But Heaven that brings out good from evil, His children, camels, horses, cows— Short-sighted Devil not to take his spouse.1 The cynical point of which is, that had Satan deprived Job of his wife, Heaven would afterwards have cursed the Patriarch with two others! It may be doubted, however, whether Job's wife was really wicked. It may be that the sight of her husband's desolation and misery wrung from her an hysterical cry of anguish. This seems to have been William Blake's view, for in his illustrations of the Book of Job he portrays Job's wife kneeling, from beginning to end, beside her husband and sharing his wretchedness. It is however, as already observed, clearly the object of the writer of the poem to deepen the Patriarch's distress in every possible way, and we must therefore sup 1 Poetical Works, 1893, p. 444• I have a haunting impression that Luther said or wrote something of the same nature. pose that his wife's suggestion, which he gently reproves, must have greatly added to his mental torture. The culmination of his misery, however, has yet to be attained. His three friends are on the road to share his grief with him; but, as we shall see, their attempted condolences drive him to the verge of madness; for while they are jealous for their own belief, he, like Elijah, is very jealous for Jehovah.1 Here, then, is the setting of the scene of the drama. "The sufferer," says Professor Moulton, "sits on the ash-mound as on a stage, with all surrounding nature for scenery; round about, stand a chorus of silent spectators gazing on the fallen glory of their land; travellers, too, stop to wonder at the sight, some smiting on their breasts as they go on their way to spread the sad story abroad, some lingering, like Elihu, to gather wisdom. Lastly the three friends of Job, in the pomp of woe and exalted station approach. And when they lifted up their afar off and knew him not (because of the 1 1 Kings XIX, 10, 14. eyes ravages of his disease), they lifted up their voices and wept, and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads. toward Heaven. As they ascend the mound the spectators reverently make way for them and they sit down opposite their comrade on the bare ground. The scene is complete; yet all wait for the suffering hero himself to break the painful silence. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great. The loitering Elihu mentioned above was a foreigner, an Aramaean Arab, and a much younger man than either Job or his friends. It is not to be supposed that he stayed beside the mourners all the seven days and nights of watching; but at all events he was there on the eighth day, and after listening, at first with respect, to the controversy between the stricken Patriarch and his comforters, he can contain himself 1 All this is in accordance with Eastern etiquette. See Moulton's Book of Job, pp. xviii and xix. no longer, but forthwith delivers his own opinions. As might, perhaps, be expected, though he repudiates the arguments of the friends, he has really nothing to add to them. He is the typical young man, burning to instruct his elders, and in spite of the critical doubt "whether his intervention is part of the original poem, or only a late, spurious, and worthless addition by some unknown hand," it certainly adds a touch of subtle humour to the situation. It seems, however, a strong argument against the genuineness of his speeches, that, considering he only reiterates the doctrines of Job's three friends, the Lord should censure them, but not him, in the admittedly genuine Epilogue. 1 Cox's Commentary, p. 406; Renan's Translation, pp. xxxiv-xxxviii. CHAPTER II THE COLLOQUIES On the eighth day after the arrival of the friends, the real drama begins; the spiritual drama, the contact and contest of soul with soul. For of dramatic action in the modern sense there is none; we are brought, not into the presence of bodily passion, but of intellectual; which is far greater, more poignant, more deadly, but far more rare. The stress of argument is intensified as the poem proceeds, but it cannot be said to do so by any very clear or continuous grades; for the Oriental mind seems to delight in repetition and the picking up of dropped threads. As I have before observed, it is in these Colloquies between Job and his Friends that the wonder and value of the Poem consists, and it will be now my difficult task to dis |