sideration, had kept him silent so long, or induced him to veil in ambiguous innuendoes the crimes with which Job had stained the purity of his soul. For, of course, his sins were those of his time and class. Every Oriental "lord" was apt to play the tyrant. Irresponsible power rendered them inhumane. This was "the great wickedness" of Job. He had been heartless to the poor and needy, inhospitable to the stranger. "The man of the arm," i.e. of the strong arm, the man of power-in other words, he himself-to him the whole land belonged of right; and the man with the lofty brow, the proud look-again, he himself was alone entitled to dwell in it. All others held their possessions in it by his favour, and might be stripped of them at his caprice. He had not scrupled to strip them. Widows and orphans, of all mortals the least protected in the Orient, that they might not perish of want, had besought succour or grace of him; and he, who had first violently despoiled them of their inheritance, drove them with violence from his seat, the widow with empty hands, the orphan with broken arms.

Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts," wearing a mask of piety, these were the crimes of which he had been guilty in secret. And it is for these crimes, and for such crimes as these, that his way now stands thick with snares (comp. Chap. xviii. 8–10), that detection and destruction hem him in on every side, leaving no loophole of escape. His approaching ruin made itself felt even before it came upon him. He was shaken by sudden tremours and forebodings, all warning him that his end was at hand. It was not God, as he had complained (Chap. xix. 6, 8), who had "flung his net" about him and "set darkness in his paths: " the net was woven by his own fingers, the darkness was but the shadow cast by his own guilt.

Verse 11 is difficult only because there is so much in it. Job did not see the true cause of his sufferings, and therefore could not recognize their justice. And so Eliphaz points out to him that the darkness of which he complained, and the flood of misery in which he is being swept away, are but the natural and deserved punishment of his transgressions. But, besides this, there is in these words an allusion to the Deluge.

Indirectly, and by an allusion expanded in Verses 15-18, Eliphaz compares Job to that evil generation which, by crimes like his, had provoked the just perished miserably in the Flood.

resentment of Heaven, and Let Job beware, lest he too

should be drowned in the depths of his own transgressions. Weighed down by iniquities so many and so heinous, how can he hope to escape?

With what wing shall his affections fly
Toward fronting peril and opposed decay?

Eliphaz, leading Job toward the brink from which he may see his non-existing sins, cuts but a sorry figure for so great a man, and would be a strange picture of the blind man leading the man with eyes, if there were not so many modern repetitions of it.

In the second section (Verses 12-20) he traces the inhumanity and tyranny of Job to his impiety, to his false conception of God and of God's relation to man. Because Job has denied retribution to be the only law of the Divine Providence, Eliphaz assumes him to deny that Providence altogether. According to him, Job conceives of God as strolling along the vault of heaven, careless of mankind and "their ancient tale of wrong," not descending to earth in order to administer justice, nor leaving the easy Paradise which He has planted for Himself; too far off to see, too self-absorbed to care for, the wrongs and miseries of men (Verses 12-14). In the previous Colloquy (Chap. xxi. 7-16) Job had, indeed, expressed his astonishment that many of the wicked wax old and become mighty, wearing away their days in mirth and affluence, smitten by no judgment, although they say unto God, "Depart from us!" and, "What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him?" But he had also expressly affirmed that their prosperity did not spring from their own hand, and had disavowed all part and lot with them, in the formula of deprecation and abhorrence: "Far from me be the counsel of the wicked!" And now, with the artifice and insincerity of a mere controversialist bent on victory, Eliphaz puts into the mouth of Job himself the very words which Job had put into the mouth of the wicked, and even renounces all part in

his detestable sentiments in the very formula in which he had himself renounced all participation in them! "Wilt thou," he demands, with an explicit reference to the generation swept away by the Deluge (Verses 15, 16), "keep that ancient path, trodden by men of sin, who were cut off before their time, whose firm foundation became a flowing stream?" Wilt thou say to God, and of God, what they said? And he instantly and evidently assumes that Job will, that he has fallen into their base Epicurean conception of the Almighty. For he not only hastily deprecates that conception for himself; he also proceeds, in Verses 19, 20, to shew how the truly righteous regard the rise and fall of the wicked; how they look cheerfully on the phenomena which fill Job with sadness and with sad and obstinate questionings, sure that the higher the wicked rise the lower they will fall; and how they, the truly pious, will mock at them when they topple over to destruction, and will exult in their fall. As one listens to him, indeed, one is tempted to exclaim, "Far from us be the counsel of the righteous!"

In the third section (Verses 21-30) Eliphaz exhorts Job to return to right thoughts of Jehovah, to enter into the right relation to Him, urging especially upon him how much, in many ways, he will gain thereby. It is a strange mixture of earthly and heavenly good that he offers him. But the fact that Eliphaz dwells mainly on the delights of communion with God and on the power to succour the downcast and to intercede for the guilty-dwelling most on these spiritual advantages because he thinks them most likely to allure and persuade Job-shews, I think, that he had formed a much truer and higher conception of the man than he has allowed to

appear.

He urges Job to "make friends" with God, to take the law of his life from God's mouth, that so good may come to him, and peace,-meaning by "good," not goodness, but good fortune, and by "peace," rest from the obstinate questionings and restless doubts with which he was wearying himself in vain (Verses 21 and 22). If he return to the Almighty— from whom, however, he has never wandered-he shall be "built up," another synonym for good fortune, for outward

prosperity (Verse 23). But, in order that he may return, he must put away "iniquity"-i.e., the secret spoils, the iniquitous gains, the treasures acquired by violence and extortionwhich he has hidden in his tent (comp. Chap. xi. 14). Nay, more, he must renounce the treasures in which hitherto he has put his trust, even though he have acquired them honestly, flinging his gold upon the ground and among the stones of the torrent; for, in Verse 24, " Ophir" is but a synonym for gold.1 If he will put from him the fine gold in which he has trusted and delighted, then the Almighty will Himself become his treasure and his delight (Verse 25). He whose face, like that of Cain, is now cast down with a burdening sense of guilt, will lift up his head with fearless joy (Verse 26). When he prays, instead of, as now, remaining deaf and mute, God will answer him. He will "pay his vows," because the favour or deliverance he asks will be vouchsafed him, so that his vow will always fall due (Verse 27). Success will wait on his schemes. and enterprises; light will shine on all his ways, so that he will neither stumble nor miss his aim (Verse 28). And, best of all for a man of his generous and compassionate temper, his words will shed new strength into fainting hearts; power will be given him to succour the weak and distressed; and, he himself being righteous, his supplications will become so effectual, that they will avail even for the unrighteous (Verses 29, 30). His prayer shall be that

Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

This glowing description of the peace, the happiness, and the power to serve, which result from friendship with God, is not unworthy to be the last utterance of Eliphaz, if only we drop out of it the sinister lines in which he depicts Job as needing to put away his iniquity and to return to the Almighty. It is characteristic of the man. For, as I have said, in these closing words the prophetic Eliphaz foreshadows

1 Just as the fabric woven from the filaments of the nettle is called “muslin," from Mossul, and cloth with figures in it, damask," from Damascus, so gold is named from Ophir, on the north coast of the Runn and east of the mouth of the Indus, the place where it was then most copiously produced.-Delitzsch.

the true and final close of this great drama. And it is really very remarkable, and must, I think, be taken as a stroke of unstudied and unconscious art, that in the very last Verse put into his mouth, the Poet makes him utter a prediction which was afterwards most happily fulfilled in his own experience and in that of the Friends for whom he speaks. As he finally retires from an argument too high for him, he tells Job that his prayers will avail, and the pureness of his hands, even for "him that is not guiltless." And in the last Chapter of the Poem we read that the anger of the Lord was kindled against Eliphaz and against his two friends, and that He sent them to Job, that he might intercede for them; "for," said Jehovah, him will I surely accept, and not deal out to you according to your impiety." The prophecy of Eliphaz was thus literally fulfilled; the fervent effectual prayer of Job did avail to deliver even those who were not guiltless.

And so, with a prediction on his lips, afterwards fulfilled with so strange and so just an irony, Eliphaz goes on his way, and we hear him no more.

2. JOB TO ELIPHAZ.

CHAPTERS XXIII. AND XXIV.

A man who has eschewed evil and followed after that which is good, till God Himself has pronounced him upright and perfect, might, one should think, be so happy as "to avoid the carping censures of the world," or at least of his friends, even though both his friends and the world were ignorant of the Divine verdict upon him; nay, even though they themselves knew but little of his past history. For virtue and piety leave a visible stamp and impress on the very nature of the man who has long served them.

There is a kind of character in his life,

That to the observer doth his history
Fully unfold,

quite fully enough, at all events, to save us from mistaking