JERUSALEM

JESHIMON

Besant

and Palmer,

; Benzinger

‘94

‘

Buhl

Bliss and Dickie

’94-’97

’98

and

of Sir Charles ’Wilson in Smith‘s

and of

Conder in Hastings’

See also Baedeker’s

by

and Benzinger, ’go, and Murray’s by

Smith, 1892. T h e sources for the Byzantine and
topography are

in the volumes of the Palestine Pilgrims’

Text Society

the Arabic topography in

the

1890

but its translations, often freely given

must he used with caution.

On

modern Jerusalem,

notices in many of the above-cited works (especially the two
guide-hooks),

the

E. Sherman Wallace,

U.S.

Consul in the city.

G . A.

R.

12-36

C .

R.

C . ,

3-11.

JERUSHA

a

compound of

and

the

latter perhaps a divine name represented by

HE’

in

[see B

AASHA

, n.

I

]

; so

S.

A.

Cook,

5266

[AL],

[Jos.

11

bath Zadok, the queen-mother of

K.

27

I

(where

Jerushah,

[B]

possibly as though= pos-

sessed

‘-

i.

e . , married

’).

JESHAIAH,

twice AV

Jesaiah

saves,’ the same name

as

that of the prophet

I

SAIAH

i.

I

)

I

.

AV

JESAIAH

and Pelatiah, sons of

b. Zerubbahel

Ch. 3

according to

Pesh., Vg., he was the son of Pelatiah.

A son of (the Merarite) Jeduthun (

I

25315

; cp 3 and 5 below.

3.

A

descendant of Moses

( I

Ch. 2625

who

in

I

Ch. 24

appears as

cp 23

17

; as a Levite

he

is probably assigned to Merari cp 24

with 23 17

See

above and 5 below.

4.

h. Athaliah, one of the clan called B’ne

in Ezra’s

(see

E

ZRA

i.,

ii.,

15

Ezra8 7

B],

[A],

Esd. 8 33

R V

[B],

[AL]).

5.

A

Merarite Levite in Ezra’s caravan (see

E

ZRA

15

Esd.848,

B),

which is based on some such form as

32).

See above.

6.

AV

J

ESAIAH

,

a

Benjamite (Neh. 11

7

K A N A

T H N A N A

a

city taken by

from Jeroboam

( 2

Ch.

and doubtless also

mentioned in

I

S.

7

(critically

text

see

Josephus ( A n t . viii.

11

3)

calls it

see

A n t .

xiv.

15

5

v.

It

mod.

‘Ain

3f m.

N.

of Bethel, a n interesting

tncient site

Ganneau,

‘77, p.

206,

PEFM

302).

JESHARELAH

I

Ch.

25

see

JESHEBEAB

‘ h e brings back a father’?

though

6 2 ; om.

[AL],

[Vg.], cp Gray,

H P N 24

[Pesh.]),

the name

of

a

priestly course

(

I

Ch.

readings point to an original Ishbanl,’ which has been
adopted by

( S B O T )

it is hardly likely that the

Chronicler would give a priest a name compounded with
that of the detested Baal. On the other hand, the name
may well have been traditional, and perhaps
illy disguised by the Chronicler (or rather by a later
scribe), with the above rather weak result.

Cp Oholiab

for

(see O

HOLIBAH

), and see I

SHBAAL

,

JESHER

[Ra.],

cp

[BA]),

son

of

C

ALEB

and

JESHIMON.

I n the six places where AV has

Jeshimon as

a

place-name

(Nu.

21

23

I

23

24

26

I

RV invariably has ‘ t h e desert,’ while

The passages in square brackets are by

also the

following sections

:

12-18,

27

30.

JASHOBEAM,

S. A.

Ch.

2

retired to the upper city, the lower town from the

temple to Shiloah was burned by the Romans.

The

capture of the upper city was effected by

a

regular

approach with mounds and battering-rams (September

70

A.D.),

and even then the huge citadel of Herod

could only have yielded to famine had it not been
abandoned by the Jewish leaders in

a

vain attempt a t

escape (I

SRAEL

,

Its three great towers, with

a

portion

of

the western wall, were left as

a

memorial,

and of this group the so-called tower

of

David (Phasael)

still stands.

The rebuilding of Jerusalem by Hadrian seems to

have been conceived in

a

spirit friendly to the Jews, and

there

is

even some evidence that the

restoration of the temple was contemplated

or

commenced. After the great revolt

A

. D . ) ,

however,

Capitolina was trans-

formed

a

purely pagan town with seven quarters

a n d many buildings of heathen

[It was not

nearly

so

large as the Jerusalem of the

: the

SW.

hill lay outside the walls (Jer.

‘ T h e

walls appear to have run very nearly on the lines of

the present city

The

of

and the rise of the

of

pilgrimage gave a new

to

the city of the ’crucifixion

and resurrection, and in the time of

36.

Christianity.

Constantine the ‘discovery’ of the Holy

Sepulchre and the erection of the magnifi-

cent

church of the Anastasis (dedicated 336

again a great religious centre.

In the pagan reaction under

Julian an attempt was made to rebuild the temple

but it was

frustrated by

an outburst of fire from the foundations (362).

T h e unfortunate empress

spent her

years a t

Jerusalem (about

built the church of

Stephen,

founded monasteries and hospitals, enriched the churches [and
above all rebuilt the walls of the city (Evagrius, H E
on the old and wider lines, especially on the

Thus

was

again included, and is so described by

Martyr

about

It

is in all probability the

of Eudocia’s

that Bliss found in his upper wall from

scarp

t o

(see above,

a,

The next great builder

was

Justinian, part of whose splendid church of

Mary perhaps

still remains in, or to the E. of, the mosque

In

614

Jerusalem was taken by

and the churches and

sepulchre were burned;

the vicar of the exiled patriarch

began to restore them even before the Persians retired.

I n 628 Heraclius retook the city; hut its Christian days were

numbered. I n 637 Jerusalem capitulated to the caliph ‘Omar

who gave directions for the erection of a place

36.

Islam.

worship on the site of the ‘remotest

the temple, to which Mohammed, according to

was transported from Mecca in his

night

journey. From this verse the great sanctuary of Jerusalem

received the name el-Aks., now generally confined to the

a t the

end

the

T h e original mosque

a s described by Arculphus

was a rude edifice of wood

capable of containing

worshippers

hut soon after, the

sanctuary

was

reconstructed in a style of

by

the caliph ‘Abd

whose date (72

A

.

H

.

A

.

D

.) is still

read in a

inscription on the Dome of the Rock, though

the name of the caliph seems to have been changed to that of

who restored the buildings after a great earthquake

which, according to Mokaddasy, left nothing standing
the part around the

or niche indicating the direction of

Mecca.

I n

their present condition the buildings of the

sanctuary show features of very various styles, from the
Byzantine downwards. T h e architectural problems which they
suggest are closely connected with controversies as to the

of the T

EMPLE

and the true site of the Holy

Sepulchre (see

G

O

L

G

O

T

H

A

).

Apart from the question of the holy

sites, the later topography of Jerusalem presents no feature that
need detain

and the subsequent fortunes of the city

to

the general history of Palestine and the crusades.

Among the countless

on

the subject the

may

and

52;

der

etc.,

‘54

D e

de la

1860

Le Temple de

Bun

etc

Neubauer,

68;

Warren,

‘76

on

Jerus., ‘84 this covers the work to

83;

for subsequent

the PEFQ, and the

Details in

2243.

Bliss

306.

3

plan of Jerusalem discovered a t Medeba in

omits the church of

Stephen and represents the

wall as turning N E . after including the church of Mt. Zion on
the site of the present

Its date must therefore be

earlier

Eudocia. There are also traces upon it of Hadrian’s

wall excluding the church

on Mt. Zion.

JESHISHAI

retains Jeshimon’

[BAFL] in Nu.,

[BA], [

T

O

O]

[L]

in

S).

The word

occurs frequently elsewhere as a common

noun

(Dt.

32

Ps.

7

78 40

Is.

43

etc.) with allusion

to

the wilderness of Sinai.

The Jeshimon of

Nu.,

which is immediately overlooked

by Pisgah,

the long tract of barren land

N.

of the

Dead Sea

that of Sam., before which is the hill of

Hachilah (see H

ACHILAH

), is the eastern part of the hill-

,country of Judah.

For a vivid sketch of the latter see

GASm.

and cp B

ETH

-

JESHIMOTH

, D

ESERT

,

JESHISHAI

‘aged’

om. Pesh.), in a genealogy of G

AD

13)

5

one might read

causes to grow,’ but this

hardly worth

while. The

contains three kindred names, derived from

and

or

First comes

a

corruption

of

Maaseiah then

Asaiah and lastly

a corruption

of

Maaseel), a Simeonite, temp. Hezekiah

(I

Ch.

suggests

Jesse.

JESHOHAIAH (

T. K.

C.

JESHUA

8 4 ;

[L]),

a

place in the list

of

towns of Judah,

25-30

(see

and obviously in the extreme

S.

towards

Edom.

I t is mentioned just before M

OLADAH

and is obviously only another form of the

Josh.

and the

[i.] of Josh.

19

T h e most original form is doubtless

became

and

b

hecame w (cp

in Jerus.

for

Frankel,

and finally was prefixed by a copyist. The

form

Shew‘a lies probably a t the root of the Ar.

the name of a ruined place situated on a high hill a

little more than half-way between Kh. ‘Attir

and Kh.

and due

W.

of Tell

So

in 1861, followed

by

commentators. Conder, however, limits the

cation to Jeshua

JESHUA

a later form

of

J

OSHUA

cp

I

.

b. Nun Neh.

A

.

A

of the b’ne Pahath-Moab in the great

exilic

list [see

E

ZRA

8

I

Esd. 5

3.

Father of Jozabad, a Levite,

Esd. 863

;

JESUS

reads esus Jozabad).

4

Father of

of

Neh.

Jeshua b. Jehozadak the high priest, who, together
Zerubbabel, is often mentioned in contemporary

writings see Hag., and Zech.

3-6,

where, however, his

name is uniformly written J

OSHUA

As in Ezra

he is mentioned prominently in connection

with the building of the temple but to other questions

Hag. and Zech. unfortunately give no answer. Was

he one of the leaders in what is commonly called

‘

the

Return ?

(For

a discussion of the large question here

suggested, see E

ZRA

-N

EHEMIAH

,

7,

and cp

BABEL

.

)

T h e

‘

sons of Jeshua b. Jozadak were among

those who had taken foreign wives

His

descendants are traced down to Jaddua
in Neh.

In the Apocryphal

books

of

I

Esd.

and Ecclus.

49

the name appears regularly

as

JESUS.

6. ‘The house of Jeshua’ was a priestly family among whom

were incorporated the

Jedaiah

39=

I

Esd.

524).

T o show their antiquity the Chronicler mentions

a

Jeshua among the representatives of the

courses

instituted by David

(

I

Ch. 24

AV

J

ESHUAH

);

cp also Ch.

31

where Jeshua is a priest of the time of Hezekiah.

7.

The b’ne Jeshua and Kadmiel are names of

families,

Esd. 526,

JESSUE,

J

ESUS

[A],

see GENEALOGIES

and cp

They both occur together a s individual

names in

and

[

IO]

(Jeshua b.

and

Jeshua alone in

R V

here

eives

‘or Sheba.’ as if Sheba were a mere

T. K.

C.

JESUS

JESHUAH

I

Ch. 2411

AV, RV J

ESHUA

i.

JESHURUN,

in Is.

AV

or

Is.];

the other Greek versions in Dt.

[Symm.,

Theod.]

Pesh., Tg. Israel

Dt.

32

Dt.

33

and Is.

Ar. Walt.

‘praised’ [Dt.

32

335,

but in

‘Israel’ Gr. Ven.

a poetical name for the people of Israel

26

Is.

From the lateness of the

writings in which it occurs Jeshurun might he an
artificial formation, designed to represent the ideal of

people,

righteousness (from

upright).

This view, however, is not favoured by the

use of the term in the above four passages Jeshurun
(if the vowels are right)

is

nothing more than

a

synonym

for Israel.

Late writers had access to and sometimes

utilised

facts. I t is possible, therefore,

that there was a shortened form of the ethnic name

Israel, which was not unknown

as

(hence the

name of

a

son

of

I

Ch.

hut was still better

known as

(vocalised on the analogy of Zebulun,

perhaps rather

The termination is probably not

a

diminutive (Ges.,

with Gr. Ven. [above]), but indicates that the bearer
of the name belongs to a certain category (Kon.

will mean one who belongs to or

represents the ethnic category

of

Whether

originally conveyed the idea of righteousness or

(cp

prosperity, we cannot

later times it

may very well have done

s o ;

the name

when

its real origin (see J

ACOB

,

6 ) had been forgotten,

may have been explained by

‘God’s righteous

one.’

See J

ASHAR

,

B

OOK

OF,

and

cp Bacher,

(‘85)

G. Hoffmann,

(’96).

JESIAH

I

Ch.

1 2 6

AV

I

Ch.

JESIAS

[B]

etc.),

I

Esd.

833,

8 7 ,

JESIMIEL

[Ginsb.], or

T. K.

C.

AV RV.

,

J

ESHAIRH

, 4.

the text seems wrong; hut see N

AMES

,

31, where

is

favoured cp

[AL] see

a Simeonite, temp. Hezekiah

Ch. 436).

JESSE

52 contracted from

[see

N

AMES

,

or

from

cp Icabod

from Ahi-cabod

[so

Marquart,

24

see

also

for

view see

J

EZEBEL

in many MSS of

I

Ch.

213

[BAQL],

son

of

Obed and father of David

(see

I

) .

JESSUE

[A]),

I

Esd.

Ezra

240,

7.

I

Esd.

J

ESHUA

3.

JESUI

Nu.

2 6 4 4 ;

Jesuite

See

T.

C.

JESURUN

Is.

RV

JESUS

(

[BAL]), the Greek form of J

OSHUA

I

.

See

JOSHUA

I

Esd.

ii.,

3.

I

Esd.

863

3.

4.

Ecclus.

etc.

and J

ESHUA

.

See

ii., 5.

name-lists

must often have troubled the Chronicler. T h e

priestly

is perhaps related to Jeshua

the same

way as Abiasaph

3);

cp

(iii.

c.

2434

variant of

In the case of Jeshua,

as

with so many post-exilic names,

there are numerous instances where identification is out of the
question. Indeed, we may plausibly suppose that such a common

and reputable name may have served

to

fill some of the gaps in

2433

JESUS

'JESUS

Esd.

2 36

6 .

6.

I

Esd.

7.

Father

of

Sirach.

8.

Son

See E

CCLESIASTICUS

,

5

A

name in

the

genealogy

of

Jesus,

Lk.

J

O

SE).

I

O.

See

See

$3

See G

ENEALOGIES

ii.,

3f;

JESUS

Sources

Tradition,

Preaching Ministry,

$3 gf;

Teaching.

Conflicts with

Judaism, $3

Messianic Ideal,

5

Passion Week,

The Future,

5

Literature,

34.

Tesus Christ. the author and obiect

of

the Christian

faith,

a

Jew by race, was born in

towards the

end of the reign of Herod the Great

The home

(C

HRONOLOGY

. 6

of his childhood was N

AZARETH

, a town

the lower

division of the province of G

ALILEE

5).

The family

to which he belonged was of humble estate.

In early

youth he worked a t a handicraft (see J

OSEPH

[husband

of Mary],

9).

On arriving at mature manhood he be-

came a

teacher, rapidly gained fame, gathered

about him disciples, offended the ruling classes by free
criticism of the prevailing religion, and ended a brief
but extraordinary career by suffering crucifixion.

This short summary of facts is taken from those

books in the N T which bear the name of Gospels, and

are

our

main source of information for

These documents

are of varying value

from

a historical point of view.

Critical opinion

is

much divided as to the fourth, that

which bears the name

of

John, the judgment of many

critics being that it is the least trustworthy as a source
whether for the words or for the acts

of

Jesus.

By

comparison, the first three, from their resemblances
called

are regarded by many as possessing

a

considerable measure of historical worth.

But even

these, from a critical point of view, are not of equal
value, nor do the contents of any one of them possess a
uniform degree of historic

They present

to the critic

a

curious, interesting, and perplexing

problem still far

final solution.

By their re-

semblances and differences, agreements and disagree-
ments, they raise

questions as to origin, relative

dates, and literary connections, which have called forth

a

multitude of conflicting hypotheses and a most ex-

tensive critical literature.

I n the present state of the

inquiry a dogmatic tone is inadmissible. All that one
may do with propriety is to indicate what he regards

as

the most plausible opinion. W e are concerned with

the question here only in as far as is necessary to explain
and justify the method on which the public life of Jesus

is

dealt with in this article.
W e may regard

as the oldest of the synoptical

Gos-

pels, and in its leading contents thenearest to the primitive

tradition.

I n its present form, or in an

earlier shape, it appears to have been the
main source of the narrative parts of the

other two Gospels.

In

many sections the style is

suggestive of an eye-witness,

so

as to make the reader

feel that he is in contact with the ultimate source of the

tradition, the oral narratives of the companions

of Jesus. As reported by Eusebius

Papias,

Bishop

of

Hierapolis, writing about

125

A.D.,

described

Mark

as

the

interpreter

of

Peter,

which

probably means that he helped the apostle to put what
he had to say into Greek or

Internal evidence

supports the hypothesis of such a connection between
much of the material in the second Gospel and one of
the men who had been with Jesus, and with none of

them more probably than with Peter as he

is

represented

in the evangelic tradition.

This Gospel is full of

realisms.

Its graphic style has often been remarked

on.

But it is not

a

question of merely pictorial narrative.

The phenomena to be noted are descriptions to the life,

See Sanday,

Lectures

for

p.

280.

2435

the history of Jesus.

vivid presentations

of

a striking personality, words and

acts reported just as they must have been said and
done, because they had impressed themselves indelibly
on the ear and eye of the reporter.

What specially

makes for the hypothesis of an eye-witness, and generally
for the primitive character of

reports, is the

disregard manifest in them of conventional considera-
tions of the fitting and edifying. The influence of such

considerations is traceable in the other two Synoptists,
especially

in

In the third Gospel Jesus is the

Lord

(about

a

dozen times

so

named in narrative

where Mt. and Mk. have Jesus), and it is never for a
moment forgotten what religions decorum demands
in recording the words and acts of so august a person
age.

For this Lk. may in part be personally re-

sponsible, but probably not altogether.

The decorum

of his narrative reflects the reverence of the early church
for its risen and exalted Head, the writer's deference
thereto showing itself in the omission

of

some things

reported in the primitive tradition and in the putting
of other things in a modified way.

This reverence

and its controlling influence would grow with time.
The absence of that influence from Mk.

narrative a s

evinced by the realism, of which examples will be given
as we proceed, is an index at once of antiquity and
of first

-

hand sources of information.

Peter doubt-

less shared the reverence of the church for its Lord.
But Peter had seen and heard, and the vivid sense of
the unique reality overpowered all considerations of
what was becoming, such as might naturally weigh with
those who had not seen or heard but drew their in-
formation mainly from documents. And

so

we see

containing, according to Papias, the report of

Peter's recollections, the real man Jesus, without the
aureole

of

faith around his head, yet with

a

glory of

truth, wisdom, and goodness the better seen on that
very

The informant who tells of

connection with

Peter says, also. that Matthew wrote a book of Logia

.

339).

Most modern critics treat this statement
with respect

:

but few identify the

of Papias, written (as he states) in the
with our Canonical Mt., even to the extent of seeing in
the latter a simple translation into Greek of the Hebrew

original.

The prevailing and intrinsically reasonable

opinion is that the book of the publican apostle was
the source whence the author

of

our Mt. drew the words

or discourses of Jesus

so

amply reported in his Gospel.

He, and also the author of

Lk.

for

in

the didactic ele-

ment there is much common to the first Gospel and the
third, though the latter contains a considerable amount
of peculiar material which may have been derived from

a

different source. T h e common matter is given in such
varied forms and connections in the two

Gospels

as to

suggest either various redactions of the source or very
free

by one

or

both Evangelists. How variations

might arise is easily conceivable.

Collections of the

words of Jesus were

not

made

a purely historical

or

antiquarian spirit. They met the demand of disciples for
Christian instruction, for words of the Master by which
they might guide their lives.

The practical aim would

influence the form and the collection

of

the Logia

as

used by preachers and catechists. The words of

the Lord Jesus 'would almost involuntarily undergo

modification to suit actual circumstances. This process
has gone farthest in Lk.

Besides the influence of

decorum already touched upon, we note in

report

of the words of Jesus, as compared with Mt.

a certain

indifference to the historical setting, to the actual cir-
cumstances under which and with reference to which
Jesus spoke, a disregard of the religious antitheses of
the time, and a translation of the sayings into terms,
and an ideal transposition to a time, which fit them for

present use of the Church. The 'Sermon on the

Mount' in

report is virtually a discourse of the

JESUS

JESUS

exalted Lord to

a

Christian congregation, edited either

by the Evangelist or by another in that view.

Having

regard to this broad contrast between the first Gospel
and the third, we can have no difficulty in giving to

the former the preference as to comparative originality.
Neither may give the

but on the whole

Mt. comes nearer them than Lk.

From the foregoing statement it follows that the

narratives common to Mt.,

and Lk., and the

courses common to Mt. and

Lk.,

may

with

a

considerable measure of confidence

be regarded

as

a trustworthy tradition con-

cerning the ministry of Jesus.

They represent the

oldest, comparatively primitive, tradition, and

as

such

must form the basis of a statement concerning that
ministry professing to be guided by

a

critical method.

They relate exclusively to the public life, passing over
in silence almost unbroken the childhood and early

According to this primitive tradition, the public

career of Jesus began when another remarkable man

6.

John

the

Baptist.

attitude as

a

was performing the part of a prophet in
the wilderness

of

:

a

man of austere

ascetic life, symbolising the severity of his

moral critic of his time preaching to all

classes the necessity of repentance, and

the

Jordan such as received his message as the voice of
God-hence known

as

the Baptist

(see

I

SRAEL

,

Jesus came from Nazareth (Mk.

to see' and hear

John, and, like the others, received baptism at his hands
(see J

ORDAN

,

a fact stated by Mk. without note or

by Mt. in a way implying that it needed ex-

planation, by Lk. (in a participial clause) as a sub-
ordinate incident.

Expositors and theologians have

endeavoured to explain the significance

of

this event.

I t meant this at least : that Jesus felt

a

deep sympathetic

interest in John's work.

T h e visit

to

the Jordan helps

us to look back into the silences of Nazareth

it is a

window into the mind of Jesus. John, we gather, was
a great man for him.

So

he confessed at a subsequent

time (Mt.

and what he said then shows what he

had thought before he left the seclusion of Nazareth.
T o be baptized by such a man was a suitable start for
his own ministry.

I t was a public intimation of moral

solidarity.

How far his tendencies, methods, and habits

agreed with

or

differed from those of the prophet

of

the wilderness would appear in due course; it was
well, to begin with, that fundamental sympathy should
be at once made manifest.

How long Jesus remained in the region

the lower part of the Jordan and the Dead Sea is un-

certain.

Mk. states that he returned

to Galilee after John had been 'delivered

(that is, thrown into prison by

Herod, tetrarch of Galilee : see Mk.

6

All three

Synoptists make mention of a retirement into the remoter
inhospitable wilderness of

and

of

an experience

of

moral trial there, familiarly known as

Temptation.

T h e bare fact (intrinsically credible) is stated by Mk.,
without the symbolic representation given in the parallel
accounts but the impulse to this'withdrawal into solitude

is

very realistically described by him, as a being

driven

by the Spirit into the desert

which, as external

force

is

not to be thought of, speaks of intense mental

preoccupation.

At length Jesus, with clarified vision and confirmed

will, returned to Galilee, the main theatre of his future

work as we know-it from the oldest tradition,'
there to enter on activities which have won
for him a unique place in the history of

the

I t does, not clearly appear from Mk.

We might

say

the exclusive theatre, were it not for

a

few

incidents

connected with the final journey

to Jerusalem

through

(little children brought to

Jesus

man seeking

eternal

life

with

relative

conversation

two

sons

man at

Jericho).

Mk.

makes

multitudes

Mt.

makes him

There are rudimentary indica-

tions of

a

Samaritan ministry in Lk. (in the long insertion

2437

whether he chose any particular spot

as

the centre from

which his activity was to radiate.

I t is certain that

Nazareth was no such centre. With the exception of
an occasional visit, his native town (but see N

AZARETH

)

was henceforth forsaken for other scenes more suitable
or more sympathetic. Among these a prominent place
belongs to Capernaum, a thriving populous town on the
shore of the lake of Galilee.

The public ministry of Jesus presents four broad

aspects :

(

I

)

a

preaching ministry among the people at

large

a

teaching ministry among disciples (3) a

healing ministry;

(4)

a

prophetic or critical ministry

antagonistic to current conceptions and embodiments
righteousness.

I

.

T h e

scene of the first form of ministry, the

was the synagogue. On his way northwards

from the Jordan Jesus at length arrived
at Capernaum, . and

straightway on

the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and
taught

(Mk.

Shortly thereafter he set out

a

.

preaching tour through the towns of Galilee

Here one of

realisms occurs.

Jesus appears

in

his narrative making a flight from Capernaum in t h e
grey dawn while all are asleep, possibly a flight from
the unexpected reality into which his ideal conception of
his calling had brought him (Holtzmann,

certainly an escape from sudden entangling

popularity

to

similar service elsewhere.

For this

I

left (Capernaum), said Jesus simply, in self-defence,

to disciples who bad pursued him

( 1 3 8 ) .

I n

version flight is eliminated, and

a

reference to his divine

mission is substituted for an apology for flight (443).

Of this synagogue-ministry no detailed record has.

been preserved.

Not

a

single specimen of the brief

striking synagogue addresses of Jesus is to be found in
the Gospels-at least there is none under that name : it
is possible that some

the beautiful

exhortation against earthly care (Mt.

Lk.

1222-34)

-assigned

to

other occasions-were really delivered in

synagogues.

Lk. has given

us

the text, and a general

characterisation, of one synagogue address-that delivered
in Nazareth

If, as without sufficient reason

some suspect, his account be unhistorical, it is, to say the
least, a felicitous invention. The text from the
of Isaiah

is thoroughly typical

of

the religious

attitude and spirit of Jesus, and the expression 'words of
grace

is doubtless most apt, whether

we take it as applying to the manner or to the substance

of the discourse.

account of the appearance

of

Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth is

and it is

fit, to be

a

symbolic programme of his whole preaching

ministry.

Mk.

contribution to the characterisation

of the

is a report of the impression

made by what was probably the first appearance of
Jesus as a

a synagogue, that in Capernaum.

They exclaimed, he tells

What is this, a new

doctrine

and he explains that the novelty was

that Jesus spake not as the scribes, who appealed to

authorities, but

as

himself having authority

:

with the

confidence of personal insight and with the authority

of

self-evidencing truth.

Mk. makes

a

general preliminary statement about

the preaching ministry in Galilee which may be viewed
as covering the synagogue preaching

:

Jesus came into

Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, and saying, T h e
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand : re-
pent ye, and believe in the Gospel

' (1

14

f.

).

Hence it may

951-1814).

The fourth Gospel makes Jerusalem and

the

main

scene

of

the activity

of

Jesus. The Synoptists

only

of one

visit to

Jerusalem-that during which he was crucified.

How long the ministry lasted

we

can

only

conjecture. There

is no

chronology in the

tradition. (See further.

C

HR

O

N

O

LOGY

,

The

use

of

this word shows that the evanqelist

did not distinguish between the

forms

of ministry so

as has

been

done above. Mt. uses both words

423)

to describe the synagogue ministry. So

Mk.

in

139.

JESUS

JESUS

be inferred that the constant theme

of

the

was

the kingdom of God, that the kingdom was presented as a
boon rather than as

a

demand as good news

not as awful news-the aspect under which it appeared
i n the preaching of John

and that the summons of the

preacher was not merely to repentance, but above all to

e . ,

good news welcome. The statement

is

summary, and its language may be secondary, coloured

:somewhat by the dialect of a later time but even in
that case we are not left without a clue to the general
tenor of Jesus' popular discourses. W e might gather it
from a saying whose authenticity is as certain as its im-

port is significant :

I

came not to call the righteous, but

sinners

(Mk.

2

17

Mt.

9

5

32).

T h e value of this

declaration lies in this, that, whilst spoken with reference

t o

a particular occasion, it indicates a habitual

a

fixed policy. Jesus addressed himself by preference to

those who could not be regarded as in the conventional
sense exemplary. The chosen audience reflects light
on the nature of the message.

It was good tidings even

t o the ignorant, the erring, the fallen, the outcast,

that the past might be forgiven and forgotten, and

that the future offered great possibilities. What
inspiring ideas of God and man and their relations
underlay such teaching

!

T h e occasion on which the

saying was uttered also throws

a

contributory light on

the

of the Galilean Gospel. Jesus had been eating

with publicans and sinners,' and was on his defence for
that act.

In this connection the term call' must bear

the special sense of an invitation to an entertainment.

gloss to repentance' restricts and even obscures

the meaning. T h e kingdom, as Jesus preached it, was
a

feast, and his call was a generous invitation to come

and enjoy its good things.

In his popular addresses Jesus would make free use

of

parables.

He spoke in parables to all classes, but

especially to the people.

'Without

parable he was not wont to speak to

them (Mk.

4 3 4 ) .

And of course the

of the para-

bolic method of instruction,

in

as far as it had a

conscious aim and was not the spontaneous outcome of
natural genius, was to popularise the truths of religion

:

simplification with

a

view to enlightenment.

In the

conversation between Jesus and his disciples after the
utterance of the parable of the sower, as reported by all
the Synoptists, an opposite purpose, that of keeping the
people in darkness, seems to be avowed by the preacher.

I t is not credible, however, that Jesus would either

cherish or avow such an inhuman intention, though it

is

credible that in the bitterness of his disappointment at

the meagre fruit of his popular ministry he might express
himself in a way that might be misunderstood, on the
principle of reading intention'

the light of result.

None of the parables preserved in the Gospels is

,expressly connected with synagogue addresses, with the

exception of

mustard

seed

and

13

cp

treasure

and

(Mt.

1344- 46)

may be a pair of parabolic gems (setting forth

the absolute worth of the kingdom of heaven) whose

setting was in such an address and the exquisite

parables concerning the pleasure of finding things lost
(Mt.

Lk.

15)

may have been first uttered on

a

similar occasion, unless we suppose that the original

place of these parables was in an address to the publicans
gathered together in the house of Matthew (Mk.
and parallels). T h e collection of parabolic utterances
preserved in the Gospels is so large and varied that
there is little room for complaint that it is not still
larger yet one cannot but reflect what a rich addition

t o

the evangelic

a

report of the

That

a

in

the

idea

of

Jesus

appears

the

centurion

(Mt. 8

the

woman

with

an

issue (Mk.

and

parallels), and the

Syro-Phoenician

woman

(Mk.

Mt.

15

See F

A

ITH

.

On

Jiilicher, Die

also

parables spoken on the Galilean preaching tour would
have been.

The teaching

given

tu

-That Jesus aimed at gathering

about him a circle of disciples
should be constantly, or at least much,

in his company is one of the most certain data of the
primitive tradition.

He began the process of selection

very early (Mk.

Mt.

4

18-22),

having some disciples

to accompany him on his first Galilean preaching
tour.

He meant to make the selected

at

least the inner circle of them-in his own happy,

phrase, 'fishers of men,' a playful allusion to

the secular occupation of those first chosen. The aim
involved, of course, special instruction, and that de-
manded leisure.

The desire of Jesus to get leisure

for

uninterrupted intercourse with his disciples, and more

particularly with the body of twelve which, according to
the testimony of all the evangelists, he formed out of a

larger company of followers, is specially apparent in

Mk.

Through his preaching and healing ministries,

the fame of Jesus rapidly rose to such a pitch that
wherever he

large masses of people gathered

round him, masses too large for any synagogue to
hold,

so

that perforce he had to

a

street or

field

T h e work was not uncongenial but, in

the tropical climate of the lake shore, it was fatiguing,
and withal it was unsatisfactory. Much sowing, little
fruit

:

such was the feeling of the preacher, as expressed

in the parable of

the

Sower,

which is a critical review

of the early Galilean ministry.

Unwearied in

doing, Jesus yet began to feel with increasing depth of
conviction that, if anything was to come of his labours,
he must find time and opportunity for careful initiation
of the few more intelligent and susceptible hearers, that
continuing in

his

word they might become disciples

indeed, and by insight into truth become enlightened,

free, and apt to tench others.

Mk. more than any

other evangelist shows Jesus making repeated earnest
efforts in this direction, fleeing from the crowd, as it
were, in quest of rest and leisure for the higher work.
T h e ascent to the hill-top

was such a flight. T h e

voyage towards the eastern shore on the day of the
parabolic discourse from

a

boat was another.

The un-

disguised manner in which Mk. allows this to appear
in his narrative is a good instance of his realism : They
[the disciples] take him with them, as he was in the
ship

( 4

sine

(Bengel) and

sine

Here

was flight along the only line of retreat, the shore being
besieged by the vast crowd, and not easy even along
that line, some of the people having got into boats to
be nearer the speaker

(436).

T h e voyage towards

Bethsaida at the north-western corner of the lake, after

the return of the twelve from their apprentice mission

was a third

attempt at escape.

T h e long excursions to the north, into the regions

of

Tyre and Sidon

Philippi

likewise flights, endeavours to escape both from friends
and from foes; more successful because taking the
fugitives outside the boundaries of Israel, or into

a

borderland where Jesus and his work were comparatively
unknown.

I n connection with the first and the last of these re-

tirements some of the most important parts of the

of Jesus were communicated to

his disciples.

With the ascent to the

bill is connected the great 'Sermon on

the Mount,' unreported by Mk., pre-

served by Mt. and

Lk.

in very diverse forms, yet withal

so

like as to leave no reason for doubt as to their

identity. Which

of

the two reports comes nearest to

the original, and whether both do not diverge therefrom
widely in different directions, are questions which cannot
be discussed here (see G

OSPELS

).

The two points which

we are concerned to emphasise are

:

( I )

that the discourse

was

disciple-instruction, possibly with none

JESUS

JESUS

present but disciples, though that is not made clear in
either narrative, and therefore might more appropriately
be called The Teaching on the

than The Sermon on

and

that this teaching was given during

a season of leisure,

days.

The latter

point has a most important bearing on the question of
the unity of the discourse as given in Mt.

If we

assume that it was delivered all in one gush, and on
a single theme-say the antithesis between Pharisaic
righteousness and the righteousness of the kingdom as
conceived by Jesus-then certain portions must be
eliminated as irrelevant :

The Lord’s Prayer

and the counsel against care

But if the teach-

ing on the hill continued for days, with different themes
for each day, then the unity must be understood in

a

wide sense, and

version of the ‘sermon’ may

be a substantially correct summary of what Jesus said
on various topics not closely connected with one

The teaching on the hill as reported in Mt. affords

large insight into the thoughts. of Jesus on the essentials
of religion: God, man, the kingdom of God, the
righteousness of God.

Jesus taught no abstract doctrine concerning God, or

indeed on any subject.

He did not say, God must be

thought of as Father, and then proceed to
explain what the title meant.

H e simply

used the new name and defined as he

went along by discriminating use.

The title Father

is applied to God no less than fifteen times in the sermon,
most suggestively,

so

as to ascribe to him by implication

a

universal and a special providence

(545

benignant

and magnanimous in its action, doing good even to the
unthankful and the evil

a perfect ethical nature

whose perfection consists in gracious unmerited love

( 5

46-48), a spirit delighting in mercy and ready to forgive,
and desiring the same spirit to rule in the hearts of those
who have the supreme honour to be called God’s children

an eye that carefully notes the most secret

devout acts of the sincere and humble worshipper

( 6 1

an ear that hears their prayers, and a heart

that is inclined to grant all the good desired

or

needed

That Jesus did not employ this new name for God

simply under the instinctive guidance of a happy religious
genius, but with full consciousness and deliberate pur-
pose, is intrinsically probable, and is attested by

a

remarkable word ascribed to him in the evangelic tra-
dition, and preserved in substantially the same terms in
the first and third Gospels :

No

one knoweth the Son,

save the Father neither knoweth any one the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased

to

reveal him’ (Mt.

1 1 2 7

Lk.

In view of the

statement

preface as to the method on which

he compiled his Gospel, a sober criticism will not readily
acquiesce

the theory that the passage in which this

text is embedded is

a

free poetical composition by the

evangelist in the spirit of

and that it was

borrowed from him by the author of the canonical Mt.
writing at a later

I t is much more probable that

both evangelists found it in a common source containing

a

collection of the sayings of Jesus, either in the form

which it assumes in extant

MSS,

or

in that current

among the gnostics :

No

one knew the Father save the

Son, and the Son save the Father and he to

the

Son shall reveal.’ Under either form the Logion implies

a

peculiar relation, if not to God, at least to the con-

ception of God as Father, that of one who claimed to
have given currency to the name.

Weiss in his

and

in

his edition

of Meyer’s

on

This view is taken by Lutteroth

de

parties

de

saint

H e takes

(5

in the sense

of

camping out

pointing to Acts18

and

instances of the use of thd

word in a kindred sense.

in

The whole section Mt. 11

was probably a unity of which

Lk.

for some

gives only a fragment. In favour

of this view is the resemblance it bears to the prayer of Jesus
the son of Sirach (Ecclus. 51) which like it begins with a

and ends with an invitation), in thk namd of wisdom, to come
and receive instruction.

This resemblance has been used as a n

argument against the genuineness of the Logion ‘come unto
me’

But it is perfectly conceivable

that Jesus was acquainted with Sirach, and that his utterance
was coloured by the language of its closing sentences. This

view meets the objection taken to the Logion on the ground of
the self-eulogy in some of its expressions (Martinqau,

Seat

Authority

in

Religion,

When he says

I

am meek

and lowly,’ Jesus of Nazareth speaks in the

of wisdom

(one

self-designations according to Resch,

as

the earlier Jesus had spoken before him.

Jesus taught his doctrine of man on the same method

of incidental suggestion.

H e asserted the worth of

man by comparisons sometimes patheti-
cally and even humorously understating
the truth, in one instance sublimely ade-

quate.

A

man is better, greater, of more worth to God,

and to himself, thinking rightly, than a bird (Mt.

a

sheep

yea, than the whole world (Mk.

836). T h e truth implied

is

that the things compared

are really incommensurable.

It is a Hebrew way of

asserting the ideal, absolute worth of humanity,

a

method applied in the Epistle to the Hebrews to Chris-
tianity, which is declared to be better in various respects
than the Levitical religion, when what is meant is that
it is the absolute, perfect, therefore eternal, religion.
Man’s incomparable dignity in the teaching of Jesus

rests on the fact that he is a son of God, not merely

a

creature, whether small as

a

bird or great as a world

a

son indefeasibly, whether good or evil, just or unjust

(Mt.545). By this lofty conception of man’s relation
to God, rather than by expressed statement or laboured

Jesus brought immortality to light,

God

is not the God of the dead, but of the living,’ he said

A

fortiori

he would have said: ‘God is

not the Father of the dead, but of the living.’

Not to be overlooked even in a summary statement

of Christ’s teaching concerning man is his assertion of

the rights of

in connection with

married relations (Mt.

cp

Mk.

The Jewish doctors of the time for the

most part accepted the old Hebrew notion of

a

wife as

property bought and sold, and to be put away at the
pleasure of her husband.

But they were zealous to have

the bill of divorcement (Dt. 241) in due form, that the
woman might be able to show that she was free to marry
again, and doubtless they flattered themselves that they
were thereby defending the rights of women.

Jesus

asserted a more radical right of woman-not to he put
away, except when she put herself away by unfaithful-
ness.

He thus raised anew the prophetic cry

‘

I hate

putting away’ (Mal.

It was an act of humanity

of inestimable value to the highest interests of the race,
as well as an act of heroic courage.

By his friendly relations with the ‘publicans and

sinners Jesus gave a practical and impressive

of

his doctrine

man.

great social gathering of the outcasts

in Capernaum

(Mk.

2

and

brought together

by Levi

or

Matthew, called doubtless for that immediate

local service, as well as for the ulterior wider service of
the apostleship, was a concrete assertion of the great
truth that

a

man at the worst is still a man, and

a

son

of God, and that all superficial cleavages of race,
descent, colour, occupation, or even character, are of
small account in comparison with that which

is

common

to all humanity, the soul.

The so-called feast in

house cannot have been merely

a private entertainment given by the newly called disciple to as
many of his old comrades

as

his dining chamber would accom-

modate. All the

say that there were many present.

is

a great crowd’

T h e

meeting was probably in the court around which the buildings
of

a n

of any size are arranged and of the

dimensions of a congregation rather than of a

party.

Jesus was the prime mover in the matter, and Levi

merely

JESUS

JESUS

his

agent.

into personal contact with the social outcasts of Capernaum.

I t was a deliberate attempt on Christ's part to get

By these kindred ideas of God and man and their

relations Jesus became inevitably the founder

of

a

universal religion, however narrow the limits within
which his own ministry was restricted.

Those who,

like Baur and Weizsacker, have interpreted his teaching

in

a universal sense have most truly divined his inmost

thoughts.

I n setting forth the summum bonum as the kingdom

God

Jesus poured his new wine into

a

very old

skin. But that the wine, the

idea connected with the phrase, was new,
the parables of the new wine and the

new piece of cloth (Mk.

and parallels) suffice to

prove. The kingdom he preached was ethical, spiritual,

(and therefore) universal in character : not political,
theocratic, national; at least national only to those
cherishing current Jewish expectations. The Beatitudes,
which form the sublime introduction to the Teaching
on the Hill, in either version of them, amply bear out
this assertion.

Obviously

so

in

version, really

so

also,

though not

so

obviously, in

Jesus may have

said : Blessed ye poor,' as Lk. reports, and the reporter
may have understood the term poor

'

chiefly in a social

sense but it does not follow that his understanding in
this case, any more than in the case of the saying, I
came not to call the righteous,' exhausted the Teacher's
meaning. Jesus used words in

a

pregnant sense, and

in his mind the natural and the spiritual lay close to-
gether : witness the saying : 'few things (dishes) are
needful, or (rather) one'

the food that

endures for ever-Lk.

T h e high ideal of man

links together in his thought the social and the spiritual.
T h e poor man passes into the blessedness of the kingdom
whenever he realises what man is or may be.

Poor in

purse or even in character, no man is beggared who
has a vision of man's chief end and good.

If this be

idealism, then Jesus was an idealist.

He was also

a

poet, and words were symbols for him of thoughts which
no words could adequately express. T o make him the
herald of a theocratic particularistic kingdom of Israel
is to bring him down from these lofty regions to the
low level of dull prosaic

T h e kingdom of God, or of heaven,

as

it

is

usually

designated

in

the first Gospel, while in its ultimate

significance implying a high ideal of life,
realised in a heroic career rife with tribulation (Mt.

is

in its initial aspect, as already indicated,

a

boon rather than a demand. Seek ye the kingdom

(as the highest good), said the Master

to

his disciples

(Mt.

6 3 3 ) .

It is

to

be sought as the

summum

bonum,

in preference to the temporal good above which Pagan
aspiration rarely rises (Mt.

It

is the bread which

perisheth not, the raiment

waxeth not old, the

treasure which cannot be stolen (Lk.

T h e

quest of this supreme good, in singleness of mind, is
ever successful.

'Seek, and ye shall find' (Mt.

7 7 ) .

And the quest

is

the noblest of human endeavours.

He who so seeks the highest good fulfils at the same

time the highest duty of man.

In this coincidence of

the chief good with the chief end lies the unique
distinction of the Christian religion

as

expounded by its

Founder.

Jesus carefully explained his conception

of

the

both by positive statements and by keen caustic

criticism of the system of religion and
morals prevalent among the Jews in his
time.

Among the statements

a

foremost

Baur's view

of the

religion

of

Jesus as spiritual and

universal is entirely independent of his theoryas to the indebted-
ness of Jesus for these

of

his teaching to Greek

philosophy and Roman world-wide empire. We may hold aloof
from this theory,

accept his

of the essential character-

istics of the Christianity of Christ.

This prosaic view pervades the treatment of Christ's teaching

all the works of Dr. Bernhard Weiss.

2443

place belongs to the golden rule

what you wish men

to

do to you do ye to them'

for which

analogies can be found in other religions, but with this
difference, that, whilst in the teaching of Jesus the

assumes a positive form, in

other known

instances it is given negatively.

So in the saying of

Confucius, do not to others what you would not wish
done to yourself' (Legge,

Chinese

Classics,

The

negative confines us to the region of justice; the positive
takes us into the region of generosity; for we wish
more than we can claim, or than the average man is

,

willing to do to others.

Jesus would have

a

disciple to

be not merely

but

spontaneously doing to

others all that a spirit of magnanimity prompts.

The

golden rule covers only the duties arising out of human
relations. T h e summary of duty,-Love God with all
your heart, and your neighbour

as

yourself-given in

answer to a question at a later time (Mk.
covers the whole ground of obligation. Thus we have
religion and morality blent in one ideal as of co-ordinate
importance, a combination not lying to the hand in the
OT-the two great commandments, though both in the
law, are not given in one place (Dt.

Lev.

and still less in accordance with the spirit of the time.

In Rabbinism ritual was before morality, and the
tendency was to sacrifice morality in the interest of
religion. Jesus said

:

ethics before ritual-the essentials

of true religion consist in morality-placability before
sacrifice (Mt.

mercy before sacrifice (Mt.

filial

affection before sacrifice (Mt.

Mk.

Whilst putting morality on a level with, or even in

some respects above, religion, Jesus was careful to
subordinate individual interests to the universal claims
of the kingdom of God : Seek ye his kingdom said
he to his disciples (Lk.

implying if he did not say

first (Mt.

6

food or raiment being relegated to the

second place. T h e Lord's Prayer' is constructed

on

the same principle of subordination.

First God's

glory, kingdom, and will then, only in the second place,
the temporal interest (daily bread), and even the
spiritual interests (pardon and protection from tempta-

tion), of the worshipper. Jesus insisted that this sub-
ordination must be carried the length of willingness to
part with life itself.

First the things

of

God, then the

things of

(Mk.

833).

True to his great principle

that religion and morality are one, however, Jesus
gave his disciples

to

understand that the things of God

are at the same time those of deepest concern to man.
They are the true life of the spirit, for the sake-of which
one who understands the philosophy

of

life will gladly

part when needful with the lower life

of

the body (Mk.

T h e antithetic presentation of the moral ideal was

given partly in didactic form, partly in the way of
occasional polemics.

For the didactic aspect, which

concerns

us

here, we are indebted chiefly to

Mt.,

in

whose version of the

on the

the

contrast between Jesus's interpretation of the law and
that current in the Rabbinical schools is worked out in

a

series of examples (Mt.

This section of the

sermon is omitted almost entirely by Lk., whereby
the small part he has retained loses much in point.
T h e gist of the elaborate contrast is: The law as
interpreted by the scribes, externalised and restricted
in scope as interpreted by Jesus, inward and infinite.
Thou shalt not

said the scribe thou shalt not

hate

or despise, said Jesus. Thou shalt love thy
and doing that thou

enough, said (in effect) the

scribe; thou shalt love

making no distinction

between fellow-countrymen or

friend or foe,

except

as

to the form love takes, said Jesus.

The

external is that which is seen; hence the tendency of
an outward morality to become a morality of ostentation.
Jesus

this morality, much in vogue in his time, to

emphasise by contrast the reserved retiring character
of true piety (Mt. 1-8

16-18).

True goodness is in the

2444

JESUS

JESUS

heart, and the good man is content that it should be
there, visible only to the Father in

3.

T h e later teaching of Jesus will be referred to in

another connection.

W e pass, therefore, from the

19.

Healing

ministry

:

evidence.

teaching to the healing ministry.

I n

doing so we make

a

transition from a

subject which is universally attractive to
one which is distasteful to many because

of its association with the idea of

T h e distaste

is felt not only by those who do not believe in the
miraculous, but also by not a few who, whilst not ad-
herents of the naturalistic school, have no sympathy with
the apologetic value attached to miracles

as

credentials

of revelation. The following statement will not bring

us

collision with this feeling.

The

of the healing ministry is not the point in question

:

what we are concerned with is the question of fact.
Now, as to this, the healing ministry, judged by
critical tests, stands on as firm historical ground as the
best accredited parts of the teaching.

The

the narrative common to all

the three Gospels-contains no less than nine reports of
healing acts, including the cases of the leper, the
madman of Gergesa, and the dead daughter of Jairus.
Then, in most of the reports the action of Jesus is

so

interwoven with unmistakably authentic words

in

the case of the palsied man) that the two elements
cannot be separated: we must take the story a s it
stands or reject it entirely. That the healing ministry
was not only a fact but a great outstanding fact, is
attested by the popularity of Jesus, and by the various
theories which were invented to account for the remark-
able phenomena.

Mk. gives a realistic, lifelike descrip-

tion of the connection between healing acts and the fame

of Jesus.

The cure of

a

demoniac in the synagogue of

Capernaum (Mk.

1 2 3 )

creates

a

sensation even greater

than that produced by the discourse of the new preacher.
They remark to one another not only on the new
doctrine, but also on the authority which Jesus wields
over unclean spirits

(127).

The result is that in the

evening of the same Sabbath day, after sunset, the
people of the town gather at the door of the house
where Jesus resides, bringing their sick to be healed

So,

again, on his return to Capernaum, after

his preaching tour in Galilee, the report speedily spread-
ing that he had come back,

a

crowd assembles so large

and dense as to make access to him impossible except
through the roof of the house

Fresh recollec-

tions of the synagogue-sermon, but still more of the
Sabbath-evening cures, explain the popular enthusiasm.
T h e theories were various and curious. T h e relations of
Jesus had their theory, not so much indeed about the
healing acts

as

about the healer.

Mk. reports (it is

one of his realisms) that they thought

out of his

senses

(321).

Much benevolence had made

mad.

T h e beneficent deeds must have been there, else the
madness would not have been imputed.

T h e Pharisees,

more

suo,

put

a

less friendly construction on the puzzling

phenomena, seeing in them not the acts of a man more
endowed with love and with power over diseases
(physical and mental) than was good for his own health
of body and mind, but the acts of a man in league with
the prince of darkness, an incarnation of Beelzebub

Mk.

322).

[See

This

was a very unlikely theory, as Jesus pointed out

but

the thing to be noted is the existence of the theory,
showing, as it does, that there were facts imperiously
demanding explanation of some sort.

Yet another

theory, too curious to be an invention of the evangelists
who report it

(Mk. 616

Mt.

originated in the palace

of Herod the murderer of the Baptist, and in his own
guilt

-

haunted mind. This Jesus of whose marvellous

works I hear is John risen again, the mysterious powers

of the other world manifesting themselves through the

resurrected man.

T h e theory is perhaps absurd, yet

by its very absurdity it witnesses to extraordinary facts

arresting general attention, and forcing their way, how-
ever unwelcome, into kings' houses.

T h e healing ministry of Jesus presents a problem at

once for exegesis, for theology, and for science. T h e

question for exegesis is, What do the
reports necessarily imply ?

Was the

leper cured, or only pronounced clean?

Was the bread that fed the thousands miraculously
produced, or drawn forth by the bearing of Jesus from
the stores in possession of the crowd; or is the story
merely a symbolic embodiment of the life-giving power
of Jesus in the spiritual sphere? Was the daughter of
Jairus really dead?

For

theology the question is, What

bearing has the healing ministry on the personality of
Jesus? Here is certainly something to wonder at, to
start the inquiry : What manner of man is this? Is it
only a question

as

to the manner of the

of

a

man fully endowed with powers not unexampled
elsewhere, at least in kind, though lying dormant in
ordinary men? Or do the phenomena take

us

outside

the human into the region of the strictly divine? For
science the question is, Can the acts ascribed to Jesus
be accounted for by any known laws of

by

moral therapeutics,' or

emotional treatment of

disease? Care must be taken in attempting to answer
this question not to understate the facts. I n the case

of

possession, for example, it is making the

problem too easy to say that that was a merely im-
aginary disease. The diseases to which the name is
applied in the Gospels were in some cases serious
enough.

T h e 'demoniac' of Gergesa was a raving

madman; the boy at the foot of the hill of Trans-
figuration was the victim of aggravated epilepsy.

The

only door of escape open for scientific scepticism in
such cases is doubt

as

to the permanence of the alleged

cure.

There is one thing about which we may have com-

fortable certainty. Whether miraculous or not, whether

...

the works of a mere man, or of one
who is a man

more, these healing

acts are a revelation of the love of Jesus,

a

manifestation of his 'enthusiasm of

humanity,' to be placed beside the meeting with the
publicans of Capernaum as an aid to the understanding
of his spirit and aims. By that meeting he showed his
interest in a despised class

of

by the healing

ministry he showed his interest in

a

despised part of

human nature, the body, and

so'

evinced the healthy

catholic nature of his conception of redemption.

H e

was

to do all the good in the world he could.

H e was able to heal men's bodies as well as their souls ;

and he did it, thereby protesting against that pagan
notion of the body, as something essentially evil and
worthless, which underlies all modes of asceticism, and
against

a

false spiritualism which regards disease of the

'body

as

essential to the health of the soul. T h e heal-

ing ministry shows Jesus, not as a thaumaturge bent
on creating astonishment, but

as

in

a

large, grand,

human way the friend of men, bearing by sympathy
their sicknesses as well

as

their sorrows and sins

as

a

burden in his

4.

The

with

the

of

called in the Gospels scribes and Pharisees,' formed a

very essential part of the public life of
Jesus.

It soon brought that life

to

a

end.

The Gospel of Lk.

toning down that -aspect, omitting much of Christ's
poleniic against

and mitigating the asperity

Such is the view of Christ's healing ministry presented in

Mt.:

witness the prophetic citation in 8

There

no desire

in the first Gospel to magnify the miracle. Peter's mother-in-
law simply suffers from a feverish attack. The sympathy of
Jesus is the point

of

interest, which was the same whether the

fever was severe or slight.

I n Lk.

it is a g r e a t fever

(4 38)

and throughout this Gospel care is taken to magnify the power
as well as the benevolence of Jesus. Mk., on the other hand,
goes so far as to say that Jesus was not able to do any mighty
works in Nazareth, because of the unbelief of the people (6

JESUS

JESUS

of

what

retained by representing it as uttered under

the control of friendly social relations (three feasts in
Pharisees' houses peculiar to this Gospel

makes it impossible to form a clear idea of

the religious environment of Jesus, of the heroic war-
fare he had to wage, and of the forces that were at
work, moving steadily on towards Calvary.

For in-

formation on these points, we

turn to the pages

of Mt. and Mk., especially of the latter, in which the
course of the conflict is vividly depicted.

A

few anec-

dotes bring before

us

realistically Pharisaic hostility, in

its rise and progress, and prepare

us

for the end (Mk.

2-36).

Radical contrariety of view

on the whole subject of conduct in religion and in
morals was its deepest cause, and the popularity of
Jesus as

a

preacher and a healer was

a

constant and

increasing source of irritation.

The contrast

(1

)

between Jesus and the scribes, in

their respective styles of preaching or teaching, remarked

on

by the second evangelist, was not unnoticed by

the people.

If

they did not say, How unlike the

scribes ! they at least showed the new teacher an amount
of consideration not accorded to the scribes. Therefore,
we are not surprised to learn that when Jesus returned
from his preaching tour in Galilee to Capernaum the
scribes were in

a

fault-finding mood

( 2 6 ) .

They took

care, however, to conceal the cause of their chagrin,
selecting as the point

of

assault neither the preaching

nor the healing, but the

'

blasphemous word of pardon :

'Son,

thy sins be forgiven thee.'

T h e Capernaum

mission

to

the publicans and sinners

( 2

15-17)

supplied

the next occasion for offence.

These classes had begun

to take an interest in Jesus.

'There were many (of

them there), and they began to follow

They

had doubtless heard the story of the palsied

and

how Jesus had been sympathetic towards the sinner, and
had been regarded by the scribes as a blasphemer. They
naturally desired to see and hear and know the interest-
ing blasphemer. T h e offence in this instance lay in
eating with such

in having

like relations with them.

I t was

a

complicated many-

sided offence : a slight on the national feeling of Jews,
who resented whatever reminded them

of

their political

humiliation; an indirect slight

on

the laws which the

classes fraternised with habitually neglected

it was

also-though this might not be

so

clearly perceived-a

slight on the prerogative of Israel as an elect people, an
evil

of an approaching revolution when the king-

dom of God would be thrown open to all.

Next come Sabbatic controversies trivial in occasion,

but cutting contemporary

prejudice to the

Collision was inevitable.

quick, and

intensifying the ex-

asperation

These en-

counters revealed

a

radical contrarietv

between Jesus and the scribes in their respective con-
ceptions of the Sabbath. Jesus expressed the difference
in a saying preserved only in Mk.

(2

27)

: T h e sabbath

was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.' T h e
remark implied

a

manner of conceiving God, man, and

religion, different from that in vogue, and it is not sur-
prising that from that day forth dislike began to deepen
into hatred, harbouring murderous intentions.

T h e

author of Mk. winds up his narrative of the healing
of the withered hand with the significant statement :

' t h e Pharisees went forth and straightway, with the

Herodians, took counsel against him, how they might

destroy h i m '

( 3 6 ) .

The reference to the

little spoken of in the Gospels, signifies that the

Pharisees now began seriously to aim at the life of Jesus,
and naturally felt that the assistance of persons having
influence at the court would be valuable.

Hereafter the foes of Jesus come before

us

attacking

his healing ministry on a side at which it appeared to
them vulnerable.

The meeting with the outcasts

of

Capernaum had given

a

choice opportunity for a

2447

calumnious assault upon his moral character, of which
they seem

to

have taken advantage to the full extent

(Mt.

11

T h e cures of demoniacs formed the basis of

the attempt to rob him of the fame fairly won by his
wonderful works (Mk.

3

T h e cures themselves

could not be denied, nor the power they evinced but
was the power necessarily from heaven, might it not be
from an opposite quarter? T h e men who made the
malign suggestion knew better

but it was enough for

them that the suggestion was plausible.

Hence the

solemn warning of Jesus against

speak-

ing evil of that which is known to be good (Mk.

T h e next encounter had reference to ritual ablutions

(Mlc.

71-23

Mt.

15

This time, Jesus assumed the

offensive, and exposed the vices inherent
in the systems represented by the scribes

declaring in effect that the hedging of the Law by the
multiplied rules of legal doctors had for its result the
setting of the Law aside, and giving as an example the
doctrine of Corban in its bearing

on

the fifth command-

ment.

This was offence enough ; but Jesus added to it

by an appeal to the multitude, to whom he addressed
one

of

those great emancipating sayings which sweep

away the cobwebs of artificial systems better than
elaborate argument-that which defiles is not what
goeth into the mouth but what cometh out of it. ' I t
was a virtual abrogation, not merely of the traditions

of

the Elders, but even of the ceremonial law of Moses : a
proclamation of the great truth that moral defilement
alone is of importance.

When it had

to this,

a

crisis was at hand.

Tesus knew it. and retired

the scenes of strife.

partly to escape for a while from the
malice of his foes, and still more t o
prepare his disciples, by seasonable

instructions, for the inevitable end.

The time of these

later instructions was that of the northerly excursions
already referred to, and their main theme was

Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that

he himself must suffer death at the hands of the
religious leaders, and that they and all faithful souls
must be prepared to endure hardship for truth and
righteousness (Mk.

Mt.

and

from this time forth he devoted much attention towards

developing in the twelve the heroic temper demanded
by the situation.

It was

no

easy task; for, while the

master was continually preoccupied with the cross, the
disciples were often thinking vain thoughts.

T h e

contrast is depicted in

a

realistic manner by Mk.

They were in the way, going

up

to Jerusalem

a n d

Jesus was going

them

:

and they were amazed

They could

not

comprehend the intense

preoccupation betrayed in the master's manner.

It

filled them with awe.

T h e sequel explains.

T h e

ambitious request of James and John followed soon
after, as comic scenes succeed tragic ones in a drama.
Hence the need for inculcating such recondite truths of
the kingdom as that greatness comes by service that
childlikeness is the condition of entrance into the king-
dom ; that ambition aspiring to greatness and trampling

on

weakness is a cursed passion, deserving drowning,

with a heavy millstone round the neck, in the deepest
part of the sea and that only through brotherly kind-
ness and charity can one hope to win the favour of God
(Mt.

18

Mk.

The preceding incidents are common to the three Synoptists.

This one is omitted by

Lk.

along with a group of other narra-

tives, including the second storm on the lake, the
woman, the second feeding, the demand for a sign-in short, the
whole of Mt.

and Mk.

except that

Mk.

8

15

These omissions were probably in-

tentional on

the incidents being known to him, hut

passed over for various reasons.

The Gospels speak of two excursions-one to the regions of

Tyre and Sidon, another to the neighbourhood of
Philippi. Even so conservative a critic as Weiss is inclined to
resolve the

two

into one

treating the second feeding as a

merely literary duplicate

of

the first.

JESUS

JESUS

During the period of wandering in the north the

disciple Peter, the foremost man among the twelve, and

usually their spokesman on important
occasions, made an eventful declaration

concerning the master.

Jesus had himself led

to it

by introducing into their conversation,

as

they journeyed

towards

the topic : ‘ W h o do men

say that I

Mk.

Lk.

That general question disposed of, there came

a

second :

And you, who say you that I a m ? T h e answer of

Peter was

:

Thon art the

Christ

(Mk.

I t was

apparently the answer which Jesus anticipated and
wished which would imply that he regarded himself as
one in whom the Messianic hope of the Jewish people
was fulfilled. Can this indeed have been so ? Can such
an one

as

Jesus, so wise and good, and

so

utterly out of

sympathy with the religious spirit of his time, have
thought himself the Messiah, or even taken any in-
terest in the Messianic idea? It is evident that one
occupying the position of Jesus as a religious teacher
could not escape having some conscious attitude to-
wards that idea, friendly or indifferent or hostile. And
it is certain that he would be utterly unsympathetic
towards the Messianic ideas current among the Jews of
his time.

Pharisaic notions of the Messianic king and

kingdom would be as distasteful to him

as

Pharisaic

notions of the Law, of righteousness, of God, and of
man.

His attitude towards the whole circle of ideas

associated with conventional religion was, without doubt,
that of

a

radical sceptic. But he did not live in the

region of negation.

His way was to discard unwelcome

ideas and put better ones in their place.

H e did this in

connection with all the other subjects above mentioned,
and doubtless he acted

on

the

principle

in

connection with the Messianic hope-this all the more
decisively because that hope was not rabbinical

pro-

phetic in its origin, associated with some of the most
spiritual aspirations of

O T

saints and seers, if also find-

ing expression occasionally in materialistic or political

representations of the good time coming.

By elective

affinity Jesus would choose the purest and loftiest
elements in prophetic delineations, and

of these form

his Messianic idea. From certain indications in the
Gospels-the voice from heaven at the Baptism and the
Transfiguration, the text of the discourse in the syna-
gogue of Nazareth, the intimate connection between the
confession of Peter and the first distinct intimation of
the approaching Passion-it may be inferred that
Deutero-Isaiah was the chief source of his conception,

and

that his Messiah was

endowed abundantly with

the charisma of

(Is.

therefore well-pleasing to

God (Is.

and destined to be

a

of sorrow

Messiah stands for an ideal, the summum

embodied in

a

person. The Jews believed that such

a

person would come. Jesus might very sincerely share
the expectation,

as

the Baptist did.

he also

regard himself a s the coming one? H e could not, if a

Messianic consciousness implied self-asserting preten-

sions, or, generally, states of feeling incompatible with

a

lowly spirit.

He could, if the Messianic vocation pre-

sented itself to his mind as a duty, rather than as

a

dignity,

as

a

summons to a career of suffering, a tempting

to renunciation rather than to usurpation.

So,

in fact,

it did appear to him. T h e man of sorrow in Is.

53

is

ideal Israel the faithful

in

Israel, the men who stand

for God and

in an evil world, conceived

poetically as an individual. Jesus thought of himself as
that individual, the representative of all who live sacri-
ficial and therefore redemptive lives.

All goes to bear. out this

the self-

designation

‘

Son of man,’ so much used by Jesus. T h e

In consequence

of the long omission, this section in Luke

follows immediately after the first feeding, and there is no in-
dication that it did not happen a t the same place. There is no
trace of the excursion to the north in his narrative.

(Is.

53).

See M

ESSIAH

.

meaning of this title he never defined any more

,

than he formally defined the name ‘Father’
applied to God.

It is doubtful if

O T

texts can give us much help towards

fixing its import. W e must watch the Son of man in the
act of

so

designating himself, defining the

by dis-

criminating use.

Doing this, we receive the impression

that the title is chosen because it is one that makes
claims. In Aramaic it means simply the man.’ If it
be Messianic, through the use made of it in Daniel and
the

Book

Enoch,

it is furtively

so,

an incognito.

T h e admiring people frequently called Him ‘Son of

David,’ and the early Christian Church laid stress on
the title as an important link in the chain of Messianic
proof.

Hence the genealogies in Mt. and Lk.

Even

Paul

recognises the Davidic descent as in its own

place important (Rom.

13).

There is

no

evidence that

Jesus repudiated the title

but the title Son of man

does show that he regarded the other (as implying
physical descent and therefore regal rights)

as

of little

significance. Others said

Son

of

he said Son of

See S

ON

O

F

M

AN

.

The message from the imprisoned Baptist to Jesus

(Mt.

11

Lk.

is not without significance in this

connection : ‘Art thou the coming o n e ? ’ By some

Holtzmann in Handcomm.) the question is viewed

as

the utterance rather of

a

budding than of

a

waning

faith.

But the comments of Jesus on the message and

on

the man who sent it, bearing

a

stamp of authenticity

upon them and probably taken by the two evangelists
from the Book of Logia, demand the latter inter-
pretation.

‘

Blessed is he who findeth no cause

of

stumbling in me.’ John had

cause of stumbling

in Jesus, in whom from the first his prophetic eye had
detected an extraordinary person. John’s Messiah was
to be an iconoclast, a hewer down of barren trees and
effete institutions, one coming in the fury of the Lord to
destroy by the wind and fire of judgment.

Jesus

hitherto had been nothing of the kind rather

a

preacher

of good news, even to the immoral

a

healer of disease,

a

teacher of wisdom, with nothing like

a

fan in his

hand, save one of searching moral criticism on the ways
of scribes and Pharisees. Therefore, John began t o
fear that, after all, this was not the Christ.

His fear is

a

valuable testimony to the kind of Christ Jesus believed

in and was

:

one seeking to save rather than to judge,

and

on that account liable to be niisunderstood

even by

a

John, and to be despised and rejected by

a

religious but ungodly world.

How far apart the two

prophets were in their ideas and tendencies, may be
estimated from the striking remark made by Jesus
concerning the Baptist : ‘ t h e least in the kingdom

of

heaven

is

greater than h e ’ (Mt.

11

T h e triumphal entry into Jerusalem by Jesus towards

the close of his career

to conflict with the view

set forth-above, and to exhibit a Messiah
parading his claims. T h e story belongs
to the

tradition, and must be ac-

cepted as historical (Mt.

Mk.

11

Lk.

cp H

OSANNA

.

Mt., after

usual manner, repre-

sents the whole transaction

as

happening in order that

a

certain prophetic oracle might be fulfilled.

So

he viewed

it, and

so

he wishes his readers to view i t ;

it

does not follow that Jesus rode into the holy city
on

the foal of

an

ass with conscious intention to fulfil

prophecy. The less intention

on

his part, the greater

the value of any uniformity between prophecy and
fact.

Action with intention might show that he

The discussion between Jesus and the scribes in the temple

the relation of the Christ to David has been interpreted in this

sense. But the question of Jesus does not necessarily imply

in

toto

of Davidic descent, or more than a hint as to the

comparative unimportance of it.

It meant in effect : You begin

the wrong end,, physical descent

;

and it lands yon

an

unspiritual conception of Messiah.

The passages in which the title is used in an apocalyptic

sense seem to breathe a different spirit.

They cannot be

discussed here.

JESUS

JESUS

claimed to he, not that he was, the Messiah.

On the

other hand, his right to he regarded as the Messiah
would have stood where it was though he had entered

Jerusalem on foot. T h e actual mode of entrance could
possess at most only the value of a symbol. And Jesus
seems

to

have been in the mood to let it have such

value, and that just because it was in harmony with his

of avoiding display and discouraging vulgar

Messianic hopes. There was really no pretentiousness

i n riding into Jerusalem on the foal

of

an ass.

It was

rather the meek and lowly one entering in character.
T h e symbolic act was in harmony with the use of the
title Son of man,' shunning Messianic pretensions, yet
showing himself as the true Messiah in a deeper way.

narrative

of

the incident is to be preferred

as

preserving most of the primitive simplicity. It is only
in his version that Jesus instructs his disciples to tell the

from whom the young ass is being borrowed that

i t

will he returned when he has had his use of it (Mk.

11

3).

Some modern commentators, influenced

con-

ventional notions of dignity, will

not

allow even Mark

t o put the matter

so.

But he does

it is one of his

realisms.

T h e thoughts

of

Jesus, then as always, were humble

but those of his followers were more ambitious, and
such as to provoke the ire of those who sought his
undoing.

They shouted Hosannas in his honour, a s

to

the

Son

of David through whom the 'long hoped-for

kingdom was about to come.

The

very children in the

streets, according to Mt.

(21

caught up the

cry, to the chagrin of the guardians of conventional
proprieties. The enthusiasm of the people who had
come up with Jesus to keep the feast of the
men and women from Galilee, proud of their prophet
and king-was his death-knell.

H e had come up

t o Jerusalem fully convinced that he was going to
meet death.

Therefore, he used his short time

to

hear a final testimony against plausible falsehood

and sham holiness, and for truth and godliness. Many
incidents and utterances are packed into that eventful
week-the cleansing of the Temple, parables of judg-
ment

( T w o

sons,

Marriage

the

King's

son),

sundry encounters with captious disputants, and a

sublime anti-Pharisaic discourse in which the foibles
and vices of a degenerate piety are depicted with pro-
phetic plainness and artistic felicity (Mt.

23).

During

that fatal week last words had

to

he spoken to dis-

ciples, among which was

a

foreboding reference to the

approaching judgment-day of Israel, accompanied by
useful hints for their guidance in a perilous time (Mk.

13

Mt.

24

Lk.

21).

The tender pathos of the situation is

immortalised in the anointing in Bethany (Mt.

26

Mk.

14

the holy supper (Mt.

26

26-29

Mk.

14

22-25

Lk.

22

17-20),

and the agony in Gethsemane (Mt.

26

36-46

Mk.

14

32-42

22

39-46).

T h e story of the passion is told at

length, with

much agreement, though also with many variations, in

all the four Gospels, a sure index of the
intense interest taken in the tragic theme

within the apostolic church. This interest would

not

he of late growth. When the apostles began to preach
Jesus crucified and risen, they would encounter the eager
demand, Tell

us

how it happened

!

Faith would make

three demands for information concerning its

:

What did he teach? What did he d o ? What did he
suffer Some think that the demand

for

information con-

cerning the teaching came first and was first
But even those who, like Holtzmann, take this view regard
the history of the passion as the nucleus of the narrative
department

of

the evangelic tradition.

First the logia,

then the passion drama, then the anecdotes of memorable
acts.

Whether this was the true genetic order of the

The true reading is

where

implies that the reference

is

to returning the colt

to

its

owner not to

the readiness with which the owner, after explana-

tions,

send

it to Jesus.

three masses

of

oral tradition, which in combination make

up our evangelic records, may reasonably be doubted.
T h e passion group perhaps took shape earliest. T h e
apostles would have to tell at once what they knew,-the
main factsof the case,-especiallywhen preaching outside
Jerusalem.

Thus began to form itself the

chronicle: the main facts first, then this nucleus
gradually gathering accretions of minor incidents, till

the time written records

to he compiled the

collection of passion-memorabilia had assumed the form
which it bears in, for example, the Gospel

of

Mk. T h e

presumption is that the collection as it stands there is
the truth, or at least the truth as far as it could he

ascertained.

For

modern criticism the story, even in its most historic

version, is not pure truth, hut truth mixed with

legend.

Still, even when it is ex-

amined with a critical microscope, as it
has recentlv been bv Dr.

not

a

few of the relative

stand

test.

Betrayal

one of the twelve, desertion

all of them, denial

Peter, death-sentence under the joint responsibility of

Jewish rulers and Roman procurator, assistance in
carrying the cross from Simon of

crucifixion

on

a hill called Golgotha, the crime charged indicated
the significant inscription on the cross-beam, King of
the

death if not preceded

a prayer for the

murderers,

or

the despairing cry My God, my God,'

at least heralded

a loud voice.

In these eight

particulars we have the skeleton of the story, all that

is

needful to give the passion its tragic interest, or even to
form the

for theological constructions.

T h e

details omitted-the process hefore the Sanhedrin, the
interviews with Pilate and Herod, the mockery of the
soldiers, the preferential release of Barabhas, the sneers
of passers-by, the two thieves, the parting of the raiment,
the words from the cross, the preternatural concomitants
of death-arc more or less of the nature of accessories,
enhancing the impressiveness of the picture, suggesting
additional lessons, hut not changing the character of the
event.

Still, even accessories arc not to he lightly sacrificed.

Critical estimates arc to he received with

even

in a historical interest, and to measure their value it is
important to have a clear idea about the nature of the
interest taken by the primitive church in the story of the

passion.

Now, there can he

no

doubt that along with

sympathy with the fate of a beloved Master went a
theoretic

or

dogmatic interest, at least in a rudimentary

form. There was

a

desire

to

harmonise the passion

with faith in the Messiahship of Jesus.

This was

obviously a vital matter

for

disciples. They could not

continue to believe in Jesus as the Christ unless they
could satisfy themselves that he might he the Christ,
the cross notwithstanding; nor could their faith he
triumphant unless they could further satisfy themselves
that he was all the more certainly the Christ just because

he was crucified. The words

of

the Master concerning

suffering as the appointed lot of all faithful souls might
help them to attain this insight. With this doctrine as
a key, they would see new meanings in

OT

texts, and

graduallylearnfrom histories, Psalms, and prophecies that
the path appointed for the godly, and therefore above all
for the Messiah, was a path of sacrifice. Thenceforth
unison between O T experiences and teaching and
the incidents of the passion would become proofs of
the Messiahship of Jesus.

The offence of the cross

would be turned into an apology for faith in the crucified.

Die

und der

des

Chris-

der

das

die

This points to

pretensions imputed

or

confessed.

But

such pretensions had

two

aspects,

a

religious and

a

political.

It was the religious aspect that

was

dealt with in

the

trial before

the Sanhedrin

as

reported

by

the Synoptists

; hut of

it

would he the political aspect that the Sanhedrists brought

under

the notice

of

Pilate. The Messianic idea would have

no

interest

for him except

in so far

as it involved

a

claim to temporal power.

JESUS

Were those primitive apologists content with cor-

respondence between texts and undeniable facts ? Did

they invent ‘facts’ to suit Hebrew oracles, so as to
bring out correspondence even in curious details and
make the apologetic

as

convincing as possible? There

was certainly a temptation to do so, and we are not

entitled

a

to assume that they did

not

yield to

the temptation in any instance. On the other hand, we

must be on our guard against too hastily assuming the
contrary. The probability is that,

on

the whole, facts

suggested texts, instead of texts creating facts. T h e

reasonableness of this statement may be illustrated by
a n example taken from the history of the infancy in Mt.
T h e last of several prophetic citations in that chapter is,

He shall be called a

(223).

See N

AZARETH

.

T h e fact that Nazareth was the home of Jesus is inde-
pendently certain.

I t is equally certain that, but for

the fact, the supposed prophetic citation would never
have occurred to any one’s mind for it is the weakest
link

in

the chain of prophetic evidence for the

hood of Jesus. This instance suggests that what faith

was busy about in these early years was not the manu-

facturing of history, but the discovering in evangelic facts,
however minute, the prophetic

which are

sometimesso far-fetched

as

to make it inconceivable how

they could ever have been thought

of

unless the facts

had gone before.

This general observation may be

applied to some of the most pathetic incidents in the

passion history-the prayer for forgiveness, the taunts
of passers-by, the casting of lots for possession of the
garments.

If legendary elements

of

a

supernatural character

found their wav into the traditions. it is not to be

wondered at in connection with events
which appealed so powerfully to the

of believers.

The thine to

b e noted

is

that

criticism has done its work-the

passion narratives remain in their main details history,
not legend.

A

history how profoundly significant as

well

as

moving

!

With its theological import we have

here no concern but we may not leave such

theme

without briefly indicating its ethical lessons.

T h e

crucifixion of Jesus exhibits in a uniquely impressive

manner the destiny of

in this world.

H e

was crucified not by accident, not altogether or even

mainly through misunderstanding, but because his
wisdom and goodness were inconvenient and trouble-
some.

The passion history further sets before us

a

story

not

of

fate merely, but of

I t is the story of one

who was willing to die.

He knew more or less dis-

tinctly what was to happen, consented to it, and was
helped to do it

the thought that out

of

the wrong

and evil befalling himself good to others would come.

I n proof of this statement, it is sufficient to point to the
Lord‘s supper. T h e passion-history, finally, encourages

large hope for the world.

Christianity could not have entered on its victori-

ous

career unless the followers of the Crucified had

believed that he not only died hut also
rose again.

This is acknowledged even by

those who, like Dr. Ferdinand Baur, have
themselves no faith in the resurrection. T h e

primitive disciples believed that their Master rose on
the third day,’ and that he would soon come to the earth
again; and this faith and hope became the common
possession of the apostolic church.

T h e faith and the

hope both

support and justification in the words of

Jesus as reported by the evangelists. Sad predictions of
approaching doom have added to them the cheering
words, ‘ a n d shall rise again (Mk.

and parallels).

Many sayings promise the

of

the Son of man in

glory, and that speedily, even within the lifetime of the
present generation.

These sayings present one of the

hardest problems for the student

of

the Gospels

:

on

one side a critical problem which has to deal with the
question how far the words of Jesus have been coloured

by the hopes of the apostolic age on another side, an
exegetical one having for its task to interpret these
words in harmony with others which

seem

to imply not

only

a

delayed

(parables of the Ten

Virgins,

the

Upper

playing

the Tyrant,

and the

Judge), but also an indefinitely protracted Christian era

(parables representing the kingdom

as

subject to the

law of growth-the Sower, the

Wheat

and Tares,

the

Mustard seed, and, above all, the
peculiar to Mk.

and his most valuable distinctive

contribution to the stock of evangelic traditions).
Though some of the relative logia belong to the later
and less accredited stratum of tradition, there is no
reason to doubt their genuineness.

Jesus seems to

have had two ways of speaking about the

partly because,

as

he himself confessed, he had no

clear vision of time‘s course (Mk.

1332)

partly owing to

the purpose his utterances were meant to serve. Some
of them were promises meant to cheer

(Mk.

and

parallels)

some, didactic statements bearing on the

nature of the kingdom of God (Mk.

In the

former the advent is appropriately represented as near
in the latter it is by tacit implication indefinitely remote.

T h e words of Jesus concerning the future show

limitation of vision.

I n other directions we may

indications that he was the child of his

time and people. But his spiritual intuitions

God, man,

and the moral ideal cannot be more truly or happily
conceived. Far from having outgrown his thoughts on
these themes, we are only beginning to perceive their
true significance.

How long it will be before full

effect shall be given to his radical doctrine of the
dignity of man ! How entirely in accord with the moral
order of the world, as interpreted by the whole history
of mankind, his doctrine of sacrifice as at once the
penalty and the power of righteousness in an evil world

!

T h e purity of the doctrine may seem to be compromised
by occasional references to the reward of sacrifice,

‘Great is your reward in heaven (Mt.

5

things

renounced are to be received back an hundredfold (Mk.

But the

of reward cannot be eliminated

from ethics. The heroic man is and must be blessed.
The apocalyptic presentation of the reward in the
Gospels is a matter

of

form. The essential truth is

that it is ever well with the righteous.

Besides the books referred to in the article, and the many

Lives of Jesus, the following works may be consulted :-

Wendt, Die

Weizsacker,

34.

Literature,

Wellhausen,

Gesch. Baldensperger,

Harnack,

The first two and the

last

of these works have been translated.

For History

of

Period see

C

HRONOLOGY

,

43-63,

H

ERODIAN

F

AMILY

,

and

R

OME

.

life and thought are illustrated in such

articles as

E

SSENES

, H

ERODIANS

, P

HARISEES

, S

ADDUCEES

,

S

CRIBES

,

T

EMPLE

.

Further details of life and

teaching are dealt with under such headings a s

N

ATIVITY

,

R

ESURRECTION

A N D

A

SCENSION

N

ARRATIVES

, W

ONDERS

,

P

ARABLES

(cp

H

USKS

L

EAVEN

, S

CORPION

, V

IRGINS

,

and so forth),

L

ORD

’

S

SON

O F

G O D ,

SON

O F

M

AN

,

82

On

the names of

and

places mentioned in ’the

see the separate articles

B

ETHABARA

B

ETHANY

,

B

ETHLEHEM

,

B

ETHSAIDA

,

D

ALMANUTHA

,

:

Persons : the several evangelists

and apostles also

J

OSEPH

J

OHN

THE

B

APTIST

,

M

ARY

,

and

like).

are pure

valid for all ages.

On the sources generally, compare

G

OSPELS

.

S E M A N E J

ERUSALEM

[M

T

.

OF],

N

AIN

, N

AZARETH

,

A.

B. B.

I

.

Ex.

[BAL]), another form of

J

ETHRO

Sam. and some

MSS

have

Gideon’s first-born son (Judg.

The father of Amasa

K.

2

5

32

[om.

A])

by

Abigail. In

S.

(MT) he is called

I

THRA

[BA so B in

I

Ch.]), and described, according

to the best reading, as a Jezreelite.

In

Ch. 2

however, he

as

an Ishmaelite hence

Wellhausen, Driver,

Klostermann, Budde,

H. P.

Smith read

in Sam.

2454

JETHETH

the

rival

reading

is

less likely to be a conjectural

emendation (see A

BIGAIL

,

2

;

4. A Jerahmeelite

(I

Ch.

j.

A Judahite,

I

Ch.

6.

An

I

Ch.

see

I

THRAN

,

7.

See

J

ETHETH

.

JETHETH

Jetheth,

1 3 1 3 )

one of the

‘dukes’ of Edom,

See

J

ERAHMEEL

,

In view

of

the readings of

it is plausible to read

which

also

as

a Jerahmeelite and Judahite name

C p G

ENEALOGIES

A.

C.

[B],

an unidenti-

fied site

territory (Josh.

associated with

Zorah,

Bethshemesh, Aijalon, and Timnah.

JETHRO

7 7 ;

cp Sab.

either shortened from Jithron [see I

THRAN

and

cp Ithra in

or

for

[cp

[BAL]).

Father of

Moses’

wife,

Z

IPPORAH

, Ex.

3

I

[but

does not give the priest’s

name],

[see

I

],

18

All these passages

belong to

E

the first and third of them add priest of

Midian.’ This was most probably interpolated from

( J ) by the redactor ( R ) , who also removed the

discrepant name Hobab from that passage, and thus
produced a superficial harmony, against which, however,

Nu.

and Judg.

protest (see H

OBAR

).

The futile attempts of the ancients to reconcile the discrep-

ancies

of

the documents

no elaborate consideration.

Josephus

(Ant. 12

I

)

says that Jethro was a surname of

‘superiority’)

;

this seems to have influenced

in Ex.

Targ. Jon. in Ex.

represents

a s

Zipporah‘s grandfather. In the former case Hobab, in the latter
both Hobab and Jethro are brothers-in-law of Moses. Apart
from other considerations; the only biblical sense of

is

father-in-law,’ though

doubtless can be used in the

looser

sense of ‘wife’s relation

There is no anachronism in the description given

of

Jethro

or

Hobab in Exodus as a priest, and by implica-

tion as

a

sheikh of the

such dignitaries

there must have been in ancient Arabia.

Though we

cannot adopt Homniel’s statement, that the ideas and
language (and particularly the ritual terms) of the
Priestly Code

(P)

are largely influenced by instruction

which Moses received from the

‘

Midian,’ there

need he no

objection to the view that Arabian

culture impressed its mark, at more than one period,
on the Israelites.

I t is certainly remarkable that such

an early record as J E represents the Midianite as
Moses’ instructor in the art

of

legislation

(Ex.

and

as

having been asked by Moses to be his guide in the

desert, for which

a

good reward is held out to him in

the Promised Land (Nu.

As Judg.

represents, Hobab

[B]) did actually accompany

Moses

;

Hobab’ has evidently dropped

of

the

text and should be restored, though possibly both here
and in the other passages where

our

text has

‘

Hobab’

we should change ‘Hobab’ into Jonadab‘ (see

H

OBAB

).

T h e clan called b’ne Hobab’

is

alsodesignated Kenite’;

it might, however, with sufficient accuracy have been
called Midianite,’ the line

of

demarcation between the

tribes in

S.

Palestine not being very definite (see

A

MALEK

,

Not impossibly, however, the

original text called Jethro

or

Hobab

a

Misrite

virtually a

N.

Arabian) the readings of

M T

may be

corrupt (see K

ENITES

).

It should be observed that

So

probably in Ex. 425,

‘one newly admitted

JEWEL

according to the tradition Jethro was a worshipper

of

(Ex.

[E]).

I t is interesting to notice that Sha‘ih occurs as the name of a

on the

E.

of

the Jordan opposite

(see

162

and

and that

Shu‘aib is the

given by Mohammed to Jethro.

Hut

the name

may

after all be distinct from Hohab, and in any case the Moham-
medan legends have no historical value. C p Ew.

n.

JETUR

[BADEL]), a son of

Gen. 25

I

j

[A]

I

Ch. 1

31

;

cp

I

Ch.

5

;

see

ISHMAEL,

4

JEUEL

b. Zerah, a post-exilic (Judahite)

inhabitant

of

Jerusalem :

I

Ch.

96

[B],

also the Kt. in

I

Ch. 935

J

EHIEL

,

R V

I

Ch. 1144 (AV

JEHIEL

RV

Ch. 26

(EV

Ch. 29 13 (AV J

EIEL

),

13 (AV J

EIEL

).

JEUSH

5 3 ;

[Kr. always;

so

also Kt.

except Gen. 36 5 14

I

Ch.

T

O

[God] helps’? cp Ar. god

which is transliterated

in an inscription

from Memphis; see

in Buhl, Gesch.

d.

49, n.

I

who opposes the view in Gen.

; in Ch.

See

into (my) family by the shedding of blood.’

Ex. 18, a t all events, is misplaced, Israel having already

arrived at the Mount of God (cp

6).

But the Mount of

God

Horeb (Sinai) near which

lived

3

I

), which makes the

request to return

his own

6

27,

unnecessary

cp

similarly Nu.

This mnst have been expressed in

the passage which Nu.

represents.

The redactor,

to avoid inconsistency with

Ex.

1827

has

stopped abruptly a t

3a.

See

5.

3

See Moore

and

Budde.

I

.

An Edomite clan son of Esau by his Horite wife

bamah Gen. 36

j

See

3

(Gen.

[E], v.

I

Ch 135

h.

in agenealogy

3

and9

a),

I

Ch.

7

3. b. Eshekin a

B

EN

J

AMIN

9,

1

Ch.

839

B?],

[A]; RV, AV

probably t e same as

4. h. Shimei, a division of Gershonite

I

Ch. 23

once in A]); cp (

I

) above and see

[A]).

5.

Xehoboam, Ch.

19

om. A ,

[L]), a name in a genealogy of Benjamin

g,

I

Ch.

See

11

3.

JEW

Aram.

Ass.

Ya-’u-da-ai,

a

man

of

and the

J

UDITH

are used as proper names ;

the form Jehudijah

I

Ch. 4

cannot be relied upon (see

‘Jewish

etc

theadv.

Gal.

‘became Jews’), Gal. 2

the substantive

(‘religion of the Jews,’ ‘Jews’ religion in Macc. 2

8

14

38

Gal.

I

.

A subject of the kingdom of Judah,

K.

16

6

25 jer. 32

Judah);

The date of the passages does not come

1.

in

into consideration for the Assyrian phrase

Ahaz

Judahite

inscription shows that

,was already

current in the sense of ‘man of the land of Judah.

Jer. 349 i s

not included

;

has grown out of

(see Giesebr.

A Hebrew of the Babylonian or Persian province of Judah

or of the

state,

4

I

Macc.

23 etc.

3. A memher of the Jewish race, broadly taken, Ezra4

Dan.38.

T h e word

is

in the NT, chiefly in the

I

.

Jews

distinct from Gentiles or proselytes, or Samaritans,

Mk.73

64

a Jewess ’). Similarly of Jewish

2.

Use

in NT.

‘ a Jewesswho believed’),

cp

Of

‘Israelites

worthv of the name. Rom.

2

Rev. 2 3 9.

3. Of Jews as antagonistic to Jesus

or to the Gospel, Mt.

especially

84;-57 9

10 19 11

31 33 36 12 9

Zahn,

2

554.

occurs twice.

2

Rev. 2 3 9.

3. Of Jews as antagonistic to Jesus

or to the Gospel, Mt.

especially

84;-57 9

10 19 11

31 33 36 12 9

Zahn,

2

554.

occurs twice.

JEWEL,

the rendering of several Hebrew words (see

below). See generally O

RNAMENTS

,

P

RE

CIO

U

S

S

TONES

.

(

I

)

AV

‘chains

[of

gold]’

;

R V ‘strings [of

jewels]’;

(3)

(Cant.

1

IO

; AV

[of

jewels],’

RV

‘plaits [of

’). On a l l

three see

N

E

C

KL

AC

E

,

I

and 5.

For (4)

and (5)

see R

ING

,

See P

ECULIAR

T

REASURE

.

(Is. 61

I

O

;

cp Nu.

31

50

’3,

‘jewels of gold,’

JEWRY

Ch. 32

27

See O

RNAMENTS

(

I

).

AV ‘pleasant jewels’ RV ‘goodly vessels’).

JEWRY

Dan.

AV, RV J

UDAH

JEWS’ LANGUAGE

2

K.

etc.

.

See

JEZANIAH

Jer.

JEZEBEL

[BAL].

H

EBREW

L

ANGUAGE

,

2.

See

I

.

T h e two

explanations in Ges.

are

‘chaste’;

and ‘island of habitation’-perhaps

a

of

Tyre. But

(against

I

)

a

negative particle

is unprovable [see

BOD

,

note, and cp N

AMES

,

and (against

in

a

personal name will naturally

its well-attested sense of

‘exaltation.’ The

first

element

should be explained

explanation, exalted

(Jan.

so

far as ‘isle’ goes, is surely

wrong. So,

too,

is

theory that

is an

intentional

alteration of the

exalts, or is a husband?]

so

that it

should

‘un-exalted,’ An artificial etymology,

‘what

filth,’ is implied in MT of 2K.937

see

below.)

Daughter of Ethbaal

of

Tyre (see A

HAB

), wife

of

Ahab

( I

1841319

K.

A

THALIAH

queen of Judah,

was

her

daughter.

Nothing more clearly shows Ahab’s

thoroughly political instinct than his marriage with this
Tyrian princess.

I t is not

so

clear, however, whether

he

foresaw the religious consequences of the step.

Solomon had married foreign women, and erected special
sanctuaries for them ; but the religious influence of no one
of these was supreme. Ahab was perhaps

a

monogamist,

like Jeroboam.

At any rate, Jezebel had too proud

a

nature to be content to worship her own god with a few
Tyrian sojourners

;

the Tyriau Bad-worship must have

equal rights with the worship of

According to

the Elijah-narratives Jezebel destroyed all the prophets
of

except E

LI

J

AH

and even that brave

prophet had to seek refuge from her in Horeb.

She is

made responsible for the judicial murder of

and Elijah‘s legendary

connects her

dreadful end with

a

pronounced on her by Elijah

on the occasion of Naboths death

(

I

K.

2123).

T h e

dramatic tale of Jehu’s entrance into Jezreel need not

be

repeated (see

I t is worth while, however,

to

relieve the

com-

piler of Kings from the tastelessly savage words of M T

of

K.

9

37.

The

reading can probably be recovered from

(cp

note), ‘And the carcass of Jezebel shall be like

carcass

of Naboth, and there shall be none

to

say, Woe

is me.

I n Rev.

there

seems

to be implied a misinterpreta-

tion of words of Jehu in

2

K.

T h e name Jezebel’ is

given to

a

false

who had influence in the

church of Thyatira, and is accused of seducing Christians
to commit fornication, and to eat things offered

to

idols.

Fornication

is probably meant literally.

a

party of false teachers is here personified,

or

whether ( a s Bousset and

suppose) a n individual

is

meant, is disputed.

At any rate, the adherents of

Jezebel and the

)

represent the same

antinomian tendency (cp Pet.

21

JEZREEL

I

EDDIAS

,

or

JEZIEL

Kt.

some

MSS

read

and

;

perhaps corruption of

‘God

sees,’ see N

AMES

,

but

there, n.

b.

Azmaveth, one

I

Ch.

[but in a

different text]).

JEZLIAH,

[A],

b. Elpaal, in a genealogy

of

B

EN

J

AMIN

I

Ch.

8

JEZOAR

Kt.,

I

47

AV, R V

[ii.]).

JEZRAHIAH

35,

a

Levite

musician priest in the procession at the dedication of the
wall (see

E

ZRA

ii.,

Neh.

1 2 4 2

(om.

L]).

The identical Hebrew name

appears elsewhere as I

ZRAHIAH

.

JEZREEL

‘God.

sows’

[AL],

also

B in Hos.

21

2

generally

in

[Jos.]

nearly always;

AL in

I

S.

29

and A

K.

20

K.

Other forms are

ad

I

K.

Judg.

633,

and

I

K. 1846

9

36,

I

29

I

,

22

6,

and

in

Hos.

form

I

I

6

etc.,

K.

[A],

o

I

.

Originally

a

clan-name, analogous to Israel,

Jerahmeel, Ishmael; then the name

of

a

city and

district lastly, that of the long, deep
vale dominated by the city

of

Jezreel.

Of the existence of the Jezreelite clan

in

N.

Palestine, we have no direct biblical evidence;

but it may be surmised that the fact recorded bom-
bastically in king Merneptah’s famous inscription (see
I

SRAEL

,

7,

end) was the extinction of

a

tribe called, not

Israel, but Jezreel.

Renouf‘s

conjecture that the stele

actually spoke of

Jezreel’ is not indeed confirmed

(see Spiegelberg’s report, and

,

but it

remains possible that the spelling

(

=Israel) is due

to

a

mistake of the ear such as was, a t any rate, often

made by Greek scribes.

T h e place is assigned in

Josh.

[L])

to Issachar.

W e

know from Judg.

that this tribe suffered greatly

from Canaanitish preponderance (cp I

SSACHAR

)

and

since Taanach, Ibleam, and Megiddo on the one side
and Beth-shean on the other are represented

Jndg.

1 2 7

as

Canaanitish enclaves, we may, for geographical

reasons, assume that Jezreel, though coveted by Issachar,
also long remained Canaanitish.

Josh. 17

16

probably confirms this

view

;

we read there of the

Canaanites of Beth-shean and

of

of

Jezreel

as

having formidable ‘chariots of iron.

I t may be that one of the fruits of the victory com-

memorated in Judg.

5

was the conquest of Jezreel

(Budde,

47).

In the time of

Saul,

a t any

rate, Jezreel was Israelitish not far from it

by the

fountain [of

which is by Jezreel’) was the camp

of the Israelites before the great battle in which Saul
was said to be slain

(

I

S. 291

see, however,

S

AUL

, 4).

The district of Jezreel is included in the kingdom

of

Ishbaal

but the text is

It was

For

slightly different views of the development see We.

254,

n.

;

Bu.

46,

n.

I

.

The passages quoted by

We.

to

prove that Jezreel

was

originally the

a

district,

city are S.

29

I

11

44.

The inference

is

notjustifiable

the

of

not

merely occupied

a

district; they

have had

one

chief settlement called

after

their own

name.

That

Jezreel’

was the name of

a

city

in

David’s time

certain

rightlyquotes

I

S.

25

43).

Both We. and Bu. however, seem

to

misunderstand

I

S.

29

where, comparing

we

should read

‘and the Philistines went up to fight

against Israel ’-the equivalent of the statement in

I

(cp. the

duplicate statements

in 284,

29

I

;

see

In S.

2

(‘and over Jezreel

’)

may be

a

corruption of

or

over the Girzites,’ or ‘Girshites’): see

In

4 4

Jezreel evidently means the district

of

See D

AVID

,

(a,

iii.).

See preceding note.

JEZELUS

[BA]).

I

.

1

Esd.

J

AHAZIEI

.

5.

I

8

J

EHIEL

,

8.

JEZER

in genealogy

of

N

APHTALI

(Gen.

46 24

Nu.

[A],

I

Ch. 7

13

uaap

(Nu.

[A],

in

I

Ch. 25

JEZIAH

RV

[Ba. Ginsb.]

a

third variant is

see

N

AMES

,

32

[L]), b.

in

the

list

of

those with foreign wives (see

AB Vet. Lat etc read

they make

her the

wife

of the Church

(so

Copt., Vg.

Treg., WH).

79

J E Z R E E L

J O A B

not far from Carmel whence

came Ahinoam, David s wife

[A]

and

or

brother-&-law

17

25).

Perhaps this name lies hidden in the miswritten

in

Ch. 20. See A

BIGAIL

,

A

HINOAM

3

;

also S

AUL

, 4.

I

.

Mentioned in genealogical

connection with Etam and

in

I

Ch. 4 3 t

Perhaps the eponym of

Name of a son of Hosea (Hos.

1 4

in allu-

sion to the 'bloodshed of Jezreel.'

I

.

JEZREEL

afterwards the residence

of

Ahab and, after him, of

hard by was the vineyard of N

ABOTH ( I

K.

21

I

),

where Joram, Ahab's second son, was slain by Jehu

(2

I t was at the palace of

that the

usurper had his famous encounter with Jezebel

K.

9

According

to

Hosea, vengeance would be taken

on

Jehu for the bloodshed

of

Jezreel, and where should

this be but in the vale of Jezreel ? At the same time-
so

Hosea interpreted to himself the divine message of

which he was conscious-the guilt-laden kingdom of N.

Israel would come to an end

v.

is

much later).

T h e next time the place

is

mentioned, it

is

called

Esdraelon (Judith

3 9 4 6

and Esdraelonis the name

given by Eusebius

( O S

267

omits the

name) to

' a

very notable village in the great plain

between Scythopolis and Legio

the Jerusalem Itinerary

locates it

I

O

R. m. from Scythopolis. In the times of

the Crusaders the Franks knew it as

(Gerinum

William of Tyre,

in

the Jewish traveller,

Benjamin of

calls it Zarein.

From Saladin's

time onwards

has no doubt been the Arabic name

of the village which has succeeded the ancient Jezreel

for Jezreel, as

for Bethel).

Strange

indeed it is, that a place once

so

important should have

such

a

miserable modern representative

I

The tower

referred to in K.

which was a part of the citadel,

has long since disappeared.

The ruined tower of the

squalid modern village is not ancient; but the view
from it compensates one to some extent for disappoint-

ments.

the Carmel ridge may h e followed until it

terminates a t the sea; in

distant east the Jordan line is

made out easily; Gilboa seems near enough for you so to strike
it with a stone that the missile would rebound and reach Little

Hermon before

fell. The great mountain walls of Eashan and

of

Eglon

rise in the far east, and seem to forbid any

search beyond them' (Harper,

Lands,

285).

In fact, Jezreel itself stands high you would hardly

guess how high, as

you

approach it riding across the

gently swelling plain of Esdraelon.

Looking east-

ward, however, you see that there is a steep, rocky
descent on that side into the valley of Gilboa, with the
remains of wine-presses cut in the rock, which, with a
white marble sarcophagus (found by

are the

only relics of any antiquity at

W e noticed just now (in Josh.

17

16)

the phrase the

of Jezreel'

the meaning of this has now to

be stated clearly.

An

is a

wide avenue running up into amountainous

country

the

of Jezreel ought therefore to mean,

not

the great central plain

W . of Jezreel,

the gate of which is Megiddo, but the broad deep vale

E.

Jezreel (between the so-called Little Hermon and

Gilboa), descending to the Jordan, the gate of which
is Jezreel.

I t should be borne in mind that the later

phrase 'the plain of Esdraelon' (Judith

1 8 )

is less

correct than the early phrases the plain of M

EGIDDO

and 'the Great

not mean that the

great plain' could not he designated the plain of Jezreel,

for Jezreel looks twoways-along

or 'vale'

Jordan, and across the

or 'plain' to Mount Carmel.

But if one place has more claim than another to give its
name to the great central plain, it is Megiddo-at least

if

M

EGIDDO

is

or

Legio, which looks as if it

were set there for the very purpose of guarding the chief
entrance of the plain from Sharon. The 'Vale of
Jezreel,' then, is the fit name for that broad deep vale
with its gate at Jezreel, which three miles after it has
opened round Gilboa to the south

. .

.

suddenly

drops over a bank some 300 feet high into the valley of
the Jordan' (GASm.

Near the edge of this

bank rises the mound which covers the ruins

of

Beth-

in a position not surpassed for strength by any

A place in the hill-country of Judah

in Palestine. See B

ETH

-

SHEAN

.

T.

C.

See GASm.

384

Furrer in Schenkel,

3302.

2459

[A]),

J

EHIEL

,

JIBSAM, RV IBSAM

54,

' h e is fra-

7),

I

Ch.

son of N

AHOR

(Gen.

grant ?), son of

(see I

SSACHAR

,

P

EDAIAH

,

I.

JIMNA, JIMNAH, JIMNITES.

See I

MNAH

.

JIPHTAH, RV IPHTAH

see J

IPHTAH

-

EL

),

an unidentified site in the lowland of Judah, mentioned in
the same group with Mareshah: Josh.

1 5 4 3

[AL], om. B?). See J

OTBAH

.

JIPHTAH

EL,

RV

IPHTAH

-

EL,

V

ALLEY

OF

[AL]), a place on the N. border of Zebulun

towards

Josh.

has been

with the

Jotapata

so

well known from Josephus's account of

the siege during the first Roman war

7).

the

name of which in the Mishna is

(Neub.

203;

cp

n.

6).

The names Iphtah and

(for another form see J

OTBAH

) may seem

dissimilar but the old Hebrew names passed through
strange vicissitudes the transformation of Iphtah is
not impossible.

Jotapata is no doubt the

a little to the NE. of

el-Jelil, and due

N.

of Sepphoris.

To

the NW. of

lies

see

col.

According to Robinson

(BK

the 'valley' of Iphtah-el is the great

which takes its rise SW. of

but this is

not plausible. Should we not read, for

letters

may have fallen out owing to the proximity

of

The round and lofty Tell

which is

only connected with the hills to the N. of it by a low
saddle,' would form an excellent landmark. For

a

less probable identification (Conder's), see D

ABBASHETH

.

JOAB

is father ' ? cp J

OAH

,

E

LIAB

.

A possible derivation from

must not be disregarded:

cp

477

[,BAL]).

I

.

b.

Z

ERUIAH

David's

nephew and general

(I

S. 266

S.

etc.,

I

K.

etc.,

I

Ch.

2 1 6 ;

[A,

Ps.

60

title],

in

I

Ch.

W e do not

know whether he, like his elder brother Abishai,'
followed the fortunes of David from the first.
first hear of Joab in connection with the encounter
between the men of Abner and Ishbaal and the
men of David at Gibeon

S.

see

and the vengeance which he

upon A

BNER

for the violent death of his

brother

had consequences which

were helpful to the claims of David, though David him-
self (according to

2

;

cp

I

K.

did not

recognise this.

I t was the exploit of this warrior

at the capture of Zion which, according

to

I

Ch.

114-9,

was rewarded by his promotion to be a head

JIDLAPH

T. K. C.

So

I

Ch. 2 16 ; in

S.

2

18,

however, he stands first.

How long a time elapsed between

encounter a t Gibeon

and the events in chap. 3 is unknown.

v.

28

(cp

of the

former chapter presupposes a cessation of the war but ch. 3

I

(cp

represents the strife between the rival houses a s

continuing.

2460

JOAB

and commander

In

2023

(cp 816)

we find him placed ‘over all the host of Israel.’ But
through what events one who began

as

the

leader

of

a

band (cp

rose to the generalship

cp

8

we are not told

and, unlike Abishai,

Joab is not referred to

the scanty notices of the

war

with the Philistines.

Passing over the wars of David and his complicity in

the death of Uriah

S.

we meet with him next in

the account of Absalom’s exile and rebellion.

Here he

is represented as standing

on

terms of close intimacy

with David and as prevailing on the king to recall his
banished son

(14

although it was not until Absalom

had taken severe measures that he was able to procure
him a n interview with the

In the fight against

Absalom

18)

a

thud of the people is put under his

charge, although from

v.

he would seem, to have been

a t the head of the army.

That he was directly re-

sponsible for the death

of

Absalom (vv.

is

rendered doubtful

(I)

by the conflicting statement in

which ascribes the deed to his armour-bearers,

by

his retaining influence over the king, and ( 3 ) by the
remarkable fact that no allusion is made to the deed in

David‘s final charge

( I

K. 2 1 3 )

or elsewhere.

But,

however this may be, the king felt himself obliged to
promise

the post which Joab had held.

On the occasion of Sheba’s revolt (which the

M T ,

according to its present arrangement, places immedi-
ately after Absalom’s rebellion), the command, in the
absence of Amasa, was given to Abishai, the king fully

that Joab would naturally follow his brother

S.

20).

T h e fact that he then takes the leadership

his own hands is so much

a

matter of course that

it does not need to be

Joab finds an

opportunity of ridding himself of his rival Amasa,
and successfully quells the revolt.

In

David’s frontier wars Joab was the foremost

figure it

is

true he is unmentioned in the panegyric,

ch.

81-14,

but the account in ch.

10

probably gives a

more historical view.

The later tradition may have

deepened the horrors of his campaign in

but

that his policy was thorough is shown by the deadly
hatred which arose between Edom and Israel.

An

equally successful campaign was carried out against
Ammon and the allied

(ch.

1 0

see D

AVID

,

8

and in the following year Rabbath-Ammon, the

capital, with all its spoil, fell into his hands (ch.

26-31).

In ch.

24

(a later but pre-deuteronomic narrative; cp

S

A

M

UEL

6 )

Joab is ordered to number the people. The

un-

willingness he exhibits is characteristically treated

I

Ch.

216, Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them, for the

king’s word

was

abominable

(so

EV) to

Finally, at the close of David’s life, Joab sided with

Adonijah

attempt to gain the crown

(

I

K.

and upon the accession of Solomon was slain by Benaiah
a t the altar-horns and buried in his house in the wilder-
ness’

(I

K.

See

JOAB.

A recollection

of

his name may he preserved

in

and

3

otherwise he passes

out of

history. In the list given

at

the close of

I

K.

2 a

certain

but

L, cp also chap.

46)

son

of

Joab

is

cited

as

captain of

the army,

The Chronicler’s account

the way

in

which he

rose

to

distinction ignores the important part which he played

coun-

teracting Abner

.

the

Abner episode

is in fact

omitted

in

Chron.

It is

to place much

the

notice

that two years elapsed before Absalom saw David’s face.

vv.

are an

acknowledged gloss

;

but since

v.

is

almost

identical repetition

of v.

it is

probable that

is

also

a

gloss,

and

follows immediately upon

24.

3

So at any rate

Bu. (SBOT)

in

opposition to the

genera!

opinion

for Abishai

6)

we

should read Joab

(so

Pesh.). If

as

has been suggested elsewhere (see

16

168

the

cdnnection

between the revolts of Sheba and

the

story of

Amasa’s murder are both due to

a

redactor,

it

is

probable that Pesh. is right and that the alteration to

Abishai occurred

after

the two

had been joined, and

was indeed rendered absolutely necessary by

19

4

’In

I

18

the campaign is ascribed to Abishai.

I

Ch.

says that Joab began tonumber, but finished not.’

2461

JOANAN

but unfortunately there is no further evidence to support this

In reviewing Joab’s history it is difficult to gain

a

clear insight into his relation to David.

Powerful and

indispensable

he was, he was replaced by Amasa at

the close of Absalom’s rebellion, which throws doubt

upon

the suggestion that the increase in

influence over

David dates from the episode of Uriah.

If David was

afraid of Joab because of his acquaintance with the true
facts of

death, he could certainly have found

means to get rid of him.

Joab’s treachery to Uriah is

not

too

clearly stated in

11

and although

Joab may have justly incurred blame, it is difficult to
see why his brother Abishai (to whom David owed

so

much,

2

S.

should be included in the

invectives against the ‘sons of Zeruiah’ (cp

S.

339

[see

Klo.],

1 9

There is

a

consensus of critics that the injunction

ascribed to David in

I

K. 2 5 J

was written after his

time to excuse the killing of Joab and Shimei (see
D

AVID

,

Here,

in the section

228-34,

Joab’s

fate

is

represented as a just retribution for the murder

of Abner, captain of the host of Israel,’ and of Amasa,

captain of the host of Judah.’ The special stress laid

upon the innocence of

as

well

as

the reiterated

condemnation of the ‘sons

of

Zeruiah,’ reveals the

tendency to

the character of the great national

hero which characterised later ages (cp D

AVID

,

See

H

ARASHIM

. Meyer

suggests a connection with

The resemblance between Seraiah

,name of his father) and Zeruiah (above) is superficially

striking, but apparently accidental.

3.

One

of

the

two

families of

in the great

post-exilic list

ii.,

g, 8

in

both])

=

I

Esd.

5

11

AV

om.)

;

cp Ezra

8 =

I

Esd.

835.

The father

of

Ge-harashim

(I

Ch.

414

;

A. C.

JOAB,

HOUSE

OF.

See A

TROTH

-

BETH

-

J

OAB

.

JOACHIM

Bar.

and J o a c i m

I

Esd.

RV

Joakim.

See J

EHOIAKIM

,

Joakim

is

also the name of a son of

babel

( I

Esd.

5 5 ) .

of the high priest in Judith’s time

(Jud.

and of the husband of

(Sus.

G

EDALIAH

,

5.

is brother,’

cp

and see

I

.

b. Asaph,

vizier

at

the

time

of

invasion

K.

18

[BA, omitting b. Asaph’],

26

[B; in v.

26

Is.

363,

N

AMES

,

44

v.

om.

v.

h.

Josiah’s vizier during the religious reforms Ch.

348,

om. Pesh

Ant.

x.

4

3.

b. Zimmah, a Gershonite

(I

Ch.

[6]

om. B.,

See

7

and note that

3,

cp

I

above) is also

a

Gershonite

name.

4.

b.

(I

Ch.

26 4 :

JOAHAZ

cp

[BAL]).

The father

of

Ch.

348

om. Pesh.).

J

EHOAHAZ

),

of Israel

K.

14

I

3.

king of Judah

Ch.

36

JOANAN.

I.

[A],

,

om.

I

106,

RV ‘Jonas.

See JOHANAN,

2.

[Ti.

WH]),

Lk.

3 27

RV. See G

ENEALOGIES

ii.,

Joab according

to

Thenius, is a mistake for Shaphat (cp

BA K. 46).

David orders Uriah to he placed in the thick of the battle

and then left. But

in

vv.

Uriah appears

to

join with other

heroes in an onslaught against the

city

(no

names

of

enemy

or

city are

given in

11

and falls with them.

Nor

is the intro-

duction

of

Abimelech in

a

case in point for how was a city

to be taken

going up to the

wall

17

my

father David knew it not ;

cp the awkward

expression S.

3

K.

2

:

2462

JOANES

[Ti.]),

AV Jona,' RV John.

See B

AR

-

J

ONA

, J

OHN

.

JOANNA, or rather, as in RV

WH]), eighteenth in the ascending genealogical

series which begins with Joseph, Mary's husband, in Lk.

Ber. R.

64,

b. Sot.

a,

from an original

Heb.

or

Dalm.

Arum. 142,

n.

9,

cp B

AR

-

JONA

), wife

of

C

HUZA

(Lk.

83).

She

was

one of the pious women who ministered to Jesus and
the twelve apostles

[Ti.

WH]) of their substance,

and of those who went to the sepulchre to embalm his

body

(Lk.

83

JOANNAN

[AAKV]),

I

Macc.

RV

JOARIB

(I

Macc. 2

I

).

and, in an abbreviated form,

Both forms occur in

I

and

but in

latter

is

found cp

an

temp. Sennacherib

[Hommel,

Sab.

Sin.

Possibly ' Y a h gives,'

see Gray,

hut more probably it

is

not a verbal form

;

;

[A

K.

14

81).

I.

b. Ahaziah, king of Judah

(

B

.c.

835-7963, who was

hidden during the usurpation of Athaliah and crowned

a t the age of seven

K .

12

Ch. 24).

On

the two parallel accounts of the revolution which

placed Joash

on

the throne, ( a )

K. 11

i6.

see Stade,

5

('85) who is followed by

Benzinger and

T h e former,

emphasizes the

religious motives of the revolution, may have come from a work
o n the history of the temple. The account in Ch.

is

largely recast ; hut, where this is not the case,

he used a s

a

,parallel text to (a).

Somehow

the temple had been allowed to get into disrepair, and

Joash made

a

new arrangement for the due preservation

of the fabric, the priests being made responsible for this.

T h e temple is evidently regarded as a royal possession.
A statement of more historical interest (turned to his own

account by the Chronicler,

Ch.

is concerned

with the inroad of the Syrians under Hazael, who only
departed on receiving a large tribute.

No doubt this

inroad stands in close connection with Hazael's successful

wars against Jehu or Jehoahaz.

Joash met his death at

the hands of assassins,

possibly an act of private

vengeance for the cruel murder of Zechariah b. Jehoiada,

the priest.

(This is suggested by the statement of

Ch. 2425, which may be not wholly incorrect.) See

I

SRAEL

,

31;

C

HRONICLES

,

8

C

HRONOLOGY

,

35.

b. Jehoahaz

(797-783

?), king of Israel

K .

13

Ch.

25).

One of the greatest of the Israelitish

kings.

His success over

b. Hazael

(which

is

said to have been foretold by

K.

and his victory over Amaziah, followed by his

breaking down of the wall

of

Jerusalem, are the most

prominent facts of his reign.

That Judah was reduced

to vassalage

was

the result, according to the narrative,

of

an

challenge of Amaziah b. Joash

(I),

king

of Judah, which provoked the scornful and only
prophetic parable of the thistle and the cedar'

K.

See A

MAZIAH

,

I

.

Gather of

(Judg.

A

prince (lit. ' t h e king's son') temp. Ahab

(I

K. 2226

cp

a

Ch. 1825

Either the title 'king's son' was given

to officers of state, or members of the royal house did not disdain
such a n office as the governorship of the prison. Possibly
is a corruption of

(Che.), see

H

AMMELECH

.

5.

A son of

b. Judah,

Ch. 422

6.

One of David's heroes

(I

Ch.

12

3,

See

JOASH

aids,' for

cp

Ar.

and Sab.

This, however, is not

favoured by the Gk. transcription

[BAL], which

See

Cook, Aramaic

See G

ENEALOGIES

ii.,

John.' See M

ACCABEES

I

,

3.

See

W e know but little of Joash's long reign.

See

D

AVID

,

11

a,

iii.

S. A.

JOB

does

presuppose the harder

y

See

I.

b.

Of

BENJAMIN

a),

I

Ch.

8

cp

I

O

,

and

I

Ch. 23

One of

overseers

(I

Ch.

27

JOATHAM

WH]), Mt.

RV

See

D

AVID

,

87,

J

OSABAD

.

JOAZABDUS

[A]),

I

Esd.

JOB

Gen.

4 6 1 3

AV,

a

corruption of

JOB

the hero of the Book of Job

(cp also Ezek.

Jas.

on which see below),

confounded in the postscript to

with

J

OBAB

king

o f

Edom (Gen. 3633).

Though this confusion is due to

a

late uncritical miter.

probably

a

Jewish

we must admit the

possi-

bility that there may be a connection

the

names.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all have points

of contact with name-lists in Genesis, and we should
naturally expect this to he the case with

I t is

true, most critics before Dillmann have explained
from the Hebrew, as if the original framer of the story
of Job either coined the name or at least modified it

so

as

to make it symbolic of his hero the alternatives are

(

I

)

the pions

one who turns to God

(see Koran,

38

16

44)

the assailed, or persecuted

by God, or by Satan.'

Neither is very satis-

factory. The former is not definite enough in meaning,
nor is the root Israelitish

the latter implies an ex-

ceptional use of the grammatical form (cp
There is no indication that the writers of Job thought

any meaning for the name.

Another problem remains-

the true origin of the

name.

In

Am.

2376

13

we find Aiab a personal

name in N. Palestine (Che.

6,

p.

possibly

I n the next article (J

OB

, B

OOK

the name of

the hero of Job

from

is traced to Ea-bani,

the name of an ancient Babylonian hero, whose creation
out of clay has been compared with the narrative

(see C

REATION

,

n. 4). Ea-bani seems

to have been

with

who, according

to the myth, was attacked by some sore disease, and
was supernaturally healed. For other legendary Hebrew
names of Babylonian origin, see C

AINITES

,

6-8,

IO.

On the land of

see Uz.

The question whether Job really lived-

which

distinct from the question whether he actually said and

did all that is related of him in our book

only be answered in the affirmative

we are prepared to regard Cain, Enoch,

and Noah

as

historical personages. The saying of

Resh Lakish, 'Job existed not, and was not created,
but is (only)

a

shows that great freedom of

speech upon such matters was allowed among Jewish
doctors.

There has been some vagueness in the

utterances of modern Christian scholars, who have
not always considered that for a story to have a tradi-
tional basis is not equivalent to its being founded
on fact. The moral value of the story of Job is
impaired by the denial of its historicity

;

like the story

of Jonah it is a parable, and the only question is
-a parable of what? The ancients were struck

by

Job's righteousness (Ezek.

14

14

Ecclus.

[Heb.

text]), or by his patient endurance

511).

Mohammed, too, Job was a model

of

piety and

Bleek, Dillmann, Rudde ascribe it to a Hellenist: but the

arguments

of

21

deserve attention.

See

Uz.

Cp Lag.

go.

3

Cp

also

the later Heb.

Dalm.

T h e saying was, however,' tampered

with.

See

On Resh Lakish see further

310;

and

Gratz,

(ET),

JOB

(BOOK)

JOB

(BOOK)

patience (Koran,

and the Mohammedans humor-

ously call the camel

Job's father.'

I n

Christian Egypt, too, as

the

story of Job was very popular, but not the speeches.
T h e one was practical, the other appeared to be specu-
lative.

of Mopsuestia witnesses to the same

preference of the

to the speeches in his time.

For evidence of the further legendary development of
the story of Job in the Jewish and Moslem world see

D.

B.

Macdonald,

K. Kohler,

' T h e Testament of Job,'

I n Ecclus. 499

is certainly wrong in reading

for

the latter reading

is

supported both by

and by

our

Hebrewtext. Therecovered Heb. text how-

References.

ever, must be corrupt. Smend thinks

can

read

in the MS after

'97,

32).

however, has

and

this is what the copyist of our

MS

may have meant to give but

the word we want is

and

in

should be

and the

of

and Neubauer should he

T h e passage then becomes, H e also mentioned Job the upright
whoutteredright

In Jas.

155)

may be right in preferring the reading

(AB3 13 31

L

Arm.) to

vv.).

T h e verse becomes 'Ye have

heard of the patience of Job and the end

by)

Lord.

The book stands third among

the

or Hagiographa, according to the Tal-

mudic arrangement, but not always in the same place
relatively to other books in the Greek Bible too, there
are variations in the

On these points see Ryle,

Canon

O T

(1892). I n the

Bible Job

is

placed between the Pentateuch and Joshua, because,
according to the Jews

it was written

by Moses (cp

C

A

N

ON

,

45).

It may mitigate our

surprise to remember that one of the fathers of modern
criticism, Eichhorn, even claimed for the book a
Mosaic origin. W e need not, however, any longer
discuss the possibility of this view, since no scholar
could be found to defend it.

The most scientific

arrangement is that which includes Job in the group of
books

of Wisdom

of which it is doubtless the

greatest, and the most fraught with suggestion for the
history of the Jewish religion. See W

ISDOM

L

ITERA

-

See (here) that the Lord is full

of

compassion and pitiful.

T. K.

C.

JOB, BOOK

OF.

TURE.

As

the book now stands, it consists of five parts.

I

.

T h e Prologue, written, like the Epilogue,

in

prose (chap.

The Colloquies of Job and his friends (chaps. 3-31).
The speeches of

(chaps. 32-37).

4.

The speeches of Yahwl:

out of the storm, with very brief

answers of

(chaps.

5.

The Epilogue (42

Thus it

is

plain that the book of Job

is

deficient in

Two literary styles are represented in it

literary unity.

-narrative prose and didactic poetry

however, are thoroughly artistic

character.

W e must not read the

Prologue a s a history this would be to do injustice to

a

considerable epic poet.

Nor must we read the

Col-

loquies as mere specimens of Hebrew philosophy in
metre.

This would be to miss making the acquaintance

of a powerful lyric poet who was also skilled in the
delineation of varieties of character.

Certainly it

is

not

legitimate to call the book of Job a drama a Hebrew
drama, especially in post-exilic times,

is

inconceivable.

T h e attitude of the Priestly Writer ( P ) in the Hexateuch
towards the ancient Hebrew myths and legends suf-
ficiently shows how hopeless a dramatic movement would
have been, even had it been initiated.

Nevertheless,

the idea of inclosing

a

poetical debate between the two

parts

of

a

quasi-poetical tale is dramatic in tendency,

and suggests that in more favourable circumstances
gifted dramatists might have arisen among the Jews.
In order that students may appreciate the art (not less

'Version Thebaine d u Livre de

Job,'

'87,

p.

than the meaning)

of

the poem and its different sections,

there is one preliminary service

the textual critic

must render-viz., to submit the text of Job to a careful

revision.

A!!

that can he done for exegesis from an opposite point of

view has been done by Dillmann, and if Davidson cannot

be

mentioned as Dillmann's rival, yet every one of the too few

that Davidson has written on Job testifies to familiarity

with the available exegetical material

where either of these

eminent critics has failed

has

been simply owing to the

inadequacy of their critical methods.

T o Bickell Siegfried

Budde, Beer, and Duhm is due the credit of

perceived

that the next step forward

in

exegesis must be preceded by a

purification of the text. T h e labours of these scholars and

of

others who have worked a t the text of Job on the

lines

though less continuously, cannot be disregarded by
students, and any article like the present must constantly refer

not

only to the Massoretic but also to a n emended text.

T h e present writer is tied

no master, and will

the student the best that he knows.

Nor can he abstain

from adding that the emended text to which he will
appeal

is

one which has partly been produced by con-

siderations

of

metre.

For the most necessary informa-

tion on this subject he would refer to the article

P

OETICAL

L

ITERATURE

it is enough here to endorse

the statement of Duhm, that the usual poetical form in
the Colloquies of Job and his friends is the simplest
metre of Hebrew prosody-viz., the stanza of four
stichi, of three beats

There are also, it is true,

passages of tristichs in chaps.

24

and (perhaps)

30

but

these are among the later insertions.

One of the

clearest reasons for denying these passages to the main
author

of

the work is the difference in their poetical

form. The statement of Zenner

Th.

p.

that the book of Job contains much more than

a hundred tristichs implies far too conservative an atti-
tude towards the traditional text.

The object of the Prologue

Is

to show that disin-

terested love of God is possible, and that in the case of

such an one as Job, or of that quasi-
personal being whom Job symholises,
the terrible load of suffering has this

one intelligible

that the

of

his unbought piety may be exhibited before angels and
men. Job

is

introduced to us as a rich Edomite Emeer,

happy

in

his family and in his enormous possessions.

He also knows the true God under the name
and is scrupulous in the established observances

of

piety. Heaven is thrown open to

us

that we may see

what Yahwb himself thinks of Job, and how the Satan
is only permitted to hurl this great and good man into
an abyss of misery that his piety may come out

as

pure

gold.

The deed is done, and Job, stricken with a

loathsome sickness (see

P

ESTILENCE

),

withdraws to the

ash-mound

of his village (cp Lam.

45).

Flesh for

the Satan had said

( 2 4 )

'his dearest

relations are nothing

to

a man, if he may but save his

life.'

That, however, was not the right reading of

Job's character.

His wife's faith indeed gave way.

Loyal to her husband, but faithless to her God, she
bade Job be a man, since God withheld the reward of
piety, and curse his all-powerful enemy before he died.

To

Job, however, this was the height of folly she who

so

spoke had degraded herself-had become one of the

foolish women' (see F

OO

L

). Not only did he speak

no rash

against God,' he willingly accepted the

Jerome states that the book

is

composed in hexameters with

a

dactylic and spondaic movement. Evidently he means double

trimeters.

Duport, Prof. of Greek

Cambridge translated

Job in Homeric hexameters under the title
(Cambr.

Vetter (Die

des

and Ley

(articles in

are the most recent special monographs

on the metre of Job.

'skin for

skin,' gives

no adequate sense ; Schwally's explanation ( Z A

is only slightly more plausible than that of Merx

Read probably

,

3

in

reads

'and attributed

nothing unsavoury to God, the exact sense

of which is variously

Schultens,

Probably,

2466

JOB

(BOOK)

evil which could not blot from his memory the good

of happier days.

In

a

little while his three chief friends

arrive, for the news has spread far and wide they are
doubtless

Job, and they know how true

sympathy should express itself.

The prose narrative is resumed in the Epilogue.

Yahwk declares that his anger is kindled against the
friends of Job became they have not said of him the
thing that is right, like his servant J o b ; he tells them
to

offer sacrifice, and Job shall intercede for them, that

sudden ruin may not befall

So

Job prayed for

them, and, as a public act of justification, God restored

him more than his former prosperity, till at length he

old and full of days.

As

a

piece of narrative the Epilogue compares very

unfavourably with the Prologue.

The idea that after

JOB

(BOOK)

having been proved capable of fearing
God for naught,' Job should have to
spend a hundred and forty years in the

enjoyment of a commonplace

seem t o

most moderns so unreasonable that they probably would
be glad to have reasons for

it.

I t

is

not less

strange that nothing should be said in the Epilogue
either of Satan's loss of his wager,

or

of Job's recovery

from his leprosy.

However, to do justice

to

the writer

we must view him, not

as

an artist, but as a teacher.

The Epilogue was a necessary concession to the

un-

spiritual multitude, who had been taught even
prophets to look forward to double compensation for
Israel's afflictions

2

(Is.

617 Jer.

Zech.

Job

a

symbol of suffering Israel, Jewish

readers could not but expect him to be re-endowed with

sons and daughters, flocks and herds, and treasures

of

(cp

Now, too, we can see

why, instead of telling ns how Job recovered from his
sicliness, the narrator uses the vague

which

is so

often used of the hoped-for

of

the

prosperity

Ps.

[4]

H e is thinking here, not of the legendary Job, but of
his people Israel.

W e next consider Prologue and Epilogue together.

Can these be by the same writer as the Colloquies?

(I)

It must be admitted that the Colloquies in general

presuppose the main facts of the story in the Prologne
on the other hand, in

(contrast 8 4

we

have certain statements which are plainly incon-
sistent with some of those facts.

In Job427

Job is commended for having spoken rightly of

G o d ; obviously this does nof correspond with the
speeches of Job in the Colloquies.

( 3 )

The Prologue

ascribes the trials of Job to the Satan.

Nothing

is

said of this in the poem; neither Job nor his friends
know anything of such

a.

being.

(4)

In the Prologue

Job is a model of patience; in the Colloquies he is
impatient.

(5)

T h e explanation of Job's sufferings

given in

1

is unknown to the Colloquies.

(6)

Sacri-

fices are essential to piety in the prose-story of Job
they are not once mentioned in the Colloquies.

T h e necessary inference is that the Prologue and the

Epilogue were written before the Colloquies, and since

(cp

2

IO

,

and especially Ps.

33).

represents

comes from

was

inserted

by the

last

editor to make sense.)

In

42

gives,

that I

may

not

do something shameful

to

give

a n

exemplary

punishment

The

text

of

is

so

far from

immaculate

it is better to emend

it

here than to

force

in

A

more impossible word than

for

to use

could hardly be imagined. Probably

we

should read,

and

are both

very

liable (as

experience

of

and Psalms will show) to corruption.

I h e

exact doubling

of

Job's

former possessions

shows

that

we are

not

reading literal history here' (Davidson on

42

On the close

of

4211

see

and on'the names of

Job's three daughters the first and the third of which

are

strangely misread, see

implies that both Yahwk and the friends had held

discourse with Job, it follows that the present Collo-
quies (if we may provisionally regard them as

a

whole)

have been substituted for speeches of very different
purport which

from the narrator of the

story, and were in perfect harmony with

The chief value

of

the

for

us

moderns (who

aesthetic and religious grounds

are

compelled

to

take

exception

to its

contents)

is

that

it

enables

us to

reconstruct

the main outlines of

the

original

colloquy

and of those portions

of

the story which had to be omitted

together

with the original

colloquy. Elsewhere

a n

attempt has been made to

what inight conceivably have formed the omitted portion of the

earlier hook

of

Something of the sort can hardly be

dispensed

with

in a

full

treatise on

the criticism

of

Job, though

to economise space it is not given here. The theory adopted

above enables

us to

account

( a )

for

the severe

which

gives

to

the three friends, and for their assumed liability

to

some terrible calamity

for the high praise awarded to

(c)

part for the expressions

the

description of the

Servant of Yahwl: in

and

for the

early

view

of Job, which persisted for centuries in

many

quarters in spite of the

later insertions

in the hook, as

a

model

of righteousness and patient endurance.

W e must now ask, I s it possible to get behind the

of

and of his misfortunes in

the Prologue and Epilogue?

That

there is a legendary basis may be
assumed

as

on a

Even the book

of

has its legendary element, though

the

main current of t h e

narrative is unaffected by it.

Much

more may

we expect

to

find

a

traditional

for the

story

of

which is of

just

the type in which the primitive

imagina-

tion delighted

;

indeed, the name of its hero (in striking contrast

to

is plainly no fiction, but

a

legacy from

antiquity.

The prevalent view among critics is that

a

wise man

of poetical gifts in

in the post-exilic period

adopted a story which had been handed on from age
to age in popular tradition, and adapted it to his own
didactic purposes.

One

of

the chief points

i n

favour of this

view

is

the super-

natural machinery of the Prologue, which

has

a

strong quasi-

mythological character. In particular,

the

humorousness5

of

the dialogue between Yahwl: and

Satan, which might

he

abundantly paralleled

from

Christian hagiology, evidently

the

popular,

not

the official

religion.

On

other

and, it

must

be

remarked

that the

is

evidently

constructed with

a

didactic

,

to

give

an

adequate

explanation

of

the sufferings of the righteous;

that the

Epilogue

is not

fully

unless Job

he

understood

as a

type

of

the people

of

Israel; and

(3)

that the Epilogue pre-

supposes that

and his three friends

have

been conversing

on the subject of the divine government of the world

whereas discussions

on

speculative

are

uncongenial to

the popular mind.

How far can this view be endorsed?

So

much

as

this appears to be certain-the story of Job

is

based upon

a

popular legend.

I t is probable, however, that some

of the most interesting features of the Prologue are not
of traditional origin, but come from a cultivated wise
man who knew how to write for the people, but stood
somewhat apart both from the popular and from the
official religion.

This wise man lived in the

exilic period, when the belief in the Satan was becoming
general. Very probably the imaginary dialogue between

and the Satan is not merely humorous but

ironical.

T h e narrator may wish to suggest

a

grave

doubt

as

to the appropriateness

of

such

a

belief in

Judaism certainly he regards the Satan, like the b'ne

as

no more than a part of his poetic machinery.

His main object, however, is to show (anticipating much

later teaching) that the accumulated woes of Israel are
but tests of the disinterestedness of Israel's love for
God.

It is true, the Epilogue is inconsistent with

this : this wise man and artist, free-minded as he

is,

has to make concessions to the multitude (see

3).

See,

B. Macdonald,

Duhm,

Che.

161.

3

(see preceding

col. n.

I

).

Eml.

viii.

Che.

and

Sol.

6 6 ;

5

(parallel between Job and

'members of the divine guild' (A

NGELS

,

Budde, pp.

;

Duhm,

p.

2468

JOB (BOOK)

JOB

(BOOK)

Most probably all that he adopted from the legend
was

(

I

)

the name of the hero and of the land in which

he lived

the fact of Job's close intercourse with

God

and

( 3 )

the surprising circumstance that this

most righteous and divinely favoured of men was
attacked by some dread disease such as leprosy, but
was ultimately healed.

So

much as this was not

improbably known to Ezekiel, who

mentions

three men, Noah, Daniel (or rather perhaps Enoch

'-

see E

NOCH

), and Job as having escaped from peril of

death

their righteousness. T h e original story was

probably derived from Babylonia (cp preceding article).

Eabani, the friend of the solar hero

(see

E

NOCH

),

himself too created for E a by the

goddess Aruru, was attacked by a distressing sickness,
apparently the same from which

had for a

time been

a

sufferer.

I n the Babylonian legend Eabani

dies, whereas

is healed for a time

a magic

potion and immersion in the fountain of life in the
earthly paradise.

It

would seem that in Palestine one

part of the story

of

dropped away from that

hero and attached itself to Eabani, whose name became

Hebraised into

out of which arose

(Job). Probably the story was brought by the Israelites
from Hauran, if, as has been suggested (see
the

of Genesis is a distortion

of

Hanran.

The

land of

Uz

(see

was therefore probably in the NE.

of Palestine, where indeed the name

would naturally

lead

us

to place it, but is transferred to Edom by the

author of the original

Book

of Job, because

of

the tra-

ditional reputation of the Edomites for

(Obad.

8

cp

T

EMAN

).

This new situation suggested the mention

of the Sabeans

and the Cushites

read

.

for

see

2,

also the designation

of Jbb as the greatest of all the sons of Jerahmeel

read

for

see J

ERAHMEEL

,

K

EDEM

,

and of the friends of Job as

a

Temnnite, a Zarhite, and

a

Temanite respectively

(for the emendations here adopted see S

HUHITE

,

T h e later wise man (once more we pro-

visionally

the unity of the Colloquies) who,

a s we have seen, discarded the original Colloquies
and substituted new ones, does not seem to have
altered the Prologue and Epilogue.

To

his work,

which from the very first impressed thinkers as much

as

the prose narrative of Job impressed the multitude,

we now direct our attention.

Evidently he admired

that narrative, for he has adopted i t ; but not less
evidently he was not satisfied even by the attractive
theory embodied in the Prologue, partly, we may
suppose, because it depended for its efficacy on the
opening of the heavens, and the admission of human
listeners to the council-hall

of

For the wise

men sought to connect religion as much as possible with
mother-earth.

It should be noticed that there are three cvcles

of

speeches, or colloquies,

so

that each

friend speaks nine times (on Zophar's
third speech see below), and Job answers

nine times.

Job

also opens the colloquies by

a

poetic

complaint.

The friends, who represent the Jewish theologians

of the author's time, are about to speak. An excuse
for this had to be provided.

Submission to the divine

will was the fundamental note of the character of Job,
according to the Prologue.

I n order to justify argu-

mentation, the sufferer must he seen to have lost his
composure. T h e word God occurs but twice in Job's
complaint (chap.

3)

he murmurs, but without accusing

God of injustice. All that he craves is an explanation

of

this sudden catastrophe.

Why was he suffered to

live on when born-why must he live on, now that he

is

in abject misery? Piety does not forbid him to

For a peculiar view of the

setting'

of

the original

poem, see Klostermanu on

I

curse his natal day-the day which

with the

night of his birth.

Perish the day on which

I

was to be born

And the night which said,

a boy'!

Let

not God above

ask after it

Let not the moon show her

above

Years and days are not imaginary, but have an

objective existence in the unseen world. Job would
fain revenge himself on this luckless day.

As Moulton

well says, 'All variations of darkening that fancy
can suggest are invoked to blot out that day
which betrayed Job into

Then Eliphaz the

Temanite comes forward.

He is the oldest of the

party-older than Job's

It is char-

acteristic

him that he appeals to special revelations

of his own; characteristic of Bildad that he loves to
appeal to tradition; characteristic of the young and
impetuous Zophar that he appeals to

no

authority but

his own judgment, and gets irritated at any one who
disputes the correctness of his

All are agreed

that the cause of all calamity (and therefore of

Job's) is

sin, whereas Job himself from the first ascribes his
trouble to some baffling mystery in God himself.

T h e

point which is not clear to the friends is, whether the
calamity which has befallen Job

is

a

punishment or

merely an educational. chastisement.

They could not

have hesitated to adopt the second view but for the
vehemence of J o b s complaint which seemed to them
unbecoming in

a

devout man.

Eliphaz gently re-

monstrates with his friend, and, if textual corruption be
removed, his speech will not strike

us

as either un-

connected or dictatorial.

Why should Job lose heart?

Who ever perished, being innocent? Job must know
this; clearly Eliphaz does not expect any criticism of
his statement.

There is one truth, however, of which

Job seems to him not fully aware; indeed Eliphaz
himself had needed to have it enforced by a special,
personal revelation, whispered to him by

a

mysterious

form at night

( 4

17-21) :-

Can mortal man be righteous before God?
Can man be pure before

maker?

Behold he trusteth not his servants

His

ones are unclean before

;

How much more the dwellers in

of clay

.

.

.

Do

they not dry up when he bloweth

upon

them?

They die, but

wisdom.6

What, then, is man's true wisdom?

I t is to

recognise trouble as the consequence of sin, and not

to

he seduced into irritating words which can only

lead to the complete destruction both of the fool who
utters them and of his children

( 5 2

Does Job

think that there

is

anyone of the celestials who can be

induced to help him? H e will hardly indulge in this
fancy after the revelation which Eliphaz has just
related.

For his own part, Eliphaz would rather turn

trustfully to God, whose purposes are

so

unsearchable,

but, for the righteous man, so beneficent. H e con-
cludes with an idealistic picture of the happiness in
store for Job,

if

he will defer to the friendly advice

offered to him by Eliphaz

(5

17-27).

and

IO

are late insertions which

the

fine rhetoric of the poet.

Chap. 5 is also questioned by

Siegfr Beer and Duhm hut

to

be protected by 4

if

read

above indeed, call now,' etc. is much too

vigorous an address for a n ordinary glossator. Verse 7 needs
correction in order to suit v.

6 , but cannot be rescued for the

poem, both v. 6 and

7 being alien to the Temanite's argu-

ment, (Verse

should probably

be read, 'Yea man brings

forth misery, and the sons of wickedness pour

iniquity';

for

Bick., Bu.,

See translation of four stanzas of

Job's complaint; with

p.

4

Cp Davidson,

5

In

I.

4

read

justification, in

After

1.

5 we have

omitted four lines, to avoid having to justify emendations a t too
great length. When we

follow

there is

a

quotation from Is.

40 24. See Beer

ad

JOB

(BOOK)

Cp Budde, Duhm,

Matthes).

first speech is chiefly remarkable for his

respectful attitude towards tradition.

We are of

yesterday,' he

says,

and know nothing'

whereas

the wisdom of the past is centuries old, and has a
stability to which Job's new-fangled notions (for Job
represents a

new school

of

religious philosophy)

cannot pretend.

Here the first genuine allusion to

Egypt

Nile-grass,'

8 1 1

see

R

EED

)

should be

noticed; also

cruel reference to the fate of

Job's children

( 8 4 ) .

Zophar gives a panegyric of the

divine wisdom

which, however, only leads up

to the poor inference that God must be able to see
secret sin

and which Job

14-25

13

)

reduces,

as

he thinks, to its just proportions.

T h e saying in

therefore that God exacteth of

thee less than thine iniquity deserveth'

(EV) is indeed a

terrible one hut Zophar

is

not to he held responsible for it.

I t is not a n

however, but a n editorial attempt to

sense of a corrupt passage. When duly emended, it may

assist us in the emendation of

66,

which should probably run

thus, ' T h a t thou mightest know that it

divine wisdom) is

marvellous in reason':

is corrupted from

Chap. 12 has been much misunder-

stood. Grill would excise 12 4-13 a s a later insertion. Sieg-
fried prints

and 127-13

I

in colours (as insertions): and

omits

and

and makes

(tristichs, he

thinks) parallel to the cycle of poems in chaps. 24 and 30
This is simply owing to corruptions of the text which have

obscured the meaning.

the only interpolations are

49

and 13. T h e passage should begin,

No

doubt with you

is discernment, And with you is perfection of

wisdom. Yea

I

have not learned wisdom, And your secrets

I

know not (cp

But ask now the

that they may teach thee, etc.

T h e wicked man a t the judgment is confident. At (God's) fixed
time his foot is secure, etc.

Doth not the ear try

words, etc.

The only result

of

these successive speeches

is

to

make the complaints of the sufferer bolder and more
startling.

But before he gives free course to his com-

plaint' (10

I

),

he secures his right to do

so.

T h e im-

mensity of his woe is his justification. All he asks of
his friends is-spoken or silent sympathy but he asks
it in

vain,

and this intensifies his agony. The friends

may lecture to him on the infinite power and wisdom of
God.

Miserable comfort ! He knows it only too well.

T o be compelled to think that this power and wisdom
is not directed by morality, and that he is worth

no

more to the Almighty and the All-wise than the moun-
tains which he removes, or the rivers which he dries
up,

acutely painful. Job does not profess to under-

stand God's dealings

in

the world of nature, but hitherto

it has appeared to him that he understood G o d s inter-
course with His moral creature-man.

He looks for

consistency in

G o d s

dealings with moral beings.

The

sudden transition from happiness to misery in Job's
case can only,

so

he fancies, be ascribed to capricious-

ness in G o d ; or, if we may express the underlying

symbolic meaning, the catastrophe by which a religious
and prosperous people like Israel was suddenly crushed

by

the iron heel of a foreign despot, appears to show

that Zion has been forgotten

her God. As for the

theory that calamity is a chastisement, it will not apply
to Job's case, for his days are numbered, and even for
those few days God,

as

if

a

wild beast, cannot refrain

from torturing his prey.

Yet, such is the power of true

religion, the man who utters these desperate words,
pleads with his God for gentler treatment ! These three
speeches of Job

( 6 J

12-14)

are rich in poetic

o r e ; but we have space here only for the wonderful

expressions of an inextinguishable heart-religion which
occur near the close of the first and third speeches
respectively.

Davidson's remark (p. 88) that in reply to Zophar Job

shows, by a brilliant declaration of the divine wisdom and
power that he is a greater master in the knowledge of these

than his friends are hardly touches the main point.
admits

that God is

but the result

of

his observation

I

S

that

God's

wisdom is mainly devoted to destructive ends.

JOB (BOOK)

I t will be noticed that in the first quotation a supposed

'parody' of Ps.

and an unaesthetic phrase which no

can make tolerable, have disappeared. Ifemenda.

is

permissible, it is

so

What is man that thou shouldest spy him out,
And direct thine attention to him?
That thou shouldest try him (by fire) every morning
And test him every moment?

How long ere thou look away from me
Ere thou leave me that I may have a

cheer?

Why

thou set me as a target?

Why

I

unto thee as a mark?

And why

thou not pardon my transgression,

And cause mine iniquity to remove?

For

now I must lie down

dust,

And when thou seekest after me,

I

shall he gone

17-21).

0

that thou wouldest hide me

in Shed,

That thou wouldest conceal me till thine anger were spent,
That thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me,
If the fury of wrath should come to an end

!

*

*

*

All my days of anguish

I would

wait

Till thy relenting came ;
Thou wouldest call, and

I

would answer thee,

Thou wouldest long after the work of thy hands (14

It will be plain, even from these quotations, that the

first part of the discussion has not been wholly useless.

It is true, the several points of view
of Job and of the friends are in some

respects totally different. Both parties,

however, have alike become awake to the fact
that the problem before them has more than

a

merely

personal reference.

It is not only Job but

a

large

section of the

race which has, apparently, lost

its sense of union with God.

The old days of idyllic

happiness and unquestioning faith have

away

not merely for Job, but also for Israel, and for many
another people, and the earth' seems to be given over
into the hands of the wicked'

( 9 2 4 ) .

According to

the friends, this was because of some sin committed by
Job

by Job'santitypes).

Job, however, could not

accept this, and went on piling complaint upon coni-
plaint.

T h e friends, he said, were treacherous, and

God was inconsistent-' He destroys the perfect and
the wicked'

W e might have supposed that

this enlargement of the problem would

softened

Job's

I t does not soften i t ; the poet fails to

make the most of the psychological situation. There

is

but one idea which can at all comfort Job it is this-
that G o d s love cannot really be extinct-that in the
depths of his nature God cannot be

as

hostile to him as

he seems.

Though slowly

he can even now

imagine God longing after him when it is, humanly
speaking, too late, and he indulges in the dream of

a

successful conflict between God's wrath and God's

I t is Wrath that hurries

to

.

Love stands

fully and waits his time. Thanks to

it will a t length be

seen that Job's removal to the dark underworld was the best

thing that could have happened.

No longer seeing him, God's

T h e readings here proposed are

I

):

3 ;

see

381):

6);

cp

Beer). T h e opening words of v.

are omitted as an interpo-

lation (Bick.,

The

are

(1.4);

5 ;

(1.6).

Of these, the most im-

portant

is

the first.

M T has,

yap

which Bickell

Jew.

Duhm follow ('if a man were

die and to live again

This however does not fit the parallelism.

and

and

are

confounded.)

Cp the touching apologue

of

the mustard-seed in

4

On this division of God into two parties, cp Davidson on

17

3 ;

Che.

31.

The Jewish poet

Gabirol finely says,

' I

fly

from Thee to Thee' and our own in-

imitable Crashaw says

thou

leave (dread Lord!) that we

Take shelter from Thyself in Thee
And with the wings of Thine Own dove

Fly

to Thy sceptre of soft love.

JOB

(BOOK)

irritation will pass away, and he will long to renew his inter-
course with him

on

earth or in heaven. l h u s though Job will

still have the 'anguish

of being parted

God, he will be

able to wait patiently for the reawakening of his love. Will

come to believe that this is no dream? That is the impor-

t a n t

question with which we approach the second colloquy.

J o b s essential devoutness is manifest to us but it was

not

so

to his friends (cp

154).

In fact, passages like

those quoted above are not intended for the ears of the
friends. They are lyric

which illustrate the

dramatic process going

on

within the mind

of

Job they

form no real part of the colloquy.

Job's

narrow-

minded friends can see his outward irreverence, but not
the longing to be at peace with God which alone made
such irreverence possible.

Now, they think, Job reveals

himself in his true character, and, their gentler treatment
having failed, they proceed to try the effect of
pictures of the wicked man's

intending that Job

should see in these pictures no distant resemblance to
himself.

This wounding language Job

with

growing dignity. The symptoms of his sickness are
becoming aggravated; death, he feels, cannot be far
distant.

He has already said, Yea, let him kill me,

I

will not

Surely my ways I will defend before

him'

(13

But now his condition appears

and in his loneliness he returns to the idea that God
cannot be entirely his enemy.

Death, indeed, he cannot escape; he

is

caught in

God's net, and complaints of injustice are unavailing

(19

).

Job is now sure that he has an avenger of

blood in heaven (cp

Ps.

9

when he is dead, his

cry

the appeal of his blood, which lies

on

the

bosom of the earth) will reach the ear of the divine

Love. T o mgther-earth he first makes his appeal;

then he tells the universe of a stupendous fact of his
consciousness.

0

earth cover not my blood

And let'my cry have no

place.

Yea, I know it-my piercing cry is in heaven,
And my shriek has entered the heights.

H e will accept the words with which

I

cry,

My Blood-avenger will hear my call,
That be may decide between a man and God
And between man and his fashioner

But here Job stops.

I t is implied that reparation will

be made for J o b s unjust and violent death; but

no

surmise is offered as to the form that this will take.
T h e much-suffering man has advanced beyond what he
said in

he has found a

betwixt

us

that might lay his hand upon

us

both

the daysman's

nature, if not his name, is Righteous Love.

But he has

not resumed the position adopted for

a

in

Read

for

both in

14

and in

7

I

.

There are of course, corruptions of the text as elsewhere.

For

instance

as

they stand are highly suspicious.

I t is not

to

14

and

(hi.) a s interpolations. A

single stanza should take the place of

the original text

can easily be detected under the present much-edited text.
What Eliphaz really says is, 'Ask the wise men, for they alone
have unerring wisdom they will not withhold their

(see

3

Read

10

MT,

clearly

wrong. Davidson,

' I

will not wait'; Duhm,

'I

cannot hold

out

.

Budde

I

hope for nothing.'

so

far as we can understand it,

interrupts the context, and must surely be an interpolation.

Cp.

Siegfried's notes.

Lines 3 and 4 in M T run, Even now,, behold, my witness

isinheaven, and mywitness

the heights.

quiresmore thana witness'of

and

(Aram.)

occurs only once again in the MT, and there it is corrupt (see

Read probably

Sense, metre, and the textual phenomena

are thus satisfied. Lines

make a miserable sense in M T

represents an

stage between the true text and

MT.

T h e true text may be something like this,

In

line 8, for

read

(illus-

trated by the argument in

friend,' however explained,

whether as Job's friends (collectively) or a s a title for God, is
intolerable.

For a minute, though not quite satisfactory discus-

sion

of

the passage, see Budde

;

and

on

the versions see Beer.

Bib.).

(BOOK)

14

13-15

he does not on this occasion specify the form

which the expected reparation, or vengeance for blood,
will take.

I t was a noble idea that he had stated but,

not being able to offer any tangible proof of its correct-
ness, he soon falls back into his old elegiac strain, and
even appeals to the friends for pity

(19

He might

as well have appealed to icebergs. From their averted
faces the persecuted heretic sees that his doom is sealed.

If

God had not marked him out for death, they might

have thought to do God service (cp

13

8)

by stoning

him. Job warns them of their guilt (cp

13

does not threaten them with the sword,' as the faulty
M T represents.

First, however, he revives his own

courage by giving for the third time a public expression
to

his unextinguished belief in his God

(19

We

cannot indeed venture, in deference to later Christian
beliefs, to let the text of

19

25-27

pass, and

that

the passage refers either to the hope of the resurrection,
or at least to the hope of conscious and continuous
intercourse with God in an unbodied state of existence
cp

A

close examination of the text

shows that it has not

suffered corruption but also

received interpolations, and our general experience with
the ancient versions (which have often made prophets
and poets give support to the later eschatology) justifies

us in

dealing with the M T somewhat freely.

T h e

present writer's attempt at

a

thoroughly critical restora-

tion may be

rendered,-

As for me

I

know it-my Avenger lives,

And

in the dust

I

shall receive his pledge

Shaddai will bring to pass my desire,

And a s my justifier

I

shall see God.

When ye say 'We will pursue him like a hart
And will

ourselves with his (lacerated) desh

;

Have fear for yourselves because of your words,
For those are words of iniquity

So

then the dream of a permanent resurrection of the

old intercourse with God

on

earth or in heaven

is

not

finally ratified by

mature thought.

Still he

ventures nearer to that dream than when he uttered the
cry to mother-earth.

H e will not give up his belief in

God's righteousness, and therefore declares it to be
certain that God will one day publicly recognise his
servant's innocence; and since on the one hand it is
essential to the completeness

of

this reparation that Job

should witness it, and on the other it is inconceivable

(14

that man should awake, or be raised out of his

sleep' to the old familiar life, it is the only solution
which remains that the unbodied spirit of Job should
for a moment he transferred to the upper world to see
God as his justifier.'

On

this view great stress must

be laid

no other exegesis appears possible,

' o n

the dust (of S h a d ) , ' and

' m y justifier'

(underlying

being both apparently planted

firmly in the text.

That God can both

and make

alive would no doubt have been granted by the poet
exceptionally a man like Enoch or Elijah might doubt-
less be saved

death

or

out

But he

regards his hero not as an exceptional person hut as a
representative df the class

of

righteous sufferers, and as

such

(so

the poet thinks) Job cannot be raised from the

dead.

Job, then, in some unimaginable way will for

a

moment be enabled to see the Light of
His desire has been to have his innocence established
by the righteous Judge that desire Shaddai will bring
to pass.' First, the

or Vindicator (see

will

convey to Job the pledge of

his

willingness to act as

(cp Ruth

4

then the solemn act of justification

will be performed in the presence of Job.

We

must

not be 'wise above that which is written,' and speculate
with the help of later Jewish eschatology

on

the change

which, for Job, must pass upon

when he returns

thither at peace with God.

Certain it is, that Job, and

therefore also his poet, has broken with the conventional

Shaddai (see

N

A

ME

S

,

occurs

times

in

the

of

Job.

2474

JOB (BOOK)

doctrine of

but he has not formed

a

new and

better doctrine, capable of being presented in poetical
form.

The view that

anticipates

restoration

to

health and

prosperity

in

this

life

still finds

supporters (see Bu.,

Laue,

49f

Beer

It

appears

to

the

present

to

he

with an

a

priori view

of the

structure of

the

Book of

and,

in

the case

of

Budde especially, with

an

unduly

optimistic view

of

M T

in

this passage. Di. and

Da.

both

favour the

view that

Job's justification will be

after

death such

also,

in

a form

agreeing in

with

that

given ahove,

is

the view of

We.

Smend

Gesch.

and

Of

these

critics, Duhm has given most

attention

to

t h e

text; hut his retention of

and his introduction of

(which properly means a tribal or religious sign

on

the

person [see

can

by no means be justified. The restor-

ation offered

is

the writer's third experiment

; it is,

even if imperfect, neither hasty nor arbitrary.

A few

notes

I n 1.

we

should

read

J O B

(BOOK)

appear for his vindication and been disappointed

the

account of

which this view presupposes,

is

that

which the best recent critics of Job have rejected.
Still, it remains true that the Job

we meet with

from chap.

20

onwards,

that tender religious

undertone which surprises and delights

us

in the first

colloquy, and we might be tempted to suppose with
Meinhold that

a

new part of the poem begins at chap.

20.

This supposition we might support by the

theory that when the poet reached the end of chap. 19,
he laid his work aside for a

and that when he

resumed it he was himself in

a

less religious and

a

more definitely critical frame of mind than before.
This theory, however, is by no means probable. T h e
poet would certainly have corrected his earlier work,
and not have allowed such strongly contrasting works
to stand side by side. W e cannot help supposing that
another member of the guild of wise men to which the
poet belonged, took up his

and continued it,

so

as

to embody

a

somewhat different conception of the

hero.

This view is supported by the phenomena of

chaps. 29-31.

Several critics have noticed that this

much-admired section is deficient in unity. Chaps.
are a n elegy chap. 31 is a proud self-justification. T h e
present writer

thought

a

that the author might

have written chap. 31 some time after he wrote chaps.

and have placed it here by an afterthought,

omitting to construct a connecting link with the preced-
ing chapter.

But there is no necessity for such a n

assumption here.

T h e elegy in chaps.

appears to

be the original conclusion of the colloquies-the counter-
part of the elegy (chap.

3)

which forms the opening of

Any one who will read chaps.

and

consecu-

tively will be struck by the appropriateness of the
arrangement. Chap.

19

itself is strongly elegiac.

As

Davidson says, ' H e realises

.

.

.

more clearly than

ever he had done before, his dreary isolation, God and
men being alike estranged from him, which he laments
in most pathetic words.'

Have pity, have pity upon

me,

0

ye my friends,' is its central passage, and when

the sufferer thinks of the cruel insinuations of his
friends, he warns-he does not threaten them.

H e

speaks indeed of an Avenger of blood, but it is God,
not God's misguided advocates, from whom reparation

is

expected, and there is an Over-God, whose nature is

Love, and whom Job longs to be permitted to love.

After this we are prepared to hear his sorrowful retro-
spect of past happiness in chap. 29, and the contrasted
contemplation of his present abject condition in chap.

The first part is

a

poetic commentary on the

opening verses of the prologue

(1

:-

the poem.

0

that I were

as

in

months past,

As

in

the

days

when God watched over

he made

his lamp shine

ahove my head,

By his light I

went

in

darkness

According

as

I

fared in my (life's) way,

When God screened my

tent

When

mine

intimates

were

with

me,

And

my

children

were

round about me

I t seems far back-the time when the poor and father-
less blessed him, and when the great

their

words a t his presence.

Now to those who once

honoured him he is a

The Providence which

used to guard him is no more; God hears him not.

It is

true,

2313 expresses disappointment

at

God's

evident

determination not

to

hear

Job's

case,

but

this

has

no

reference

to

the

hope uttered in

Although

Job's

wish for

an

equitable discussion

of

his

case

has

found repeated expression,

he has never deluded himself with the fancy that his wish will

be granted. He could

never

have said, with reference to this,

39,

n.

Reading

or

Bu., Beer, Du.):

omitted (see

and

v.

should follow

I

know,' I am sure.'

88

_-

.

as

in

17

3

[Beer Bu. Du.]

a

passage which belongs

to

the

same

group as

:

the

idea of

a

division

in t h e

divine Being-the God of

love

over

against

the

God

of wrath.

For the impossible

read

(Is.

508)

this reading

is

practically certain. M T s

is now generally explained

as

'='

vindicator' (cp Perles,

which

produces

a

good parallel

to

hut is

in

itself unnatural.

has

no

intelligible meaning. As Eichhorn

1 3 8 8 )

remarks

always

means

' t o

assail.'

Unaware

Eichhorn We:

makes the

same

observation and

to render MT, 'will

arise (as

witness)

against

against

the

Job

!

This

too

artificial either

or

must

he

read, and

con-

sidering

Jdh has mentioned

his

expec-

tation of 'lying down

on

on

the

dusty

of

(see

it

is the more reasonable

course t o

the

latter and retain

which means '(lying) upon the

21

2 6 ;

for

an

easy

change;

the

preformatives

and

are

frequently confounded.

I n

3 for

read probably

is

dittographed. For

read

fell out owing

to

cp

(in dread

The much tortured

is

a

mere editorial

guess.

clearly

a

of

(note

the

warning

a

gloss

on

is

a

corruption

a

gloss

on

('God shall arise

.

.

.

lo

revive me

1.

the

critics

have

not

noticed that

returns

to his

statement in

v.

yet to a

practised eye

should

reveal its secret. Read

'n

for

in

Perles, Beer) ;

has two

beats.

I n

is too

vague and the threat

of

a

violent

death is

not

in

character with

of chaps. 3-19. Nor

is

there

any

allusion

to

the threat in Zophar's third speech. Read

03131

and

and

for

ann

read

(Ges.). The last

three words of

in the consonantal text (read, with

Bu.,

'that ye may know that there is

a

judge') are

a

gloss.

Job has now taken

a

long step forward tow-ards the

religious solution of the problem of the suffering of the

and since true religion

is

primarily individualistic he can, if

he will, afford to

lay

the large problem

of the suffering of

classes

of men on one

side.

The importance of the deeply felt utterance of

Job in 1925 is universally

yet none perhaps

have realised its bearing on the structure of the poem

and

The former critic makes

new part of the poem begin a t chap. 20 the latter

thinks that the non-appearance of

to recognise

Job's

innocence has produced

a

radical transformation

of the character of Job, who, aggrieved a t his dis-
appointment, becomes an open blasphemer, gives an

unqualified denial to the divine righteousness, and,
welcoming a temptation which he has twice before

overcome, challenges God, in language

full

of Titanic pride, to a n investigation of his case

35-37).

The latter view is, certainly inadmissible.

Nothing

is

said in the second cycle of speeches which

leads

us

to suppose that Job had expected God to

dertsch.

go.

Die

des

53, 77,

2475

JOB

(BOOK)

Life has ceased to be a song of joy he is perishing by
a slow, painful death.

My skin falls, blackened from me,
M y bones are burned

heat ;

My cithern is changed to mourning,
My pipe to notes of grief

So

ends the elegy according to the present text.

Most

probably, however,

has taken the place of two

lost stanzas which formed the real conclusion

after

this may have come the editorial notice, The words of
Job are ended’

That the writer intended it

to be followed by the present epilogue is impossible;
neither chap.

19

nor chap. 30 could possibly have been

followed by

Whether the writer gave an epilogue

of his own, or left his work a torso, it is impossible to

,conjecture.

The skilful writer who, with an object that we shall

see later, undertook to continue the earlier poem, had

no difficulty in adopting his pre-
decessor’s style, though he fails very

much in consistent delineation of character.

Zophar

no

doubt is still the same blunt person as before

(though

must not be quoted as a proof of

hut Eliphaz too is surely blunt enough in

Job

for his part disdains to answer such

He is

absorbed in the astonishing heresy

(so

he deems it)

which he has to propound.

He shrinks from it with

horror, and yet ventures to state it-the divine governor
of the world is non-moral.

The friends may prescribe

methods of operation to God which are pleasing to

human minds, hut God too clearly shows that they are
not the methods which he himself adopts.

Not unnaturally chap.

21

gave offence to many

readers.

I t appears that

16-18

were inserted to

conform the passage to the prevalent doctrine of
retribution.

Though Budde and Duhm still claim for

i t the authorship of Job, Siegfried‘s view, which is here

adopted, seems more probable. At any rate,
corrections have certainly been made elsewhere in this

chapter. Thus, in

MT says, that after a prosper-

ous

life the wicked man goes down ‘ i n

a

moment’

into

This cannot be right the true text

probably had

‘in luxury.’

So

in

and

6

is an orthodox correction which makes Job say that

the wicked man is reserved for the day of calamity, and
led forth

(?)

to the day of wrath.

I n

30a

it seems necessary to read

and

in

b

seems to be a corruption of

should also be

read for

in

28).

T h e whole description of the wicked

man’s career in

28-33

is full of textual errors. ‘Know their

tokens’

(u.

should be ‘examine travellers’

are ludicrously wrong.

Read probably,

‘Seeing that he is escorted (in honour) to the citadel, and

,diligently seeks

sanctuary of G o d ’ “

‘Gold he amasses like the sand, and

of his

treasures there is no number’

Perhaps no passage has given more useless exercise to

exegetical ingenuity than this.

That even Eliphaz should follow Zophar’s example,

and hurl the falsest accusations against Job, would be
indeed a striking phenomenon, if the original writer
were responsible for this speech.

’Surely,’ he says,

‘thy wickedness is great, and thine iniquities are

‘infinite’

Job must be a practical atheist

21-30

appear to be a later

designed to mitigate

the strange contrast between the Eliphaz of chap.

22,

the editor interpreted according to his own fancy.

of

Ps.

88-a very Job-like psalm (cp Delitzsch).

31

I

looks a s if it were based on a scarcely legible text

its sadness the present conclusion reminds

us

of the close

The sanctuary would naturally be attached

to the citadel.

Note the points of contact between

(Eliphaz) and

2133

emended text). I t is

not likely that the chief

p o e t

would have fallen into

such a

close parallelism

between Job and Eliphaz.

2477

For

read

JOB (BOOK)

and the kindly speaker who opened the first colloquy).
Job’s next speech, in its original form, was probably
intended to show that, as the wicked often enjoy a long
and prosperous life,

so

the righteous often experience

but

Such

a

case is his own. God’s

commandments have been his rule of life.

If he could

only find

ever eludes his search-and induce

him to listen to his plea, his vindication would be
certain.

True, Job

have to

one condition

with God ( 2 3 6 ; cp 934,

In

M T

the passage is

strangely distorted

most probably it should run thus-

H e would remove the pressure of his hand

me

;

Then he would use no threatening

L

O

But alas! it has become too plain that

God

has

resolved to destroy him

13

read

with

Du.),

though God knows full well that if he were to examine

Job would come forth as gold

and feeling

himself to

the spokesman of the suffering righteous

everywhere, Job goes on

(so

we

suppose) to pro-

duce further evidence for the awful theory of Gods non-
moral character.

T h e true continuation, however, has

been lost.

Chap.

24, as

Duhm rightly holds, is not a

connected discourse, but

a

cycle of poems written in

tristichs instead of

It is only

that we

can safely regard as genuine this is the true close of
Job’s original speech.

How Bildad took this powerful indictment

of

the

Governor of the world, does not appear. His third
speech was lost, and a rhetorical description of the
power, wisdom, and purity of God was inserted as a
substitute.

The second part

of

this description was,

by a scribe’s error, transposed

so

as

to

after

T h e latter passage is properly Job’s ironical answer to
this superfine but unoriginal piece of rhetoric; it is
therefore necessarily not genuine. J o b s true answer to
the (lost) speech of Bildad is to be found in chap.

27.

I t is, however, impossible to ascribe the whole of this
chapter to Job part of it in all probability is a genuine
fragment of the third speech of Zophar.“ T h e calm-
ness of Job’s dignified protest in

and

is very

noteworthy.

Duhm contrasts it with the bitterness of

J o b s earlier speeches, and ascribes the change of tone
to the intuition expressed by Job in chap.

19.

The

observation is j u s t ; but the cause assigned does not
seem to be the right one.

As

we have seen, it is a

partly new conception of Job that underlies these later
chapters.

Job is calm because that bitter-sweet under-

current of yearning love to God which appears again
and again in chaps.

3-19

does not disturb or distract

him.

If

it is correct to view

13-23

as

a

fragment

of

Zophar’s last speech, the latter certainly merited the
disdain with which Job treated it.

I t is, however,

impossible that we have here the attempt of a later
orthodox writer to make the sufferer retract his heterodox
statements (cp chap. 28). At any rate it has no right
to appear in the last speech of Job, the true continuation
of which

be sought elsewhere. W e have in fact

reached the great

Oath of Clearing,’ by which Job

finally proves his innocence, and which represents the

Cp

with 216 (which precedes the description

of the

T h e parallelism

is

pointed

out

by

prosperity of the wicked).
Duhm.

a

I n

should be read thus,

T h e tristichs in

are imperfectly preserved, and the

form may therefore be doubted.

It does not seem likely, how-

ever that this member of the cycle of poems would be in

when the other members were in tristichs.

4

So

Gra. (MGWJ,

Che. (Job

and Sol.

G.

Hoffm Duhm.

and

Hoffm.,

however, are wrong in

chap.

28

to Zophar (see below).

is only

and

13.23

which

can

reasonably be given

to

this lover

of

platitudes.

Moulton,

p.

J O B

(BOOK)

high-water mark of Old Testament morality.
words to his friends are-

His last

Behold, ye have

all seen

it

'

Why

then

do

ye so

vainly

(27

Then, in all probability, followed an appendix,

so

framed as to form

a

parallel to chaps.

29

The

opening words were transferred to the end, when chaps.

29

were removed to their present place.

Let us

restore

to its proper place a t the head of the

Oath of Clearing,' and since it is highly corrupt, let

us

endeavour to emend it in accordance with Job's

aspirations elsewhere.

0

that he would hearken to my voice,

.

[And

listen

to

the

words of

my

complaint,]

That he would take away the insulting of mine

That he would

lay his

hand upon

us

both I

Surely my concern would I present,

1

would

arrange arguments for

him ;

I would tell him the

of my steps,

My

rising up and my lying down he would examine.

The usual view

is

that Job imagines himself approaching

the Divine

(whom in

356

he is made to call

' m y

adversary') with the proud self-possession of a 'prince'

holding the accusation written

God and his own answer with

his signature and

that

declares that if he

possessed

this

he would

not

hide it as a thin which brought

disgrace,

parade

it upon

his back

a distinction

(cp

Is. 22

and (or wear it

as

a diadem

on

his

All

this

is

violently improbable, and yet this very passage is

utilised in the service

of

the theory

that

fell away

from

his

God (Laue,

96).

Hoffmann deserves credit

for

his

refusal to twist the exegesis

of

36

in

order

to

soften the

surprising character

of

the passage. It is God he

says

whom

Job

says that he will take

upon

his hack and

upon himself

as

a

coronet-an Ungeheuerlichkeit,'

says

Budde yes, indeed,

hut

an

inevitable one,

if the present

text

is to he

strictly

interpreted. It is probable that the passage can he restored

nearly to its original state. The most important emendations

are

(1.

8)

For the rest, see

Then this ideal righteous man tells us how he would

clear himself if God were to hear his cry, and investi-
gate his case.

H e goes through

a

catalogue of evil

deeds and thoughts, and in the most solemn manner
imprecates upon himself God's vengeance if he be guilty.
The first two stanzas

5-8)

fit on particularly well

to the last stanza of the introduction
they continue the figure of the way.'

T h e last stanza

is by no means a n equally good conclusion.

Doubt-

less, like

35-37

(which, as we have seen, should form

the opening of the chapter), it has been misplaced, and
probably the same fate has befallen

If

so,

the last extant part of the monologue will be

*

*

*

*

*

If,

when I

saw

how

the sun shone,

Or the

moon walking

in

splendour,

My

heart was

secretly beguiled

And I kissed-putting hand

to

This, however, cannot be the true conclusion.

Un-

fortunately that was lost at an early date, and the two
opening stanzas were detached

so

as to form

a

con-

clusion.

W e can now see why the second wise man undertook

to continue the original colloquies.

It was to complete

the disproof of the current theorythat sufferingwas always
either disciplinary or educative.

This wise man must

have agreed with his predecessor in rejecting the
Epilogue, and he would certainly not have sanctioned
either the speeches of Elihu or even the grand orations
of Yahwb.

Read

;

cp

Ps.

62

where

a

similar emendation is

JOB (BOOK)

T o the speeches of Elihu we now turn our attention.

According to Duhm Elihu

is

brought before

us

as

a

repuired.

31

are doubtless an editorial insertion (cp

4

with v.

3

'The opponent' is a collective

term

for

the friends who

with one

consent vilify

(cp

43

I

).

In

the

next

the

continuator forgets that, according

t o

the original poet, God

is Job's adversary, and the friends

merely

his partial advocates.

4

Davidson's view of

as

the repudiation of another

class of secret sins is hardly quite satisfactory.

They

fill

the place

of a n

illegible

passage.

distinguished historical person, and

so

(as a man

family') contrasts

with Job and the three friends.

The

truth, however, probably is that the prolixity of the
description of Elihu in

is due to corruption and

interpolation

Elihu was originally called simply the

son of Jerahmeel

e . , the Jerahmeelite, with reference

to a Jerahmeelite famous in legend for his wisdom,
who appears to be mentioned in

I

K.

(on the text

see J

ERAHMEEL

,

The lateness of the prose

introduction to chaps.

3 2 - 3 7

is shown by the use of the

ethnic 'the

which presupposes the corrupt

traditional reading

Gen.

2221,

'and

his brother

(instead of

' a n d Ahibuz

cp

Anticipating some surprise a t Elihu's appearance, the
narrator states that Elihu was angry with Job because
he held himself more righteous than God, and with
the friends because they found no answer (to Job), and

so

made God seem guilty

H e says himself

that he had waited because he was so young, and
assuredly he falls into all the worst errors of juvenility.
There

is

no intention, however, of amusing the reader

the faults of juvenility were also the faults of the narrow,
orthodox school to which the writer belonged. T h e
matter

of

which Elihu is so full

( 3 2

is distributed

over four speeches. The themes of the first three are

(

I

)

the ground and object of suffering

the

righteousness of God

( 3 )

the use of religion

( 3 5 ) .

These are treated in relation to the erroneous utterances
of Job, whom (unlike the three friends) Elihu constantly
mentions by name.

Then, in his last and longest

effort, Elihu

before Job

a

picture

of

the divine

government, in its beneficence and righteousness a s
well as its omnipotence, with the object of breaking
down Job's pride

I t

is

in the second part of

his last speech that Elihu exerts himself most as

a

poet,

and it has often been suggested that the sketch of the
storm in

and the accompanying appeals

to

Job, are preparatory to the theophany in

38

I

(so

lately

Moulton, xxxiii).

The objection is

( I )

that the

close of the speech

of

Elihu does not relate to the

storm, as it ought

to

do,

that Yahwb begins

( 3 8 2 )

with the declaration that the last speaker was

a

darkener of (the divine) counsel. W e shall return to
the Elihu section which

is

more interesting theologically

than poetically see

There is much corruption

and possibly some interpolation in

Elihu.'

shall not spend more time on this speaker, whose
discourses are but a foil to the Colloquies, the speeches
of

and the Praise of Wisdom.

W e now pass on to the great poetical ornament

of

the book.

The

of Yahwk

serve

a

purpose.

They are a link

between the Colloquies (in their

and the

and

they present, if not

a

solution, yet a powerfully ex-

pressed substitute for

a

solution of the great problem of

suffering. The writer had rejected the theory defended
by the three friends; he also disapproved of Job's
vehement censure of the divine government of the world,
but not, we

suppose, of his intuition of a justifica-

tion

of

the righteous after death.

H e was obliged to

make

intervene in Job's lifetime, because he felt

it necessary for the circulation of the book (Prologue

Cp

further

12.

Barachel and Ram are probably fragments

of

'

Jerah-

'The

would

of

course be superfluous after

of

Jerahmeel.

It seems

to

be due to

a

scribe who had hefore him

the same corrupt text that we have.

was suggested

4

was

the true name of the brother

of

and Jerah-

according to

Gen. 22

Jerahmeel' should

ably be read for Kemuel the father of Aram,'

a

late editor

produced the latter

as

attempt to make sense of corrupt

fragments of Jerahmeel.

See

2480

2479

J O B

(BOOK)

J O B

(BOOK)

and Colloquies) that it should be accompanied by the
Epilogue, and he could not help making YahwB pass
a

strong censure on J o b s fault-finding propensity, partly

no

doubt to satisfy his own conscience, and partly also

to make it possible for

in

to

eulogise Job’s

statements respecting God (after Job had retracted all
that could justly be accused of arrogance).

An

editor has prefixed to these Speeches the words,

‘And YahwB answered Job out of the tempest, and

said (38

I

) ,

but it would have been more in the spirit

of our poet to have quoted

I

K.

19

(Elijah’s

theophany), where it is distinctly said that

was

not present in the storm-wind.

I t

is

by an appeal to

the reason, not by physical terror, that YahwB seeks to
work upon Job, though the

mysteriousness of the

universe, as set forth poetically by YahwB, forces from
the lips of Job the words :-

I had

heard

of thee hy the ear,

But

now

mine eye has

seen

thee

Therefore I must pine away

And‘dissolve to dust and

What Job means

is

that his previous notions

of

the

divine government were derived from mere doctrine,
whereas now he had obtained

a

vivid intuition of God’s

working, not merely among

but in the great and

complex universe.

H e had in fact seen

G o d s

glory,

and the strain upon his whole nature was such that he
seemed about to break down.

Of consciousness of

offence on his part there

is

no trace his error

was

of intellectual origin, and this certainly did not

require him to ‘repent in dust and ashes.’ The only
charge hrought against him

is

that he has darkened

(Gods)

counsel by words without insight’ ( 3 8 2 ; cp

Remonstrance is the general purport

of

the

speeches of YahwB, and though the form of this may be
humiliating to Job, yet the glorious pictures of nature
which are presented cannot fail to lighten his load of
grief (see Blake’s beautiful thirteenth illustration of Job).

Unfortunately the

of the Speeches is in some dis-

order. As the text stands, the Divine Speaker breaks
off a t

with

a

searching question which elicits from

Job a confession of his ignorance.

This, however,

cannot be right.

Another question is put in

and,

as

Davidson remarks, the second question

is

implied

in

the first. As Bickell and Duhm have seen,

8-12

must originally have followed

v.

the separ-

ation was consequent on the interpolation of

40

15-41

(Behemoth and Leviathan).

The Behemoth and

Leviathan passages will be considered later

other

insertions are the passage

on

the ostrich

(39

13-18),

and,

according to G. Hoffmann and Duhm, 38136

15

3828,

too, should be omitted

as

a

tautological prose

version of

w.

T h e poem (for

as

such we may regard

it) will gain much by restoration to its original form
its splendid imagery will then be seen to the best
advantage.2

T h e earth, the sea, the world under the

sea

and the manifold wonders of the heavens

are successively treated Job

asked whether perchance

he brought these into existence, or knows the secrets
connected with

More striking, however, are the

poetical pictures of animals.

Nine (excluding the

ostrich) are brought before

us

in

searching

interrogatory the poet enters into

habits of each,

and conveys to

us

the fascination of which h e is

conscious himself.

Regretfully we

from dilating on these pictures. in

special

the omission is partly remedied (see,

Read

(Bottcher, Beer), and

Jnh surely

cannot say that he

is

now ready to die on his ash-mound, with

the gladness of

one

who has seen God

of

the poem are to some extent treated in

special articles.

3

There

are

Zoroastrian parallels. See the question put by

to

in

the

(Yasna

443-5

in the

Oxford

3

also

the

fine description

of

the

divine creative acts

‘in

(West,

2481

C

REATION

.

H

ORSE

;

O

STRICH

;

.

S

TARS

UNICORN).’ It

he

that

the

pictures were

in

number

is

deficient

in

some details) : if

so,

we need

not

regret

the insertions.

the

raven-stanza

and

adopts Wright’s conjecture

‘for the evening’);

cp

52,

n.

4.

More probably

is a

corruption

of

‘for

the

wolf.‘

The

lion

and the

wolf

are

naturally mentioned together.

Our survey of Job would be most imperfect if we did

not mention here a t least the principal interpolations

Duhm hints

a

doubt respectin

This

can hardly

be

right.

(cp especially

and Duhm).

(

I

)

T h e poems

of

which

is

composed are as follows

vv.

a

fragment on the merciless rapacity of the’wicked.

Details of this sort are not characteristic of Job.

T h e

other poems spoken of being in tristichs, it is probable
that

(a)

was also written in this form.

T h e text, how-

ever, is in

a

bad condition.

For

I

48

only gives

omitting

text was already corrupted,

reasons;

v.

which is also omitted, was apparently unintelligible. In

fact,

and

are

obscure. Duhm’s restoration of the

imperfect tristich in v.

I

is not quite natural, and he has

to

change

It is better to

emend in such

a

way as

to

suit the sequel.

should probably

he

for

the rest

see

The

sense

which we obtain

is,

Why do the wicked prosper?

They grind the face of

the

destitute;

Bad men oppress the poor.

Verses

8

I

O

adescription

of

anoppressed,

pariah race.

This should be taken with

which

contains the sequel.

Text very b a d ; compare

or

contrast

(c)

Verses

a

sketch of the

against the light ‘-murderers, thieves, etc.

( d ) Verses

a

fragment on the end

of

tyrants.

Text very bad.

more on the unhappy pariahs and tro-

glodytes; one could almost fancy that it came from
the oration of

a

democratic leader (cp

( 3 )

N o

earthly treasures lie too deep

for

human industry, but Wisdom is with God alone. By
Wisdom the writer means the Reason which originated
and pervades the phenomena of the world (cp Prov.

8).

T h e poem cannot have been written to stand where it
does, for it is altogether in

a

different style, full of

imagery, and too rich for the deep but simple idea
which it

is

meant to convey

it contains no allusion

whatever to Job’s

An editor of the Collo-

quies, however, seems to have thought that it might
fitly be introduced (cp Job

11

5-12),

because Job,

as a

censor of the government of the world, had virtually
questioned the existence of the Divine Wisdom (a
different view of Wisdom). According to this
minded person all speculation was

and he

pleased himself with making Job anticipate his re-
tractation in

Verse

comes from his pen,

unless, as the warning Pasek after

may perhaps

suggest, the interpolated verse

is

no longer in its

original form, in which case we must be cautions

far

we accuse the interpolator of narrowness of mind

it may have been a later scribe who made the best
substitute he could for an indistinctly written passage.

It

is

the distinction of Duhm to have cleared up the exegetical

problem of the opening word

‘for’).

Verse

7

is

usually

to take

up

what is said in v.

the path’

is

the way

to the place of ‘sapphires

But

it

much

more

natural

to

suppose

that

the words ‘(But) whence doth wisdom

come,’

etc.,

which

now

appear

in

and

v.

originally stood

before

7,

and if the refrain was forgotten

we may

reasonably explain the ‘for’ in v.

I

as

referring

to

the same

refrain, which would therefore

seem

to have opened each of the

For

a seemingly important emendation

of

the text

of

see

So

Studer Che.

Sol.

Du Laue. On the

other side see

Budde, and

414).

3

Rel.

In v.

has evidently intruded from

13.

5

As

was the case in Pss. 46 and

49.

2482

JOB

(BOOK)

JOB (BOOK)

four stanzas of the

Into the complicated controversy

which has

arisen out

of

this little word ‘for,’ it

is

needless

to

enter.

Budde adheres

to

the

ingenious but unnatural theory

which he proposed

in

2

he has

not

however, convinced

still

hold;

to

view (Bleek‘s

that

27

27

is

of

late

when restored to its original strophic form,

is

a

beautiful specimen of Hebrew poetry.

The cor-

ruptions of the text are not incurable (see, besides the

of Budde and Duhm, the articles

G

O

L

D

,

L

ION

,

M

INING

,

S

APPHIRE

,

T

OPAZ

).

T h e

delight

which the author takes in his knowledge of mining and

of

gems (cp Dante) is communicated to the reader.

(4)

See O

STRICH

.

(5)

41

T h e description

of two mythical monsterscalled Behemothand Leviathan;

the old mythological tradition having become pale, the
poet fills

up

the gaps in his supposed knowledge from

what he had seen

or

heard of the two Nile

the hippopotamus and the crocodile (see

B

EHEM

OTH AND

L

EVIATHAN

,

HIPPOPOTAMUS). If Job was really G o d s

equal, he could of course bring even these wondrous
creatures into subjection.

T h e seeming hyperboles in

the descriptions are partly due to corruption of the text.

Thus in 4017 ‘tail’ and

‘cedar’

in

4131 ‘pot

of ointment,’

and

41

the

I n

40

17

we

should perhaps read ‘he cleaveth reeds as with

shears;

the

sinews

of his neck

are

intertwined’

in

41

maketh

the

hoary’

sea

disappear.

sea like a

and

in

32

the sea is his

path; the dark places of

the sea

are his

For other

critical

emendations,

see

H

O

O

K

,

J

O

R

D

AN

,

S

O

UL

,

and of course

such writers as Budde, Duhm,

and Beer should be

consulted. Budde

Duhm, however,

start

with an

incorrect

theory as

to

the meaning of the

names

Behemoth and Leviathan.

That the passages which we have been considering

really are interpolations, can hardly be questioned

except

on

the ground of

an a priori

assumption of the

unity of the hook.

They are interpolations because

their insertion in the Book of

has involved inter-

ference with the form of the context, except where,

as

in the case of chap. 28 (see

the interference was

confined to the inserted poem itself, and, even when

beautiful

in

themselves, they mar the effect of the true

poem of Job.

The Speeches of Elihu are somewhat differently

circumstanced.

I t seems

to call them (with

G.

Hoffmann)

a

supplement to the original

poem, rather than an interpolation.

Their

insertion (if they were inserted) has in-
volved taking no liberty, either with the

text of the speeches themselves, or with that of the
Colloquies of Job and his three friends, and some

think that they give the best solution of Job’s

problem that was, from the point of view of the Hebrew
Wisdom, possible, and that without them the Speeches

of

would be liable to the charge of using force

towards Job instead of argument.

This charge, how-

ever, would be valid only if the Speeches of
belong to the author

or

authors of the Colloquies.

For

certainly the Speeches of

noble as they are in

themselves, are not such

as

were adapted to impress

the supposed auditor (see,

233-7).

As

to the high

estimate of the Elihu Speeches in the writers referred to,
it may be enough to say that (in spite of Elihu‘s asser-
tion in 32146) there

is

hardly any argument in the Elihu

section which cannot he found in the Speeches of the
Friends, while the description of God‘s incomprehensible
greatness in

appears like a n inferior copy

of

Each stanza consists of four tetrastichs or quatrains.

Giesebrecht

’79) adopts a

3

Read

See

Read

Read

(see

and cp

point

of

view

akin

to

that of Budde.

and in

for

.

.

.

.

.

Am.

3).

Among older scholars Stickel

and among recent

writers Budde,

and

may

he specially

mentioned.

the Speeches

of

T h e admiration expressed by

some critics for the teaching of Elihu

is

certainly much

exaggerated, and would not have been shared by the
poet of the Colloquies, who rejects the doctrine of

Friends.

Not to speak now of the poverty of the style,

it may truly be said that the speaker or writer thinks
far too much of his minute advances in religious theory.
T h e only excuse for him is his marvellous

Here

is one

of

his self-assertive utterances :-

I

will

fetch

my

knowledge

from

far,

And

will

see

justice done

to

my

Maker,

For truly

my

words

are

no

lies

One perfect in knowledge is

thee

Elihu’s

favourite theory of the disciplinary character of suffering

368-25)

was fully stated by Eliphaz a t the

outset

If he ceases to advocate it, it is

because Job will not allow that it applies to his case.
There is only one section

in

which Elihu may claim

some originality.

H e says (3314) that God speaks to

sinners in two ways ; first, by alarming them with
dreams

15-18),

and next by sending them sicknesses

which would have

a

fatal issue but fot the intervention

of

a

friendly angel

19-28).

The central stanza of the

former passage

should run thus

:-

What a n over-estimate of his originality

!

By a dream a vision

of

the night,

In

upon

the bed,

He

opens

the

ears

of

men

And

makes

their flesh

to

Here

differs from Eliphaz his model by making

the dream (see

a

means of

withholding a man

from injustice

’

17.

after

The

most important part of the second passage (3322-25) is
very incorrectly given in MT, though the
given to M T by critics (cp P

ARACLETE

) does not

seriously misrepresent the mind of the

Most

probably we should read as follows :-

And his soul draws

near to

the pit,

And

his

life

to

the dark world,

Unless an

angel

redeem

him,

One who rescues

man

from

Abaddon,

And he be gracious

to

him, and say,

Let

him go

I have found the

ransom

of

his

soul

Let

his

flesh

swell

with youthful strength,

Let him

return to

the days

of

his

*

*

Here Elihu ventures on a virtual contradiction of

Eliphaz who

( v .

I

)

denies that holy ones,‘

angels,

can

help

a

man struck

deadly sickness.

H e

positively asserts that when

a

sick man seems near

his

one of those angels whom God commissions,

not to lie in wait (like the Satan) for the tripping of the
righteous, hut to prevent the chastisement of penitent
sinners from going too far, rescues him from the
destroying angel who has already grasped him.

The

‘ransom spoken of is probably the prayer of penitent

confession

26-28).

The angelology of

Elihu’

is

MT,

obscurely,

‘and seals their disci-

pline’ (or, ‘their

@,

Aq., Pesh. (Bick., G. Hoffm.,

Bu.,

Beer, Du.),

‘terrifies.’ For

Du., Beer sug-

gest

‘terrors’

But this

leaves metre and parallelism imperfect. A close inspection

reveals

(see

4

;

Ps.

119

120). Writing

the letters of M T continuously,

one

sees how the error

arose.

In

for

‘to

the

which is not

properly

to

‘to

the pit,’ read

gives one beat

more,

but has no other

recommenda-

tion. In 1.

read

the

after

In

4

read

was perhaps still in

the text when the gloss

was inserted.

hy

a

little

transposition and corruption, became

Bu.

omits

agloss, which isunjustifiable. In 1.

5

read

(so

some MSS) with

Wright, Gra.,

Beer.

In

7

read

Hoffm.,

Bi., Bu.,

In

6

insert

Bu., Du.

JOB (BOOK)

therefore more developed than that of the Colloquies

(cp

and

We have on the one hand an angel of Death and on the

other a n angelic redeemer. Whatever may have

popularly

believed a t a n earlier date it is only a late poet (later it would
seem than those who

the tone to the Psalter

later

also

the poem of Job) who could have

sanctioned this belief.

Elihu's minute reproductions of sayings

o f Job (see

also point to an author who had

the book before him as a whole so far as it was then extant.
What he gives us is a

of the doctrine of earthly

retribution in what seemed to him a n improved form, and h e
gives this reassertion greater force by leading the reader to
suppose that Job was silenced by

it,

and that

tacitly

approved it.

there are many points of

contact between Elihu and the Colloquies is not

denied (cp Bu.,

but there

are also many words

and phrases

peculiar to Elihu'

(ib.

which

would hardly have been the case if

'

Elihu

were written by the author of the Colloquies, considering
that the circle of ideas in Elihu' is not very different from

that in the Colloquies. I t may of course be answered
that an interval of some duration separates the com-
position of the two sections,

so

that we are ultimately

thrown back on the question whether it is likely that
the same writer would have worked up the old material

again with the object of restating old solutions of

Job's

problem.

A

good deal has been said on the larger

number of Aramaisms in Elihu as compared with the
Colloquies, and, as the text

now

stands, not without

reason.

But the text of

Elihu' is in urgent need of

critical emendation

in Job376 is certainly

wrong).'

So

far as the present writer can see,

the legitimate emendations of the text of

'

Elihu

'

not raise the Speeches of Elihu to the same plane of

literary excellence as the Speeches of Job and his Friends

(upon which, be it remembered, the same beneficent art

.of critical emendation has also to be practised).

Budde,

it is true, is of an opposite opinion. By the removal of

corruptions and interpolations he thinks that the linguistic
.argument against the so-called genuineness of the

Elihu-section has lost its basis, and that both the form

.and the contents of the speeches can now be much

appreciated

Einl.,

T o

this statement adequately would require too much
space.

The present writer has no disinclination to

in the effort to relieve Elihu's speeches from some

of the rust which has gathered about them; but he
feels sure that no restoration can make the picture

a

masterpiece (cp Driver,

in

Prologue and

ought to have been a condemnation of Elihu

in the Epilogue the non-mention of him in the Prologue
we can perhaps pass over. I t is absurd to speak of the

.harmony

(?)

between the Speeches of Elihu and those

of

as

sufficiently indicating

approval of

his youthful advocate (Stickel). Almost more reasonable

is

the statement in the

Testament

( a Greek Jewish

Midrash), 'And after he (Elihu) had ended, God

appeared to me (Job) in a storm and in clouds, and
spoke, blaming Elihu, and showing me that he who
had spoken was not a man but a wild

I t

would, indeed, have been inhuman to harass a sufferer
like Job with such feeble commonplaces

T h e recognition of the fact that the Book

of

Job, like

Homer and like the Sagas, has grown together by the

combination of different elements, has an
important bearing on the date

of

the Book.

'The phrase the Book

of

Job may have two meanings

:

(

I

)

the original Book of Job,

so

far as it is extant

and

the Book of Job with the

latest inserted passages. The date of the Book, in the

second sense, will be that of the latest insertion in the

first

will be that of the writing

of

the Prologue

'The Testament

of

Kohut

333.

Elihu

Perles,

Siegfr.,

J O B

(BOOK)

and Epilogue.

The latter date can easily be determined.

A prominent supernatural personage in the celestial
court is called

the Satan

adversary,'

accuser

').

The same personage appears in his character of accuser
before

in Zech.

3,

and it can readily be shown

(see S

ATAN

) that the conception of the Satan is more

developed in

and

2

than in Zech.

Now

date of Zech.

3

is

the first Book of Job is

therefore later than

I t is no objection to this

date:

that the picture of the life of Job in the

Prologue is in harmony with the old patriarchal stories,

or

(6)

that the author shows himself to be a gifted

narrator.

The Book of Ruth shows that there were

highly gifted narrators in the later times, and such a
writer could easily imitate the patriarchal stories.

I f

the

( E V

piece of money) in

is really copied

from Gen. 33

the writer of the original Job was only

too faithful an imitator, for

is probablya corrup-

tion of a much more intelligible and historical phrase
(see

The mention of the Chaldeans (1

17)

as

marauders has been thought to point to the period before
Nabopolassar

Nebuchadrezzar.

But Chaldeans'

should probably be Cushites' (see

I

)

the

Cushites and 'Sabeans' of antiquity were remembered

by

a

late tradition (cp Ch.

T h e date of the Prologue and Epilogue is marked

(I)

by the double restoration

of

Job's

may be a

which corresponds to a standing

feature in the descriptions of glorified Israel (see Is.

61

7,

Zech.

Jer.

and

still more by the

parallelism between the story of Job's calamity and
restored prosperity and the figurative description of
the vicissitudes

of

the Servant of

in Is.

,

T h e latter point requires some elucidation.

Is. 53

3

46 7

are like a poetic description of the stroke

of Job's

sickness, of the horror of his

and of his own

pious resignation G.

deserves special credit

for pointing out the analogy of the metaphorical sickness
of the Servant to the actual sickness

of

Job.

I t appears

likely that Job, who in the Prologue and the Epilogue is

a

type of Israel, partly suggested the figurative description
of the Servant of

'-the personification of the

company of pious Israelites in the age inaugurated by
Ezra which regarded itself as the true, spiritual Israel.

Reflecting

the

Job's misery, the writer (of Is.

53) came to the conclusion that God must have appointed
this for the good of those who, unlike Job, were trans-
gressors (cp

and that J o b s consciousness of this

must have helped him to bear his sufferings

And taking Job

fo

be a type of Israel,

he became assured that true Israelites, who bore the
sufferings brought upon them through the great national
calamity as uncomplainingly as Job

the Job of the

original Book), would like him be the means of salvation
to others, and would thus, like him, demonstrate the
possibility of disinterested piety.

I t must surely be

admitted that the two writers (of the original Job

of

the Servant passages) belonged to the same period,
and if

so

it is probable that they lived subsequently to

the introduction of Ezra's lawbook, for this is the period
to which the passages on the Servant of Yahwi: may
most plausibly beassigned (see S

ERVANT

OF

L

ORD

).

I t is, however, not quite impossible to give both Is.

53

and the original Book of Job a somewhat earlier date,

somewhere about

B.

which

the date to

which

G.

Hoffmann,

34,

assigns the 'genuine

Book of Job.'

I t is impossible to estimate with precision the amount of lin-

guistic evidence for the late date of Prologue, Epilogue, and

Colloquies, owing to the frequent

of the text. For

instance, the first three words cited by Dillmann

a s

Aramaic probably do not belong to the true text of the Colloquies.

This

is

of importance.

But see Budde's note.

Jew.

162.

Dillmann asserts,

'In

Zech. (1

6 5 )

the Prologue of Job is already used and imitated

Einl. p. xxxvi). See, however, Nowack,

325.

2486

J O B

(BOOK)

in

and

in 31 33 are corrupt; and 15

which

contains

(a

favourite word of Elihu), is a wretched distich,

which has

place in this fine poem;

a doubly

Aramaic form, also occurs

an

interpolated distich

see Bick.,

which Beer

83)

and Nestle

172

rightly claim a s an Aram. word for

(so

‘

skin-bottle,’ is found again in an inserted dis-

tich

(1328;

see

Du.);

‘my witness,’

and

in

(see

R

A

H

AB

)

are corrupt.

There are, however,

doubted Aramaisms, such a s

with

plural

and

and often),

(168

22

Dillmann accounts for these partly as dialectal peculiarities

partly as arising from a rhythmic need of variety; hut the forme;
explanationcannot safelybepressed.
characteristic of later Hebrew (7th

or 6th century) he mention;

(a)

I O ;

‘ t o

a n Aramaic usage.

But Dillmann’s note on 22

is most unsatisfactory he is com-

pelled to take the next word

to mean ‘ a thing’-a purely

imaginary meaning, though one commentator after another re-
affirms it.

T h e passage is corrupt ;

comes from

the line

is

copied from 11 17

which see

10

it occurs in the

late

appendage

t o

the third speech of Eliphaz;

(a doubtful

(e)

hand),’

Here again the text is corrup

more confidence

in 73.

Read

‘that h e

would grant my prayer and shatter me.’

‘tyrant,:

21

as

in

Is.

13

The change from liberal, noble to tyrant

is

not

probable (contrast

Is.

and it is better to emend to

both passages. (g)

223.

1 0

But

was certainly not

‘disorderly’

is based on a miswritten form of

(j)

4 13

(doubtful passages).

21

6.

(m)

21 34. Dillmann

also

mentions the use of for the accusative, and the occasional

use of the plural in

H e might have added that the relative

only occurs once

the M T

of

the Colloquies

(192963); it

is found, however, in Lam. 2

(see L

AMENTATIONS

).

On the whole, Dillmann has not been able to indicate many

distinctly late Hebrew words in the Colloquies ; rare words
only to be explained from the Arabic, need not necessarily
late, though the possibility of the late adoption of Arabic words
in literary Hebrew

be

I t would seem that if the

writer is of late date (and the other arguments go far to prove
that he is so)

took

pains to cultivate a classic Hebrew style

and his success shows that the facilities for writing
were great there was probably a regular school for the practice
of classic Hebrew writing. T h e falling off

in

the Hebrew of

Ben Sira is very noticeable.

To

place the Book

of

Job-whether in a larger or a

narrower sense-in the age of Jeremiah (Dill., Konig),
o r more precisely not long before the siege of Jerusalem,
is becoming more and more difficult.

I t is true, the

death of

and the sad events which rapidly

followed, must have prompted the question, Wherefore
doth the way

of

the wicked prosper’ (Jer.

12

cp Job

21

7 ) ?

Moreover, we actually find Jeremiah

cursing the day on which he was born.

It is true, both

passages are liable to grave suspicion, and may without
arbitrariness he regarded as secondary’ even Dillmann
questions

20

14-18.

But even accepting provisionally

Jeremiah‘s authorship

of

both passages, we cannot

draw any critical inference from this.

Poetry like that

of

Job and the Psalms represents, not the scanty band

of

a

prophet’s disciples, but that large section of the

community which had a t length absorbed Jeremiah’s

The parallelism is bad, and the distich does

not fit in with

the context.

The scribe may have collected the

singular

combination

of

corrupt variants

v.

from different manuscripts.

See Konig

who, with Dillmann, reads

the

is

See also Konia on the

and

(8

7

T I

1223).

(continue

is a corruption of

JOB (BOOK)

ideas.

probability, therefore, is that the poems

which contain parallels to passages plausibly ascribed to
Jeremiah were written

a

good while after that prophet’s

age.

It is true the language of Job is

so

vigorous and,

comparatively speaking,

so

pure (especially when a

methodical textual criticism has been applied) that
apart from other considerations one’s first impulse might
be to place such a book

early.

But

early it

is impossible to place it, and a time of rapid national
decline, like that of Jeremiah, is really less suitable for
the composition of such a fine work than any moderately

part of the Persian period.

As

a compromise

might of course refer the work to the exilic period (see

lxvii Che. Job

74).

But

when we

take the ideas of the book into consideration, we see
that it is best understood as the provisional summing
up

of

a

long period

of

meditation under the combination

of special influences which existed in the post-exilic

age

and at no other period.

How much later the existing Colloquies were sub-

stituted for the original Colloquies or Colloquy,

is of

course uncertain.

The former imply a heightened

interest in the problem of suffering. The wise men tell
Job that he must have been a great sinner to have been
overtaken by such

a

calamity.

So

in

Is.

6317

we find

the Jewish community asking why

bad caused

the Jews to err from his ways, and hardened their hearts

so

as not to fear him? The company

of

faithful Jews

Servant of

could not remember any

transgressions sufficient to account for the recent aggra-
vation of their misery.

They were those who worked

righteousness and remembered the ways that God would
have’

(Is.

yet they were compelled to suppose

that Israel had somehow broken faith, and become
guilty in the eyes

of

God,

so

that all their righteous

deeds (which they could

no

more disown than Job could

disown his righteousness) were as a filthy garment (Is.

645

and consequently they had to bear the

weight of God‘s unaccountable anger. This is analogous
t o what the three Friends would have had Job say, and
what he stoutly refused to s a y ; there is nothing to

compare with it in the section consisting of Is. 40-55

.

variation of usage in

Job between

of

is a translation.

and

4

Ihn Ezra (on Job 2

expresses the opinion that the

Book

I n his

the language a s

and says that it

expresses the

genius

of

Arabic. This is in every way a n

exaggeration.

14).

The later we bring down the date

of

the Colloquies

the better we can understand not only the atmosphere
of political and social unrest (see,

which seems

to pervade them (cp

but also the wide

intellectual interests of the author.

Even if we restrict

view to Job

3-19,

the extent of those interests is very

striking the earlier writer apparently had it in him to
say nearly all the best that his successors have said.
Apart from their particular controversy, both Job and
the Friends state much that is admirable respecting God
and human nature, and show an interest

in

the world

of nature which can only be paralleled to some extent
in the second part of Isaiah.

The angelology and

mythological allusions, too, indicate a remarkable
freedom from religious scruple, such as we know to
have characterised the later

Nor must we

omit to pay homage to the purity and inwardness of the
morality of

Job’s

great self-justification (chap.

31).

H e

may seem to be self-righteous but this is only due to
the predominance of the conception of God as

a

Judge.

He knows equally well with the Friends that essential
purity belongs to God alone, though the passage which
distinctly expresses this truth

( 1 4 4 )

is

plainly an

Job has never really fallen away from

God.

Nor are the authors of the Colloquies sceptics except as
regards an antiquated orthodoxy. They are no doubt

I n

Professor Davidson places the Book ‘somewhere in

the troubled period between the early part of the seventh and
the fifth centuries.

See

Job

270; and cp Budde,

Hiob,

Einl.

3

I t interrupts the connection. Rudde keeps

passage

the text, hut in the note inclines to regard it as

an

(so Bick., Beer).

2488

JOB

(BOOK)

JOB

(BOOK)

in

a

sense cosmopolitans.

Either by hearsay or by

travel (cp

6

21

they have

real acquaintance

with the world outside

But to all that, from a

modern Christian point of view, is fundamental in the
Jewish religion Job is as loyal as Ezra himself. And
what can be more truly prophetic than Job's appeal to
God's love against his undiscriminating wrath? All
this can hardly have been written much before the close

of the Persian

The Speeches of YahwB

6)

belong to

a

poet of

the same school as the poem on the Divine Wisdom

(28

1-27)

they are, however, of

earlier date

than that fine poem, which contains one line borrowed

from the Speeches

cp 38

256).

The writer's in-

terest in the problem of suffering is but slight.

Nor does

philosophical speculation attract him : he is a n observer
-a

poetic observer-of nature.

Chap. 28 has special

with the eulogies of wisdom in Prov.

3

13-20

and

The happy tone, the interest in nature, and

the case of chap. 28 (and parallels) the tendency to

hypostatize Wisdom, suggest the bringing down of all

these works to the period of widened outlook and
greater freedom from anxiety at the beginning of the
Greek rule.

W e need not, however, on this account

identify

wisdom,' with the

or the

indeed, such

a

view would oblige

us,

with Duhm,

to bring down Prov.

8

22-31

and Job28 to the

third

century

B.C.

The Zoroastrian conception of the two-

fold wisdom

2

(heavenly and earthly) is old enough to

have influenced the Jews : Persian (and Babylonian)
influences continued to be felt long after the fall of the

Persian Empire.

The various conflicting theories which have been

offered as to the

of

the book will now be seen

to proceed from a false assumption.
The book of Job has

no

literary

and cannot have had

a

pose.

I t has

it has not been made.

T h e

different parts of the book, however, had their purpose,
which must be sought for by an exegesis unfettered by

a

theories.

The earliest writer wished to suggest

that righteous Israel's sufferings were

an

honour, because

they showed that Israel's service of God was disinterested.
The next writer simply gave expression to the conflict-

ing thoughts of his time on the great problem of suffer-
i n g ; he himself had no definite solution to give.

A

third writer could only offer the anodyne of the poetic

imaginative observation of the wonders

of

nature.

A fourth sought to undo the work of his predecessors

b y restating a theory which had not, he thought, been
adequately represented before.

The present book

is heterogeneous

amorphous ; it gives

us,

however,

a

picture of Jewish religious life and thongbt which is of

priceless value.

For a subtle and interesting attempt to

commend a very different view see

of the Introduc-

tion to Budde's comnientary.

The genuine Septuagint text has been practically

recovered from the

Version

of

Egypt) of Job

Agostino Ciasca in 1889;

39

is

the only lacuna,

It is shorter than the Hebrew

text

nearly 400 stichi. Origen in his

supplied its deficiencies from Theodotion, mark-

i n g

the insertions by asterisks, and there are still five

MSS

which give Origen's marks more or

com-

pletely (see Hatch,

on

Greek,

216).

Hatch in 1889 accepted the shorter Septuagint form as

that of the original Book of Job, and Bickell

whenever his metrical theory will allow it, follows

the

Dillmann, however, in the Transactions

of

the Royal Prussian Academy

See Kleinert.

B.

.

For Bickell's earlier view of

see his

,De

ac ratione

A

in

('63).

a , p. 79 cp

P

ERSIA

(Religion).

3

See

'go)

has subjected Hatch's arguments to a de-

tailed consideration, and has shown that, except

a

few cases, the omissions were arbitrarily made by the

translator, or, as we might almost better call

him, paraphrast. This does not, of course, exclude the
possibility that some of the omissions may he justifiable
on grounds of internal criticism, and that the translator
may have been partly guided by warning signs
in the Hebrew text indicating the non-originality of
certain passages, some of which signs may easily have
become misplaced.

See further Budde, Hiob, Einl.

Beer, 'Textkritische

B.

Job,'

Beer's work deals with all the versions see also

Text

des

parts

'98). On the Peshitta,

see A. Mandl, Die

u.

(

2 0 1 7 7 8

(1900). See also

W.

Bacher, ' D a s

Targ.

Hiob,'

20

and H. Gratz,

Das

Zeitalter der griech. Uebersetz. des B.H.,

(a)

Text.-Now that the study of the textual criticism of Job

is entering on a new stage

must not

to

trace its earlier

These are the chief names.

C.

F.

Literature.

Houbigant (priest of the

Note

in

V T

A hundred years later A. Merx

reviewed

by

Nov.

hut gratefully by

H.

Schultz,

The import!

of the hook lies in its treatment of the text, especially

in its attempt a t a methodical use of the versions, not so much
in its use of a theory of strophes to discover interpolations or
lacunae.

P. de Lagarde,

see

('72).

G.

Bickell,

V T

giving

the text of Job arranged according to his metrical theory, marks
a step forward; cp Flunk in

G.

H.

Wright,

Book

a

new

translation

with essays on scansion, date,

('intended to follow

in

wake of the critical edition of A. Merx'), a pioneering work,
produced a t

Kong, with easily explained defects, a n d

strange indications of a critical tendency almost new among
students of the text of Job (cp Bndde, TLZ, une

'84;

Cheyne

and Solomon,

;

3QX

9

574,

H.

Gratz,

in

a review of Cheyne's Job and Solomon,

which contains a conspectus of

emendations as far a s

chap. 29, not included in the posthumous

G .

Hoffmann

cp Cheyne

1

Bickell

des

B.

Job

'86, p.

'

Bearbeitung des Job-dialogs,:

pp.

highest importance in spite of

its

too frequent arbitrariness,

which is subjected to good-natured banter

Budde.

Perhaps

however, Budde would have improved his own work by

more from Bickell. T h e theory that

poetical portions (except

the eight-line speech of Yahwi: and certain passages in tristichs)
are composed in four-line strophes cannot he said to have been
overthrown by Budde. On Bickell's view of the original Septu-
agint, see

C.

Siegfried 'Job' in

SBOT

(Heb.), '93 ;

R.

Gottheil

Bickell's work was not in time to

be used

Siegfried.

metrische Beschaffenheit des

B.H.'

pp.

and later essays in

'99.

G. Beer

Budde

Duhm

see below. Perles

Cheyne, The Text of

9

More Critical Gleanings from Job,'

10

and

many scattered notes

in

Crit. Bid., and the

present work.

Paul Vetter,

des

B.

(97).

also

Bickell, Budde, Duhm, and cp

94,

(1.)

Ley, as above.

L

I

T

E

R

ATUR

E

(c)

and Translations.-For orientation

the

work

of the earlier exegesis, see

indispensable work on

Introduction,

IO,

'History of Exegesis

cp

A

in

other book was so

impossible to interpret before the

of linguistic know-

ledge as that of Job.

I n the 16th century

both

for Job and for the 'Solomonic' writings did work of some
permanent value. The famous passage,

Job 19 25, he explains of

Job's hope of a public recognition of his innocence by God in

his lifetime.

The first strictly philological commentary

that

of Albert Schultens

vols. Leyden,

magnifi-

cent and thorough

to

the key of Arabic philology

to problems which were often only created

corruption of the

text. Elizabeth Smith

translation,

'

I

O

.

S.

Lee, '37.

H.

des

3

cp

Cheyne,

Renan

de

Job,

in

'60.

(valuable).

Hitzig, '74.

excellent).

A.

J. C. Matthes, part

commentary;

G.

L.

PO