1 continuing to seek God for himself. In other words, the burden laid upon him was to decide whether he would consent to be blessed by the apparent representatives of God upon earth, or whether he would wrestle with God until be blessed him. That God did in the end bless him, in spite of his friends' accusations of blasphemy, is the moral of the poem. But though the candid and careful reader of the Book of Job must feel that this is the true meaning of the argument contained in the Colloquies, he must also feel that it is not stated in any direct and logical sequence. My object is to follow the track of Job's reasoning across the wondrous land of Oriental imagery through which it passes. To anyone who has wandered over those beautiful mountains and many times lost his way, a clue to the path of understanding cannot be unacceptable; and I will confidently maintain that whoever finds in the Book of Job nothing but a fine exposition of the mystery of sin and suffering, has never found the road that leads to a complete survey of the poet's landscape. |