tried. For a survey of the train of thought in this book, see the Programme cited, p. 19 sqq. Compare also my review of Hahn's and Schlottmann's Commentaries on the Book of Job in Reuter's Repertorium, 1852.

(2) Stickel (Das Buch Hiob, etc., 1842, p. 186 sqq.) was the first to point out the correct meaning of this difficult section.

(3) Hence, but for the speeches of Elihu, an essential aspect of the Divine purpose in sending affliction would not have been treated of at all in this book,-a circumstance which might indeed have given a subsequent writer occasion for interpolating this portion. Nor must it be by any means overlooked, that without these speeches there would be no due acknow. ledgment that the three friends of Job were so far in the right when they asserted that affliction always has a reference to the sinfulness of man. In the place which these addresses now occupy in the book, they serve at the same time to prepare for that humble submission of Job which was to be brought about by the appearance of the Almighty. See the conclusion

of the section.

(4) See above, in the description of objective Divine wisdom, § 237.

(5) Job xxxvii. 21 sqq. (a storm is supposed to be approaching): "Now we see not the sunshine which nevertheless glitters in the cloud; then the wind passeth over it, and cleanseth it. From the north cometh gold: the glory about God is terrible. We cannot find the Almighty, who is excellent in power; in judgment and in fulness of justice He does not afflict. Therefore men fear Him: He respecteth not the wise of heart."

$248. Continuation.

The question which still remains to be discussed is, What position does the Book of Job, which keeps the attention directed to the state of man after death, beyond any book of

doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, rests upon a misconception. It is, however, true that in it are deposited the presuppositions of the hope of eternal life. For it brings forward, in passages already mentioned, the painful contradiction existing between man's destiny to communion with God and that descent to Sheol which awaits him, and at the same time testifies that the mind, in its struggle with this contradiction, cannot avoid attaining to a glimpse of its solution. A remarkable progress is in this respect manifested in this book. For though in vii. 7 sqq., x. 20-22, the lamentations over the transitoriness of man and the abode in Sheol, the region of night, whence there is no return, sound quite hopeless, the hope is already expressed, in ch. xiv., that the sojourn in Sheol may be but a transient one, and that the time may come when God, having a desire towards the work of His hands, shall turn again to man. It is said, ver. 14, "If a man dies, shall he live? All the days of my campaign will I wait, till my discharge come ;" and, ver. 15, "Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thy hands.". And the anticipation prepared for by xvi. 18 sqq. reaches its climax in the passage xix. 25-27, where Job, no longer expecting a justification of his innocence during the short respite still allotted him, expresses, on the other hand, his confidence that God will arise even over his grave as his Goel, his avenger of blood, to retrieve his honour before the world, by inflicting judgments upon those who had suspected him, and that he shall behold this Divine interposition. Notwithstanding the multitude of erroneous explanations which have been offered, the only view which can be accepted as doing justice to the words, is that which regards the passage as expressing the hope of a manifestation of God to be made in Job's favour after his death. It may perhaps be disputed whether Job's beholding God as his Redeemer (Goel) is to take place in another world. For certainly the view, advocated especially by H. Schultz (1), that Job was only ng himself to the period after his death,-that he was

now seeing with the eye of the mind how God would then appear as his witness and procure his acquittal,-must not be regarded as absolutely impossible. The imperfect is, however, utterly unfavourable to this explanation. Still the passage, even according to the explanation which we have adopted, speaks only of a momentary beholding, which, however, presupposes a continuance of Job's communion with God after death. But the hope which here flashes for a moment like lightning through the darkness of temptation, is as yet no mature faith in a happy and eternal life after death, and consequently does not furnish a solution to the enigmas with which the book is occupied. This presentiment of Job appears only as a last resort, if the solution should remain undiscovered in this world. In the course of the poem, it is evident that this glimpse of hope on the part of Job has the effect of enabling him to maintain greater composure; but in the end the solution is brought to pass in a manner which confirms the Old Testament doctrine of retribution, and keeps the book within Old Testament limits. That final solution of all enigmas, that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in the children of God, was not discovered by Job, nor by the Old Testament in general. By reason of the constant connection existing between revealed knowledge and the facts of revelation, a belief in eternal life which should be truly stable could not arise until the acquisition of eternal life, as faith in Him who in His own person overcame death and brought life and immortality to light, and who through His redeeming work has perfected also the saints of the Old Testament, Heb. xi. 40.

(1) See H. Schultz, Die Voraussetzungen der christl. Lehre von der Unsterblichkeit, p. 222, and Alttest. Theol. ii. p. 169 sq.

FIFTH SECTION.

RENUNCIATION OF THE SOLUTION IN THE BOOK OF

ECCLESIASTES.

$249.

Standpoint of this Book. Inquiry concerning Divine Retribution and Immortality.

The Book of Ecclesiastes, whose composition is probably to be referred to the second half of the fifth (comp. § 191), or at latest to the fourth century B.C., forms the conclusion of the canonical Old Testament Khochmah. Its standpoint may be briefly designated as that of a renunciation of comprehending that Divine government of the world, the reality of which to faith, it, however, firmly embraces. The proposition with which the book opens, "Vanity of vanities; . . . all is vanity," is not to be taken in an objective sense, as though the world were but the region of chance, which the author expressly denies, but in the subjective meaning that for man, notwithstanding all his efforts after knowledge, and all his activity, the course of this world yields nothing real or permanent ; on which account it is immediately added, i. 3, "What profit (1) hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" The latter sentence is not intended to state a problem which is about to be solved in the book,-the question as to what is the supreme good being thus regarded as the theme of the work, -for the author has done with the notion that any, any result, is to be expected. The words are rather an exclamation in a negative sense, expressing the resultlessness of all human efforts. This is accordingly proved, the author speaking in the person of the ancient king Solomon, the wise and glorious

monarch, who had enjoyed in rich abundance all that this world can offer, had obtained whatever man can obtain, and now at the close of his life testified that in all this he had found no real satisfaction, no true happiness. Even the wisdom of which he possessed a larger measure than other mortals, had only the effect of convincing him that real good is not to be found by man in aught earthly. This negation, however, of all finite objects does not advance to the perception of a positive and eternal object. On the contrary, absolute good being hidden from man, nothing is left for him but to accept with resignation the relative good which consists in using this fleeting life as well as possible, by being obedient to the Divine commands and mindful of the approaching Divine judgment, while at the same time committing all to God√(1). This book is equally misunderstood when its author is credited with a knowledge surpassing Old Testament limits, and especially with the knowledge of eternal life, etc., and when he is regarded as a fatalist or an Epicurean. So little does this book preach infidelity, that its author does not surrender even one of the doctrines transmitted to him. That there is a Divine government of the world, that there is a righteous retribution, faith may not question: it is the how of these matters that man is unable to comprehend. God, it is said, iii. 11, hath made everything beautiful in its time; He hath also set eternity in the heart of man. For we are not justified in giving here to y another than its usual meaning, which it retains also in ver. 14. The expression refers back to the reflections, ii. 12 sqq. (2). Man, the author would say, cannot cease to seek that which is eternal and imperishable ;" but man cannot find out the work that God doeth from beginning to end," i.e. is never able to understand the result produced by the God-ordained course of the world (3). This appears especially in respect of Divine retribution. Experience is seen by the author to be always at variance with the adoption of this doctrine. If the Book of Proverbs categorically lays down (as we have seen, sec. 3, §