were so important, as to render it highly proper that he should, for the benefit of mankind, make a record of them. And no one could be found so well acquainted with all the circumstances of the case, and so familiar with all the arguments employed in the discussion with his friends, as himself. And, finally, the record of his own imperfections and failings is just such as we might expect from Job, on the supposition that he was the author of the book. Moses may have written the introductory and concluding parts, from information derived from authentic tradition; and in transcribing the poetic parts, he may have made some small and unimportant alterations, which will account for occasional and partial resemblances of expression between it and the Penteteuch, if any such exist. Moses, then, if not the author, was the editor of Job, and in either case it would readily find a place among the canonical books of Hebrew Scripture. Spanheim conjectured that the book was originally composed in Arabic by Job, and translated by Moses, during his sojourn with Jethro, his father-in-law, in Midian. But it has no appearance of being a translation from a foreign original. The purity and freedom of the language and style are inconsistent with such a supposition.* And the fact that no writing, perhaps, of the Old Testament may be more frequently illustrated from the Arabic, is accounted for on the ground that it was written before the separation of the Shemitic dialects had been carried to any considerable extent.

It has been a question of some interest among critics to what class or department of poetry this book belongs. Some have maintained that it is a regular epic, and that as such it possesses unity of action, delineation of character, plot and catastrophe, not exactly indeed in the Grecian, but in the Oriental style. By others, with more plausibility, it has been regarded as a regular drama or tragedy. It is

"The language," says Eichhorn, "is too strong and nervous; the sentences a re too pointed; the style is too full, and round, and harmoniously constructed. The remarkable parallelism, which is in no book so accurately kept up from beginnng to end, would be unattainable in a translation."-EINLEIT, 8 641.

written in the form of a dialogue, and there is a tragic interest surrounding the character of Job. Thus far it does partake of a dramatic character. But it is not a drama, according to our conceptions of the drama. Except in the introduction and conclusion, which form no part of the poem, the book contains no action whatever, not even of the simplest kind; and action is essential to the drama. Nor are there any scenes, or other changes, which belong to this species of poetry. All is motionless, and without variation. Indeed the drama, according to our conceptions, was entirely unknown in the days of Job. It was a modern invention of the Greeks, about four centuries before the birth of Christ, and it is so little in accordance with the taste and customs of the Orientals, that the Arabians, after they had become acquainted with the Grecian dramatic literature, would not, we are told, introduce it among themselves. The book is a philosophical religious discussion, in a poetic form-a concession or colloquy of wise men in relation to a great moral question. "The whole book," says Eichhorn, may be regarded as a dialogue of sages respecting the government of the world, with a prologue and epilogue." The Orientals are said to be extremely fond of elaborate and learned discussions, carried on in a lofty figurative style, and listen to them with great patience and attention.

The subject of the book, according to Dr. Conant, is— The Mystery of God's Providential Government of Men. "This subject," the Doctor continues, "is treated in two ways: I. By an exhibition of the difficulties which it presents to the finite mind; of the conflicts and the erroneous conclusions of the human spirit, in striving to reconcile them with the eternal principles of justice and goodness. II. By showing man's true position in reference to the ways of the Eternal and Infinite." The question' is discussed with perpetual reference to the sufferings of the patriarch Job, whose piety and integrity Jehovah has resolved to test, by permitting him to be visited with the heaviest calamities. This purpose of the Divine mind, however, is not disclosed to any of the parties immediately interested; and they are left in total darkness as to the cause and design of

these calamities. With these the reader is made acquainted, by means of a parabolic representation contained in the introduction to the poem. He is thus put at the outset in possession of the key which unlocks the mysteries of the book. Placed on an eminence from which he is permitted to look down on the scene below him, he beholds the pious but afflicted patriarch, and his honest but mistaken friends, wandering about in darkness and error. As the discussion

proceeds, his sympathies become more and more enlisted in behalf of the stricken sufferer, knowing, as he does, that his sore afflictions are heaped upon him, not, as his friends erroneously supposed, because he was the worst, but, on the contrary, the best of men; and that his chastisements are not the penal consequences of his crimes, but for the purpose of developing his character, demonstrating his sincerity and integrity, vindicating the Divine government, and furnishing to the world a most instructive example of patient endurance under the heaviest trials.

"The first division (of the book)," says Dr. Conant in his admirable analysis, "presents a good man, one pronounced perfect and upright by God himself, suffering under an accumulation of sudden and terrible misfortunes. From the height of worldly happiness, rich, honored, surrounded by a numerous and prosperous family, he suddenly finds himself poor, childless, the prey of a loathsome and incurable disease, an object of contempt and insult to the meanest outcasts of society. In this extremity, three of his former friends pay him a visit of condolence. These men, venerable in years and character, princes and sages of their tribes, represent the traditionary wisdom of the time, the views and maxims based on the limited experience of the early patriarchs respecting the government of God. According to these, the Omniscient, who cannot be deceived, the Almighty, who cannot be resisted, and the Infinitely Just, who can do no wrong, must, by the laws of his own nature, deal with every man according to his deserts; and his treatment is therefore the true index of the man's moral character. Accordingly, their addresses to Job assume his guilt as the cause of his sufferings. And since the degree of guilt is the exact measure of punishment, these extraordinary judgments mark him out as an eminent transgressor. Though his crimes have escaped detection by man, they cannot elude the searching eye of God, who has thus stript off his disguises, and exposed him to deserved shame. Hence their reproofs and exhortations all have it for their object, to induce him to acknowledge and repent of his wickedness, and to justify his righteous Judge. Job, on the other hand, conscious of his rectitude, denies their inferences in regard to himself, and condemns the stand-point from which they judge of men as false and untenable. Their traditionary wisdom he confronts with the actual observation of life, showing, by examples familiar to all, that the wicked are not thus dealt with according to their deserts. * * For himself he can appeal, for the purity, uprightness, and beneficence of his life, to those who have been witnesses of his most private ac

* *

tions; *** and he dares appeal to the All-Seeing himself for the integrity of his heart, the sincerity and constancy of his piety towards God. Yet he is visited with unexampled judgments, and made the scorn and by-word of men. In two respects Job and his opponents hold the same ground. He recognizes equally with them, that the Divine government rests on the immutable foundations of truth and right. Nay, he exercises a higher trust in it than they. While they demand retribution on earth as the condition of their trust, he trusts without hope of being righted on earth: but through his present misery and humiliation, anticipates with triumphant confidence his vindication in a future state of existence. Though despairing of help from God on this side the grave, God is still his only refuge and hope.

"Even now my witness is in heaven,

66

And my attestor is on high."

'I know my Redeemer lives."

*

But this certainty of future right, though it sustains the sufferer, does not solve the mystery of the present wrong. * In another point Job and his opponents agree, viz.: that no man can be absolutely pure in the sight of God. It is not on the ground of absolute purity that he claims different treatment. His complaint is, that moral character is not the standard by which the good and evil of this life are distributed."

At this stage of the discussion another enters the lists, who, without entirely coinciding with either party, holds a middle course. He agrees with Job that God sometimes permits the righteous to fall into misfortunes; at the same time contending that the chastisements of the Lord are disciplinary and corrective, and intended for the benefit of mankind. They are the visitations of a Father, seeking to win back his erring children, and to confer on them the highest good. The Almighty is then introduced, who by contrasting the ignorance and imbecility of Job with his own greatness and majesty, as exhibited in the works of creation, shows that he is the sovereign Ruler of the world; and that it is his rightful prerogative to do what he will with his own; that man, "whose life is a span, whose place in the universe is but a point, who cannot understand the laws of the material world, nor fathom the mysteries of the least of God's works," may not presume to comprehend and judge the eternal counsels of his moral government; and that consequently he should acquiesce with humble resignation in the Divine dispensations, in the firm conviction that, however inscrutable, they must be infinitely wise, and just, and good, since they proceed from him whose works display infinite wisdom, power and benevolence.

Attempts have been made by some of the German critics. to destroy the integrity of the Book of Job, and they have applied the pruning knife of destructive criticism to several portions of it, as for example, the prose introduction and conclusion, the whole discourse of Elihu, and a considerable part of the last long discourse of Job, which is thought to contain sentiments discordant with those elsewhere expressed by him. But the reasons assigned for discarding these passages are such as have entirely failed to satisfy the better and more sober class of critics. "There are not only no plausible critical grounds for eliminating either of these passages," says Palfrey, "but their rejection would mar the integrity of the composition, disturb its lucid order, confuse that skillful development of character, for which, among its other beauties, it is distinguished, and efface the traces of that naturalness, which, in such a poem, is the highest attainment of art.'

The Book of Job is one of the most difficult books of the Old Testament to translate, and is believed to be less accurately rendered in our common version than any other in the sacred volume. Much of it, indeed, is quite unintelligible, and evinces a consciousness on the part of the translators, of their inability to discern the sense of their author. The attention of Hebrew scholars during the last half century has been particularly directed to this book, and numerous attempts have been made, by means of translations and commentaries, to elucidate its meaning. In the English language there have been published amended versions from the pens of J. M. Good, Stock, Lee, Boothroyd, Fry, Wemyss, Umbreit, (from the German,) Noyes and Barnes. And now to these is to be added the translation of Dr. Conant, the title of which is placed at the head of this article. It is published under the auspices of the American Bible Union, and is the first instalment of the Revised Version of the Old Testament proposed to be published by that Society. On the title-page it is correctly represented to be a Translation on the Basis of the Common and Earlier English Versions. The verbal alterations, which do not affect the sense, and which were not required either by the changes which