SECT. 2. The consequent affliction of the Jews, and the measures pursued by them. (iv.)

SECT. 3. The defeat of Haman's particular plot against the life of Mordecai. (v. vi. vii.)

SECT. 4. The defeat of his general plot against the Jews (viii. ix. 1-15.)

SECT. 5. The institution of the festival of Purim, to commemorate their deliverance (ix. 16—32.); and the advancement of Mordecai. (x.)

In our copies the book of Esther terminates with the third verse of the tenth chapter but in the Greek and Vulgate Bibles, there are ten more verses annexed to it, together with six additional chapters which the Greek and Romish churches account to be canonical. As, however, they are not extant in Hebrew, they are expunged from the sacred canon by Protestants, and are supposed to have been compiled by some Hellenistic Jew.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE POETICAL BOOKS.

THOUGH some of the Sacred Writings, which present themselves to our notice in the present chapter, are anterior in point of date to the Historical Books, yet they are usually classed by themselves under the title of the Poetical Books; because they are almost wholly composed in Hebrew verse. This appellation is of considerable antiquity. Gregory Nazianzen calls them the Five Metrical Books; Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, in his iambic poem addressed to Seleucus, enumerates them, and gives them a similar denomination; as also do Epiphanius and Cyril of Jerusalem. The Poetical Books are five in number, viz. Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Canticles or Song of Solomon: in the Jewish canon of Scripture they are classed among the Hagiographa, or Holy Writings; and in our Bibles they are placed between the Historical and Prophetical Books.

SECTION I.

ON THE BOOK OF JOB.

1. Title of the book.-H. Reality of Job's person.-III. Age in which he lived.-IV. Scene of the poem of Job.-V. Author and canonical authority.VI. Structure of the poem. VII. Argument and scope. —VIII. Rules for studying this book to advantage.-IX. Synopsis.-X. Idea of the patriarchal theology, as contained in the book of Job.

I. THIS book has derived its title from the venerable patriarch Job, whose prosperity, afflictions, and restoration from the deepest adversity, are here recorded, together with his exemplary and unequalled patience under all his calamities. No book perhaps has more exercised the ingenuity of critics and commentators than this of Job; and though the limits necessarily assigned to this article prevent us from detailing all the various and discordant hypotheses which have been offered concerning it, yet a brief retrospect of the principal opinions that have been entertained respecting this portion of Scripture can at no time be either uninteresting or unimportant.

II. Although this book professes to treat of a real person, yet the actual existence of the patriarch has been questioned by many eminent critics, who have endeavoured to prove that the whole poem is a mere fictitious narration, intended to instruct through the medium of parable. This opinion was first announced by the celebrated Jewish Rabbi Maimonides, and has since been adopted by Leclerc, Michaelis, Semler, Bishop Stock, and others. The reality of Job's

2

1 Greg. Naz. Carm. 33. v. 16. op. tom. ii. p. 98. Paris, 1611. Epiphanius de Pond. et Mens. p. 533. Suicer's Thesaurus, tom. ii. voce exnoa.

2 Moreh Nevochim, part ii. sect. 22.

existence, on the contrary, (independently of its being the uniform belief of the Jewish and Christian church,) has been maintained with equal ability by Leusden, Calmet, Heidegger, Carpzov, Van Til, Spanheim, Moldenhawer, Schultens, Ilgen, Archbishop Magee, Bishops Patrick, Sherlock, Lowth, and Tomline, Drs. Kennicott, Hales, and Gray, Messieurs Peters and Good, Drs. Taylor and Priestley, and, in short, by almost every other modern commentator and critic.

The principal arguments commonly urged against the reality of Job's existence are derived from the nature of the exordium in which Satan appears as the accuser of Job; from the temptations and sufferings permitted by the Almighty Governor of the world to befal an upright character; from the artificial regularity of the numbers by which the patriarch's possessions are described, as seven thousand, three thousand, one thousand, five hundred, &c.

With regard to the first argument, the incredibility of the conversation which is related to have taken place between the Almighty and Satan, "who is supposed to return with news from the terrestrial regions," an able commentator has remarked, why should such a conversation be supposed incredible? The attempt at wit, in the word news, is somewhat out of place; for the interrogation of the Almighty, "Hast thou fixed thy view upon my servant Job, a perfect and upright MAN?" instead of aiming at the acquisition of news, is intended as a severe and most appropriate sarcasm upon the fallen spirit. "Hast THOU—who, with superior faculties and a more comprehensive knowledge of my will, hast not continued perfect and upright, fixed thy view upon a subordinate being, far weaker and less informed than thyself, who has continued so?" "The attendance of the apostate at the tribunal of the Almighty is plainly designed to show us that good and evil angels are equally amenable to him, and equally subject to his authority; a doctrine common to every part of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and, except in the mythology of the Parsees, recognised by perhaps every antient system of religion whatever. The part assigned to Satan in the present work is that expressly assigned to him in the case of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and of our Saviour in the wilderness and which is assigned to him generally, in regard to mankind at large, by all the evangelists and apostles whose writings have reached us, both in their strictest historical narratives, and closest argumentative inductions. And hence the argument which should induce us to regard the present passage as fabulous, should induce us to regard all the rest in the same light which are imbued with the same doctrine : — a view of the subject which would sweep into nothingness a much larger portion of the Bible than we are confident M. Michaelis would choose to part with.

The other arguments are comparatively of small moment. We want not fable to tell us that good and upright men may occasionally become the victims of accumulated calamities; for it is a living fact, which, in the mystery of Providence, is perpetually occurring in

every country while as to the roundness of the numbers by which the patriarch's possessions are described, nothing could have been more ungraceful or superfluous than for the poet to have descended to units, had even the literal numeration demanded it. And, although he is stated to have lived a hundred and forty years after his restoration to prosperity, and in an æra in which the duration of man did not perhaps much exceed that of the present day, it should be recollected, that in his person as well as in his property he was specially gifted by the Almighty that, from various passages, he seems to have been younger than all the interlocutors, except Elihu, and much younger than one or two of them: that his longevity is particularly remarked, as though of more than usual extent: and that, even in the present age of the world, we have well authenticated instances of persons having lived, in different parts of the globe, to the age of a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty, and even a hundred and seventy years.

It is not necessary for the historical truth of the book of Job, that its language should be a direct transcript of that actually employed by the different characters introduced into it; for in such case we should scarcely have a single book of real history in the world. The Iliad, the Shah Nameh, and the Lusiad, must at once drop all pretensions to such a description; and even the pages of Sallust and Casar, of Rollin and Hume, must stand upon very questionable authority. It is enough that the real sentiment be given, and the general style copied and this, in truth, is all that is aimed at, not only in our best reports of parliamentary speeches, but in many instances (which is indeed much more to the purpose), by the writers of the New Testament, in their quotations from the Old."2

Independently of these considerations, which we think sufficiently refute the objections adduced against the reality of Job's existence, we may observe, that there is every possible evidence that the book, which bears his name, contains a literal history of the temptations and sufferings of a real character.

In the first place, that Job was a real, and not a fictitious character, may be inferred from the manner in which he is mentioned in the Scriptures. Thus, the prophet Ezekiel speaks of him :Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God. (Ezek. xiv. 14.) In this passage the prophet ranks Noah, Daniel, and Job together, as powerful intercessors with God; the first for his family; the second for the wise men of Babylon; and the third for his friends: now, since Noah and Daniel were unquestionably real characters, we must conclude the same of Job. Behold, says the apostle James, we count them happy which endure: ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. (James v. 11.) It is

1 See Pantologia, art. Life; and Encyclopædia Britannica, art. Longevity. 2 Dr. Good's Introductory Dissertation to his Version of Job, pp. xv.-xvii. See also Archbishop Magee's Discourses and Dissertations on the Atonement, vol. ii. pp. 49-53. Dr. Gregory's Translation of Bishop Lowth's Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 358-370. in notes.

scarcely to be believed that a divinely inspired apostle would refer to an imaginary character as an example of patience, or in proof of the mercy of God. But, besides the authority of the inspired writers, we have the strongest internal evidence, from the book itself, that Job was a real person for it expressly specifies the names of persons, places, facts, and other circumstances usually related in true histories. Thus we have the name, country, piety, wealth, &c. of Job described (ch. i.); the names, number, and acts of his children are mentioned; the conduct of his wife is recorded as a fact (ii.); his friends, their names, countries, and discourses with him in his afflictions, are minutely delineated. (ii. 11., &c.) And can we rationally imagine that these were not realities?

Further, no reasonable doubt can be entertained respecting the real existence of Job, when we consider that it is proved by the concurrent testimony of all eastern tradition: he is mentioned by the author of the book of Tobit, who lived during the Assyrian captivity; he is also repeatedly mentioned by Mohammed3 as a real character. The whole of his history, with many fabulous additions, was known among the Syrians and Chaldeans; many of the noblest families among the Arabians are distinguished by his name, and boast of being descended from him. So late even as the end of the fourth century, we are told, that there were many persons who went into Arabia to see Job's dunghill, which, in the nature of things, could not have subsisted through so many ages; but the fact of superstitious persons making pilgrimages to it sufficiently attests the reality of his existence, as also do the traditionary accounts concerning the place of Job's abode."

5

III. Since, then, the book of Job contains the history of a real character, the next point to be considered is the age in which he lived, a question concerning which there is as great a diversity of opinion, as upon any other subject connected with this venerable monument of sacred antiquity. Thus, some think that he lived in the days of Moses, from a supposed resemblance between the style of Moses and that of Job; others, in the time of the Judges, from an expression in Job xxvii. 12. because at that time all was vanity, and every man did that which was good in his own eyes. Others, again, refer him to the time of Ahasuerus or Artaxerxes Longimanus, on account of the search then made for beautiful women, from whom the monarch might select a consort (Esth. ii. 2. &c.), and because Job's daughters are mentioned (Job xlii. 15.) as being the fairest in the whole land. Some make him to have been contemporary with

1 Elements of Christian Theology, vol. i. p. 94.

2 Tobit ii. 12 in the Vulgate version, which is supposed to have been executed from a more extended history of Tobit than the original of the Greek version.

3 Sale's Koran, pp. 271. 375. 4to edit. See also D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale, voce Aiúb, tom. i. p. 145, 4to edit.

4 As the father of the celebrated Sultan Saladin (Elmacin, Hist. Saracen, p. 3.); and also Saladin himself, whose dynasty is known in the East by the name of Aiubiah or Jobites. D'Herbelot, tom. i. pp. 146, 147.

5 Chrysostom. ad pop. Antioch. Hom. 5. Op. tom. ii. p. 59 A.

6 Thovenot's Voyage, p. 447. La Roque, Voyages en Syrie, tom. i. p. 239.