimsy clouds, to divide light and darkness by a boundary circle.
Lo, these are but the
outskirts of his ways;
And how small a whisper
do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his
power who can understand?
The Friends have persisted in
ignoring the arguments that Job
has
offered, and Job can only fall back into self-assertion.
xxvi. 1-4
and
As God liveth, who hath
taken away my right; xxvii. 1-6
And the Almighty, who
hath vexed my soul;
All the
while my breath is in me,
And the
spirit of God is in my nostrils:
Surely my lips shall not
speak unrighteousness,
Neither shall my tongue
utter deceit.
l
In
reference to the rearrangement of the speeches at this point see Job in
Literary
Index (Appendix I).
18 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Once
more, and for the last time, the doctrine of unfailing
xxvii. 7- judgment on sin is to be asserted, and Zophar com-
xxviii. 28 menses:
Let mine enemy be as the
wicked—
His
long experience has filled him with instances of the godless
frustrated
in their hopes: their children multiplied for the sword,
their
heaped-up silver divided amongst the innocent, and them-
selves
swept by the tempest out of their place. To Zophar this
confidence
in the unerring stroke of doom seems the very founda-
tion
of Wisdom. There are mines out of which may be dug gold
and
silver and precious stones, but where is the place of Wisdom?
The deep saith, It is
not in me:
And the sea saith, It is
not with me:
It cannot be gotten for
gold,
Neither shall silver be
weighed for the price thereof.
God
only is the source of it, and when he laid the foundations of
the
universe he inwrought this into the structure of his world:
that
the fear of the Lord and his judgments on evil — this should
be
Wisdom and Understanding.
Job is gathering himself together
for his final vindication. But
first,
softly to himself, he meditates upon the contrast between
then
and now.
Oh that I were as in the
months of old,
As in the days when God
watched over me;
When his lamp shined
upon my head,
And by his light I
walked through darkness.
In
the rich imagery of the East he paints a prosperity that washed
his
steps in butter; he describes the hush that fell upon the
assembly
of the great when he advanced to join them; how among
the
people every ear that heard him blessed him, and every eye
that
saw him was a witness to the deeds of kindness by which he
spread
happiness around him. But now! He is derided by
those
whose fathers were not to be ranked with the dogs of his
INTRODUCTION 19
flock;
the very rabble thrust him aside as he walks. And — worse
than
all —
Thou art turned to be
cruel to me:
With the might of thy
hand thou persecutest me.
But
before friend and foe, and in the presence of God himself,
Job
stands forth to make solemn vindication. Towering above
the
seated accusers, he waves his arm in the full
ritual
of the Oath of Clearing. Article by article Job's vindication
he
repudiates the lust of the eye, oppression of the xxxi
weak,
failure in charity to the poor or hospitality to the stranger,
secret
trust in gold or secret worship of the heavenly host; if there
be
any other transgression — and Job passionately longs to see the
indictment
of an adversary — he makes the very concealment of
it
a fresh sin. Once more he breaks out:
If my land cry out
against me,
And the furrows thereof
weep together;
If I have eaten the
fruits thereof without money,
Or have caused the
owners thereof to lose their life:
Let thistles
grow instead of wheat,
And cockle
instead of barley!
Then,
with a wave of dismissal — "The words of Job are ended"
—he
seats himself and covers his face with his robe; and the
Friends
understand that the discussion is closed.
Religious tradition, embodied in the
speeches of the three
Friends,
has spent its energies and failed. But there is youth-
ful
enthusiasm represented among the crowd of Interposition of
spectators
round the ash-mound, in the person of Elihu
Elihu,
of the great family of Ram. He has stood xxxii
listening
with indignation in his heart; indignation against Job
because
he justified himself and not God, and indignation against
the
Friends because they had been unable to si- xxxii. 6-xxxiii
lence
such presumption. Elihu now breaks through
the
circle and ascends the ash-mound, standing respectful but
20 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
passionate
before the seated elders. He had said that days must
speak
and multitude of years show wisdom: but he has an under-
standing
as well as they; yea, his spirit feels like wine that can find
no
vent but by bursting its bottle. Thus, with juvenile profuse-
ness,
he pours forth some fifty lines in saying that he is about to
speak,
before he confronts Job — who had longed to meet God
face
to face — with the words:
Behold, I am according
to thy wish, in God's stead.
He
thus reaches the point which makes his contribution to the
discussion,
— a facet of the truth which his generation was seeing
a
little more clearly than the generation before him. It may be
(Third
Solution) made
a Third Solution of the Mystery:
Suffering
is one of the voices by which God
warns and
restores men. He describes a man
chastened with pain upon his
bed
until his life abhorreth bread, and his soul the daintiest meat:
If there be with him an angel,
An interpreter, one
among a thousand,
To skew unto man what is
right for him;
Then he is gracious unto
him, and saith,
"Deliver him from
going down to the pit,
I have found a
ransom."
An
idyllic picture follows of restored purity and happy penitence;
and
Elihu urges this view upon Job, and pauses for Job's reply.
But Job vouchsafes no reply; and
receives the new light with
contemptuous
indifference.
Disappointed at this reception,
Elihu turns to the three Friends
—
as wise men with an ear to try words — and hopes to take
them with him, and all
men of understanding, in his
xxxiv protest against this Job, who drinketh up scorning
like
water, who addeth
rebellion unto sin, and clappeth his hands
against
God. He enlarges upon the presumption of mankind
and
the judgments with which it is overwhelmed, and looks to
the
three Friends for assent.
INTRODUCTION 21
But the three Friends make no sign;
they meet their youthful
champion
with chilling silence.
Slighted on both sides, Elihu, like
Job, is driven to look up-
wards:
as his glance sweeps the sky, another flood
of
inspiration comes upon him. XXXV-XXXVII
Look unto the Heavens,
and see:
he
cries, alike to Job and to his companions. Is the God of those
heavens,
he asks, a God to be harmed by a man's sin, or benefited
by
his righteousness? Thus, "fetching his knowledge from afar,"
he
makes the heavens a starting-point for a fresh vindication of
the
providence that brings low and builds up again mighty kings,
or
cuts off whole peoples in a night. A rumble of Rise
of the Whirl-
distant
thunder recalls him to his text; and, when wind
he
looks up a second time, the brilliant sky of the xxxvi. 22-
Now
his whole discussion of providential might is bound up with
the
manifestations of power that are being exhibited at the moment
in
the changing heavens. His words bring before us the small
drops
of water and the spreading clouds, the play of lightning and
the
noise that tells of God, down to the very cattle standing expect-
ant
of the coming storm. When a nearer burst of thunder makes
his
heart tremble and move out of its place, Elihu still keeps his
eyes
fastened upon the sky: he finds fresh texts in the roaring voice
of
the heavens, and the lightning that lightens to the ends of the
earth,
in the snow intermingled with mighty rain as the icy breath
of
the north encounters the storm out of the chambers of the
south,
in the thick clouds wearied with waterings, and their delicate
balancings
as they descend, and descend, until they have wrapped
in
their folds speaker and hearers, and they cannot order their
speech
by reason of the darkness, and the impetuous eloquence of
Elihu
has died down into dread:
If a man speak, surely he shall be
swallowed up!
Now
the whirlwind is upon them: in marvellous wise its blasts
22 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
seem
to cleanse the mirky darkness into order; flashes of un-
earthly
bright out of the dark make them cast their eyes down-
ward;
until the flashes at last grow together into one terrible
majesty
of golden splendour in the northern heart of the storm,
and
the whirlwind has become the
VOICE OF GOD
Divine
Interven- Who is this that darkeneth counsel
tion By words without
knowledge?
xxxviii-xlii.6 Gird
up now thy loins like a man;
For
I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
As the Voice comes out of the storm
a new aspect of the dis-
cussion
unfolds itself. The perplexities of Job and his Friends
rested
upon a one-sided view that confined its survey to Evil, as
if
it alone were exceptional and unintelligible; the speech attrib-
uted
to the Divine Being comes to restore the balance by taking
a
more comprehensive survey. It may be reckoned as a Fourth
(Fourth
Solution) Solution
of the Problem: That the whole universe
is an unfathomed Mystery, in which the
Evil is not
more mysterious than the
Good and the Great.
The idea of the
whirlwind
is maintained throughout: the tone of overmastering
might—
so often mistaken for the meaning of this Theophany —
is
no more than the outward form in which the words of God are
embodied;
the traditional association of thunder with the voice
of
God leading our poet to convey the speech of Deity in the
form
of short sharp interrogatories, like explosions of thunder,
each
outburst putting some startling mystery of nature.
Who shut up the sea with doors,
When it brake forth and
issued out of the womb;
When I made the cloud
the garment thereof,
And thick darkness a
swaddling band for it,
And prescribed for it my
decree,
And set bars and doors,
And said, "Hitherto
shalt thou come, but no further;
And here shall thy proud
waves be stayed"?
INTRODUCTION 23
Have the gates of death
been revealed unto thee,
Or hast thou
seen the gates of the shadow of Death?
Where is the way to the
dwelling of light,
And as for
darkness, where is the place thereof?
Hath the rain a father?
Or who bath
begotten the drops of dew?
Out of whose womb came
the ice?
And the
hoary frost of heaven, who bath gendered it?
There
is no pause in the succession of wonders: the wonder of
the
lioness hunting her prey; of the young ravens crying to God
for
their food; the wonder of the wild goats bringing forth their
young;
the wonder of the wild ass ranging loose in the wilderness,
and
the ox abiding patiently by his crib; the wonder of the
ostrich,
foolish over her young because God has deprived her of
wisdom,
glorious in flight, putting to scorn the horse and his
rider;
the wonder of the war-horse pawing in the valley and
rejoicing
in his strength, swallowing the ground in fierceness and
rage
amid the thunder of the captains and the shouting. There
is
a momentary lull in the storm, when Job's voice is heard in
awe-struck
humility:
Once have I spoken, and
I will not answer:
Yea twice, but I will
proceed no further.
Then
again the swirl of mystery rages around: the Voice tells of
Behemoth,
with bones of brass and limbs of iron, his larder a
mountain
and a jungle his bower, watching unconcernedly the
swelling
of the boisterous waterfloods; or of Leviathan himself,
panoplied
against the hook of the fisher or snare of the fowler,
and
scorning even the hunter's spear and the arrows of the war-
rior,
flashing light and breathing smoke as he goes, terror dancing
before
him, and ocean turning hoary in his wake.
At last the storm begins to abate,
and Job is able to make his
submission.
He knows that God is all-powerful, and that no
purpose
of his can be restrained.
24 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
—"Who is this that hideth
counsel without knowledge?"—
comes
like an echoing rumble of the retiring storm. Job admits
the
charge: he has uttered that which he understood not, and
meddled
in things too high for him.
—"I will demand of thee, and
declare thou unto me "
again
sounds forth, like a more distant echo of the tempest. Job
comprehends
his whole submission in one utterance.
I had heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth
thee,
Wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent
In dust and ashes.
Then
the storm has entirely cleared away. And with it the
dramatic
poem has given place to the frame of story: which
resumes to
relate how, when Job had thus spoken,
The story
closes the anger of the Lord was kindled
against the
three
Friends, because they had not said of Him
the
thing that was right as His servant Job had. Thus the Epi-
logue
furnishes a Fifth Solution: the proper
attitude of mind
(Fifth
Solution) towards the Mystery of Human
Suffering: that
the
strong faith of Job, which could even reproach
God as a friend
reproaches a friend, was more acceptable to Him
than the servile
adoration which sought to twist the truth in order
to magnify God. It only remains to tell
how the Lord turned the
captivity
of Job, and his wealth and prosperity returned in greater
measure
than before; and he begat sons and daughters, and saw
his
sons' sons to the fourth generation. So Job died, being old
and
full of years.
INTRODUCTION 25
II
Such is the Book of Job presented as a piece of literature.
The
questions of Theology or historic criticism that it suggests
are
outside the scope of the present work. Our Literary Interest
immediate
concern is with the various kinds of in the Book of
literary
interest which have touched us as we Job
have
traversed this monument of ancient literature.
The dominant impression is that of a
magnificent drama. No
element
of dramatic effect is wanting; and that which we might
least
have expected, the scenic effect, is especially Dramatic
impressive.
The great ash-mound outside an an- Interest
cient
village or town makes a stage just suited for of Background
the
single scene — and that an open-air scene — to which a Greek
tragedy
would be confined. And resemblance to a Greek drama
is
further maintained by the crowd of spectators who stand round
this
ash-mound like a silent Chorus; — unless, indeed, we are to
consider
that their sentiments are conveyed by Elihu as Chorus-
Leader.
When we reach the crisis of the poem we are able to
see
what advantage a drama addressed purely to the imagination
may
have over plays intended for the theatre. No stage machin-
ery
could possibly realise the changes of sky and atmosphere
which
in Job make a dramatic background for
the approach of
Deity.
It is true that the original poem does not describe these
changes,
as I have done, in straightforward narrative. But every
scholar
is aware that the ‘stage directions’ of modern plays are
wanting
in the dramas of antiquity: whatever variations of move-
ment
and surroundings these involve have to be collected from the
words
of the personages who take part in the dialogue. And in
the
transformation traced above, from a day of brilliant sunshine
to
a thunderstorm, and yet further to a supernatural apparition,
every
detail of change is implied in the words of Ehhu. We
watch
the changing scene through the eyes of those who are in
the
midst of it.
26 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Interest of character abounds in the
poem. I must confess I
cannot
follow the subtle differences which some commentators see
between the
characters of the three Friends. It
of Character is easy to recognise in Eliphaz a stately
personage
with
a wider range of thought than his colleagues. But Bildad
and
Zophar leave different impressions on different readers. To
me
Bildad seems a touch more blunt in his manner than the rest.
Of
Zophar I would only say that the speeches assigned him fit
well
with the suggestion of his being a generation older than the
other personages of the
poem; though of course the
xv. 10 words of Eliphaz which claim such a personage as on
his
side need not necessarily refer to anyone present. But what-
ever
may be thought about the individualities of the Friends, no
one
can miss the contrast between the whole group and Job;
between
the interest of static character in various modifications
of
conformity to current ideals, and the interest of a dynamic per-
sonality
like that of Job, which can look back to a realisation of
the
perfection his friends describe, and can yet at the call of cir-
cumstances
fling his former beliefs to the winds, and probe pas-
sionately
among the mysteries of providence for new conceptions
of
divine rule. And the welcome addition to the poem of Elihu
adds
the ever fresh interest of youth in contrast with age. In the
impetuous
self-confidence of this personage, his flowing yet jejune
eloquence,
and in the chilling reception it meets alike from Job
and
Job's adversaries, we have youth presented from the one side.
But,
on the other hand, youth has dramatic justice done to it
when
we find Elihu's heart beating responsive to every change
of
the changing heavens, and eagerly drinking in the accumulat-
ing
terrors of the storm, until his wild speech stops only before
the
voice of God.
But scenery and character might
almost be called secondary
elements
of drama: its essence lies in action. The whole world
of
literature hardly contains a more remarkable
and of
Movement piece of dramatic
movement than the changes of
position
taken up by Job in the course of his dialogue with the
INTRODUCTION 27
Friends.
Before it commenced Job had met his ruin with that
ideal
patience which has forever been associated with his name.
At
last we find just a shadow of resistance in his plaintive enquiry,
why
life should be forced upon the miserable. His friends fasten
upon
this, and make it a starting-point for the discussion in which
they
urge that the sufferer is a sinner. Almost in an instant the
patient
Job is transformed into an angry rebel, tearing to shreds
optimist
views of righteous providence, and, with the passion of a
Titan,
painting God as an Irresponsible Omnipotence that delights
to
put righteousness and wickedness on an equality of helplessness
to
resist Him. The Friends continue their pressure, and Job is
driven
to appeal to God against their misconstruction; more and
more
as the action advances Job is led to rest his hopes of vindi-
cation
on the Being he began by maligning. At last he is found
to
have traversed a circle: and the same God whom, in the ninth
chapter,
he had accused of exercising judgment only to show his
omnipotence,
he contrasts with the Friends in the twenty-third
chapter
as a judge who would not contend with him in the great-
ness
of his power. When the climax of the Theophany comes,
this
movement of the drama is carried forward into a double sur-
prise.
Job had felt that if only he could find his way into the
presence
of God his cause would be secure. His prayer is strangely
granted,
and with what result?
I had heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth
thee,
Wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent
In dust and ashes.
Yet
was Job's first thought a mistake ? The answer is a second
surprise.
While the tempest lasts the Theophany appears wholly
directed
against Job. But when the storm has cleared it is found
to
be the adversaries who have incurred the wrath of God, and his
servant
Job has said of him the thing that is right. The deep
moral
significance of these various presentations of Deity need
not
make us overlook the dramatic beauty in the transition from
one
to another.
28 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
The dialogue in Job is introduced
and concluded by a narrative
story,
and to dramatic effect must be added epic: I use this word
without
meaning to convey any judgment: on the
Epic Interest question
whether the incidents of the book are to
be
regarded as imaginary or as historically true. The narrative is
one
of grand simplicity, like the epics of antiquity. A few touches
create
for us a whole picture of life and scheme of society. The
first
note struck is that of perfection; and the life of which Job
is
declared the perfect type is that of a simple pastoral age. His
substance
of cattle is given in ideal figures; and he is called the
greatest
of all the children of the east. It is an age in which the
‘state’
is not yet born, but family life is pictured on the highest
scale.
The great seasons which break the monotony of such
patriarchal
existence are rounds of festal gatherings among the
seven
sons of Job, each receiving on his day with a regularity
never
broken; the sons moreover invite their sisters, and so
women's
society raises a revel into a dignified ceremonial. Such
interchange
of festivity would represent the highest ordinary ideals
of
the age. But behind this, Job, who lives in a wider world, has
his
high day of religious devotion, rising early in the morning to
sanctify
his children against possible sin.
In an instant, without any
connecting link or wordy preparation,
after
the fashion of the old epics which have the doings of gods
and
men alike in their grasp, we are transported to the heavenly
counterpart
of such earthly festivities. Heaven too has its high
day
on which the sons of God gather together from their several
provinces;
in the description of two such assemblies the recur-
rence
of identical phrases conveys the notion of ritual and cere-
monial
observance. We reach a point in the story at which the
utmost
care is needed to guard against a misconception of the
whole
incident. Among the sons of God, it is
(The Satan of said,
comes ‘The Satan.’ It is best to use the article
Job) and speak of ‘The Satan,’ or as the margin gives
it,
‘The Adversary: that is, the Adversary of the Saints. Else-
where
in Scripture the title of this office has become the name of
INTRODUCTION
29
a
personage — the Adversary of God, or ‘Satan.’1 But here (as
in
a similar passage of Zechariah) the Satan is an official
of
the Court of Heaven. There is nothing in his recep- Zecha-
tion
to distinguish him from the other sons of God; as riah
iii.1
they
may come from sun or moon or other parts of the Uni-
verse,
so the Satan is the Inspector of Earth, and describes his
occupation
as " going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and
down
in it." When once the associations with the other ‘Satan’
are
laid aside, it is easy to see that in the dealings of this per-
sonage
with Job there is no malignity; he simply questions where
others
accept, and in an inspector such distrust is a virtue. The
Roman
Church has exactly caught this conception in its ‘Advoca-
tus
Diaboli’: such an advocate may be in fact a pious and kindly
ecclesiastic,
but he has the function assigned him of searching out
all
possible evil that can be alleged against a candidate for canoni-
sation,
lest the honours of the Church might be given without due
enquiry.
In the present case the Satan merely points out possible
weaknesses
in Job, and a means of testing them. The Court of
Heaven
sanctions the ‘experiment’: — the word ‘experiment’ has
only
to be changed into its equivalent ‘probation’ for the whole
proceeding
to be brought within accepted notions of divine gov-
ernment.
Epic power is again exhibited in the
description of the mode in
which
this experiment is carried out. Slow history brings about
results
by what means are in its power, with much of makeshift,
and
accidents which mar the symmetry of events. But epic
poetry
can make its action harmonious; and it seems to be a
conspiracy
of heaven and earth that compasses Job's destruction.
The
Sabeans take his oxen, the sky rains fire upon the sheep, the
1 Bishop Bickersteth
in his epic poem Yesterday, To-day, and
Forever ingeniously
harmonises
these two conceptions of Satan. He makes his Lucifer Guardian Spirit
of Earth and
Man: as part of his office he tempts Adam then flies to Heaven to be
fallen Man's
accuser: gradually the spirit in which he has executed his office
intensifies
and makes more and more pronounced his own fall, until he at last sinks
into an open
Adversary of God. See the poem, books iv—vi, and the bishop's de-
fence of this
view in the St. James's Sermons.
30 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
Chaldeans
carry away the camels, and the winds of the wilderness
overwhelm
Job's children: while the separate destructions are
worked
into a concerto of ruin by the recurrence of the mes-
senger's
wail —
I only am escaped alone
to tell thee.
It
is an ideally grand shock. But at this stage Job's character is
epic,
and the shock is met by an ideal grandeur of acceptance.
One
by one the customary gestures of distress are exhibited, and
then
slowly succeed the words which have become the world's
formulary
for the emotion of bereavement. They are sublime
words,
that first proclaim simply the essential manhood to which
the
whole of life is but an accessory, and then throw over pious
submission
a grace of oriental courtesy that would make the
resumption
of a gift an occasion for remembering the giver.
Naked came I out of my
mother's womb,
And naked
shall I return thither!
The
Lord gave,
And the Lord
hath taken away:
Blessed be the Name of
the Lord!
Our epic plot intensifies, and when
the second assembly in
heaven
is held, God and the Satan concur in honouring Job's con-
stancy
by severer tests. In what follows there is no realistic
description;
epic poetry can act by reticence, and a word or two
are
sufficient to convey the picture of Job shrinking away silent
and
unclean from among his fellows, with a patience terrible to
look
upon; until the silence is broken by a second of those
utterances
of his which are so colossal in their simplicity. The
oriental
nomad life has two ideals specially its own. One is the
solemn
giving and receiving of gifts. The other is an instinct of
authority
that knows no bounds to its submission: an oriental
seems
to feel a pride in self-prostration before his natural lord.
Both
ideals are united in Job's answer to his wife's murmur
What? shall we receive
good at the hands of God and
shall we not receive
evil?
INTRODUCTION 31
The simple power of epic poetry has
raised us to a high plane
of
thought and feeling: upon that plane the action of the poem is
to
move with a passionateness that is proper to
drama.
But there is a transition stage between The Curse a Lyric
the
one and the other in that portion of the book Poem
entitled
‘Job's Curse.’ This is not narrative, and so cannot be
epic;
it is clearly distinct from the dramatic poetry to which it is
a
starting-point. Examination of it shows at once the musical
elaboration
and accumulation of musings on a situation or thought
which
we associate with lyric poetry. The Curse is a counterpart
to
such English lyrics as Wordsworth's Intimations
of Immortality
or
Gray's Bard. I subjoin the whole here, that it may be read
in
this connection as a separate lyric: — an Elegy of a Broken
Heart.
I
Let the clay perish
wherein I was born;
And the night which
said, There is a man child conceived
Let that day
be darkness;
Let not God
regard it from above,
Neither let
the light shine upon it!
Let darkness
and the shadow of death claim it for their own;
Let a cloud
dwell upon it;
Let all that
maketh black the day terrify it!
As for that
night, let thick darkness seize upon it;
Let it not
rejoice among the days of the year;
Let
it not come into the number of the months!
Lo, let that
night be barren;
Let no
joyful voice come therein!
Let them
curse it that curse the day,
Who are
ready to rouse up leviathan!
Let the
stars of the twilight thereof be dark!
Let it look
for light, but have none;
Neither let
it behold the eyelids of the morning:
Because it shut not up
the doors of my mother's womb,
Nor hid trouble from
mine eyes!
32 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
2
Why died I not from the
womb?
Why
did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
Why did the knees
receive me?
Or why the
breasts, that I should suck?
For now should I have
lien down and been quiet;
I should have slept;
then had I been at rest,
With kings
and counsellors of the earth,
Which built
solitary piles for themselves;
Or with
princes that had gold,
Who filled
their houses with silver;
Or as an hidden untimely
birth I had not been;
As infants which never
saw light.
There the
wicked cease from troubling;
And there
the weary be at rest.
There the
prisoners are at ease together;
They hear
not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small
and great are there;
And the
servant is free from his master.
Wherefore is light given
to him that is in misery,
And life unto the bitter
in soul?
Which long
for death, but it cometh not;
And dig for
it more than for hid treasures;
Which
rejoice exceedingly,
And are glad
when they can find the grave.
Why is light given to a
man whose way is hid,
And whom God bath hedged
in?
For my
sighing cometh before I eat,
And my
roarings are poured out like water.
For the
thing which I fear cometh upon me,
And that
which I am afraid of cometh unto me.
I am not at
ease,
Neither am I
quiet,
Neither have
I rest;
But trouble
cometh.
Our result then so far is that the
Book of Job contains specimens
of
epic, lyric, and dramatic composition; all the three main
elements
of poetry find a representation in it, and a representation
INTRODUCTION 33
of
the most impressive kind. I pass now to those departments
of
literature which are usually considered to be
furthest
removed from poetry,--philosophy and Interest of
science:
philosophy that seeks to find a meaning Philosophy
underlying
life as a whole, and science that observes in detail and
arranges
its observations.
The whole work is a philosophical
discussion dramatised. The
subject
discussed is the mystery of human suffering, Various Attitudes
and
its bearing upon the righteous government of to the problem
the
world: this is one of the stock questions of discussed
philosophy.
Each section of the book is the representation of a
different
philosophical attitude to this question.
The three Friends present a cut and
dried theory of suffering --
that
it is always penal. They are brought before
us
as behaving in the usual fashion of persons The Friends: A
finally
committed to a theory: they pour out Theory
stores
of facts that make for their view, they ignore and refuse to
examine
facts that tell against it, and they hint moral obliquity as
the
real explanation of refusal to concur in their
doctrine.
Elihu introduces the same theory modi- Elihu: Theory
fled
and corrected to date; with him suffering is modified
punishment
for sin, but that special kind of punishment which is
corrective
in character. He accordingly stands for a philosophic
school
of the second generation; and we are not surprised to find
him
maintaining his position with as much inflexibility as the
Friends
have shown, and at the same time magnifying his slight
difference
from them, and appearing no less an adversary to the
Friends
than to Job himself.
Beware lest ye say,
"We have found wisdom;
God may vanquish him,
not man":
For he hath not directed
his words against me;
Neither will I answer
him with your speeches.
At the furthest remove from these is
found Job, who takes a
negative
attitude, shattering other theories but providing none of
34 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
his
own. Of course no one will understand Job really to accept
what some of his words
imply, as where he sees in
Job's
Negative God an omnipotence that
judges only to display
Attitude power. But these wild words are not out of place
as
a poetically strong representation of the perplexities that en-
counter
one who would explain providential action. Job simply
cannot
solve these perplexities; he trusts in a divine vindication
at
some time, but meanwhile can only pronounce the problem of
life
insoluble. This is distinctly a philosophic attitude: it is noth-
ing
but the famous epoche, or suspension of mind, which from the
time
of Socrates has been recognised as a natural tone of mind
for
an enquirer. Of course there is a vast difference between
the
cold brightness of Plato's dialogues and the heated debate in
Job;
the Hebrew poem is not the discussion in the Porch or
Garden,
but represents philosophy as it is talked in the school
of
affliction. Job represents the epoche in a passion.
Yet another' philosophical position
is embodied in the Divine
Intervention.
As I have suggested above, this portion of the
Divine
Interven- poem has been often misunderstood.
It has been
tion:
Reference to
assumed, not unnaturally, that
the Divine Inter-
a wider
category vention — like the Deus ex machina of the Greek
drama—must
be a final settlement of the questions in dispute.
When
the speeches attributed to God are examined in this light
they
are found to be no settlement at all, or, what were worse
than
any settlement, an indignant denial of man's right to ques-
tion.
But such interpretations overlook one important considera-
tion:
that in the epilogue Job is pronounced by the Lord to have
said
of him the thing that is right, while Job's Friends, who main-
tained
the wickedness of questioning, are declared to have incurred
the
Divine anger. The interpretation involves a double mistake.
On
the one hand the Divine Intervention is not a settlement of
the
matter in dispute; at the end of the poem the problem of
human
suffering remains a mystery. But this section of the work,
like
others, is a distinct contribution towards a solution. In esti-
mating
what that contribution is a second mistake must be avoided,
INTRODUCTION 35
by
which form and substance have been confused. The tone of
scorn
which rings through the sentences of the Divine utterance
must,
as I have said above, be considered part of the dramatic
form
thrown over the discussion; the poet has conceived the
thunder
tone to be the proper embodiment for the Divine voice,
and
the explosive interrogatories of which the speeches are com-
posed
are just as much a portion of this dramatic setting as the
signs
of a rising tempest which are put into the mouth of Elihu.
The
whole is introduced with the explanation: "The Lord
answered
Job out of the whirlwind." But when we go below
this
outer form, and enquire what is the general drift of the
Divine
utterance as a whole, we find, as I have said before, that
its
effect is to widen the field of discussion. Job has fastened his
attention
simply upon Evil, and successfully maintained its inex-
plicableness
against his friends. The Divine Intervention brings
out
that the Good and the Great, all that men instinctively
admire
in the universe, is just as inexplicable as Evil. Now this
is
distinctly a contribution towards the solution of the problem
in
philosophic terms, it has included the matter under discussion
in
a wider category, and this represents a stage of philosophic
advance.
Moreover, it implies consolation to the human sufferer
as
well as progress to the discussion. Job had met loss and pain
without
a murmur; he broke down when long musing made him
realise
the isolation his ruin had brought him, and how he was an
outcast
from intelligible law. He recovers his self-control when
he
is led to feel that his burden is only part of the world-mystery
of
Good and Evil, for the solution of which all time is too short.
Two sections of the work have yet to
be considered in the
present
connection, the prologue and the epilogue. From the
side
of philosophy no part of Job is more im- Epilogue : Prac-
portant
than the brief epilogue. Other sections tical bearings of
suggest
distinct solutions of the problem under the question
discussion.
But when a question is so wide as to admit of no
final
settlement, but only of tentative treatment, philosophy can
have
no more important task than to discover a practical attitude
36 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
which
we may assume towards it while advancing slowly towards
theoretic
knowledge. This is what the epilogue does in its pro-
nouncement
that Job has been right and his friends wrong. As
suggested
above, this can have no other meaning than to imply
that
the bold faith of a Job, which could reproach his God as
friend
reproaches friend where the Divine dealings seemed unjust,
was,
though founded on ignorance, more acceptable to that God
than
the servile adoration which sought to twist facts in order to
magnify
His name. The deep significance of such a pronounce-
meat
must be welcomed by every school of thought; it for ever
stamps
the God of the Bible as a God on the side of enquiry.
But before this principle has been
laid down in the epilogue,
before
Job and his friends have commenced to discuss the mys-
Prologue:
Specu- tery of suffering, another
explanation of that mys-
lation upon a
Tran- tery has been suggested to our
thoughts in the
scendental
Expla- prologue. When we are made to see
the Powers
nation of
Heaven discussing the character of Job as if it
were
an item in which the welfare of the universe was concerned,
and
contriving visitations of suffering as means of testing whether
the
character be really all that it seems to be, it is impossible for
our
minds not to generalise, and wonder whether large part of the
visible
suffering in the actual world be not a probationary visita-
tion
of this nature. Here then there is another solution presented:
how
is the treatment to be classified from our immediate point of
view?
The thinker has other weapons besides philosophic dis-
cussion.
Philosophy deals with that which can be known by its
own
methods; but the thinker may recognise a region outside
this,
which therefore from the philosophic point of view is the
unknowable,
which may nevertheless have influences operating
upon
the region of what is known. In reference to such a region
he
will not employ the method of discussion, but rather the form
of
philosophic suggestion that has come to be called ‘speculation.’
The
prologue to Job may be regarded as giving the authority of
Holy
Writ to reverent speculation upon the higher mysteries.
No
doubt here difference of interpretation comes in. Those who
INTRODUCTION 37
consider
that the first two chapters of Job
represent an historic
fact
— incidents which actually happened — will not use the word
speculation:
to them this prologue will be the final settlement
of
the whole question. But the great majority of readers will
take
these chapters to be part of the parable into which the his-
tory
of Job has been worked up; the incidents in heaven, like the
incidents
of the Prodigal Son, they will understand to be spirit-
ually
imagined, not historically narrated. And these will recognise
that
the prologue gives completeness to the Book
of Job viewed
from
the standpoint of philosophy; the problem of human suffer-
ing,
which has in other parts of the book been treated by theory
and
theory modified, by negative positions and reference to a
wider
category, and even by pronouncement upon its practical
bearings,
has a further illumination cast upon it by a speculation
which
refers the origin of suffering to the mysteries of the super-
natural
world.
I have spoken of science as well as
philosophy. Science ob-
serves
nature and life; observation of nature is the Interest of
special
work of modern science, antiquity turned science:
its
reflection chiefly on human life. It is hardly The Land Ques-
necessary
to point out that proverb-like reflec- tion
tions
on society and life form large part of the material out of
which
the dialogue in Job is constructed. I
will be content with
a
single one of the more extended illustrations. It is remarkable
that
the whole course of what the most modern thought calls
‘the
land question’ is sketched in a single chapter of xxiv
Job.
The patriarch is describing what seems to him
the
misgovernment of the world. He commences with the en-
croachments
of private ownership upon the common land:
There are that remove
the landmarks. . . . 2,
4
They turn the needy out
of the way.
There
is consequently the formation of a class of the poor, who
are
either driven to the barren regions, or become a mere labour-
ing
class without rights in the land of the community.
38 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
4,
5 The
poor of the earth hide themselves together:
Behold, as wild asses in
the desert
They go forth to their
work, seeking diligently for meat;
The wilderness yieldeth
them food for their children.
7,
8 They
lie all night naked without clothing,
And have no covering in
the cold.
They are wet with the
showers of the mountains,
And embrace the rock for
want of a shelter.
Poverty,
Job sees, necessitates borrowing, and the fresh distress
that
is its natural sequel.
2,
3 They
violently take away flocks and feed them,
They drive away the ass
of the fatherless,
They take the widow's ox
for a pledge.
Poverty
is seen side by side with wealth, forced into close relation-
ship
with it that increases the distress of want.
6 They
cut his provender in the field;
And they glean the
vintage of the wicked.
10,
11 And
being an-hungered they carry the sheaves;
They make oil within the
walls of these men;
They tread their
winepresses, and suffer thirst.
As
a next stage we get the crowding of population in cities, with
hints
of fresh distress and turbulence.
12 From
out of the populous city men groan,
And the soul of the
wounded crieth out,
Yet God imputeth it not
for folly.
The
climax comes in the formation of a purely criminal class.
13-17 These
are of them that rebel against the light;
They know
not the ways thereof,
NOT abide in
the paths thereof.
The murderer riseth with
the light,
He killeth
the poor and needy;
And in the
night he is as a thief.
The eye also of the
adulterer waiteth for the twilight;
Saying, No
eye shall see me;
And he
putteth a covering on his face.
INTRODUCTION 39
In the dark they dig
through houses:
They shut
themselves up in the daytime.
They know
not the light.
For the morning is to
all of them
As the
shadow of death;
For they
know the terrors of the shadow of death.
It
is noteworthy that when Job makes his general vindication he
finds
a climax in disowning sins against the rights xxxi. 38
and
duties of land.
It appears then that both philosophy
and science have their
representation
in this ancient book of the Bible. Yet every reader
will
feel that these words are an imperfect descrip-
tion
of the matter which makes up the poem of Interest of
Job.
Philosophy is based upon reason; but in the Prophecy
present
case there is a section of the poem which represents God
himself
as entering into the discussion, and holding up a view
of
the truth from which no one appeals. It is clear that in the
Book
of Job yet another element of Revelation mingles side by
side
with Philosophy; and the new element implies a new divi-
sion
of literature. The student who comes to the Bible from
other
literatures must be prepared to recognise a special literary
type,
that of Prophecy: a department which is distinguished from
others
not by form — for Prophecy may take any form but
by
spirit,
its differentia being that it
presents itself as an authoritative
Divine
message. The literary study of the Bible has no more
important
task than that of describing Prophecy from the literary
point
of view.
The varieties of literary form
illustrated in the work we are
considering
are not yet exhausted. We have called the Book of
Job
a drama and a philosophic discussion; yet Interest of
neither
of these descriptions will account for the Rhetoric
strange
character of the individual speeches which
strikes
every reader. Their length, if nothing else, would dis-
tinguish
them from the speeches of other dramas; and their tone
is
equally far removed from the tone of philosophic disquisition.
40 LITERARY
STUDY OF THE BIBLE
They
have in them plenty of dramatic force, and also clear and
effective
strokes of argument. But they do not stop with these;
the
dramatic thrust gives place to ornate moralising which, from
the
dramatic point of view, seems so much waste; and the point
of
the argument is again and again lost in an accumulation of
beautiful
irrelevancy. He would be a very perverse reader who
should
cry out against these characteristics of Job as literary faults:
on
the contrary, they are evidence that the character of the work
is
insufficiently described by the terms drama and discussion. A
further
element comes in of Rhetoric: not in the debased sense
which
the word is coming to bear to modern ears, but the Rhetoric
of
antiquity which was the delight in speech for its own sake.
Each
delivery of a speaker in the poem of Job is to be looked
upon
as a work of art in itself. If Job in the course of the dis-
cussion
interjects the parenthetic thought, "What is the good of
arguing?" this
parenthesis is found to be a finished
xvi. 6-17 meditation of twenty-eight lines. The speech in which
it
occurs is answered by Bildad, and he meets Job's eloquence by
a
tour-de-force of imagery painting the
whole universe watch-
ing to destroy the
sinner, and this piece of word-beauty
xviii. 5-21 runs to thirty-four lines. Zophar in the same round of
discussion
varies the beauty by a string of wise saws on the same
topic,
and these extend to sixty lines. All this is over and above
the portions of the
speeches which are strictly argument-
xx. 4-29 ative. It is clear then that the personages of the
poem
answer
one another, not only with argument and dramatic passion,
but
also with counterpoises of rhetoric weight. The whole be-
comes
like a controversy carried on in sonnets, a discussion waged
in
perorations. Once more the many-sidedness of the Bible is
apparent;
and the student who would fully appreciate it must
train
himself in the literary interest of Rhetoric.
One word more has yet to be said.
The literary varieties men-
tioned
so far are such as appeal chiefly to the mind. But there
is
one main distinction in literature that appeals to the eye and
the
ear also the distinction between the ‘straight-forward’ speech
INTRODUCTION 41
called
‘prose,’ and that kind of speech which ‘measures’ itself
into
metres and verses. A glance at the Book of
Job
in any properly printed version shows that Interest of
this
work, like the plays of Shakespeare or the Versification
later
stories of William Morris, presents an interchange between
the
two fundamental forms of language, being a dialogue in verse
enclosed
in a frame of prose story. When however the English
reader
calls in his ear to supplement his eye, he finds that the
verse
passages of Job differ essentially from what he is accustomed
to
find in English verse. There is no rhyme, nor do the lines
correspond
in meters or syllables. The Book of Job, then, in
addition
to its other literary suggestiveness, raises the elementary
questions
of Biblical versification.
The purpose of this Introduction is
now accomplished. I have
engaged
the reader's attention with a single book of the Bible;
we
have seen that, over and above what it yields to
the
theological faculty or the religious sense, the work Plan
of the whole
Book
of Job is a piece of literature, the analysis of work
which
brings us into contact with all the leading varieties of
literary
form. What the Introduction has done in reference to a
single
book, the work as a whole is to do in reference to the
whole
Bible, proceeding however by a method more regular than
has
been necessary so far. The work will be divided into six
books.
The first book will start with the point last reached --
Biblical
Versification--and widening from this will search out
other
distinctions which may serve as a basis for the Classification
of
Literature under such heads as Lyric, Epic, Philosophic, Pro-
phetic,
Rhetoric. The subsequent books will take up these depart-
ments
one by one, illustrating each, with the subdivisions of each,
from
the most notable examples in the Sacred Writings. The
reader
who has thus given his attention to the general literary
aspects
of the Bible will then find, in an Appendix, Tabular
arrangements
into which the whole of the Bible enters, intended
to
assist him when he desires to read the Sacred Writings from the
literary
point of view.
BOOK FIRST
LITERARY CLASSIFICATION APPLIED TO THE
SACRED
SCRIPTURES
CHAPTER PAGE
1.
VERSIFICATION AND RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 45
II.
THE HIGHER PARALLELISM, OR PARALLELISM OF INTER-
PRETATION 68
III.
THE LOWER AND THE HIGHER UNITY IN LITERATURE 81
IV.
CLASSIFICATION OF LITERARY FORMS 105
CHAPTER
I
VERSIFICATION AND RHYTHMIC
PARALLELISM
THE Bible is the worst-printed book
in the world. No other
monument
of ancient or modern literature suffers the fate of being
put
before us in a form that makes it impossible, Literary form of
without
strong effort and considerable training, to Scripture ob-
take
in elements of literary structure which in all scured by ordi-
other
books are conveyed directly to the eye in a
nary modes of
manner
impossible to mistake. printing.
By universal consent the authors of
the Sacred Scriptures
included
men who, over and above qualifications of a more
sacred
nature, possessed literary power of the highest order. But
between
their time and ours the Bible has passed through what
may
be called an Age of Commentary, extending over fifteen
centuries
and more. During this long period form, which should
be
the handmaid of matter, was more and more overlooked;
reverent,
keen, minute analysis and exegesis, with interminable
verbal
discussion, gradually swallowed up the sense of literary
beauty.
When the Bible emerged from this Age of Commentary,
its
artistic form was lost; rabbinical commentators had divided
it
into ‘chapters,’ and medieval translators into ‘verses,’ which
not
only did not agree with, but often ran counter to, the origi-
nal
structure. The force of this unliterary tradition proved too
strong
even for the literary instincts of King James's translators.
Accordingly,
one who reads only the ‘Authorized Version’ incurs
a
double danger: if he reads his Bible by chapters he will, with-
out
knowing it, be often commencing in the middle of one com-
45
46 LITERARY CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE
position
and leaving off in the middle of another; while, in
in
particular: whatever way he may read it,
he will know no dis-
verse printed
as tinction between prose and verse.
It is only in
prose our own day that a better state of things
has
arisen.
The Church of England led the way by issuing its ‘New
Lectionary’;
the new lessons will be found to differ from the old
chiefly
in the fact that the passages marked out for public reading
are
no longer limited by the beginnings and endings of chapters.
Later
still the ‘Revised Version’ of the Bible, whatever it may
have
left undone, has at all events made an attempt to rescue
Biblical
poetry from the reproach of being printed as prose.
It is to the latter of these two
points — the distinction between
verse
and prose — that I address myself in the present chapter.
Biblical
Versifi- No doubt the confusion of the
two would have
cation based
on been
impossible, were it not that the versification
parallelism
of of
the Bible is of a kind totally unlike that which
clauses prevails in English literature. Biblical verse is
made
neither by rhyme nor by numbering of syllables; its long-
lost
secret was discovered by Bishop Lowth more than a cen-
tury
after King James's time. Its underlying principle is found
to
be the symmetry of clauses in a verse, which has come to be
called
‘Parallelism.’
Hast thou given the
horse his might?
Hast thou clothed his
neck with the quivering mane?
Hast thou made him to
leap as a locust?
The glory of
his snorting is terrible.
He paweth in
the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:
He goeth out
to meet the armed men.
He mocketh
at fear, and is not dismayed;
Neither
turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver
rattleth against him,
The flashing
spear and the javelin.
He
swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage;
Neither
standeth he still at the voice of the trumpet.
As oft as
the trumpet soundeth he saith, Aha
And he
smelleth the battle afar off,
The thunder
of the captains, and the shouting.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 47
It
is abundantly clear, first, that this is a passage of the highest
rhythmic
beauty; secondly, that the effect depends neither on
rhyme
nor metre. Like the swing of a pendulum to and fro, like
the
tramp of an army marching in step, the versification of the
Bible
moves with a rhythm of parallel lines.
How closely the effect of this
versification is bound up with the
parallelism
of the clauses, the reader may satisfy himself by a
simple
experiment. Let him take such a psalm as the one hun-
dred
and fifth; and, commencing (say) with the eighth verse,
let
him read on, omitting the second line of each couplet: what
he
reads will then make excellent historic prose.
He hath remembered his covenant for
ever: the covenant which he
made with Abraham, and confirmed the
same unto Jacob for a
statute, saying, "Unto thee will
I give the
they were but a few men in number,
and they went about from
nation to nation. He suffered no man
to do them wrong, saying,
"Touch not mine anointed
ones."
Let
him now read again, putting in the lines omitted: the prose
becomes
transformed into verse full of the rhythm and lilt of a
march.
He hath remembered his
covenant for ever,
The word
which he commanded to a thousand generations;
The covenant which he
made with Abraham,
And his oath
unto Isaac;
And confirmed the same
unto Jacob for a statute,
To
Saying, "Unto thee
will I give the
The lot of
your inheritance":
When they were but a few
men in number;
Yea, very
few, and sojourners in it;
And they went about from
nation to nation,
From one
kingdom to another people
He suffered no man to do
them wrong;
Yea, he
reproved kings for their sakes;
Saying, "Touch not
mine anointed ones,
And do my
prophets no harm."
48 LITERARY CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE
The alphabet, then, of Scriptural
versification will be the figures
The Couplet
and of Parallelism. Of these figures
the simplest and
Triplet most fundamental are the Couplet and
Triplet. A
Couplet
consists of two parallel clauses, a Triplet of three.
The LORD of
Hosts is with us;
The God of
Jacob is our refuge.
He maketh wars to cease
unto the end of the earth;
He breaketh the bow, and
cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots
in the fire.
It
is remarkable that the musical rendering of the psalms by
chants,
which in some points is carried to such a degree of nicety,
entirely
ignores this foundation difference of Couplet and Triplet,
the
same chant being sung to both. To take a typical case.
The LORD of Hosts is with us
The God of Ja - cob is our refuge.
This
is correct, because a piece of music which is two-fold in
its
structure is sung to a couplet verse. But presently the same
music
will be sung to the triplet verse.
He maketh wars to cease unto the end
of the earth :
He breaketh the bow and CUTTETH the spear
in sunder.
He BURNeth the char - iots in the
fire.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 49
Every
ear must detect that this is a clumsy makeshift: it runs
counter
to a rhythmic distinction as fundamental as the distinction
of
common time and triple time in music. The remedy is very
simple.
Chants of this nature are made up of two parts.
As
such they are only fitted to couplet verses. For the triplet
verse
a variant is needed to the first part, sufficiently like it to be
recognised,
yet differing in a note or two. For
a
simple variant would be
The
couplet verse would be sung as before; for the triplet the
variant
would be inserted between the first and second parts.
(first
part)
He
maketh wars to CEASE unto the end of
the earth.
(variant)
He
breaketh the bow and CUTTETH the spear in sunder.
(second
part)
He BURNeth the char – iots in the fire.
50 LITERARY CLASSIFICA TION OF SCRIPTURE
I am loth to delay the reader with
what may seem to be merely
technical
matters. But attention to just a few of the elementary
forms of
Hebrew verse will richly repay itself in
Quatrains and increased susceptibility to the rhythmic cadence of
Double
Triplets Biblical poetry. Passing then to
other figures, it is
natural
to mention first the Quatrain, which has four lines. The
four
lines may be related to one another in various ways, of which
the
commonest is Alternation, the first line being parallel with the
third,
and the second with the fourth.
With the merciful
Thou wilt
show thyself merciful:
With the perfect man
Thou wilt
show thyself perfect.1
In
the Quatrain Reversed, or Introverted, the first line corresponds
with
the fourth, and the two middle lines with one another.
Have mercy upon me, 0
God,
According to
thy loving kindness:
According to
the multitude of Thy tender mercies
Blot out my
transgressions.2
Usually
such introversion is merely a matter of form, but some-
times
it is found to be closely bound up with the sense.
Give not that which is
holy unto the dogs,
Neither cast
your pearls before the swine:
Lest haply
they [the swine] trample them under their feet,
And [the dogs] turn and
rend you.3
1 Psalm xviii. 25.
The following verse is another example, and this figure is
very common.
2 Psalm li. I.
Compare the metre of In Memoriam. Other examples are Psalm
ciii. i ; ix.
15.
3 Matthew vii. 6. It
will be observed that Hebrew parallelism strongly influ-
ences the
language of the New Testament, and of Apocryphal books originally
Greek. It is
therefore technically correct to treat Biblical literature as a depart-
ment by
itself.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 51
Very
rarely the couplets of a Quatrain are not only parallel but
interwoven,
so that the sense of the first line is carried on by the
third,
and the sense of the second by the fourth.
I will make mine arrows
drunk with blood,
And my sword
shall devour flesh:
With the blood of the
slain and the captives,
[Flesh] From
the head of the leaders of the enemy.1
As
we have Quatrain and Quatrain Reversed, so we have the
Double
Triplet and the Triplet Reversed.
Ask, and it shall be
given you;
Seek, and ye
shall find;
Knock,
and it shall be opened unto you.
For every one that
asketh receiveth,
And he that
seeketh findeth,
And
to him that knocketh it shall be opened.2
The
eye catches what the ear confirms in this arrangement: how
the
first line of the second triplet balances the first line of the
first
triplet, the second the second, and the third the third. But
in
what follows the order of the second triplet is reversed, so
that
the beginning of the whole corresponds with the end, and
the
middle lines with one another:
No servant can serve two
masters:
For either
he will hate the one,
And
love the other;
Or
else he will hold to one,
And despise
the other.
Ye cannot serve God and
mammon.3
It is to be observed that such
figures occur either Recitative addi-
pure
or intermixed with a sequence of words that tions to Figures
1 Deut. xxxii. 42.
2 Matthew vii. 7, 8.
Other examples are Matthew xii. 35; Isaiah xxxv. 5.
3 Luke xvi. 13. Other examples are Proverbs
xxx. 8, 9; Ezekiel i. 27.
52 LITERARY CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE
remains
outside the rhythm, like the ‘recitative’ of a chant. Such
a
recitative may occur at the beginning:
And in that day thou
shalt say
I will give
thanks unto thee, 0 Lord,
For
though thou vast angry with me,
Thine
anger is turned away,
And thou
comfortest me.
or
at the end:
Make the heart of this
people fat,
And make
their ears heavy,
And
shut their eyes:
Lest
they see with their eyes,
And hear
with their ears,
And understand with
their heart:
and turn again and be healed.
Or
the recitative may even occur by interruption in the middle of
the
figure: a passage in St. Matthew has two Reversed Quatrains
in
succession thus interrupted.
Whosoever shall swear by the
But whosoever shall swear by the
Gold of the
(Ye fools and blind)
For whether is greater, the Gold?
Or the
And, Whosoever shall swear by the Altar,
it is nothing,
But whosoever shall swear by the
Gift that is upon it, he is a debtor:
(Ye fools and blind)
For whether is greater, the Gift?
Or the Altar that sanctifieth the Gift?
There
is no limit to the length or variety of such figures in
Biblical
versification. Of the more elaborate it
The Chain
Figure will
be enough to instance two. The Chain Fig-
ure
is made up of a succession of clauses so linked that the goal
of
one clause becomes the starting-point of the next.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 53
That which the
palmerworm hath left
hath the
locust eaten;
and that
which the locust hath left
hath
the cankerworm eaten;
and
that which the cankerworm hath left
hath
the caterpillar eaten.l
The
figure is all the more impressive when an additional line
comes
to complete the chain of ideas by connecting the end with
the
beginning.
For her true beginning
is
desire of
discipline;
And the care
for discipline is
love
of her;
And
love of her is
observance
of her laws;
And
to give heed to her laws
confirmeth incorruption;
And incorruption bringeth near unto God;
So then desire of wisdom
promoteth to a kingdom.
But
perhaps the most important figure, and the one most attrac-
tive
to the genius of Hebrew poetry, is the Envel- The Envelope
ope
Figure, by which a series of parallel lines Figure
running
to any length are enclosed between an identical (or
equivalent)
opening and close.
By their fruits ye shall
know them.
Do men
gather grapes of thorns?
Or figs of
thistles?
Even so
every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,
But the
corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit:
A good tree
cannot bring forth evil fruit,
Neither can
a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree
that bringeth not forth good fruit
Is hewn
down, and cast into the fire.
Therefore by their
fruits ye shall know them.
1 Joel i. 4. Other
examples are in Hosea ii. 21, 22; Romans x. 14, 15; II Peter i.
5-7.
The passage next cited is from Wisdom vi. 17-20.
2 Compare Psalm viii: or,
in English poetry, the opening stanza of Southey's
Thalaba.
54 LITERARY CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE
The
same artistic effect of envelopment is produced when in such
a
figure the close is not a repetition of the opening, but completes
it,
so that the opening and the close make a unity which the
parallel
clauses develop,
Consider the ravens:
that they
sow not,
neither
reap:
which have
no store-chamber nor barn;
and God
feedeth them:
Of how much more value
are ye than the birds!1
The general subject of versification
includes not only these
Figures
of Parallelism, the ultimate form by which Biblical verse
separates itself from
prose, but also those larger
Stanzas aggregations of lines and verses making integral
parts
of a poem, which may be called ‘Stanzas.’ Four points
may
be noted in regard to the position of the stanzas in the
structure
of Hebrew verse.
First, a poem may be, composed of
similar figures through-
out:
this is the treatment most familiar to the reader of English
1. Stanzas of
Sim- literature. The hundred and
twenty-first psalm
ilar Figures is made up
of four similar quatrains.
Psalm
cxxi I will lift up mine eyes unto the
mountains:
From whence
shall my help come?
My help
cometh from the LORD,
Which made
heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy
foot to be moved:
He that
keepeth thee will not slumber;
Behold, he
that keepeth
Shall
neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is thy keeper:
The LORD is
thy shade upon thy right hand;
The sun
shall not smite thee by day,
Nor the moon
by night.
1 Luke xii. 24.-The
figure made by a Question and its Answer comes under
this
head; e.g. Psalm xv, or Psalm xxiv. 3-6.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 55
The LORD shall keep thee
from all evil:
He shall
keep thy soul;
The LORD
shall keep thy going out and thy coming in,
From this
time forth and for evermore.
Here may be mentioned a device of
versification which applies
to
this as to all varieties of structure. It is the Refrain: the recur-
rence
of a verse (or part of a verse) the repetition The Refrain as a
of
which, besides being an artistic effect in itself, structural device
assists
also in marking off such divisions as stanzas. A refrain in
stanzas
of this first kind will be given by the familiar hundred and
thirty-sixth
psalm; the poem is wholly composed of couplets,
and
the second line of each couplet is the refrain,
For his
mercy endureth for ever.
A second treatment of stanzas is
seen where a psalm is found
to
be composed of different figures. The analysis of the first
psalm
yields a result of this nature. First we 2. Stanzas of
have
a triple triplet preceded by a recitative. Varying Figures
Blessed is the man Psalm
i
that walketh
not
in
the counsel
of
the wicked,
Nor standeth
in
the way
of
sinners,
Nor sitteth
in
the seat
of
the scornful.
This
is followed by a quatrain reversed.
But his delight
is in the
law of the LORD :
And in his
law
Doth he meditate day and
night.
56 LITERARY CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE
The
next verse is a good example of the closeness with which
form
reflects matter. Its form is found to be a double quatrain
with
an introduction. On examination this recitative introduction
will
be seen to put forward the general thought — the comparison
of
the devout life to a tree; while the figure works this thought
out
into particulars, on the plan of the left-hand members of the
figure
suggesting elements of vegetable life—the planting, the
fruitage,
the foliage—and the right-hand members predicating
perfection
of each.
And he shall be like a
Tree
Planted
by
the streams of water,
That
bringeth forth its fruit
in
its season;
Whose leaf
also
cloth
not wither,
And
whatsoever he doeth
shall
prosper.
Next,
we have a single couplet, sharply contrasting with what has
gone
before the mere worldly life.
The wicked are not so,
But are like the Chaff
which the wind driveth away.
A
simple quatrain and a quatrain reversed bring the poem to a
conclusion.
Therefore the wicked
shall not stand
in the
judgement,
Nor sinners
in the
congregation of the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth
the way of the righteous,
But the way
of the wicked
shall perish.
As
much lyric beauty is here produced by the avoidance of similar
figures
in successive verses as in the former case by the repetition
of
them.
RHYTHMIC PARALLELISM 57
Where lyrics are constructed on this
second plan the refrain
may
still come to emphasise the divisions. The forty-sixth psalm
is
arranged in the Revised Version in two stanzas of six lines and
one
of seven: the refrain — a shout of triumph brings each to
a
climax. It has, however, dropped out by accident from the first
stanza
in the received text, and must be restored.1
God is our refuge and
strength, Psalm
xlvi
A very present help in
trouble.
Therefore
will we not fear, though the earth do change,
And though
the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;
Though the
waters thereof roar and be troubled,
Though the
mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US;
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE!
There is a river, the streams
whereof make glad the city of
The holy place of the tabernacles of
the Most High.
God is in the midst of
her; she shall not be moved:
God shall help her, and
that right early.
The nations raged, the
kingdoms were moved:
He uttered his voice,
the earth melted.
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US;
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE!
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
What desolations he hath made in the
earth.
He maketh wars to cease
unto the end of the earth;
He breaketh the bow, and
cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots
in the fire.
“Be still, and know that
I am God:
I will be exalted among
the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US;
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE!
1 On the general subject
of textual emendation, I would lay down the principle
that,
where the sense is affected by a proposed change, it is prudent to be con-
servative
and chary of admitting it. But where (as with a repetition) it is only a
question
of form, the long period of tradition mentioned above, during which the
literary
form of Scripture was overlooked, justifies us in expecting many omissions
and
misplacements.