3S 1415 ?27 AN INDUCTIVE STUDY OF THE METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE IN THE BOOK OF JOB BY EARLE FENTON PALMER, M.A., PH.D. THESIS FOR THE DOCTORATE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY NEW YORK UNIVERSITY APRIL, 1906 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY. LANCASTER, PA. AN INDUCTIVE STUDY OF THE METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE IN THE BOOK OF JOB BY EARLE FENTON PALMER, M.A., PH.D. THESIS FOR THE DOCTORATE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY NEW YORK UNIVERSITY APRIL, 1906 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY. LANCASTER, PA. 1906 .* CONTENTS. , PAGE. PART I. FACTS SUGGESTING THE STUDY: A. The Literature Itself Appreciations 1 Theme 2 Dramatic Element ......... 3 Cycle Structure 5 Space Allotment ......... 6 B. Attention to Details, Characteristic of the Oriental Mind . 7 PART II. MATERIAL FOR THE STUDY: I. The Metaphors in the Prose Portions 12 (a) Familiar and Colloquial Images . . . . . 12 (&) War 12 II. The Metaphors in the Speeches of Job . . . . . 12 A. Nature 12 (a) Aspects of the Sky 12 1. Clouds 12 2. The Heavens 12 3. The Stars 12 4. Day and Night 12 5. The Seasons 13 6. Eclipse 13 7. Storm 13 8. Wind 13 (6) Aspects of Water 13 1. The Sea 13 2. The Brooks 13 3. Water 14 (c) Aspects of the Earth 14 1. The Earth 14 2. The Mountains 14 3. Minerals 14 4. Clay, Dust and Ashes 15 (d) The Vegetable Kingdom 15 1. Trees 15 2. Flowers 16 3. Grain 16 4. Plants 16 (e) The Animal Kingdom 16 1. Animals ........ 16 2. Birds 16 3. Serpents and Fish 16 iv CONTENTS. PAGE. B. Man and Human Life 17 (a) Government ........ 17 1. Kings and Princes ...... 17 2. Priests 17 3. Judges and Counsellors . . . . .17 4. Prisons, Courts and Trial 17 (&) Various Occupations 17 (c) Agriculture ........ 18 (d) Trades, Tools and Products 18 1. Trades 18 2. Tools 18 3. Products 19 (e) Domestic Life, Family Relations, Birth, Servants, Dress 19 1. Family 19 2. Birth 19 3. Servants 19 4. Clothes 20 (f) Manners, Customs and Amusements ... 20 1. Manners and Customs ...... 20 2. Amusements ....... 20 (g) Colloquial, Coarse and Familiar Images . . 21 (h) The body and its parts, including the senses and food 21 1. Parts of the Body .... 7 . 21 2. Functions of the Body 22 3. Food 22 ( i) Subjective Life 22 ( fc) Death 22 ( 1) War 22 (m) Scripture ........ 23 ( n) Miscellaneous 23 III. Metaphors in the speeches of Eliphaz ..... 23 A. Nature 23 (a) Aspects of the Sky 23 1. The Sky 23 2. Day and Night 23 3. Storm 23 (6) Aspects of Water 23 (c) The Earth 23 2. The Elements 24 3. Minerals 24 (d) Vegetable Kingdom 24 (e) Animal Kingdom ....... 24 H. Man and Human Life 24 (a) Various Occupations ...... 24 CONTENTS. V PAGE. 1. Agriculture 24 (6) Domestic Life 24 1. Houses 24 2. Birth 25 (c) Parts of the Body 25 2. Food 25 (d) Subjective Life 25 (e) War 25 IV. Metaphors in the Speeches of Bildad 25 A. Nature 25 (a) Day and Night, Shadow, Wind .... 25 (6) Aspects of the Earth 25 (c) Vegetable Kingdom ...... 25 (d) Animal Kingdom 25 B. Man and Human Life ....... 26" (a) Trades 26 (&) Domestic Life 26 (c) Death and the Grave 2ft (d) Miscellaneous ....... 26 V. Metaphors in the Speeches of Zophar 26 A. Nature 26 (a) Aspects of the Sky 26 Day and Night 26 (fc) Aspects of Water 26 (c) The Earth 26 The Elements 2T (d) The Animal Kingdom ZT B. Man and Human Life 27* (a) Domestic Life 27" (6) Coarse and Repulsive Metaphors .... 2T (c) Food 27 (d) Subjective Life 27 Dreams ......... 27 (e) War 27 VI. Metaphors in the Speeches of Elihu 27 A. Nature 27 (a) Aspects of the Sky 27 Storm 27 (6) The Earth 28 B. Man and Human Life 28 (a) Domestic Life 2;8 (6) Food 28 (c) Quoted from Job 29 VII. Metaphors in the Jehovah Speeches 29 A. Nature 29 VI CONTENTS. PAGE. (a) Aspects of the Sky 29 1. The Stars 29 2. Day and Night 29 3. Storm 29 (6) Aspects of Water 29 (c) Aspects of the Earth 29 1. Earth 29 2. Minerals, Dust 30 (d) Animal Kingdom 30 B. Man and Human Life 30 (a) Agriculture 30 (6) Trades 30 (c) Domestic Life 30 (d) War 30 VIII. Metaphors in the Disputed Portions .... 31 1. Metaphors in the Speeches of Elihu .... 31 2. Metaphors in the Mining Lyric ..... 31 3. Behemoth 31 4. Leviathan 31 IX. Metaphors in Portions of the Third Cycle .... 32 1. Metaphors in Chapter 24: 18-21 32 2. Metaphors in Chapter 27: 8-23 32 3. Metaphors in Chapter 25 33 PAST III. INDUCTIONS FROM A STUDY OF THE MATERIAL IN PAST II. 1. What the Metaphors Reveal as to Oriental Trope in General (a) Abundance . 35 (&) Relation to Abstract Thinking 36 (c) Mnemonic Value . 37 2. Geographical Indications 37 3. Indication of Date ......... 41 Solomon . 42 Early Prophets 43 Jeremiah 45 Deuteronomy 47 Isaiah 47 4. Light that the Metaphors Throw upon the Unity of the Book Theories 50 Behemoth and Leviathan ....... 51 Elihu 52 Chapter 28 53 Unifying Characteristics ....... 53 5. Metaphors of the Several Speakers 54 Author's Interest in Character 54 Eliphaz 55 Bildad 56 CONTENTS. Vll Zophar Job Jehovah The Third Cycle Limitations in Interpretation of the Figurative Expressions (a) Specific Literary Force (6) Philosophic Content PAGE. 58 59 67 70 74 75 i AN INDUCTIVE STUDY OF THE METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE IN JOB. Stedman calls the book of Job "the sublimest poem of antiquity, with no peak near it," and declares that it is both epic and dramatic, embodying the whole wisdom of the patri- archal race. 1 "The narrative prelude to Job," he goes on to say, "has the direct epic simplicity a Cyclopean porch to the temple, but within are Heaven, the angels, the plumed Lord of Evil, before the throne of a judicial God. The personages of the dialogue beyond are firmly distinguished: Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu and the smitten protagonist himself, majestic in ashes and desolation. Each outvies the other in grandeur of language, imagination, worship. Can there be a height beyond these lofty utterances? Yes: only in this poem God answered out of the whirlwind, His voice made audible, as if an added range of hearing for a space enabled us to comprehend the reverberations of a super-human tone." Moulton voices his appreciation of the poem as fol- lows: "If a jury of persons well instructed in literature, were impanelled to pronounce upon the question 'what is the greatest poem in the world's great literature/ while on such a question unanimity would be impossible, yet I believe a large majority would give their verdict in favor of the book of Job." 2 Delitzsch names it the " Melchizedek among the Old Testament books," and maintains that it is " a masterpiece of systematic creative art." Carlyle thinks "There is nothing written with pen, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit." 1 " The Nature of Poetry," p. 86. 2 Modern Reader's Bible, introduction, p. v. 1 2 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. What in the poem entitles it to so great praise from such high sources? It exercises a spell that defies complete analysis, is more potent than the sum of all the reasons ascribed. All the authorities cited agree that it is great, but when they analyze its greatness, suggest varying causes: one personifying it as that "priest of God" whom the ancient faith invested with super- stitious awe: another emphasizing its sublimity, its patriarchal wisdom, its epic and dramatic form: a third marvelling at its systematic creative art. For three reasons then Job deserves a * detailed study: for the theme which makes its appeal to all humanity, and which in its handling does command an awe almost superstitious ; for the literary types it embodies ; and for the rhetorical details it presents. With two of these interests we shall concern ourselves only in passing ; a study of the third is to be the immediate purpose of this paper. In its theme the book of Job deals with the most universal of all topics; the Mystery of Suffering, the Problem of Pain / (3: 20). Pain makes the most thoughtless consider the mean- ing of life. A Science tries to overcome its ravages; the signifi- cance of the term is fundamental to philosophy ; and the greater half of poetry has to do with the tragedy of life. Here we have then a spiritual or abstract theme, ramifying into every realm of life, and forcing every individual somehow or other to recog- nize its reality. The truth is a unity, its interest is universal ; but its application must be made personal and individual. The author's problem was, therefore, to express this fundamental truth in the terms of the concrete. He could not present his thoughts in abstractions. If he had, the Hebrew people who were his audience, would not have understood him. He was obliged to use concrete images to create in their minds the feel- ings he wished to produce, the convictions he hoped to establish. In this characteristic of the ancient Hebrew mind, in its need of the concrete appeal, we find a reason for the rhetorical detail in the book of Job. Even a theme so vital as the suffering they underwent, endured or resente'd, to be made clear to them must be discussed in the terms of the concrete in simile or in meta- METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 3 phor. It cannot but be of interest therefore in connection with the theme to make a study of the sources from which were drawn the similes and metaphors by which the author endeavored to elucidate his thought. Since the author of Job found rhetorical detail so necessary to the development of his theme, it is probable that Dramatic , f Element iound it equally necessary to the development of the literary form he employed, for the type of any work is the outgrowth of its author's purpose. Genung calls Job " the epic of the inner life," 1 but he also admits that it is in part dramatic. 2 In an epic the poet himself speaks, the action is by-gone, the scene is described, the persons are spoken of in the third person ; there are only two concerned in it, the poet and the reader. In Job not the poet, but Job himself speaks; so do his friends.. The action is present; each character comes in turn into the light) to have his say. The scene is not described, but indicated as in a play. These considerations have led all critics of the book of/ Job to admit its dramatic character. Few, however, go so far as to classify it as a drama in the technical sense, for the He- brews had no theatre, and its author probably had no thought of its ever being presented on the stage. The explanation of this difficulty in classification and of the predominance of the dramatic element of the work, lies in the purpose and method of the author. The proverbs had hardened into a creed. The schools of Teman had become the center of orthodoxy. Their teaching was : The righteous always prosper ; the wicked always suffer. The purpose of the author of the book of Job was to show the error of this doctrine. He admits the truth in the Teman philosophy, but says, while your observations have been wide, they have not been wide enough. True, evil does tend to , misery, and righteousness lead to prosperity ; but the upright some- times suffer and often through no fault of their own. Let us therefore consider every fact, for " wisdom is justified of all her 1 " The Epic of the Inner Life," p. 24. 2 M, p. 21. 4 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. children." He had ideas of philosophy to work out, and a sys- tem of ethics to propound. His method was to personify and dramatize. The Hebrew sage did not go about his task as a modern metaphysician or as a Greek philosopher would have done, did not write an essay, or reason from abstract prin- ciples. Not with the method of logic or ethics or science did he set forth his truth. On the contrary he individualized his con- ceptions, he dramatized his philosophy, striking out in univer- salized poetic form, his truth, discussing a profound problem of human life, by means of an interplay of thought, not abstract and intellectual, but vital and dramatic. The interest is not in the theory which it propounds, but in the application of a popular theory to human experience in time of trial. The author's philosophy then is dramatized, and expressed in the person of Job undergoing certain spiritual experiences. Job is a spiritual Laocoon, wrestling with the twin serpents of doubt and despair. How was the author to make these experiences vivid? When Coleridge wanted to reproduce in the mind of his readers the suffering of the human heart, and to intensify that suffering, he introduced the element of the supernatural. His recitation of the horrors of the deep, serves very well to recreate the experiences of the heart stricken with a sense of wickedness ; and variations of the images take the reader through the feeling of repentance and forgiveness. When the author of the book of Job wished to accomplish the same result, this office of the supernatural in literature was not open to him. God was to be the chief factor in the opposing force in Job's drama, and therefore the element of the supernatural must be reserved for intimations of Deity, and other means must be taken to present Job's mental condition. The supernatural was to serve other purposes than to* emphasize human states of mind. What Coleridge expresses for the Ancient Mariner by means of the supernatural, the author of the book of Job expresses for his hero by the use of simile and metaphor. Indeed, he uses the simile and metaphor also to create in the thought of the hearer his ideas of God and providence. For his dramatized METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 5 philosophy he had an elastic medium, since Hebrew poetry, whietf was built not only on metre but also on a system of paral- lelism, a function of prose combined the measured beauties of verse, with the freedom of prose. In structure the book of Job is carefully elaborated. It is a c . poem, with a prose prologue and a prose epilogue. It tells the story of a man eminently good, pros- perous and happy, who, at the instance of Satan, though himself perceiving therein only- God's vengeful stroke, is suddenly de- prived of everything (except his wife) ; property, children, health, the world's esteem ; who, accused and deserted by rela- tives, and friends, nevertheless sturdily refuses to own that his affliction is due to sin, or that his punishment is just ; and who after many pains of doubt and conquests of faith, is commended by Jehovah and restored to twice his former property. The major portion of the work consists of discussion and argument : Job and his friends affirming and answering, reproving and re- criminating, in three elaborate cycles of discourses ; Elihu com- ing in, full of words after his friends are silenced and Jehovah pronouncing the final answer out of the whirlwind. There is an invariable sequence in which the speakers par- ticipate in the cycles: First Job speaks; then Eliphaz answers him. Job replies and Bildad answers. Job speaks again and Zophar answers; the same order being observed in each of the three cycles of discourses. Job then utters his oath of clearing, and Elihu breaks in. His remarks are attended, near the close, with the approach of a storm: thunder, lightning and a whirl- wind. Jehovah speaks from the whirlwind, and the drama is concluded. All this shows careful elaboration and suggests that the source of the similes and metaphors employed must be significant and worthy of consideration ; for it is probable that an author who realized the necessity both for concrete appeal to his audience, and for elaborate details, would be painstaking in regard to the sources from which he drew the metaphors that were to impress his theories. 6 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. Near the close of the third cycle there is a slight irregularity : Zophar's last speech is omitted in the present Hebrew arrange- ment, and a sonnet of ^wonderful lyric beauty is put into the mouth of Job. It may be that some light will be thrown upon the proper arrangement of this portion of the book, by a study of the sources from which the different speakers draw their metaphors. In addition to these considerations, there is another fact in _ regard to the structure of the book of Job, which Allotment. would suggest a special study of any detail in the work and especially therefore of the figurative language. The fact referred to, is the apparently measured space allotted to each speaker and division of the book. Not only does each speaker take his turn regularly in the cycles, but there seems to be also a fixed number of words assigned to him, in which he is to express his thought; and each division seems to bear a definite relation in length to the other portions. That this relation of space allotment actually exists may be adequately enough suggested by calling attention to the fact that in the Hebrew text, as it stands to-day, the prose prologue con- tains about twice as many words as the prose epilogue. The Jehovah speeches are of equal length with the speeches of Elihu ; and taken together their speeches are one-third as long as the speeches of Job and the three friends in the cycles. Job's first speech contains as many words as the epilogue; and Eliphaz's reply contains the same number of words as the prologue, and is twice the length of Job's curse. Job's second speech is three times the length of Bildad's reply; and Job's third speech is three times as long as Zophar's reply; Bildad's and Zophar's speeches being of equal length, as are also Job's second and third speeches. It is not worth while to go into this sort of thing very ex- tensively, and there is very little that can be gotten out of a work of literature by the foot rule. Still, if the author gave enough attention to the details of his work to portion out even the number of words in the different divisions, it cannot be out METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 7 of place to point out that fact, and to conclude that if so external a thing was considered other details including similes and meta- phors were equally subjects of special attention. Not only do these facts in the literature of the Book of Job suggest a study of the similes and metaphors, but . . such a study is also suggested by a characteristic To Detail ^ ^ e oriental mind which manifests itself in every department of their life. In government, in manners, in customs, and in art, the oriental mind exhibits a peculiar attention to detail. The government of an Eastern kingdom is as different as may be from our Western civiliza- tion. The palace, the retinue, the decorations, the costumes, the gardens of an oriental city are all strange and marvelous to the Western visitor. Among the other causes which produce this striking effect, is the characteristic here referred to: attention to detail. It manifests itself in the institutions of China, of India and of Turkey to-day. But the oriental mind is con- servative, and in the beginnings of one such nation, may be studied in microcosm, the development of later centuries. The oriental loves detail to-day he loved it in the day of the patri- archs. The directions found in the Pentateuch for the govern- ment of the children of Israel, give the secret of the attention to detail manifested by oriental governments to-day. In Exodus 18 : 13-26 is set forth the method by which He- brew institutions were developed. The people stood before Moses, the thing was too heavy for him alone ; so he provided out of all the people, able men to be rulers of thousands, and hun- dreds, and fifties and tens. He then gave most minute direc- tions for the guidance of these men, as recorded in the following chapters. In Exodus 25 we have the detailed directions for the building of the tabernacle and for its furnishing. Just how minute these details are may be gathered from an examination of the directions for making the candlestick : " and thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold : of beaten work shall the candlestick be made : his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same. And six branches shall come out of the 8 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side: three bowls made like unto almonds, with a knop and a flower in one branch; and three bowls made like almonds in the other branch, with a knop and a flower : so in the six branches that come out of the candlestick. And in the candlestick shall be four bowls made like unto almonds, with their knops and their flowers. And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick. Their knops and branches shall be of the same : all of it shall be one beaten work of pure gold. And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof; and they shall cause to ascend the lamps thereof that they may give light over against it. And the tongs thereof and the snuff-dishes therof shall be of pure gold. Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it with all these vessels. And look that thou make them after their pattern." (25 : 31-40.) The directions for the robes of the priests and for the ephod are given in the same characteristic way. Here we have then at the very beginning of an oriental race, the same attention to detail which characterizes the government and institutions of Eastern peoples to-day. In manners and customs they show the same regard for minutiae. " Here a little, there a little ; line upon line, precept upon precept." The directions for the different kinds of sacri- fices are given with this same unwearying attention to detail, in the opening chapters of Leviticus. Here we find also the details in regard to what is clean and what is unclean ; the de- tailed laws concerning leprosy, the purification of women and so on, and so on. The same characteristic is manifest in regard to the institution and observance of the Sabbath (Ex. 16 : 20- 35, etc.). The scrupulous adherence to detail which may be seen in the celebration of any feast, or ceremony, or business venture, in our city to-day on the part of these people, may be traced back to the law as laid down centuries ago in the Penta- teuch or the Talmud. It is not a small matter, this attention to detail on the Jew's part, for it manifests itself in all relations in life and accounts for much in the history of his people. Not only has this characteristic affected the history, but it has manifested itself in the art and determined the literature of the Orient It is seen in the Turkish rugs and the Syrian laces. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 9 Tennyson recognizes it in his phrase, " Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere." In this connection it is interesting to read the account of the early art workers given in Exodus. 1 Here we find that " Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur," had wisdom and understanding and knowledge "to devise curious works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass, and in the cutting of stones, to set them and in carving of wood" and to make any manner of cunning work. Not only does this passage illustrate the Oriental tendency to detail, but further on 2 we read that Ahobab had " wisdom of heart to work all manner of work of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver." The word used here for curious and cunning is derived from the root l&n> which means to mingle, to compute, to reckon ; to think, to meditate, to consider. The Hebrew word, allied as it is to the Arabic, the Syriac and the Ethiopic, explains one pecu- liarity of the rugs, laces, carvings so highly prized to-day : the minutest detail is reckoned, thought out, meditated upon, considered. Their literature was no less influenced by this tendency to detail, than their art. Minute rules were set for the guidance of their scribes ; who were exhorted to wipe their pens after the formation of each letter, to count the number of words every so often, and to know the central word in the writing. So un- questioned is the significance of detail in Hebrew literature, that Moulton claims 3 that Job may be analyzed by a study of the variations of metre, for in this work a change in the poetic structure occurs with every change in the thought. Even num- ber is to them significant, special prominence being given to 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12. For instance, the numbers of animals pos- sessed by Job are 7, 3, 5, and 5 thousand respectively. 4 He 1 Ex. 35 : 30-35. 2 Ex. 35 : 35. 3 Modern Reader's Bible, notes, p. 134. 'Ch. 1: 3. 10 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. had seven sons and three daughters; there are three friends, three cycles of speeches; twelve animals are alluded to in the Jehovah speeches. A number sonnet based on the number seven is introduced in Eliphaz's first speech. 1 The fact that this regard for detail is a basic element in the oriental mind, establishes the importance of the metaphors in the book of Job. But it is difficult, in making an analytic study of a detail in a work of epic importance, to avoid a merely academic performance. It may be possible, however, so to rise above the letter as not to lose sight of the living spirit of the work, and eve'n to increase appreciation of the author's power. Every speech is a work of art in itself, and much of the joy possible to the reader of Job is lost, unless he realizes the joy in rhetoric for its own sake which was experienced by the people for whom the work was composed, and which may be revived for the people of to-day by laying just such emphasis on details, as is here proposed. All other matters: versification, parallelism, other figures of speech, number symbols, the progress of thought, development of character, and solutions of the problem, are left out. The pur- pose of this essay then, is to consider only the similes and meta- phors. By metaphor (or by simile, often included in the term) is meant the trope in its technical sense, as opposed to a figure of speech (Gummere). The trope does not affect the grammar, but is a change of name based on a comparison be- tween two dissimilar things which have some element in com- mon. It is an appeal to the imagination whereby some rela- tively abstract truth is illustrated by reference to some concrete thing. 2 In Part II. these figures have been tabulated, classified with reference to the sources from which they are drawn. This classification has seemed most natural, being suggested by the character of the expressions themselves. The tabulation is merely a means to an end, and must not be regarded of im- iCh. 5: 19. 2 Buck, metaphor. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB.' 11 portance in itself, but of worth only for purposes of comparison and generalization. The sources of an author's similitude are often peculiarly interesting as affording a means of measuring the circumferences of his knowledge ; " Images are either grand in themselves or for the thought and feeling that accompany them." 2 Perhaps a study of the tables will throw some light on the integrity of the hook, the time and place of its composi- tion, the historic environment and the literary interpretation. i Minto, " Manual of Prose Literature," p. 13. 8 Leigh Hunt, " Imagination and Fancy," p. 198. PAET II. 1 I. METAPHORS IN THE PROSE PORTIONS. (a) Familiar and Colloquial Images: Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath will he give for his life. 2 : 14. Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah. 1: 21. (&) War: And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job. 42: 10. II. METAPHORES IN THE SPEECHES OF JOB. A. NATUBE. (a) Aspects of the sky, the elements, day and night, eclipse: 1. Clouds: As a cloud is consumed and vanishes away. 7 : 9. My warfare is passed away as a cloud. 30: 15. Life flees as a shadow. 14 : 2. Clouds dwell upon the day in which he was born. 3: 5. He spreads a cloud upon the face of his throne. 26 : 9. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under it. 26: 8. All my members are as a shadow. 17: 7. 2. The Heavens : The pillars of heaven tremble. 26: 11. He alone stretcheth out the heavens. 9: 8. By his spirit the heavens are garnished. 26: 13. 3. Stars: God sealeth up the stars. 9:17. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark. 3 : 9. He maketh the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades. 9: 9. 4. Day and night: Let it not behold the eyelids of the morning. 3: 9. If I beheld the sun when it shined, and the moon walking in darkness. 31: 26. God commandeth the sun, and it riseth not. 9: 7. Let the day perish. 3: 3. Let thick darkness seize that night. 3: 16. Sheol is the land, dark as midnight, and where the light is as midnight. 24: 15. The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight. 24 : 15. Quotations are from the American Revised Translation. 12 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 13 In the dark they dig through houses, they shut themselves up in the daytime, they know not the light. 24: 16. The morning is to all of them, as thick darkness. 24: 17. Nations grope in darkness without light. 12: 25. 5. Seasons: As I was in the days of my autumn. 29 : 4. 6. Eclipse: All that maketh black the day. 3 : 5. 1 Let the cursers of the day curse it, who are skillful to rouse up leviathan. 3: 8. 7. Storm: God breaks me with a tempest. 9: 17. A tempest stealeth the wicked man away in the night. 26: 14. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder. 28: 26. But the thunder of his power who can understand. 26: 14. They waited for me as the rain. 29 : 23. Showers of the mountain. 24: 7. . Thou lifteth me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it; and thou dissolvest me in the storm. 30: 22. 8. Wind: Remember that my life is a breath. 7:7. They chase mine honor as the wind. 30 : 15. The east wind carrieth him away. 27: 21. When he maketh a weight for the wind. 28 : 25. Seeing that the speeches of one that is desperate are as wind. 6: 26. (6) Aspects of water. 1. Sea: My calamities are heavier than the sands of the sea. 6:3. Am I a sea or a sea monster ? 7 : 12. God treads upon the waves of the sea. 9 : 8. He stirreth up the sea with his power. 26: 12. Man dieth and is laid low, as the waters fail from the sea. 14: 11. The deep saith it (wisdom) is not in me; and the sea saith it is not with me. 28: 14. 2. Brooks: My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook. As the channel of brooks that pass away. Which are black by reason of ice. Wherein the snow hideth itself. What time they wax warm, they vanish. When it is hot they are consumed out of their place. The caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside. They go into the waste and perish. 1 Gesenius, p. 473. D 14 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them. They were put to shame because they had hoped; they came hither and were confounded. For now ye are it to me. 6: 15-26. He bindeth the streams that they trickle not. 28: 11. And the river wasteth and drieth up, so man lieth down and riseth not. 14: 11. 3. Water: My groanings are poured like water. 3: 24. My root is spread out to the water, and the dew lieth all night upon my branch. 29 : 19. As a wide breaking in of waters they come : In the midst of ruin they roll themselves upon me. 30 : 14. The waters wear the stones; the overflowing thereof wash away the dust of the earth; so thou destroyest the hope of a man. 14: 19. God withholdeth the waters, and they dry up; again he sendeth them out and they overrun the earth. 12 : 15. Yea, he meteth out the waters by measure. 28: 25. If I wash myself in snow water. 9 : 30. (c) Aspects of the earth, inorganic nature, minerals. 1. Earth: God makes the pillars of the earth tremble. 9 : 6. The earth is given into the hands of the wicked. 9: 24. O earth, cover not thou my blood. 16: 18. The inundations wash away the dust of the earth, so God de- stroys the hope of man. 14: 19. The clods of the valley are sweet to him. 21 : 33. He taketh away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way. 12: 24. So that they dwell in frightful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. 30: 6. 2. Mountains: The mountain falling cometh to naught; and the rock is removed out of its place so thou destroyest the hope of man. 14: 18. God removeth mountains and they know it not, when he over- turneth them in his anger. 9 : 5. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of shelter. 24: 8. He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. 28: 9. He cutteth out a channel among the rocks. 28: 10. The rocks poured me out rivers of oil. 29: 7. 3. Minerals: Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass ? 6 : 12. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 15 After thou hast tried me I shall come forth as gold. 23 : 10. Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine. 28: 1. Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is molten out of the stone. 28: 2. The stones thereof are the places of sapphires, and it hath dust of gold. 28: 6. It (wisdom) cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. 28: 15. Gold and silver cannot equal it, neither shall it be exchanged for vessels of fine gold. 28: 17. It cannot be valued for the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 28: 16. No mention shall be made of coral or crystal: yea the price of wisdom is above rubies. 28: 18. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. 28: 19. If I have made gold my hope, and have said unto fine gold thou art my confidence. 31: 24. 4. Clay, Dust, Ashes : Thou hast fashioned me as clay; and wilt thou bring me unto dust again. 10: 9. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. 7 : 5. Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, your defences are defences of clay. 13: 12. I shall multiply my days as the sand. 29 : 18. 1 He hath cast me in the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. 30: 19. The stones of obscurity and thick darkness. 28 : 3. They gnaw the dry ground in the gloom of wasteness and desola- tion. 30: 3. When once there is rest in the dust. 17: 16. ( d ) Vegetabl e Kingdom : 1. Tree: For there is hope for a tree, If it be cut down that it will sprout again, And that the tender branches therof 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 is laid low; Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? 14 : 7-10. My root is spread out to the waters, and the dew lieth all night upon my branches. 29: 19. Wilt thou harrass a driven leaf? 13: 25. 1 Gesenius, p. 300. ^n. 16 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 2. Flowers: Man that is born of woman is of few days, he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down. 14: 2. 3. Grain: Being hungry they carry in the sheaves. 24: 10. Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? 13: 25. 4. Plants: They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; and the roots of the broom are their food. 20: 4. Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they are gath- ered together. 30: 7. Let thistles grow instead of wheat, cockle instead of barley. 31: 40. Is there any taste to purslain-broth ? 6: 6. 1 (e) Animal Kingdom. 1. Animals: And if my head exalt itself, thou huntest me as a lion. 10: 16. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass, or loweth the ox over his fodder? 6: 5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert they (the poor) go forth to their work seeking diligently for food. 24: 5. Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. 30 : 11. I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches. 30 : 30. Their (the wicked) bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock. 21: 10, 11. 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. 24: 2-4. Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee. 12 : 7. The proud beasts have not trodden it (the way of wisdom), nor hath the fierce lion passed thereby. 28: 8. If he hath not been warmed with the fleece of my sheep. 31: 20. 2. Birds: Ask the birds of the heavens, and they shall tell thee. 12: 7. My days pass away as the eagle that swoopeth on the prey. 9 : 26. That path no bird of prey knoweth, neither hath the falcon's eye seen it. 28: 7. Then I said I shall die in my nest, I shall multiply my days as the phoenix. 2 29: 18. Wisdom is kept close from the birds of the heavens. 28: 21. 3. Serpents and fish: Speak to the reptiles crawling on the earth, 8 and they shall teach 1 Gesenius, p. 318. rWD^n. T * Gesenius, p. 300. ^n. 3 Gesenius, p. 90, No. 5. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 17 thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. 12 : 8. Am I a sea or a sea monster? 7: 12. The helpers of Rahab do stoop under him. 9: 13. And by his understanding he smiteth through Rahab; his hand that pierced the swift serpent. 26: 12, 13. Who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 3: 8. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE. (a) Government: God increaseth the nations, and he destroyeth them ; he enlargeth the nations and he leadeth them captive. 12: 23. He maketh nations grope in darkness without light. 12: 25. 1. Kings and Princes: If Job had never lived he would have been with Kings. 3 : 14. God looseth the bonds of Kings. 12: 18. If Job had never lived he would have been with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver. 3: 15. As a prince I would present it to him. 31: 37. God taketh away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way. 12: 24. 2. Priests: He leadeth priests away stripped. 12: 19. 3. Judges and counsellors: If Job had never lived he would have been with counsellors. 3 : 14. God leadeth counsellors away stripped. 12: 17. God maketh judges fools. 12: 17. He covers the faces of the judges of the earth. 9: 24. 4. Prison, courts and trial: He writeth bitter things against me. 13: 26. Lo, here is my mark, 1 let the Almighty answer me, and that I had the scroll 2 which mine adversary had written. 31: 35. There the prisoners' are at ease together. 3 : 18. If the scourge slay suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. 9: 23. Thou puttest my feet in the stocks, and marked all my paths. 13: 27. (6) Various occupations: ' Ye are physicians of no value. 13 : 4. Who dig for death more than for hid treasures. 3: 20. Ye are forgers of lies. 13: 4. The murderer rises with the light; he killeth the poor and needy; and in the night he is a thief. 24: 14. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for twilight, and he puts a covering on his face. 24 : 15. ^esenius, p. 1121. in. 2 Gesenius, p. 732, No. 2. 18 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. Deliver me from the adversary's hand, redeem me from the hand of the oppressor. 6: 23. The tents of the robbers prosper. 12 : 6. God shines on the counsels of the wicked. 10: 3. The deceived and the deceiver are his. 12: 16. They cry after me as after a thief. 30: 5. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 3: 8. (c) Agriculture: They cut his provender in the field; they glean the vintage of the wicked. 24: 6. The wilderness yieldeth them bread for their children. 24: 5. Being hungry they carry the sheaves. 24: 10. The wicked are as stubble before the wind, and as the chaff which the storm carrieth away. 21: 18. They are cut off as the tops of the ears of corn. 24 : 24. Then let me sow and another eat; yea, let the produce of my field be rooted out. 31:8. If my land crieth out against me, and the furrows thereof weep together. 31: 38. Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. 31: 40. Does God pursue the dry stubble? 13: 25. As for the earth out of it cometh bread. 28 : 5. (d) Trades, tools, products: 1. Trades: God breaketh down and it cannot be built again. 12: 14. Who buildeth waste places 1 for themselves. 3: 14. Caravans of Tema, companies of Sheba. 6: 19, 20. Thy hands have framed and fashioned me as clay (potter) . 10: 8. That God would let loose his hand and cut me off (weaver) . 6:9. Thou clothed me with skin and flesh and put me together with bones and sinews. 10: 11. My days are swifter than a post. 9: 25. They tread the wine presses and suffer thirst. 24: 11. Then let my wife grind unto another. 31: 10. After he has tried me I shall come forth as gold. 23 : 10. Copper is molten out of the stone. 28: 2. He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn; they hang afar from men, they swing to and fro. 28: 4. My days are passed away as the swift ships. 9: 26. 2. Tools: My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. 7: 61. Oh that my vexations were but weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together. 6: 2. 1 Gesenius, p. 342. fllTm. Comp. Isa. 57 : 7. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 19 My transgressions are sealed up in a bag. 14: 17. God hath compassed me with his net. 19: 16. That with an iron pen and lead, they were graven in the rock forever! 19: 24. 3. Products: Thou hast poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese. 10: 11. They make oil within the walls of these men. 24: 11. My steps were washed with butter. 29 : 6. (e) Domestic life, family relatives, birth, servants, dress: 1. Family: Pluck the fatherless from the breast. 24: 9. I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy, the fatherless also that had none to help him. 29 : 12, 13. If I have said to the pit thou are my father; to the worm; thou art my mother and my sister. 17: 14. He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are wholly estranged from me. 19 : 13. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. 19: 14. They that dwell in my house and my maids, count me for a stranger. 19: 15. I am an alien in their sight. 19 : 16. My breath is strange to my wife, and I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 19: 17. Even young children despise me. 19: 18. All the men of my council abhor me, and they whom I loved are; turned against me. 19 : 19. Let him take his rod away from me. 9: 34. Neither is the rod of God upon them. 21: 9. 2. Birth: Let that night be barren. 3: 7. The night shut not up the door of my mother's womb. 3 : 10. Why did the knees receive me, or why the breasts that I should suck. 3: 12. As a hidden or untimely birth, as infants who never saw light. 3: 16. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. 10: 19. 3. Servants: I call upon my servant, and he giveth me no answer, though I entreat him with my mouth. 19: 16. My maids count me for a stranger. 19: 15. They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. 3 : 18. The servant is free from his master. 3: 19. Are not his day's like the days of a hireling? 7: 1. As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow, and as a hireling that looketh for his wages. 7 : 2. Till he accomplish as a hireling his day. 14: 6. 20 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 4. Clothes: I am like a garment that is moth eaten. 13 : 28. Poor go naked. 24 : 9. I put on righteousness and it clothed me. 29: 14. My justice was a robe and a diadem. 29: 14. Yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. 9: 31. Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh. 10: 11. By God's great force is my garment disfigured, it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. 30: 18. If I have seen any perish from want of clothing; or that the needy had no covering. 30: 19. I would bind it unto me as a crown. 31 : 36. (/) Manners, customs and amusements: 1. Manners and customs: I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin. 16: 15. They dig for death more than for hid treasure. 3: 21. There are that take a pledge of the poor. 24: 9. Ye would cast lots upon the fatherless, and dig a pit 1 for your friend. 6: 27. Did I say give unto me or offer a present for me of your sub- stance? 6: 22. When I went forth unto the gates into the city, when I pre- pared my seat in the broad place. 29 : 7. The princes laid their hands on their mouth. 29: 9. As one that comforteth the mourners. 29: 25. There are which remove the landmarks. 24: 2. I know that my Redeemer liveth. 19: 25. 2 There is no day's man 3 betwixt us. 9 : 33. Even now my witness is in heaven, and he that voucheth for me is on high. 16 : 19. Give now a pledge, who is there that will strike hands with me. 17: 3. That thou wouldst appoint me a set time. 14: 13.* 2. Amusements: I am as one that is a laughing stock to his neighbors. The just and perfect man a laughing stock. 12 : 4. He hath made me a byword to the people. 17: 6. Now I am become their song; yea, I am a byword among them. 30: 9. 1 Gesenius, p. 487. 1 Gesenius, p. 487. m3. T T * 'Gesenius, p. 170. ^3-goel. comp. Job 3: 5. 1 Gesenius, p. 397, No. 2 and 3. !T3lD, 4 Gesenius, p. 339. n'ru METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 21 A lamp of contempt for the lanterns of the gay; ready for sea- sons of festivity. 12: 5. 1 The children of the wicked dance, they sing to the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. 21: 11, 12. I do not fall below you. 2 (Wrestling.) I am not inferior to you. 12: 3, 13: 2. Let no joyful noise come therein; let it not rejoice among the days of the year. 3 : 6, 7. ( ^_ And my heart walked after mine eyes. 31: 17. Then let my arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone. 31: 22. If my heart hath been secretly enticed, and my mouth hath kissed my hand. 31:27. Let not night behold the eyelids of the morning. 3 : 9. 2. Functions of the body: Let me alone till I swallowed my spittle. 7: 19. Seeth thou as man seeth? 10: 5. Does not the ear try words as the palate tastes its food? 12: 11. 3. Food: Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? (Insipid weed.) My soul refuseth to touch them; they are as my loathsome food. 6: 6, 7. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my neces- sary food. 23 : 12. The wilderness yieldeth them food for their children. 24: 5. They tread the wine presses and suffer thirst. 24: 11. Or have eaten my morsel alone. 31 : 17. (;) Subjective life: I should have lain down and been quiet, I should have slept. 3 : 13. So man lieth down and riseth not: till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be roused out of sleep. 14: 12. Where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. 3: 17. For my sighings come before I eat. 3: 24. My purposes are broken off. 17: 11. (k) Death: When they can find the grave. 3: 22. Morning is to them as the shadow of death. 24: 17. Destruction and death say, we have heard a rumor thereof with our ears. 28: 22. 1. War: The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whei^of my soul drinks up. 6: 4. The terrors of God set themselves in battle array against me. 6: 4. Is there not a warfare to man upon the earth? 7:1. Why hast thou set me as a mark for thee. 7 : 20. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 23 Host after host is against me. 10: 17. Your defences are defences of clay. 13: 12. All the days of my warfare would I wait, till my change should come. 14: 14. He hath also set me up for his mark. 16: 12. His archers compass me round about, he breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant. 16: 13, 14. His troops come on together, and cast up their way against me, and encamp round about my tent. 19 : 12. Be ye afraid of the sword. 19 : 29. My bow is renewed in my hand. 29: 20. And dwelt as king in the army. 29: 25. He has loosed his cord (bow string), and afflicted me. 30: 11. (m) Scripture: If like Adam, I have covered my transgression by hiding my iniquity in my bosom. 31: 33. ( n ) Miscellaneous : There are that remove the landmarks. 7: 14. How oft is the lamp of the wicked put out? 21: 17. When God's lamp shined upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness. 29: 213. These are the outskirts of his ways. 26: 4. III. METAPHORS IN THE SPEECHES OF ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE. A. NATURE: (a) Aspect of the sky, etc.: 1. The sky: Is not God in the heights of heaven? and behold the stars, how high they are! 22: 12. Thick clouds are a covering to him, and he walketh on the walla of heaven. 22: 14. 2. Day and night: They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as at night. 5:14. Light shall shine upon thy ways. 22: 28. 3. Storm: Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields. 5: 10. Shall a wise man fill himself with the east wind? 15: 2. (5) Aspects of wateit Abundance of waters cover thee. 22: 11. Whose foundation was poured out as a stream. 22: 16. Lay the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. 22: 24. (c) The earth, etc.: 1. The earth: Wast thou brought forth before the hills. 15: 7. 24 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 2. The elements: Man is born to trouble as the sparks to fly upwards. 5 : 7. The flame shall dry up his branches. 15 : 30. Fire shall consume the tents of bribery. 15: 34. 3. Minerals: Whose foundations are in the dust. 4: 19. Affliction cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground. 5: 6. Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field. 5 : 23. Lay thou thy treasure in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks, and the Almighty will be thy treas- ure, and precious silver unto thee. 22: 24, 25. (d) Vegetable kingdom: I have seen the wicked taking root. 5: 3. Thy offspring shall be as the grass of the earth. 5: 25. Thou shalt come to thy grave in full age, like as a shock of grain cometh in its season. 5 : 26. The flame shall dry up his branch, his branch shall not be green. 15: 30. He shall shake off his unripe fruit as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree. 15: 32. (e) Animal kingdom: The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lion are broken. The old lion perishes for lack of prey and the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad. 4: 10, 11. Who are crushed before the moth. 4: 19. The beasts of the earth shall be at peace with thee. 5: 23. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Various occupations: The snare gapeth for thy substance. 5: 5. Therefore snares are round about thee. 22: 10. He frustrateth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands can- not perform their enterprises. 5 : 12. 1. Agriculture: They that plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same. 4: 8. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the council of the cunning is carried headlong. 5: 13. (fc) Domestic life: 1. Houses: Who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed before the moth, is not their tent cord plucked up within them? 4: 19, 21. He that dwelleth in desolate cities, in houses which no man in- habited, which are ready to become heaps. 15: 28. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 25 2. Birth: They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. 15: 35. The company of the godless shall be barren. 15 : 24. (c) Parts of the body: Thou hast made firm the feeble knees. 4: 4. Thou hast strengthened the weak hands. 4: 3. Iniquity stoppeth her mouth. 5 : 17. Thou choosest the tongue of the crafty. 15: 5. Why do thine eyes flash? 15: 12. The arms of the fatherless have been broken. 22: 9. 2. Food: A man that drinketh iniquity like water. 15 : 23. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. 22 : 7. (d) Subjective life: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, 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 dis- cern the appearance thereof; a form was before mine eyes. There was silence and I heard a voice. 4: 13-16. (e) War: Distress and anguish make him afraid; they prevail against him, as a king ready to battle. 15: 24. He runneth upon him with the thick bosses of his bucklers. 15: 26. He is waited for of the sword. 15: 22. IV. METAPHORS IN THE SPEECHES OF BILDAD, THE SHUHITE. A. NATUEE: (a) Day and night, shadow, wind: He shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the world. 18: 18. Our days upon the earth are but a shadow: We are but of yesterday. 8: 9. How long shall the words of thy mouth be as a mighty wind? 8: 2. (5) Aspects of the earth, minerals: 1. The earth: Shall the earth be forsaken for thee, or shall the rock be removed out of its place? 18: 6. Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. 18: 15. (c) Vegetable kingdom: Can the rush grow up without mire ? Can the flag grow up with- out water? Whilst it is yet in its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. 8: 11, 12. He is green before the sun, 26 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. And his shoots go forth over his garden. His roots are wrapped about the stone heap. He beholdeth the place of stones. 18: 16, 17. He shall be rooted out of his tent wherein he trusteth. 18: 14. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branches be cut off. 18: 16. (d) Animal kingdom: Whose trust is a spider's web. 8: 14. Wherefore are we counted as beasts. 18: 3. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Trades: For he is cast into a net by his own feet, And he walketh upon the toils. A gin shall take him by the heels, And a snare shall lay hold on him. A noose is hid for him in the ground. And a trap for him in the way. 18: 8-10. (5) Domestic life: His remembrance shall be cut off and he shall have no name in the street. 18: 17. He shall have neither kith nor kin among his people, nor any remaining where he sojourned. 18: 19. (c) Death and the grave: Yea, the first born of death shall devour his members. 18: 13. He shall be brought to the king of terrors. 18: 14. (d) Miscellaneous: Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine: The light shall be dark in his tent. And his lamp above him shall be put out. 18: 5, 6. V. METAPHORS IN THE SPEECHES OF ZOPHAR, THE NAAMATHITE. A. NATUBE: (a) Aspects of the sky: It is as high as heaven. 11: 8. Though his head mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds. 20: 6. 2. Day and Night: Thy life shall be clearer than the noonday, though there be dark- ness, it shall be as morning. 11: 17. All darkness is laid up for his treasures. 20: 26. (6) Aspects of water: The measure thereof is broader than the sea. 11: 9. Thou shalt remember it as waters that have passed away. 11 : 16. (c) Earth: The measure thereof is longer than the earth. 11: 9. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 27 2. Elements: A fire not blown by man shall devour him; it shall consume that which is left in his tent. 20: 26. (d) Animal kingdom: It is the gall of asps within him. 20: 14. The viper's tongue shall slay him. 20: 16. Man is born as a wild ass's colt. 1 : 12. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Domestic life: Let not unrighteousness dwell in his tent. (6) Coarse and repulsive images: Yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. 20: 7. (c) Food: Though wickedness be sweeet in his mouth, Though he hid it under his tongue, Though he spare it, and will not let it go, But keep it still within his mouth; Yet his food in his bowels is turned, It is the gall of asps within him. 20: 12-14. He hath swallowed down riches, And he shall vomit them up again; God will cast them out of his belly. 20: 15. (d) Subjective life: Dreams : He shall fly away as a dream. Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. 20: 8. (e) War: He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of brass shall strike him through. 20: 24. He draweth it forth, and it cometh out of his body, yea, the glittering point cometh out of his gall. 20: 25. VI. METAPHORS IN THE SPEECHES OF ELIHU THE BUZITE. A. NATUBE: (a) Aspects of the sky: 1. Storm: Behold, God is great, and we know him not. 36: 26. For he draweth up the drops of water, Which distil in rain from his vapor. 36: 26. Which the skies pour down. 36: 28. And drop upon man abundantly. Yea, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, The thundering of his pavilion? 36: 29. Behold, he spreadeth his light around him; And he covereth the bottom of the sea. 36 : 30. He covereth his hands with the lightning and giveth it a charge that it strike the mark. 36: 32. 28 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. The noise thereof telleth concerning him. 36: 33. The cattle also concerning the storm that cometh up. Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, And the sound that goeth out of his mouth. 37: 2. He sendeth it forth under the whole heaven And his lightnings unto the ends of the earth. 37 : 3. After it a voice roareth. He thundereth with the voice of his majesty; And he restraineth not his lightnings when his voice is heard. 37: 4. God thundereth marvelously with his voice; Great things doeth he which we cannot comprehend. 37 : 5. For he says to the snow; fall thou on the earth; likewise to the shower of rain. 37: 6. And to the shower of his mighty rain. He sealeth up the hand of every man. 37: 7. Then the beasts go into coverts, And remain in their dens. 37 : 8. Out of the chamber of the south cometh the storm and cold out of the north. 37: 9. By the breath of God ice is given, And the breadth of the waters is congealed. 37: 10. Yes, he ladeth the thick cloud with moisture; He spreadeth abroad the cloud of his lightning. 37: 11. And it is turned round about by his guidance That they may do whatsoever he commandeth them upon the face of the habitable world; 37: 12. Whether it be for correction, or for his land, or for loving kind- ness, that he cause it to come. 37 : 13. Dost thou know how God causeth the lightning of his cloud to shine? 37: 15. Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds? 37: 16. Thou whose garments are warm when he quieteth the earth by the south wind. 37 : 17. Out of the north cometh golden splendor. 37: 22. (6) Earth: I also am formed out of clay. 33: 6. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Domestic life: Who giveth songs in the night. 35: 10. Canst thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror. 37: 18. (fc) Food: Behold my breast is as new wine which hath no vent, like new wine skins which are ready to burst. 32: 19. The ear tryeth words as the palate tasteth food. 34: 3. What man is like Job who drinketh up scoffings like water. 34 : 7. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 29 (c) Quoted from Job: He counteth me for his enemy. He putteth my feet in the stocks. He marketh all my paths. 33: 10, 11. VII. METAPHORS IN THE JEHOVAH SPEECHES. A. NATUBE: (a) Aspects of the sky: 1. Stars: When the morning stars sang together. 38: 7. Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? 38: 31-33. 2. Day and night: Where is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness where is the place thereof ? 38 : 19. Hast thou commanded the morning, and caused the day star to know its place? 38: 12. 3. Storm: By what way is the light parted and the east wind scattered upon the earth? 28: 24. Who hath cleft a channel for the water flood, or a way for the lightning of the thunder; to cause it to rain on a land where; no man is? 38: 25, 26. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of" water may cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings that may go, and say unto thee, here we are ? 38 : 34, 35. (6) Aspects of water: Who shut up the sea with doors and set bars and doors, and said hither to shalt thou come but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be staid. 38: 11. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea or entered into the recesses of the deep, the face of the deep is frozen. 38 : 30. (c) Aspects of the earth: 1. Earth: Foundations of the earth. 38: 4. That it might take hold of the ends of the earth. 38: 13. The wilderness wherein there is no man; To satisfy the waste and desolate ground. 38 : 26, 27. Salt land is his dwelling place, the wilderness is his home. 39 : 6. The range of the mountain is his pasture. 39: 8. On the cliff she dwelleth, upon the point of the cliff, and the stronghold. 39: 28. Canst thou comprehend the earth in its breadth. 38: 18. 30 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 2. Minerals, dust: When the dust runneth into a mass, and the clods cleave fast together. 38: 38. The waters hide themselves and become like stones. 39: 30. (d) Animal kingdom: Lion, 38: 39-40. Hind, 39: 1. Wild goat, 39: 1-4. Wild ass, 39: 5-8. Wild ox, 39: 9-12. Lion horse, 39: 19-25. Raven, 38: 41. Ostrich, 39: 13-18. Hawk, 39: 26. Eagle, 39: 27-30. Hippopotamus, 40: 15-24. Crocodile, 41: 1-34. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: ( a ) Agriculture : To cause the tender grass to spring forth. 38: 27. Canst thou bind the wild ox with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valley after thee, will thou confide in him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather the grain of thy threshing floor? 39: 10-12. <6) Trades: Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth ? Who determined the measure thereof, or who stretched a line upon it, whereupon were the foundations fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof? 38: 4-7. and set bars and doors. 38: 10. It is changed as clay under the seal and stands forth as a gar- ment. 38: 14. Hast thou entered the treasures of the snow, or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail? 38: 22. (c) Domestic life: Has the rain a father, or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoar frost of heaven who hath gendered it? 38: 28, 29. The paths to the house of darkness. 38: 20. I made the clouds the garment of the sea, and the thick darkness a swaddling band for it. 38 : 9. Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rocks bring forth, or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfill, or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? they bow themselves, they bring forth their young. They cast out their pains. Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open fields; they go forth and return not again. 39: 1-4. When his young ones cry for food to God. 38: 41. When it breaks forth as if it had issued out of the womb. 38 : 8. (d) War: He goeth out to meet the armed men. 39: 21. He mocketh at fear and is not dismayed; Neither turneth he back from the sword. 39: 22. The quiver rattleth against him; METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 31 The flashing spear and the javelin. 39: 23. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage; Neither believeth he that it is the voice of the trumpeter. 39 : 24. As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith, Aha! And he smelleth the battle afar off, The thunder of the captains and the shouting. 39: 25. If one lay at him with the sword, it cannot avail; Nor the spear, the dart, nor the pointed shaft. 41 : 26. The arrow cannot make him flee: Sling-stones are turned with him into stubble. 41 : 28. Clubs are counted as stubble. He laugheth at the rushing of the javelin. 41 : 29. Which I have reserved against the day of battle and war. 38 : 23. VIII. METAPHORS IN THE DISPUTED PORTION. 1. Metaphors in the speeches of Elihu. (See Table VI.) 2. Metaphors in the Mining Lyric, Chapter 28. (See Table II.) 3. Behemoth, the hippopotamus. A. NATUBE: (a) Aspects of water: Though a Jordan swelleth even to his mouth. 40: 23. (6) Minerals: His bones are tubes of brass; his ribs are ribs of iron. 40: 18. (c) Vegetable kingdom: He moveth his tail like a cedar. 40: 17. Lotus trees, covert of the reed, and fen, the willows of the brooks. 40: 21-22. (d) Animal kingdom: He eateth grass as an ox. 40: 15. 4. Leviathan, the crocodile. (e) Day and night: His sneezings flash forth light, his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. 41 : 18. (f) Aspects of the sea: He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary. 41 : 32. (g) Minerals: His heart is as firm as stone. 41 : 24. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: ( a ) Agriculture : He counteth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. 41 : 27. Slingstones are turned with him into stubble. Clubs are counted as stubble. 41 : 28, 29. He spreadeth as it were a threshing- wain upon the mire. 41 : 30. (5) Trades: Will the bands of fishermen make traffic of him; will they part him among the merchants? 41: 6. 32 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. His scales shut up together as with a closed seal. 41: 15. His heart is firm as the nether millstone. 41: 24. (c) Domestic life: Will he make a covenant with thee, that thou shouldest take him for a servant forever? 41: 4. 1 1 Exod. 21 : 6. Will thou play with him as with a bird, or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 41: 5. Who can open the doors of his face? 41: 14. A smoke as of a boiling pot and burning rushes. 41 : 20. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth forth from his mouth. 41: 21. His underparts are like potsherds. 41 : 30. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. 41: 31. (d) War: Lay thy hand upon him; remember the battle and do so no more. 41: 8. He laugheth at the rushing of the javelin. 41 : 29. IX. METAPHORS IN PORTIONS OF THE THIRD CYCLE. 1. METAPHORS IN CHAPTER 24: 18-21. A. NATURE: (a) Vegetable kingdom: Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree. 24: 20. (6) Animal kingdom: The worm shall feed sweetly upon him. 24: 20. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Domestic life: The womb shall forget him. 24: 20. He devoureth the barren that beareth not. 24: 21. (6) Sheol: Drouth and heat violently take away 1 the snow waters: so doth Sheol those that have sinned. 24: 19. 2. METAPHORS IN CHAPTER 27 : 8-23. A. NATURE: (a) Storm: A tempest stealeth him away in the night; the east wind carrieth him away; it sweepeth him out of his place. 27: 21. (6) Clay and dust: Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay. 27: 16. (c) Animal kingdom: He buildeth his house as the moth. 27: 18. 1 Gesenius, p. 187. ^ METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 33 B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) Booth: As a booth which the keeper maketh. 27 : 18. (6) Manners and customs: Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place. 27: 23. (c) Ye are become altogether vain. 27: 12. Compare 11: 12. 3. METAPHORS IN CHAPTEE 25. A. NATURE: (a) Aspects of the sky: Behold even the morn hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight. 25: 5. And upon whom doth not his light arise. 25: 3. (6) Animal kingdom: Man that is a worm, and the son of man that is a worm. 25: 6. B. MAN AND HUMAN LIFE: (a) War: Is there any number to his armies? 25: 3. He maketh peace in his high places. 1 25: 2. 'Gesenius, p. 616. PAET III. DEDUCTIONS FROM A STUDY OF THE MATERIAL IN PART II. The English version of Job records some five hundred similes and metaphors ; but the translation has been made What the at a great sacrifice of symbolic suggestiveness. Metaphors p or i ns tance, the word translated " change " in Eevealof Ori- & expression: "All the days of my appointed ental Tropes, . , . . In General* time I wait, till my change come, * is in reality (a) Their a m ^itary metaphor, "All the days of my war- abundance. ^ are will I wait until my exchange come " . until I am relieved by others. The miserable state of the shades in Sheol is being compared to the hard service of a soldier on guard. The connotation is also of new troops suc- ceeding in place of those fatigued ; " Changes and a host are against me " : 2 i. e. f hosts continually succeed each other. 3 The root meaning to slip, to glide, passing over in the piel, to mean " let pass away " (used in reference to change of a garment), by metaphor came to have the military significance. It takes little imagination to see that in translation, the picturesque ex- tension of the thought has been sacrificed. The metaphor is blurred, if not quite blotted out. In this way have been for- feited two hundred or more inetaphoric ideas, dependent for their suggestiveness upon the original Hebrew. But of these this essay will take no account^ for those tabulated are enough to show the abundant use of the trope in Job. The tables furthermore show that simile and metaphor occur in connection with other figures of speech: personification, interrogation, -ex- 1 Job 14: 14 (King James Version). 'Job 10: 17. 'Gesenius, p. 317, 2. ilS^n. T -: 34 INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 35 clamation and hyperbole vie with the metaphor for recognition. ! Indeed, so rich is Job in figures, that as one reads the poem he is continually at a loss to decide what is metaphor what direct statement. Eeference to the tables will show that many of the expressions read like literal statements of fact, and might by the young student be rejected from the lists: for example, the seemingly direct affirmations about God throughout the book (many of which appear in the tables), and any expression in Job's curse (ch. 3) or in the mining lyric (ch. 28). Are these metaphorical or merely direct statements ? " As for that night, let it not rejoice among the days of the year ; let no joyful noise come therein." There is no question of the bold personification here, and metaphor must also be conceded in that the imagina- tion is appealed to, a picture is painted, and the thought may readily be amplified into a simile. Farther on in the soliloquy, in the expression, "There the prisoners are at ease together," the words themselves may be literal, but the thought expressed is not; for the expression is not merely an added detail to the picture ; it is also an extension of the metaphoric thought. In chapter 28, the passage " They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread ; and underneath it is turned as it were by fire," etc., is admittedly a literal description of the miners at work, and a contrast between the surface of the earth, peace- fully cultivated, and the bowels of the earth, ransacked for gold and jewels. But the whole section is metaphoric, a com- parison between wisdom and the hidden things which men prize. Furthermore, the affirmation about God, that " He withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: again He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth," 1 reads like a direct statement, and may be an allusion to the flood ; yet in reality it is a concrete picture to express a conception of deity and providence. The expres- sion "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," occurs among a series of questions, and might in part be taken as a literal statement. It reads like a ^ob 12: 15. 36 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. direct utterance. To those simple peoples the statement that "The sons of God shouted for joy," made perhaps a literal appeal; but it addresses the imagination, giving another detail with purpose to aid the mind in picturing the author's abstract idea. We find that the profusion of metaphor in Job is an added revelation of oriental wealth in tropes. TheJBible is replete with figures. In the prophets we have rhapsody; in Ecclesi- astes, repetition ; in the Canticles, symbols ; and in all parables, similes, and metaphors no end. This pictorial method of speech prevails among the Semitic people to-day, as it did of old when "without a parable spake he not unto them." It is not, how- ever, peculiarly characteristic of the Semite in literature, but of the orientals in general. The Aryan too, was both ornate and specific. Persian and Hindu literature abound with pictur- esque appeals to the imagination. Job allies itself with the Rubaiyat, the Shah Nameh, the Gulistan; the Yedas and the Ramdyana, and the Mahabharata, in giving evidence that ori- J ental literature abounds in figures of speech. Although the East was old before the West was young, yet in some particulars, the oriental is always child- * . ish. He has never outgrown the second, if he Abstract ^ as ^ e ^ rs * s ^ a S e ^ the metaphor. Though he Thinking. ma J g e ^ far enough to say one thing is like another, he seldom speaks directly, 1 to describe the thing as it is in itself. X Job with its wealth of metaphor reveals the fact that the Semite thought in figures. It is more t than a fashion of speech when Job says that his steps are washed with butter, and that the rocks pour him out rivers of oil ; that his root is spread out on the waters ; that God in His anger has lifted him up to the wind and caused him to ride upon it, and has dissolved him in the storm. To Job it is more than a pic- ture, it is reality, when he asks, " Am I a sea or a sea monster that He setteth His watch upon me ? " The oriental does not write metaphysics, he personifies, he dramatizes. He uses 'Buck, "Metaphor." INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 37 neither logic nor philosophy; he employs metaphor and sym- bolism. The Bible is not a philosophical treatise or scientific work; it is literature. The author of Job has chosen to per- sonify his thought, to dramatize his feeling, and to express both thought and feeling in simile and metaphor. Nowhere does he state his conclusions as abstractions, but continually says or implies " It is like," The fact that the metaphors are essentially pictorial, suggests the Semitic realization of their mnemonic value, (c) Their Aid , xl _ . ,. A to Memory I hough their literature was in some cases written, the manuscripts were of necessity few, and de- pended upon oral repetition for their promulgation. In some cases a work was thus handed down from generation to genera- tion, and afterwards inscribed on parchment. The myths finally incorporated in .Genesis were repeated from age to age before they were finally reduced to writing, but such a work as Job was written, then learned and repeated. The tax on the power of memory was lessened materially by the frequent use of meta- phor. Its pictures could be easily retained in the Hebrew mind, trained as it was to repeat the proverbs and the parables. The metaphors in their profusion reveal the childlike nature of the ancient Hebrew: not only was their ' ' memory stimulated, but their interest was aroused j . . by the pictorial in speech. Metaphor, hyperbole, exclamation, interrogation kept the mind of the hearer constantly on the alert and compelled attention. There is not one dull sentence from beginning to end. Job's author was a writer of hohkmah ( noan ) literature, but instead of dry theory he propounded vitalized problems invested with per- sonality, by means of comparison, direct or implied. 2. GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS. The figures then, in their abundance, in their concrete pre- sentation of abstract ideas, in their recognition of mnemonic value, and in their vivid compulsion of interest, reveal char- acteristics of the oriental mind and of oriental literature. They 38 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. also emphasize the fact that the ancient sage who wished so to present his teachings as to make them vivid, readily understood, and easily remembered, was an oriental. Do they point to a more definite conclusion, and reveal the locality in which he lived or in which he set his poem ? This broad general state- ment may be made at least: that the author was an Irsaelite, familiar with Egypt and perhaps with Babylon, who wrote for Israelites, and located his hero and the scene of his story outside of Palestine. We know that the tenor of his thought was Israelitish for in Genesis, 2 : 7, we read that " God formed man from the dust of the ground," and Job says: "Remember, I beseech thee that thou hast made me as clay " ;* and " I also am formed out of clay." 2 In Gen. 2: 7, we read that "God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life," and the author of the book of Job says " The spirit of God is in my nostrils," 3 and " the breath of the Almighty has given me life." 4 " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3: 8) is re- peated in the words : " and man shall return again unto dust." 5 None but an Israelite would be likely to say " O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no resting place," for only he would have in mind " the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground" (Gen. 4: 10, 11). Further sug- gestive parallels are to be found in the pictures of the cave dwellers, Job. 30 : 6-8 (compare Gen. 19 : 30) ; of the murderer and the adulterer, Job. 24: 14, 15 (compare Exodus 20) ; the sending of rain, Job 37: 13 (compare I Kings, 17: 1 and 18: 1) ; the whirlwind, Job 31 : 11, 40 : 6 (compare I. Kings 19 : 11) and the destruction of the army, Job 34 : 20 (compare II. Kings 19: 35). All these prove the author to be familiar with the lore of the Israelites. Not only do these metaphors show the formative influence of Israelitish didactic history, but they reveal also the influence of J Job 10: 9. 8 Job 33: 36. Job 27: 3. 4 Job 33: 4. 6 Job 34: 15. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 39 Israelitish locality. In II. Sam. 23 : 20, and in I. Ch. 11 : 22, we read that " Benaiah of Kabzeel slew a lion in the midst of the pit in time of snow." Job, in seeking a simile for his friends' disloyalty, finally draws his comparison from a source which shows him to be an Israelite. He says " My friends have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away ; which are black by reason of ice, wherein the snow hideth itself; what time they wax warm, they vanish; when it is hot they are consumed out of their place." 1 The caravans coming by the brooks full of ice, thought of necessity that their sources were inexhaustible, and so followed them; but the oriental sun melted the ice and dried up the streams. Such a phenomenon could have occurred only in Palestine. 2 In that strange tropical country, where a man could go into the mountain and kill a lion in the. day of snow, Job found a concrete picture to express what he thought of his friends. "/He declared them to be like those brooks, for when he was prosperous, their love promised to be enduring; and when adversity came upon him their love was consumed.* In chapter 40 : 23, the author shows that Israel to him was not merely a locality, but a reality by using the name of the Jordan without the article, figuratively for any large stream. 3 That this Israelite was familiar with Egypt, may be inferred from the fact that he draws several of his metaphors from Egyp- tian sources. In chapter 8: 11, he asks: " Can the rush grow without mire? Can the flag grow without water?" In chapter 9 : 25, he compares the brevity or swiftness of life to ships of reed. The word H2K refers to the boats or skiffs made of papyrus of the Nile, in common use among the Egyptians, and Ethiopians and famous for their lightness and swiftness. 5 These references together with the pictures of the ostrich, 39 : 13, a Job 6: 15-17. 2 Compare Geo. Adam Smith, " Hist. Geo. of Palestine, p. 65. 3 Budde Comm. in loco. * Gesenius, p. 32. ifltf. 'Gesenius, p. 4. 40 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. the warhorse 39 : 18-30, the hippopotamus, 40 : 1524, and the crocodile 41, not to mention the phoenix, 1 29 : 18, are enough to show the author's familiarity with Egypt. He was evidently acquainted with Babylon, for although the reference to Rahab, 27: 12; 9: 13 may refer to the Babylonish myth of the sea monster (compare Isa. 27: 1) or to Egypt, which is elsewhere referred to under the image of a sea monster (Ex. 29 : 31 ; Isa. 51: 9), he distinctly pictures the fate of the wicked in terms of the king of Babylon (of Job 18: 17-20; Isa. 14: 9-22, in which two passages only are kith and kin mentioned together). The author, familiar as he was with Egypt and Babylon, further shows his Israelitish temperament and training, by locating Uz outside of Palestine. All good did not emanate from that land : when the prophets had some enlarged view of truth to propound they laid the scene of their story outside the Holy Land. Elijah, the prophet, was fed by a widow of Sarepta, a city of Sidon, 2 Naaman, the Syrian was cured of leprosy; 3 Jonah was sent to Nineveh. 4 So the author of the book of Job, located his hero, an upright and perfect man in the land of Uz, near, perhaps, yet outside of Palestine, probably to the south. Gesenius believes the region to have been in the northeastern part of the Arabia Deserta, between Iduma, Palestine and the Euphrates. 5 Wetzstein in the appendix to Delitsch's Com- mentary, locates it in Hauran, because of a tradition that Job dwelt there. But from the reference to the marauding bands of Sabeans and Chaldeans that fell upon Job's servants and cattle, and from the fact that Job's three friends came from Teman, Shuh and Naamath, respectively, Uz would seem to have been located by the author farther south than Hauran. Teman, noted for wisdom ( Jer. 49 : 7) was no doubt the seat of the orthodox doctrine, which the author wished to refute; and as Teman was in Edom (Gen. 36: 15; Jer. 49: 20), he laid 1 Gesenius, p. 300. fa. * I. Kings 7 : 9. s II. Kings 5:14. * Jonah 1 : 2. * Gesenius, p. 761, and Thesaurus, p. 1003. Vty INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 41 the scene of his story near Edom to account for the visit of Eliphaz. This theory is in accord with Lamentations, 4: 21: "Be glad, O daughter of Edom that dwellest in the land of Uz," and with the Septuagint, which locates Uz in the border of Edom and Arabia, 1 This locality is furthermore indicated by all those metaphors in Job whose sources are caravans, 2 brooks, 3 and mountains 4 But even in his metaphors, the author gives no definite proof of exact locality, and this is one great testi- mony of the skill with which he took the familiar story of Job and recreated the atmosphere of the patriarchal age. 3. INDICATIONS OF DATE. The fact that the author is consciously writing of earlier times, and is drawing his metaphors, as far as possible, from the patriarchal age he recreates, makes it difficult to determine the date of its composition. But a study of the metaphors is signifi- cant in this connection. No less an authority than the Ency- clopedia Britannica (Davidson) says : " The question of the date of the book of Job has to be settled largely by a comparison of literary coincidences and allusions." In studying the meta- phors to this end we must distinguish between those that came to the author unsought the product of his experience and his learning, and those framed with the purpose of giving patri- archal color to his work. A conscious effort to give a setting earlier than the age of Solomon would explain such passages as the following : There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his : brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. 5 The piece of money given to Job 6 was the ancient Kesitah of Genesis 33: 19. Job is made to say "Oh, that my words were now written ! That with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock forever." 7 Here the author presents his thought in 1 Job 42 : 17. Sept. b. lv fiev yn naroinuv TJJ 'Avffiirdi em roif opioic 'Idovuatc 2 Job 6: 19, 21. Job 14: 11; 28: 11. *Job T4: 18; 24: 7, 8. Job 18: 15. Job 42: 11. 'Job 19: 23. 42 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. figures drawn from an early age. He further keeps up the fiction of the nomadic period by the metaphors of the witness, 1 the sponsor, 2 the surety 3 and the goel 4 (Leviticus 25 : 41). It is not however such metaphors as these that throw light upon the date. But a study of those drawn from the manners and customs known to the author, when compared to similar metaphors found in books of known date, indicates that Job was possibly written between the tenth and the sixth centuries B. C., that it could not have been written earlier than the age of Solomon, and was probably written as late as, or after the Captivity. Though the picture of primitive non-Israelitish life is well maintained, the author has in many cases drawn his illustrations from manners, customs and literature of a later date. Job says ; " What is man that thou shouldst magnify him, and that thou shouldest visit him every morning ? " 5 and the reflection here of the ideas in Psalm VIII. can scarcely be due to coincidence. The metaphor of the " gold of Ophir among the stones of the brook " 6 and of Wisdom that " It cannot be 10th Century va ^ ue ^ w * tn tne 8^ ^ Ophir" 7 would seem to indicate the age of Solomon as the very earliest time in which the book could have been written. Several meta- phors found in Job and also in Proverbs would tend to sub- stantiate the induction that the book of Job could not have been written before the reign of Solomon : for example, " How oft is the lamp of the wicked put out ? " 8 bears a very close likeness to the same figure in Prov. 13 : 9, " The light of the wicked shall be put out," and in Prov. 24 : 20, " The candle of the wicked shall be put out." The metaphor in Job is no doubt built upon the expressions in Proverbs. Proverbs 8 : 29 speaking in meta- *Job 4: 13. 2 Job 6: 19. Job 17: 3. Job 19: 25. 5 Job 7: 17. Job 22: 25. 'Job 28: 16. s Job 21 : 7. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 43 phor of the sea says " When he set a compass upon the face of the deep; when he gave to the sea its decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment." But in Job 38 : 10 the metaphor is much more complete: "Or shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb ; when I made the clouds the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it and marked out for it my bound, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." From the concreteness and poetic beauty of this passage it would seem that it must have been written later than the one in the book of Proverbs. The same conclusion is suggested by a comparison of Job, 28 with Proverbs 1-9. For in Proverbs wisdom loves them that love her and may be embraced by them ; but in Job it can nowhere be found, neither by man nor any creature ; death and destruction have only heard a rumor thereof. Two such opposing representations can hardly be contemporaneous, and that in Job's with its skepticism, no doubt belongs to a later period of the world's development and experience. These comparisons lead to the conclusion that Job belongs to a period later than the tenth century. Davidson The Earlier - g Q ^ O pi n j on that it must not. however, be Prophets, 8th , . . , , , ,, ., ,, _ _ - assigned to a period later than the seventh cen- Century B. 0. tury: an opinion that is confirmed by a further comparison with the prophets. Amos 2 : 9, says " Yet destroyed I the Amorites before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruits from above and his roots from beneath." Job says: 1 " His roots shall be dried up from beneath, and above shall his branches be cut off." In Amos 4: 13, God is said " to tread upon the high places of the earth." Micah 1 : 3 uses the same language ; in Job 2 the thought is translated into " He treadeth upon the waves of the sea " ; but in the Hebrew the same word appears as it does also in Isa. 14 : 14. In Amos 5 : 8, God is 'Job 18: 16. 2 Job 9: 8. 44 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. said to have made " the seven stars and Orion " which is ampli- fied in Job 1 to read " That maketh the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south." In Hosea 5 : 14 God is conceived as a lion tearing Ephraim, a metaphor that is used in Job. 2 Furthermore, the only direct simile from scripture which the tables show in Job 31: 33 is found also in Hosea 6: 7. Hosea says they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, 13: 3. Job says: "My root is spread out to the waters, and the dew lieth all night upon my branches," 29 : 19. Here we find in both a close observation and love of nature. In Micah 1 : 8, we have the same metaphor as in Job 30 : 29, "I am a brother to jackals; a companion to ostriches." The making of oil is re- ferred to in both Micah and Job under much the same condi- tions. (Job 24 : 11, Micah 6:15.) Although these comparisons between the metaphors in Job and those in the earlier prophets lead to no definite conclusion, they do at least show the probability that the author of the book of Job was familiar with these prophecies. When we compare the similes and metaphors with those in the first Isaiah we see that there is a very probable acquaintanceship with the work of that prophet for there is almost direct allusion 3 to the prayer of Hezekiah, Is. 38. Hezekiah is recorded as saying " Mine age is removed as a shepherd's tent ; I have cut off like a weaver, my life " ; and Job also speaks of the tent cord's being plucked up, 4 and uses the metaphor of the weaver's loom. 5 But we are led to the conclusion that this is not the familiarity of a contem- porary. The phrasing "My transgression is sealed up in a bag" 6 in its amplification is probably later than Hosea's way of putting the thought : " The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hid." Moreover Job 12: 17-25, is evidently later 1 Job 9: 9. Job 16: 9; 18: 4. Job 7 : 9, 10. * Job 4: 21. Job 4: 7; 7: 6. Job 14: 17. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 45 than Isaiah 19: 11-14. In Job the words: "The waters fail from the sea, and the stream decayeth and drieth up" 1 are scarcely even a modification of Isaiah 19 : 5 : " and the waters shall fail from the sea^ and the stream shall decay and dry up " ; but the thought so clothed is less primitive. In the prophet " the sea " is the Nile, and " the stream " either the river or its larger branches, and the verse is closely connected with the con- text which contains a threat against Egypt. In Job, however, the term " sea " is used of any inland water, and, by extension the words are made to express a general fact of experience, which finds a parallel in the complete extinction of the life of man. 2 Job asks, " Am I a sea, or a sea monster that thou settest a watch over me ? " 3 He speaks of those who are skillful in rousing up leviathan, and says that " The helpers of Rahab do stoop under him." 4 These interesting metaphors are used in Is. 27: 1 (which may be a late prophecy). 5 And in Isaiah 51: 9, as follows : " In that day the Lord with his great and strong sword shall pierce leviathan, serpent elusive, and leviathan, serpent tortuous; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab and wounded leviathan ? " If Job then, shows in its metaphors an acquaintance with the literature of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah and 7th C an ex tension f their thought, it is safe to con- clude that it is a work of later date than the eighth century. A consideration of its metaphoric relation with Jeremiah may make a more definite induction possible. The facts that Jeremiah ended his days in Egypt, that he cursed his day ( Jer. 20 : 14-18) in much the style of Job 3 : 3-10, that his writings show a love for nature, have led Wright to suggest that Jeremiah was the author of the book of Job (see his Com- mentary on Job). Some of the pictorial metaphors which the prophecies of Jeremiah have in common with the book of Job 'Job 14: 11. 2 Driver, p. 435. Job 7: 12. 'Job 9: 13. Geo. A. Smith, " Isaiah," p. 430. 46 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. may be noted as follows : Jer. 24, gives the symbol of " A wild ass used to the wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure, in her occasion who can turn her away ? " Job's pic- ture of the same animal is : " He scorneth the tumult of the city, Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver, The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searchest after every green thing." 1 Jeremiah 8 : 6, 7 says : " Every one turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle. Yea, the stork in heaven knoweth her appointed time ; but my people know not the judg- ment of the Lord." Job makes use of the picture of the war- horse : "Hast thou given to the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane? Hast thou made him to leap as the locust? The glory of his snorting is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: He goeth out to meeet 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." 2 He uses, as well, the stork; "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly ; but are they the pinions of a stork ? " 8 Jer. 10 : 13, expresses in germ the description of the storm used in Job. 4 Jeremiah asks (15: 18) "Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail ? " and Job declares, " My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook," 5 and >Job 39: 5-8. 2 Job 39: 19-25. Job 39: 13. < Job 36: 27-37: 22. 6 Job 6: 15. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 47 "ye are forgers of lies; ye are all physicians of no value." 1 The same metaphor is used, Jer. 20 : 7, and Job 12 : 4, to the effect that " I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me." Jeremiah says, Ch. 17 : 1, " The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron : it is graven upon the tablet of the heart " ; and Job exclaims, " That with an iron pen and lead they were graven on the rock forever ! " : Moreover the figurative language of Sam. 3 : 5-7 : " He hath hedged me about that I cannot pass, he hath built against me with gall and travail, he hath set me in dark places," is echoed in Job, " He hath walled up my way that I cannot pass, and hath set darkness in my paths." 3 Further interesting comparisons may be made of Lamenta- tions 3 : 14, with Job 30 : 9 ; Lamentations 3 : 11-14 ; Job 6:4; 16: 12; 16: 13; 19: 13-22. Lamentations and Job alike make symbolic use of the bows, the arrows and the mark ; and so close is the connection between the two that there may be a pun on the work '"Q?P > mark and prison (Jeremiah 32: 2). The allusion to land marks 4 finds its parallel in Deut. 19 : 14, 27 : 17, and the metaphorical reference to moon Deuteronomy: ,. 5 . ,, ,, -, .. T\ worship might well mid its source in Deut 4: 19; 17: 3-7. Job's thought in 31: 19 is perhaps based on Deut. 22 : 22. We have seen that the metaphors Rahab and Leviathan found ... . . in Job appear also in the second Isaiah 51 : 9, and 27:1. Other references will show that the con- ceptions in Job are not foreign to the later portions of Isaiah's prophecy. The expression " The hand of the Lord hath done this " occurs Isa. 41 : 20 and Job 12 : 9. The same lofty con- ception of God is expressed in both in identical words : " Who spreadeth out the heavens alone." Job 9 : 8, and Is. 45 : 12. There is also in Isa. 44 : 24, the germ of the metaphor, the work 'Job 13: 4. 2 Job 19: 24. 8 Job 19: 8. 4 Job 24: 2. 5 Job 31: 26. 48 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. of the potter, elaborated in Job 10 : 8. The simile of the rotten and motheaten garment is found Job 13 : 28, and Isa. 50 : 9. The prophet says : " They trust in vanity and speak lies ; they conceive mischief and bring forth vanity. They weave the spider's web," Is. 59 : 14. Job says, " They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and their heart prepareth deceit," 1 and elsewhere Job uses the metaphor of the spider's web. 2 The similarity of the metaphors in the book of Job has thus been shown with the metaphors in Hebrew literature from the time of David in the eighth Psalm, down through the reign of Solomon and the early prophets to the age of Hezekiah, Jere- miah and Deuteronomy, to the exile of Judah and the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, 538 A. D. It might be claimed that the writers of these books were familiar with Job, and used the conceptions of its author, were it not for the facts that in Job, the principles securely acquiesced in by the people of the age of Solomon, have become problems painfully agitated, and that a condition of disorder and misery forms a background of the poem. Job's author is of an age that thinks, questions and protests. We feel that in the pictures therein presented, the details are too distinct and in too full relief, to be the mere re- flections of a gloom enshrouding a primitive condition of society. We see a man who is bitter in soul and longs for death that cometh not though he search for it more than for hid treasures ; 3 a man whose days are as the days of a hireling, doing a time of hard service upon the earth ; 4 a God, who covers the faces of the judges of the earth, 5 so that the tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure, they who carry their gods in their hands ; 6 we know that out of the city the dying groan, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; yet God regardeth not the wrong. 7 We cannot but see that the writer lived not in a i Job 15 : 35. Job 8: 14. Job 3:20. Job 7: 1. 6 Job 9 : 24. Job 12: 6. ' Job 24: 12. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 49 time of mute acceptance, that a later period had been reached. It would almost seem that a time of exile were behind the passage, "He leadeth counsellors away stripped" 1 for it cer- tainly conveys a picture of wide and varied experience and an advanced state of society. The strongest argument for the correspondence in date be- tween the book of Job and the late portions of Isaiah, from the point of view of this essay, is the metaphor of Job himself; a man serving Jehovah not for reward but for the joy and fel- lowship of the service. Such a metaphor would certainly be full of meaning to the Jews in time of captivity. At any rate there are some points in common between Job and the servant of the Lord in Isaiah. Both are innocent sufferers (cf. Job 1: 8 with "my righteous servant" Is. 53: 4); both are afflicted in a way that srikes horror to the beholders, and causes them to deem them smitten of God (Is. 52 : 14, 53 : 4) ; both are forsaken of men and subjected to mockery and spitting (Job 19: 4, 16: 10, 30: 9; Is. 50: 6, 53: 3) ; both are restored and glorified and receive double (Job 13: 18, 16: 19, 19: 25; Is. 50: 8, 53: 11 and 12). 2 Certainly some relation is suggested here between the two figures. Granting the righteous servant to be a metaphor for the godly remnant of righteous Israel, and Job a type for the righteous individual sufferer, then we have the probability that the author of one picture transferred some features from the canvas of his predecessor to his own. If the collective or national representation in Israel has served as the model for the individual portrait in Job, then Job would be later than the restoration. We have seen that Job and II. Isaiah have much in common. It is difficult, however, to be- lieve that the solution of the problem of suffering innocence given in Job, could be posterior to the more profound solution found in the prophet. The probability is that the two authors worked up common conceptions into independent creations. 1 Job 12: 17. 2 Cheyne, "Isaiah II.," p. 244; Davidson, "Job LXVL"; Driver, Intro., p. 435. 50 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. This would make the date of the book of Job about the time of the composition of Isaiah 40-61. 4. LIGHT THAT THE METAPHORS THROW UPON THE UNITY OF THE BOOK. The critics have advanced three distinct theories as to the unity of the book. First : That it is the work of Theories: several authors of different epochs, who from time to time, gave added development to the old folk-lore story of the prose portion. Second: That the cycles and the Jehovah speeches are the work of one man ; but that the speeches of Elihu were added by a later hand ; that the mining lyric, " Where shall wisdom be found ? " is an independent poem ; and that the de- scriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan are additions. 1 The third theory is that the book as it stands to-day is practically the work of one author. This theory claims that the author, wish- ' ing to present a view of life opposed to the orthodox Teman school of thought, either took an old legend, as Shakespeare did in many cases, just because it was familiar, and altered and enlarged that story to suit his purpose, or made an entirely imaginative creation of the character of Job. Those who hold this theory, however, agree with all in admitting some misplac- ing of the order of the speeches in the third cycle, they also grant some corruptions of the text, but insist upon the practical unity of the book as it stands, arguing that the mind which could give expression and artistic form to Job's curse, would not be satisfied with any former work until it had felt the touch of his own reshaping hand. 2 This theory is the one which receives corroboration from the metaphors ; for in the figurative language of the disputed por- tions there is nothing which would tend to discredit their in- tegrity. Grant that behemoth and leviathan are strange crea- tures, and are described at greater length than are the animals in the accepted portions. Grant that Elihu is not introduced 1 Basting's Bible Diet.; Cheyne's Bible Diet. * Encyl. Brit. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 51 into the prose portions or the three cycles, and that the Elihu portion is of a different character from the rest of the work. Grant too, that the mining lyric does give the commentator trouble. Yet these objections would not be sufficient to break up the unity of a classic in any language other than Hebrew, the medium for controversial theology. Why should the hippopotamus and the crocodile be excluded from the original text? They are certainly -Behemoth . n , . . and Leviathan S1 ^ nincant * tne author's purpose, if that pur- pose was to encourage the exiles in Babylon. Those exiles might easily infer from these descriptions, that if Jehovah had oversight and power to control the monsters of Egypt, he would have the power also to protect and deliver his chosen people from Babylon as he had from Egypt. True, the descriptions of behemoth and leviathan are longer and differ in several respects from the descriptions of the other animals, but these creatures were less familiar to the people and therefore needed a more graphic account. The presentation of them is, just as true to nature as the other pictures, the same important- truths are selected and dwelt upon, and the object of their intro- duction is the same worthy end. Picturesqueness, terseness and power mark these as they do the other character sketches in the work. The similes used to give an idea of the hippopotamus,, are appropriate and in harmony with the others in the book.. Their sources like those of many others are minerals, trees, and rivers. The bones of the hippopotamus are said to be as tubes of brass, the limbs like bars of iron. 1 The lotus tree and the willows give local color. Even the apparently incongruous figure of the tail, moving like a cedar, was probably to the people of that day, congruous, and meant something entirely different from what it does to us who read it now. The descriptions of leviathan, like that of the other animals, is commenced by a series of ironical questions. The touches of humor in the words : " Wilt thou bind him for thy maidens ? " making him a ladies' pet upon a string, and in the reminder 1 Job 40: 18. 52 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. of the consequences following a pat upon his back, " Remember the battle and do so no more/ 7 are not, the critics however to the contrary, out of place. In this description, the metaphors are, for the most part, drawn from sources used elsewhere in the poem. The mill-stone, the pot and the threshing sledge, 1 are new, but elsewhere appears the figurative use of the eyelids of the morn, 2 of torches, 3 of stones, 4 of straw, stubble, doors and pot-sherds. The only objection to the validity of the Elihu speeches, of importance to this paper, is the contention that in literary art, this portion does not bear comparison with the rest of the book. True, the language of the young Elihu is flowery and self conscious. True, he uses compara- tively few original figures, drawn from a limited number of sources: wine, song, 5 food, 6 mirror, storm, and copies his other illustrations from Job 7 or from the dream of Eliphaz. 8 But do these facts bespeak absence of literary art ? Rather do they prove the touch of the artist hand, when one realizes that they reveal the youthfulness of Elihu. His boyishness is very wordy, for he takes fifty-four lines in order to say that he is about to open his mouth, because his breast is as new wine which hath no vent, like new wine skins ready to burst. Viewed in the light of interpretation of youth, this portion speaks for the poet's art ; an art which also reveals itself in the description of the storm. Certainly this description is as well done as any picture in the poem, and affords a dramatic climax which is at once a final suspense and denouement, which it would be a pity to lose. It might be said in this connection that the prose portion has also been disputed, for the same reason that Elihu is objected 'Job 41:15. 2 Job 3: 9. 'Job 12: 5. 4 Job 6: 12. 'Job 35: 10. Job 34: 3. 7 Job 33: 4, 6, 10, 11, 13. 8 Job 33: 15. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 53 to ; that it adds nothing to the debate on the question of suffer- ing. If, however, the Prologue is indeed an introduction, and the life of Job is an answer to Satan's question: "Does Job serve God for naught ? " then Elihu makes for unity, for he, in harmony with the three friends, presents a false motive for service ; getting instead of giving, as opposed to Job's motive in his sonnet on wisdom, wherein his soul is ever turning, as the needle, to the absolute good. 1 Other works than this may have proved the probability that . the mining lyric is not an interpolation. W. M. - . Flinders Petrie 2 in Recent Discoveries in Sinai, gives mining details that serve to restore the liv- ing conditions pictured in the sonnet in question. The burden of proof that the lyric is an interpolation, must rest with those who would exclude it from the poem. In it there is certainly nothing which reveals a lack of harmony with the rest of the poem. On the contrary the closing metaphor of the rain, the lightnfng and the thunder, would tend to bring it into unity with the rest of the poem. 3 Furthermore, its symbolism is closely related to Job's earlier metaphor. "After thou hast tried me I shall come forth as gold." 4 Further light is thrown upon the unity of the book by con- sidering the nature of the figurative language of the various parts. Such a consideration leads to Characteristics. the following suggestive observations: (1) In every one of the disputed portions, though a few similes and metaphors are especially appropriate to the section in which they appear, some are drawn from sources used in other divisions, and one or two echo what has gone before and suggest what is to follow. In fact a thread of unity runs through the figures. (2) The prose portions are comparatively free from figurative expressions. Job's curse is highly personified. Metaphors and similes vivify the body of the poem. Repetition characterizes the 1 Genung, " Epic of the Inner Life," and Budde, " Job." 2 Harper's Mag., February, 1906, p. 440. Comp. Davidson, Driver, Genung, Cheyne and Budde. 4 Job 23: 10. 54 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. speech of verbose young Elihu ; and interrogation is the appro- priate figure used in the Jehovah speeches. Surely the conclu- sion is not amiss that all these are characteristic manifestations of one mind, which would feel the appropriateness of literal prose, of decorated poetry and of verbose youth; and which would furthermore feel that more stimulus to thought lies in question than in mere declaration. These characteristics speak, not only for unity, but also for individuality of authorship. 5. METAPHORS OF THE SEVERAL SPEAKERS. ~No matter what conclusion is reached as to the unity of Job, the literary art is acknowledged by all critics. Their Artistic ^.^ he f g hocle& Dante Shakespeare Significance. or Goethe, the art of Job in no wise depends upon feminine charm. Here is no Antigone, no Beatrice, no Cor- delia, Hermione, Desdemona, Imogene, Rosalind, or Perdita, no Marguerite to add the magic of exquisite womanhood to the spell of the work. The characters are men, and in their por- trayal add no poetic charm. They do, however, add force to the theme, and reality to the story, and give evidence of artistic workmanship. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zop- har the Naamathite, Elihu the Buzite, Job himself, live before us in the intensity of their words. Even the figures they em- ploy reveal individuality. In their sources, or in their hand- ling, the metaphors seem to partake of each speaker's personality. This cannot be mere accident of workmanship. It must be de- sign, a design that is added evidence of the probable unity of authorship, and is also evidence of a finished art, for it is hardly necessary to say that in such painstaking details the author reveals the shaping hand of a master workman. If the writer's interest had been given merely to the presenta- tion of Job's opposition to the doctrine that e utnor s righteousness is always attended by prosperity, Interest in . J J J ' Character- e ^ ca ^ ami ^y? ne need have created only one ization. antagonist, Eliphaz the Temanite. True the number three had its symbolic importance, but this use of symbolism need not have extended beyond the cycle INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 55 structure. Its manifestation in the number of friends is evi- dence of the author's interest in character portrayal. He created three types of men to give expression to one school of thought. Their creed was one, but clothed itself in a symbolism distinctive of each speaker. In his attempt to uphold the Teman school of thought, Eliphaz Eliphaz claims the divine origin of intuition, and appeals to the evidence of dreams : "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 my eyes : There was silence, and I heard a voice." * This is really metaphorical in being a concrete picturing of Eliphaz's emotion and thoughts. In this way he hopes to estab- lish the infallibility of the Teman philosophy, to show that it is divinely inspired. What this doctrine is he sets forth in two metaphors, drawn from agriculture and from the animal king- dom. He says that " they that plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same," 2 and asserts that the lions, living by evil are destroyed, and their whelps are scattered abroad. 3 These pic- tures are striking and easily remembered and give the sum of the accepted teachings of Teman, with almost proverbial force. Eliphaz further expounds his doctrine of reaping whatsoever is sown, by saying "Affliction cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground." 4 It is not native to the soil, for " Man is born unto trouble," only because he does wrong, and so seeks affliction as the sparks fly upward. 5 These and other figures show Eliphaz to be the man of refined Mob 4: 13-16. 2 Job 4: 8. 3 Job 4: 10, 11. Job 5: 6. 6 Job 5: 7. 56 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. thought. He speaks of the body in terms of architecture, saying he chargeth with folly " them that dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is the dust, Who are crushed before the moth! Is n.ot their tent cord plucked up within them ? " * He speaks of the heights of heaven ; of God as a treasure, as precious silver, and as the ffold of Ophir ; of crafty men ; of snares ; and of the finished product cut off from the loom. 2 All these metaphors of Eliphaz, not only in their source, hut even more in their rendering, are appropriately used by the author to portray the clear visioned seer, the highest type of man. The speeches of Bildad and Zophar would show these same reflective characteristics, if they were designed merely to in- terpret the author's views of the Teman philosophy. But if they reveal different traits, they indicate that the writer did more than ponder over men's theories: that he was a student of men's selves: that in Eliphaz, Zophar, Bildad, he gave con- crete expression to the fact of every man's being a variant of the creed he professes. Eliphaz, rebuking. Job from the Teman standpoint, was a man of refined intellect. Do the metaphors ascribed to Bildad and Zophar, show these characters to be mere reflections of his personality ? The tenor of Bildad's thought is like that of Eliphaz, showing _.., the same belief that reward and punishment are Bilaaa. . -11 in direct ratio to deserving; but the men them- selves are unlike. Even in rebuking, Eliphaz shows a certain sweet reasonableness: he is the seer who believes in visions, to whom God's purpose is directly revealed. Bildad too is a seer, but there enters into his argument some of the elements of which his name may be intentionally significant. He, more than Eliphaz, is " the son of strife." Eliphaz's first protest is with- out personal attack upon Job ; having more the nature of pitying appeal than of rebuke. Bildad's first speech, on the other hand 'Job 4: 19, 21. 2 Job 4: 7. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 57 is a straightforward blew, en4m^4t4&-tnie, with a more gentle touch, a more tender promise for the future. He believes in first rousing through the counter-irritant of scorn, and then soothing with a healing tenderness. Even his promise, how- ever, though meant tenderly for Job, shows Bildad to be the " quarreler," in phophesying that " He will yet fill thy mouth with laughter, And thy lips with shouting; They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame." 1 His ground for quarrel with Job, is^that the man of Uz does not accept the wisdom of the fathers. Whereas Eliphaz, true to his name, " God his strength," bases his faith on divine inspiration, Bildad is unswerving in his, because of tradition : " For inquire I pray thee of the former age, And apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out. (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, Because our days upon earth are a shadow) ; Shall not they teach thee and tell thee, And utter words out of their heart ? " * And with what symbols does he illustrate the traditions he accepts? He too, goes to the world of growing things, and to the animal kingdom. The sources of his illustrations unite his thought with that of Eliphaz ; but the actual images reveal his individuality. His fancy does not picture the tilled field, but the rush growing without mire, the flag without water. Nor is it " the roaring of the lion " " the voice of the fierce lion " and " the teeth of the young lion " that symbolize evil, to him. It is the more subtle spider, with which he compares the godless man. 3 Like Eliphaz, Bildad borrows figures from the tent, but whereas Eliphaz had made use of it to show things as they were, " Is not their tent cord plucked up within them ? " Bildad gives the figure prophetic force, " and the wicked shall be no more." 4 In fact though both have the seer's love of prophecy, 'Job 8: 8, 10. 2 Job 8 : 8, 10. s Job 8 : 14, 15. * Job 8 : 22. 58 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. Bildad shows the trait to a far greater extent. He is, undoubt- edly, a seer whose doctrine is the doctrine of Eliphaz, but con- ditioned by the character of Bildad : made forceful with quarrel- some scorn, and illustrated by figures which show difference of character rather than of thought. It may be said that these two characters are only slightly dif- ferentiated, but it cannot be disputed that Zophar represents an entirely different type. He is no sage justifying his views at the outset, by ascribing them either to inspiration or to the wisdom of the fathers. He gives no reason whatever for maintaining the orthodox teaching. He does however, like Eliphaz and Bildad, draw his first metaphor from the animal kingdom, his choice being the wild ass. This animal is so in harmony with Zophar' s utterances, as to convict the author here of humorous intent. The dream of Eliphaz is recalled by Zophar, but only to suggest how differently the symbol is handled. Here the dream has no force. The godless " Shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found : Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night." * Even this slight reference to a vision is an intellectual meta- phor for Zophar. The spiritual and thoughtful Eliphaz, the emphatic Bildad, representing the wise who sum up their teach- ing in rules, could not have conceived the unrefined^symbols of Zophar whose interests were physical , rather than intellectual. Even the most spiritual and thoughtful of his metaphors is physical : " And thy life shall be clearer than noon-day ; Though there be darkness it shall be as the morning." Beautiful as this symbol is, its appeal is still to the physical eyesight. Elsewhere he declares that the wicked man "shall perish forever like his own dung " ; 2 and in his longest metaphor he speaks of food being sweet in his mouth, but turned in his stomach and vomited up. 3 Most of Zophar's metaphors are inelegant, yet they are vivid and in harmony with his character, not of a seer, but of a hot-headed enthusiast, typing the religious bigot who asks : *Job 20: 8. Job 20: 7. Job 20: 12. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 59 " Canst thou by searching find out God, Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? " l This survey of the speeches of the three friends shows that the metaphors reveal both a delightful harmony and variety. In basic thought they are often one; in expression, they are individual and characteristic. The metaphors assigned to Job are no less characteristic. In j , number alone, they are significant. The friends, representing as they do, different embodiments of established thought, have their illustrations at hand, worked out for them with somewhat the force of proverbs. A compara- tively few suffice to emphasize Zophar's thought, since it has been in substance the thought of Eliphaz and Bildad before him. But Job is departing from the accepted belief of Teman. His reasoning has almost the daring of science, and in true scientific spirit he cites instance upon instance. As the modern scientist reaches generalizations through many illustrations, so Job points his heresy by piling metaphor upon metaphor, but with a different purpose. The scientist wishes to convince him- self of truth, Job's purpose is to convict others of error. Dar- win would not venture to draw conclusions even about so slight a principle as the selection exhibited by earth worms, till he had examined two hundred and twenty-seven specimens of leaf mold; but this was the scientist's dread of haste and inac- curacy. Job had no fear of inaccuracy ; he was sure of his re- bellion against the doctrine of Teman, sure because of his long periods of introspection. Only two pieces of Hebrew literature are introspective, Job / J. and Ecclesiastes. Job, as the earlier, strikes out into a new and untried field. The author has phases of thought and feel- ing to express, which are new to the people. By long, inward searchings he has reached a new belief, which by artistic, liter- ary methods, he must reproduce in the minds of others. So Job, the arch-heretic from the Teman school, desiring to make his thought perfectly clear, states it, then, in further explana- ijob 11: 7. 60 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. tion, piles up metaphor upon metaphor, directly stating or im- plying that it is like some other well known and accepted thing. To give Job's heretical thought force and an individuality dif- ferent from those of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, the author does two things : (a.) he makes many new applications of the metaphoric sources used by the three friends; and (&) he goes to fields untried by them. Job is alone, though with his friends. And how impressively does the author emphasize his solitude. Job first makes the generalization: "Know now that God hath subverted me in my cause, 1 and " (even at once making the thought metaphoric), "hath compassed me with his net." But that this impression of loneliness may not be the transient effect of a solitary cloud on high, the shadow of the moving cloud is thrown upon the dif- ferent spheres of life: " My way is fenced in, Darkness is in my path, He hath taken the crown from my head; : My hope is plucked up like a tree; His wrath is kindled against me; He counts me as an adversary, His troops come on together; They cast up their way against me, And encamp round my tent. My brothers are far from me, My acquaintances are estranged, My kinsfolk have failed, My familiar friends have forgotten me; Those who dwell in my house have forgotten me; My maids count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight; My servant will not answer me, All my inward friends abhor me, My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."* Could we possibly produce a more helpless picture of pathetic solitude? The author, by this symbolic method, leaves not a 'Job 19: 6. 2 Job 19: 8-20. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 61 single escape from Job's isolation. He is the most alone of all figures in literature. Even CEdipus and Lear in their wander- ings are not so set apart from their fellows. (Edipus is tenderly cared for by Antigone, Lear by the humble fool, the loyal Kent, the wronged Cordelia ; but Job is absolutely alone, pathetically > recognizing it in the words : " My breath is strange to my wife, The children of my own body fear me, Young children despise me." l In the metaphors of Job there enters not only a pathos, but a tenderness not evident in the characteristic symbols of his friends. His solitude is a mighty compound of fearlessness,, outraged- worth and pathos. He curses the day of his birth: " Let a cloud dwell upon it>" 2 yet he knows that " a cloud is consumed and vanished away." 3 What a sense of personal power, ending in pathetic impotency does he express in such figures as: " Thou liftest me up to the wind, Thou causest me to ride upon it; And thou dissolvest me in the storm."* Job is the great protagonist; he measures himself with digni- fied aloofness and a sense of proud hopelessness, against the ac- cepted but erroneous teachings of Teman. It is a mighty force against which he pits himself; but he faces it with a bravery that is pathetic in its recognition of ensuing destruction : " For he breaketh me with a tempest, And multiplieth my wounds without cause, . ^ He will not suffer me to take my breath, But filleth me with bitterness. If we speak of strength, lo, he is mighty! And if of justice, who, saith he, will summon me? Though I be righteous, mine own mouth shall condemn me. Though I be perfect, it shall prove me perverse. i Job 19: 17-18. * Job 3: 5. * Job 7 : 9. * Job 30: 22. 62 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. I am perfect; I regard not myself; I despise my life; It is all one; therefore I say He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." 1 Yet this man of fearlessness has too his moments of black despair : " I am like a rotten thing that consumeth, Liike a garment that is moth-eaten." 8 His hopelessness is furthermore impressed by metaphors drawn from the vegetable kingdom, war, prison and the worthless things of nature, and the sea. His feet are put into the stocks." 3 He " cometh up like a flower and is cut down." 4 His fate is even more hopeless than that of a tree : " For there is hope of a tree, If it be cut down that it will sprout again, And that the tender branches thereof will not cease, Though the roots 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 is laid low, Yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he? Wi As if this figure did not carry with it hopelessness enough, the author immediately gives further force to Job's despair, with an added picture: "As the waters fail from the sea, And the river wasteth 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." fl He cuts off all hope from despair, with Job's symbols of ava- lanche and flood. 'Job 9: 17-22. 'Job 13: 28. Job 13: 27. *Job 14: 2. "Job 14: 7-10. Job 14: 11, 12. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 63 " But the mountain falling cometh to nought ; And the rock is removed out of its place; The waters wear the stone; The overflowings thereof wash away the dust of the earth: So thou destroyest the hope of man." In the blackness of his despair Job has his moments of pathetic appeal. In one of the most tender of all figures he "Wilt thou harrass a driven leaf, And wilt thou pursue the dry stubble ? " 2 Again, in utter weariness, he beseeches for man that God will "Look away from him, that he may rest, Till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day." 8 Yet he has too, his times of hope. For a moment he is sus- tained by the expectation of justification beyond the grave. It is with blended impotency and hope, he exclaims : "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 forever: But, as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth And at last he will stand upon the earth." 4 One other magnificent gleam of hope finds expression in the metaphor of the change of guard, Job in that, appropriately recognizing the war he is waging : "All the day of my warfare would I wait Till my release should come." There is still a brave hope that the end will be release ; and this hope finds culminating faith in the mining metaphor: " When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." e 1 Job 14: 18, 19. 2 Job 13: 25. Job 14: 6. * Job 19: 23-25. Job 14: 14. e Job 23: 10. METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. All Job's many and complex feelings are made real in his marvelous fashion of metaphor. From the opening curse to the oath of clearing, he stands before us in the force of his symbols. His wrath and disgust at the accusation of Eliphaz, are made evident through metaphor. Trade, war, food are the familiar sources to which he goes to emphasize his feelings. His sym- bols enforce his proud contempt for the injustice done him : " Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balance, For now it would be heavier than the sands of the seas: Therefore have my words been rash, For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? My soul refuseth to touch them: They are as loathsome food to me." 1 Therefore his sense of unrighteous oppression, of indignity, wrath and impotency, must find words. How vivid is his appeal to our sympathy in this picturing of his calamities, laid in the balance to be found heavier than the sands of the sea; of his spirit empoisoned with the darts of the Almighty; of his power- less array against all the terrors of God! Small wonder that his " words have been rash ! " Small wonder that he spurns the Teman theories with contemptuous scorn ! They are as loath- some food to him. They cannot silence him, as grass and fodder still the outcry of the ass and the ox. They are without salt to give them savor ; they are tasteless as the white of an egg. His soul " refuseth to touch them." Not only has Job scorn for the theories of his friends, but for their false friendship as well. He believes they have failed him, and to convict them of betrayal, he is again figurative, find- ing the metaphors at hand in the wadies that fail after the rain : i Job 6: 2. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 65 "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 caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside; They go up into the waste and perish. The caravans of Tema looked, The companies of Sheba waited for them. They were put to shame because they hoped; They came thither and were confounded. For now ye are nothing." * One marvels at the force of those friends, which could resist the convicting force of an accusation comparing them to deceit- ful streams that dried up in times of the traveler's sorest need, betraying the caravan of Tema and of Sheba, which " looked " and "waited" and "hoped" for them, only to be confounded and " put to shame ! " Job's figure here gives added force to the personality of those three friends, which could stand the deep damnation of the culmination of this figure : Like those brooks "now ye are nothing"; yet unlike them, you were not asked for aid : "Did I say, Give unto me? Or offer a present for me of your substance? Or deliver me from the adversary's hand? Or redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?" 8 He confronts them not only with the rebuke of this metaphor, but in a magnificent climax of contempt assures them : "No doubt but ye are the people, And wisdom shall die with you"; Then with supreme scorn, he calls them forgers of lies who weld falsehood into the semblance of truth, and says they are quack doctors, " physicians of no value," who, for every ill have but one remedy : " be humble." ^ob 6: 15-21. 2 Job 12: 2. 'Job 13: 4. 66 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. Yet Job's protests are not merely contempt and impotent re- bellion. They carry the weight of restless desire to know why he suffers. With dignity he recognized that he is the work of God's hands, and asks that he may " take comfort a little." The dignified " why " breathes through the figures of the potter and the dairy, with which he emphasizes the injustice that created, merely to persecute him. "Is it good," he asks : " That thou should despise the work of thy hand ? 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, And knit me together with bones and sinews ? " 1 It is just that punishment should be meted out for evil: "If I be wicked woe unto me "; but why should the innocent suffer ? " If I be righteous yet shall I not lift up my head." 2 The human cry to be echoed centuries later in : " Oh, why hast thou forsaken me ? " finds expression in Job's " Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb ?" 3 " Let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, Before I go whence I shall not return, Even to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death." * Job's most elaborately developed protest, however, is not a personal one, directed against his individual sufferings. He confronts the Teman school with minute details of social ills, concretely picturing the phases of human oppression. Wifh confident protest he affirms that " God regardeth not the folly " of those responsible for (a) encroachments following the removal of landmarks; (b) the resultant formation of a class sinking *Job. 10: 3-9. 'Job 9: 15. Job 10: 18. 4 Job 10: 20, 21. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 67 under hardship and poverty; (c) the intensification of this poverty by contrasting contact with wealth; (d) the crowding population of cities and the violence of city crime; (e) the con- sequent rise of a distinctly criminal class whose whole existence is a warfare against the light. 1 "T"" Job is in fact, though intensely human and individual, a con- crete embodiment of suffering humanity. In all literature there does not breathe a more complex, nor more vital character than this man of Uz, whose metaphors bring him before us bruised, appealing and pathetically suppliant, yet withal sufficient, scorn- ful and fearless, confronting his opponents and his God, with his indomitable spirit and his bravely protesting " why ? " To Job, the cloud is symbolic of the shadow in which he lies ; _ , , and with appropriateness, psychologic, as well as tender, it is out of the cloud that Job's com- fort comes. The author takes the very figure he had created to express the gloom overshadowing Job's life, and converts it into the medium for his restitution. Jehovah speaks "out of the whirlwind." In the Jehovah speeches it is the author's purpose to set forth aspects of Diety, especially the mystery and beneficent tender- ness of Providence, to show that the evil in the world is not more marvelous than the good. His method here, as in the other speeches, is to picture the invisible in terms of the visible, the unknown in terms of the known; and he chooses metaphors suited to his purpose. In his desire to emphasize God's power, he draws his picture from nature, not from " nature red in tooth and claw," but from those more tender aspects shown in the rain falling : " On the wilderness wherein there is no man, To satisfy the waste and desolate ground; And to cause the tender grass to spring forth." 4 To suggest mystery he pictures Jehovah as the omniscient world builder, fastening the foundations of the earth upon noth- 1 Job 24: 2-17. 2 Job 38: 26, 27. 68 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. ing, and laying the corner stone thereof, 1 but adds, to emphasize loving kindness, that when this was done "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 2 The same antithetical effect of power and tenderness is produced in the metaphor from the sea. He makes Jehovah say : " I marked out for it my bounds, and set bars and doors, And said, * Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; And here shall thy proud waves be stayed.'" 3 Here might is portrayed, but what tender mercy is in the other member of the figure where Jehovah says : " I made clouds the garments thereof, And thick darkness a swaddling band for it:" I created the mighty sea, but I cared for it as for a tender babe. The daily miracles of nature were fresh and spontaneous to the author of Job, and in the Jehovah speeches, it suits his purpose to dwell upon the mystery of each familiar thing. Milton is content to note the marvel of the dawn : " The high lawns appear 'd Under the opening eyelids of the morn " ;* but Jehovah accounts for the miracle : " I have commanded the morning since thy days began, And caused the dayspring to know the place; The earth is illuminated by the rising sun, As clay is changed under the seal; And all things stand forth As in splendid attire. 6 But Job's author means that these miracles shall not be lightly accounted for. A mighty sense of mystery is expressed by the pictures of God's binding the cluster of the Pleiades, loosing the 1 Job 38 : 4-6. 2 Job 38: 7. Job 38: 10, 11. * Job 38: 9. *"Lycidas," lines 25, 26. Job 38 : 12, 14. Gesenius, p. 509. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 69 bands of Orion, leading forth the Mazzaroth 1 in their season, girding the Bear with her train, walking the recesses of the deep, entering the springs of the sea, 2 visiting the gates of death, 3 keeping the treasuries of the hail and snow, 4 arranging for the angle of lightning, 5 pouring out the bottles of heaven, and attending at the birth of ice, "when the waters become like stones and the face of the deep is frozen." 5 But this providence is to be made tender as well as mighty and mysterious, and so the author expresses his conception of Jehovah's sympathy by other metaphors from nature: of wild goats, " They bow themselves, they bring forth their young, They cast out their pains; " they send their offspring forth, to grow up in the open field, after they become strong; 7 of the wild ass, who has been sent forth free to mate his home in the wilderness : "And the salt land his dwelling-place, He scorneth the tumult of the city, Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver";' He refers to the stupid ostrich who has not enough of nature's instinct to guard her eggs against the chance foot-fall, but yet has her times of lifting herself on high, when she scorns the horse and his rider; to the hawk, soaring southward; to the eagle in her nest on the inaccessible eyrie ; to the lioness crouch- ing for the spring ; to the raven providing for its open-mouthed young ; and to the war horse rejoicing in the tumult of battle. Finally the author combines both mystery and providence again in the descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan. The in- i Job 38: 31, 32. * Job 38 : 16. 3 Job 38: 17. Job 38: 22. 5 Job 38 : 24, 35. Job 38: 29, 30. 'Job 39: 1-4. s Job 39 : 5-8. 70 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. ference from all these Jehovah figures is clear, suggestive of awe in their interrogative form alone: God's providence is wonderful and altogether past finding out. His works show mystery, might and tenderness. The evil in his world is not more mysterious than the good. The metaphors have shown two distinct evidences of the author's art, revealing in selection a unifying The Third -, . , . .-.. - \ thread, and, in rendering a mighty power of char- acterization. Their diversity is, however, of greater literary value than their similarity. It is because of their portrayal of character that they throw suggestive light upon the arrangement of the disputed third cycle. Almost every critic 1 has applied his special theory to the rearrange- ment of this cycle. But even the test of versification used in the Moulton arrangement, is hardly as suggestive as one based upon indications of character revealed through the metaphors. By this test, certain portions ascribed to Job seem properly, to belong to Bildad. The passage : " Swiftly they pass away upon the face of the waters ; Their portion is cursed in the earth; They turn not into the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters: 80 doth Sheol those that have sinned. The womb shall forget him; The worm shall feed sweetly upon him; He shall be no more remembered; And unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree. He devoureth the barren that beareth not, And doeth not good to the widow," 2 which is now included in Job's reply to Eliphaz, reveals upon examination many similarities to the sources used by Bildad. The simile of the wicked consumed by Sheol as drought and heat consume the snow water, is from the same source as that of the reed and flag withered by drought and heat. 3 Moreover, 1 Cheyne, Bickell, Duhm, Moulton. 'Job 24: 18-21. 'Job 8: 11, 12. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 71 this use of Sheol is especially related to Bildad's figurative use of the term, " The king of terrors," 1 for these two passages stand apart from the rest of the poem in connecting thoughts of Sheol and sin. The suggestion of unrighteousness broken as a tree 2 is the same as that Bildad has in, "His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branches be withered." : And it is interesting to note that this same figure bears out the idea of drought and heat. Nor is this all. The expression, "the worm shall feed sweetly upon him," Bildad has earlier put metaphorically, in the words : " The first born of death shall devour his members " ; and the expression, " He shall be no more remembered," 5 seems to have found its source in the figurative language of Bildad's former speeches: " His place shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee." 6 and, " He shall have neither son nor son's son among his people." 7 In the present arrangement of the book, chapter 27: 7-23 is assigned to Job; but a study of the metaphors found therein, would ascribe it to Bildad. For instance: "He buildeth his house as the moth" bears a very close relation to the figure of the spider's web, 8 as does also "the booth which the keeper maketh, to the lattice on which the vine climbs." Bildad's earlier thought finds reverberation in " Terrors overtake him like waters : A tempest stealeth him away in the night," 10 Job 18: 14. Job 24: 20. Job 18: 16. Job 18: 13. Job 24: 20. Job 8: 18. Job 18: 19. Job 8: 14. Job 8: 15. 10 Job 27 : 20, 21. 72 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. reechoing, as it does, his simile of " the mighty wind." The words here ascribed to Job : " prepare raiment as the clay," 9 certainly reflect Bildad's earlier thought of being " clothed with shame." 2 Further evidence of Bildad's characteristics of thought appears in this chapter in that " the offspring of the wicked shall not be satisfied with bread," which is another rendering of his confident assertion in like metaphor, that " the strength of the wicked shall be hunger bitten." 3 There is, moreover, in the words : " Men shall clap their hands at him, And shall hiss him out of his place," 4 a summary of the climax in Bildad's second speech, wherein he says: "He shall have no name in the streets, He shall be driven from light into darkness, And chased out of the world," 8 On the other hand, chapter 25, which is at present assigned to Bildad, would, according to the test of the metaphor, belong rather to Zophar. For the expression, " God maketh peace in his high places," 6 is no doubt founded on Zophar's previous utterance : " It is as high as heaven." 7 In connection with the question: " Is there any number to his armies," 8 it also harks back to Zophar's war metaphor. 9 There is in addition a very marked resemblance between the metaphor: " Behold the moon hath no brightness, And the stars are not pure in his sight," 1 * 1 Job 8: 2. Job 8: 22. Job 18: 12. * Job 27 : 23. Job 18: 17. Job 25: 2. 'Job. 11: 8. 8 Job 25: 3. "Job 20: 24, 25. 10 Job 25 : 5. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 73 and the simile: " Thy life shall be clearer than the noon day ; Though there be darkness it shall be as the morning." 1 The passage 5-14 in Chapter 26, which Moulton, Bickell, Cheyne and Duhm ascribe to Bildad, but which in the received text is ascribed to Job, would seem from the sources of its meta- phors, rightly to belong to Job. The cloud, the pillars, Rahab, the swift serpent are all distinctive of Job. The wonderful mining lyric, 2 which has been rejected by Siegfried, taken sepa- rately by Duhm, ascribed to Zophar by Moulton, would from the point of view of this essay, be properly assigned to Job. There is nothing in the metaphors used by either Zophar or Bildad, to suggest such a carefully wrought out metaphor from mining as is here developed. But Job has used a metaphor from mining, in this same round of speeches, to conclude per- haps the most dramatic passage of the poem : "But he knoweth the way that I take; When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." This metaphor of the refining of gold, put by the author in the mouth of Job at this point, would seem to be suggestive of the longer metaphor with which he intended to close Job's final answer in the cycle. The rearrangement of the cycle, according to the metaphoric test, would be as follows : Eliphaz's speech: Chapter 22. Job's reply: Chapter 23; 24: 1-17; 22-25. Bildad: Chapters 27: 7-10; 13-23; 24: 18-21. Job: Chapter 26. Zophar: Chapter 25. Job : 27 : 1-6 ; 11, 12 : Chapter 28. Job 11: 17. 3 Job 28. Job 23: 10. 74 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. 6. LIMITATIONS IN INTERPRETATION OF THE FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS. Yet all that is here claimed for the importance and force of the metaphor, is said with a realization of the Specific limitations of this literary test. In the Song of i erary Songs, the lover says, that the heroine's nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. 1 The Psalmist declares, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thou hast ordained strength." 2 Jesus says of the bread : " This is my body," and of the wine " This is my blood." 3 Job is made to say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth " ; " My steps are washed with butter." " The rocks pour me out rivers of oil." " Am I a sea or a sea monster ? " These expressions may be taken literally. Theologians have main- tained that they mean just what they say. It is however hard to see how Job could at once be a sea and a sea monster, or how the Shulammite's nose could be the tower of Lebanon ; and even the most literal must find it difficult to explain the spoken wis- dom of babes. It might be too much to claim that in Job, every statement is a metaphor; that there is no literal assertion; that the whole book, prose and poetry, is just one long allegory. But this would be nearer the truth than to attempt to minimize the elements of imagination, and to read direct statement where simile is intended. What does Job mean when he says that the rocks poured him out rivers of oil, or that his steps were washed with butter ? What does he mean when he asks, " Am I a sea or a sea monster?" As we answer these questions, we must answer the query, what does he mean when he says, "I know A that my Redeemer liveth." Here is the poetry of the book of I Job, elemental and universal. What the author says must be \ interpreted as literature, giving expression, as is the fashion ef N^all great works of literature, to problems of life, love, death and sorrow. 1 Song of Solomon 7 : 4. a Ps. 8: 2. John 6: 51; Luke 22: 19. INDUCTIONS FROM STUDY OF PART II. 75 But Job is not philosophy. Here is no argument for immor- / , tality, as in the Phaedo of Socrates ; no argument Content ^ or ^ e ex i stence ^ a God, as i n Diman's Theistic Argument, or Flint's Theism; no balancing of probabilities in order to reach a conclusion, as in Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion. The book of Job is a literary art form. Though the problem of human suffering finds expression here, it is presented as a problem of experience, not of philosophy. If one wishes to take its statements literally, he may; but he will be led into all sorts of difficulty: his conclusions will be foolish, and can be accepted by only the superstitious and ignorant. But let him interpret them as metaphors, and they mean as much or as little as he has mind or faith to see with. The book of Job is a poem. Try arbitrarily to declare the mean- ing of the metaphors, and its beauty is lost. Try to build up on it a system of philosophy or theology, and its wonderful art is destroyed by dogmatism. Read it as literature, understand it as poetry, and it triumphs in art and in faith, picturing the one man who, tried in the furnace of affliction and without hope, yet maintained the integrity of his way. Read in this way, Job stands before us in fellowship with all the brave spirits of litera- ture, Luria, Ulysses, Prometheus, and the rest ; yet more brave than all that brave company, sending out his inspiring cry : " I know that my Redeemer liveth." BIBLIOGRAPHY. Budde, K. Das Buch Hiob. Gottengen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1896. Bradley, G. G. Lectures on Job. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888. Bickkell, G. Das Buch Hiob. Wein, C. Gerold's Sohn, 1894. Cheyne, T. K. Job and Solomon. New York, Whittaker, 1887. Davidson, A. B. The Book of Job. Cambridge, The University Press, 1884. Encyclopedia Brittanica. Delitzsch, F. The Book of Job. Edinburgh, T. T. Clark, 2 vols., 1866. Dillman, A. Das Buch Hiob. Leipzig, Hirgel, 1891. Driver, S. R. Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. New York, Scribner, 1900. Duhm, B. Das Buch Hiob. Freiberg, Leipzic, 1897. Gemmg, J. T. The Epic of the Inner Life. New York, Houghton, 1891. Hoffman, J. G. E. Kiel, 1891. 76 METAPHORS IN BOOK OF JOB. Meix, A. Das Gedicht von Hiob. Jena, 1870. Moulton, R. G. The Modern Reader's Bible. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1898. Reman, E. Le Livre de Job. Paris, 1865. Siegfried, C. The Book of Job. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1903. Wright, G. H. B. The Book of Job. London, Williams and Norgate, 1883. Swete, H. B. The Old Testament in Greek. University Press, 1895. Cheyne, T. K. The Prophecies of Isaiah. New York, Whittaker, 2 vols., 1884. Moulton, R. G. The Literary Study of the Bible. Boston, Heath & Co., 1899. Owen, John. Five Great Sceptic Dramas. London, 1896. Smith, G. A. The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1901. Isaiah. New York, Armstrong & Son, 2 vols., 1893. Minor Prophets. New York, Armstrong & Son, 2 vols., 1898. Cheyne. Bible Dictionary. Scribner, 1899. Basting's Bible Dictionary. New York, Macmillan, 189 . The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York, Funk & Wagnall, 1904. Stedman, E. C. The Nature and Elements of Poetry. Boston, 1892. Buck, Gertrude. Metaphor, a Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric. Ann Arbor, Inland Press, 1899. Gummere, F. B. Hand Book of Poetics. Boston, 1888. Metaphor. The Anglo Saxon, Halle, 1881. Hunt, Leigh. Imagination and Fancy. London, 1846. Minto, Wm. Manual of English Prose Literature. Edinburgh, 1886. 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