3. This same general conviction of the Divine Justice, and of its inevitable manifestation in the life and lot of man, rises to a still bolder utterance in Chapter xvi. 21, where Job demands and entreats nothing less than that God would justify him against God Himself, against the wrongs which He Himself had done him, as well as against the suspicions and misconstructions of his fellows. And with this indomitable persuasion of a Justice in heaven so pure that it would even listen and respond to an appeal against itself, is it any wonder that Job was led on by it to the yet more definite persuasion that, if the response to that appeal were not vouchsafed within the bounds and coasts of time, it would be vouchsafed beyond them? Is not the one a natural and logical inference from the other? 4. Even so early as in his first reply to Bildad (Chap. x. 7), the man of Uz could assert his innocence, and God's knowledge of it, to God's face; he could say, "Thou knowest I am not guilty, though Thou hast searched for my fault and made inquisition for my sin." And in his very next speech (Chap. xiii. 15-19) he repeats this assertion in a more elaborate form:-A sinner would not dare to come before God, whereas he longs for nothing so much; he is sure that he has right on his side; sure that, if only he could reach the Divine Presence, his innocence would be patent, and need no proof: if he believed that any man could justly allege aught against him, he would die of very shame. In short, as he shews in every word he utters, he is as fully convinced of his own innocence as he is of the justice of God. And if God be just, and man be innocent, must not God justify man,redress his wrongs, release him from his sufferings, and grant him a clear and happy issue out of all his trials? 5. Another, and yet a similar, line of thought leads to the same conclusion. In Chapter ix. 32-35 Job gives vent to his longing for an Umpire, a Daysman, an Arbiter capable of bringing him and God together in judgment, and of enforcing his decision even on the Almighty. And what this prophetic yearning really implied was, as we saw, a craving for a humanized God, God in a human form; God, that He might have power with God; and man, that Job may not be over awed by dread of Him. In Chapter xvi. 21 he demands that this Umpire should be both his Judge and his Advocate, both pleading and deciding for him. In Verse 19 of the same Chapter he affirms that this Umpire and Judge is already his Witness; that God is testifying to him in heaven even while He is afflicting him on earth. And in Verse 3 of the next Chapter he begs God to be his Surety, surety with Himself, until the cause shall come on for trial and decision. Now, I do not see how any one who has observed how many and what auspicious forms God has already taken in the mind of Job can wonder to find Him taking still another and a still more gracious form. It is natural, if not inevitable, that He who has already appeared as Umpire, Judge, Advocate, Witness, Sponsor, should also appear as Goel, i.e., as Redeemer and Avenger for to what end should God judge his cause, to what end should He advocate it, and testify to it, and go bail for him until it was tried, if He were not also to execute the sentence by which his wrongs would be redressed and his adversaries. punished and defeated? 6. That Job should anticipate that his Redemption and Vindication would be deferred until he had passed, through the gate and avenue of death, into the dim Hadean Kingdom whose physical conditions were unknown to him, and whose moral conditions had hitherto been at the best but dimly seen; that he should therefore acknowledge the date and mode of his trial and acquittal to be hidden from him, while yet he was sure that he should be both acquitted and avenged, is in the most perfect accord with another line of thought along which he has led us again and again. One of the earliest and clearest expressions of it may be found in the prayer of Chapter xiv. 13-15. In that prayer he beseeches God to hide. him in Hades, hide him with loving care as something too precious to be lost, until the day of wrath be past; he beseeches Him to fix a term beyond which He would not suffer his faithful servant to be wronged and tormented. If He would but do that, Job would stand, like a sentinel, at his post on earth until he fell at it, and then stand at his post in Hades, however long and hard the term might be, until it pleased God to discharge and release him. This strain is resumed in Chapter xvii. 11-16, and the hope of a life beyond the grave is yet more elaborately wrought out. He is sure that God will appear for him, but when he knows not. He no longer anticipates that it will be in this life, "for his breath is spent, his days are extinct;" but he will carry his hope down into the grave with him. Beyond "that bourn," since not before he passes it, God will vindicate him. He will find rest and a home in Hades; and as, to reach that unknown kingdom, he must needs go through the grave, he is already familiarizing himself with it, crying to corruption, "Thou art my father!" 'My mother, and my sister!" to the worm. Released by the stroke of death-whose sword ennobles while it smites-from this hindering mortality, he hopes, he believes, he is sure, that in his spirit he shall see God, and find in Him both a Judge and a Friend. And it is simply this conception carried to a higher degree of clearness and certainty that lends weight and force to his Inscription. A judgment in Hades, in which the Judge will shew Himself his Friend, in which all the tangled skein of his life will be unravelled by wise and kindly hands, and the insoluble problem of his strange and self-contradicting experience will at last be solved,-this is what Job still looks for on that happy day when he shall see God for himself, and find his Goel in that Almighty Deliverer. Just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through having no inheritance in the promised land, were led to look for a better country, even a heavenly; so Job, by being denied justice in this world, is driven to look for a better and more heavenly world, even that which is to come. All the main lines of thought which we have already found in this Poem, then, run up easily and naturally into this noble and unique passage. If it rises like a lofty summit from the ordinary level of Job's thoughts, it nevertheless does not stand alone; it is but the crowning summit in a long chain of peaks to which their curves attract and conduct our eyes. But, despite all these arguments, because they do not see them or because they do not feel their force, there are those who insist on seeing in this passage more than it fairly contains. They will find in it the Christian doctrine of the S resurrection of the body, as well as assurance of a future retributive life. All that I can allege in favour of their interpretation is that it is graced by ancient authority. The Targum, for example, renders the passage thus: "I know that my Redeemer liveth; and hereafter his redemption will arise (become a reality) over the dust (into which I shall be dissolved) and after my skin is again made whole this will happen: and from my flesh I shall again behold God." But not to insist on the fact that even the more critical ancient authorities pronounce against this interpretation, and that almost the whole critical school of modern times utterly rejects it, I will only remark that it is a patent anachronism, that it carries a distinctively Christian doctrine back to a period long anterior to that at which, by his resurrection from the dead, Christ brought life and immortality to light; and that a physical, or a metaphysical, speculation such as this would have been in Job is utterly alien to the tone and movement of his thoughts. And I will only ask those who cleave to it in the teeth of evidence to bear in mind that, by snatching at arguments for Christian doctrine which they themselves must confess to be dubious and opposed to the weight of critical authority, they do but shew their want of faith in it, instead of, as they intend, their faith. A doctrine which can stand on its own proper evidence, as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead can very certainly do, does not need to be buttressed up by arguments which are widely disputed and condemned. To resort to such arguments is only, in effect, to render it as doubtful as the arguments themselves. Those who will adduce them can hardly be so sure of it as they profess to be. But if there are some who will see more in this passage than it fairly contains, there are others who see less. A few learned and devout scholars, whose verdict is entitled to the gravest respect, refuse to admit that Job here asserts his conviction of a life beyond the grave. Their great argument is-That if Job had once risen to so noble and consolatory a conviction, it is incredible that he should afterwards have sunk into such depths of despair as we find him in; and that therefore they are compelled, however reluctantly, to conclude that he looked for nothing more than a future deliverance within the limits of the present life, on this side the grave. Now I trust I have already shewn that Job's faith in a life beyond the grave finds expression, not in this Inscription alone, but in many other sentences of less, but still of great, weight; that, in fact, it pervades the whole poem. But there are other arguments against what seems to me the wholly inadequate interpretation maintained by the scholars and commentators to whom I have referred, which I beg to submit to their consideration, and to that of as many as are disposed to agree with them. 1. If Job had no more to tell us than this, why does he introduce his Inscription with such extraordinary pomp? Health after sickness, wealth after ruinous loss, peace after trouble, are not such extraordinary vicissitudes as to demand that they should be inscribed in the State Chronicle or graven on the eternal Rock. 2. It is questionable whether Job does afterwards fall into such utter despair as this hypothesis assumes. I suspect we shall find, as we study the subsequent Chapters of this Poem, that, from this point onward, the inevitable reactions from hope to despair constantly grow less forcible and marked. 3. And even if Job does, again and again, sink into despair, how is that to be reconciled with the fact of his being firmly persuaded that, within a few weeks or months, he was to be reinstated in health and wealth, name and fame, any more than with the fact of his being fully convinced that he should be redeemed and justified beyond the grave? The nearer hope should surely have been the more consolatory and sustaining. 4. The interpretation is, so far as I can see, alien to the whole tone of Job's mind as disclosed in the Poem. He had now reached a point at which he despaired of life. The foul leprosy which was devouring him limb by limb had already brought him to the borders of the grave; and more fatal even than the pangs of disease must have been the agony of his distracted mind and lacerated heart. He cannot long hold out these pangs; |