all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call seniority, or considerably advanced age, and official them brethren; Heb. ii. 11.

Verse 23. He increaseth the nations] Mr. Good Verse 20. He removeth away the speech of the translates, He letteth the nations grow licentious. trusty] The faithful counsellor and the eloquent Pride, fulness of bread, with extensive trade and orator avail nothing: Quos Deus vult perdere, prius commerce, produce luxury; and this is ever accomdementat; 66 God infatuates those whom he is deter-panied with profligacy of manners. When, then, the mined to destroy." The writer might have had his eyes on Isai. iii. 1—3, which the reader will do well

Job reproves his friends

CHAP. XIII.

often contracts even those. All these things seem to occur as natural events, and the consequences of state intrigues, and such like causes; but when divine inspiration comes to pronounce upon them, they are shown to be the consequence of God's acting in his judgment and mercy; for it is by him that kings reign; it is he who putteth down one and raiseth up another.

Verse 24. He taketh away the heart of the chief] Suddenly deprives the leaders of great counsels, or mighty armies, of courage; so that, panic-struck, they flee when none pursueth, or are confounded when about to enter on the accomplishment of important designs.

for their harsh judgment.

and thou shalt GROPE AT NOONDAY, as the BLIND GROPETH IN DARKNESS. And this also may refer to the unaccountable errors, transgressions, and judicial blindness of the Israelites in their journeying to the promised land; but it will apply also to the state of wicked nations under judicial blindness. The writer is principally indebted for his imagery, and indeed for the chief expressions used here, to Ps. cvii. 27: They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man. 39, 40: Again, they are minished and brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. He POURETH CONTEMPT UPON PRINCES, and CAUSETH THEM TO WANDER IN THE WILDERNESS, where there is NO WAY. Mr. Good has some judicious reflections on this chapter, particularly on ver. 13-22: "It should be observed," says he, "that the entire passage has a reference to the machinery of a regular and political government; and that its general drift is to imprint on the mind of the hearer the important doctrine that the whole of the constituent principles of such a government, its officers and institutions; its monarchs and princes; its privy counsellors, judges, and ministers of state; its chieftains, public orators, and assembly of elders; its nobles, or men of hereditary rank; and its stout robust peasantry, as we should express it in the present day; nay, the deep designing villains that plot in secret its destruction;

And causeth them to wander in a wilderness] A plain allusion to the journeyings of the Israelites in the deserts of Arabia, on their way to the promised land. Their chief, Aaron, had his courage all taken aray by the clamours of the people; and so made them a molten calf to be the object of their worship, which defection from God was the cause of their wandering nearly forty years in the trackless wilderness. The reference is so marked, that it scarcely admits of a doubt; yet Houbigant and some others have called it in question, and suppose that those chiefs or heads of families which led out colonies into distant parts are principally intended. It answers too well to the case of the Israelites in the wilderness-that the nations themselves, and the heads or soveto admit of any other interpretation.

Verse 25. They grope in the dark] The writer seems to have had his eye on those words of Moses, Deut. xxviii. 28, 29: The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart;

reigns of the nations, are all and equally in the hands of the Almighty: that with him human pomp is poverty; human excellence,turpitude; human judgment, error; human wisdom, folly; human dignity, contempt; human strength, weakness."

CHAPTER XIII.

Job defends himself against the accusations of his friends, and accuses them of endeavouring to pervert truth, 1-8. Threatens them with God's judgments, 9-12. Begs some respite, expresses strong confidence in God, 13-19. He pleads with God, and deplores his secere trials and sufferings, 20-28.

and

NOTES ON CHAP. XIII.

Verse 1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this] Ye have brought nothing new to me ; I know those maxims as well as you: nor have you any knowledge of which I am not possessed.

3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.

A. M. cir. 2484.
B. C. cir. 1520.
Ante I. Ol.
cir. 744.
Ante U.C. c.767.

him I could soon prove my innocence of the evils with which ye charge me.

Verse 4. Ye are forgers of lies] Ye frame deceitful arguments: ye reason sophistically, and pervert truth and justice, in order to support your cause.

Physicians of no value.] Ye are as feeble in your Verse 3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty] reasonings as ye are inefficient in your skill. Ye can ulam, O that :—I wish I could speak to the Al-neither heal the wound of my mind, nor the disease mighty!

I desire to reason with God.] He speaks here in reference to the proceedings in a court of justice. Ye pretend to be advocates for God, but ye are forgers of lies: 0 that God himself would appear! Before

of my body. In ancient times every wise man professed skill in the healing art, and probably Job's friends had tried their skill on his body as well as on his mind. He therefore had, in his argument against their teaching, a double advantage: Your skill in

thus ye wickedly contend for your Maker.

Verse 8. Will ye accept his person?] Do you think to act by him as you would by a mortal; and, by telling lies in his favour, attempt to conciliate his esteem?

divinity and physic is equal: in the former ye are ground alone that ye pretend to vindicate the proforgers of lies; in the latter, ye are good-for-nothing|vidence of God. Thus ye tell lies for God's sake, and physicians. I can see no reason to depart from the general meaning of the original to which the ancient Versions adhere. The Chaldee says: "Ye are idle physicians; and, like the mortified flesh which is cut off with the knife, so are the whole of you." The imagery in the former clause is chirurgical, and refers to the sewing together or connecting the divided sides of wounds: for topheley, which we translate forgers, comes from bu taphal, to fasten, tie, connect, sew together. And I question whether topheley here may not as well express SURGEONS, as Dropheey, in the latter clause, PHYSICIANS. Ye are CHIRURGEONS of falsity, and worthless PHYSICIANS.

Verse 5. Hold your peace; and it should be your wisdom.] In Prov. xvii. 28 we have the following apophthegm: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips, a man of understanding." There is no reason to say that Solomon quotes from Job: I have already expressed my opinion that the high antiquity attributed to this book is perfectly unfounded, and that there is much more evidence that Solomon was its author, than there is that it was the composition of Moses. But, whenever Job lived, whether before Abraham, or after Moses, the book was not written till the time of Solomon, if not later. But as to the saying in question, it is a general apophthegm, and may be found among the wise sayings of all nations.

I may observe here that a silent man is not likely to be a fool; for a fool will be always prating, or, according to another adage, a fool's bolt is soon shot. The Latins have the same proverb: Vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur, "A wise man speaks little."

Verse 6. Hear now my reasoning] The speeches in this book are conceived as if delivered in a court of justice, different counsellors pleading against each other. Hence most of the terms are forensic.

Verse 7. Will ye speak wickedly for God?] In order to support your own cause, in contradiction to the evidence which the whole of my life bears to the uprightness of my heart, will ye continue to assert that God could not thus afflict me, unless flagrant iniquity were found in my ways; for it is on this

Verse 9. Is it good that he should search you out? Would it be to your credit if God should try your hearts, and uncover the motives of your conduct? Were you tried as I am, how would you appear?

Do ye so mock him?] Do ye think that you can deceive him; and by flattering speeches bring him to your terms, as you would bring an undiscerning, empty mortal, like yourselves?

Verse 10. He will surely reprove you] You may expect, not only his disapprobation, but his hot displeasure.

Verse 11. His dread fall upon you?] The very apprehension of his wrath is sufficient to crush you to nothing.

Verse 12. Your remembrances are like unto ashes] Your memorable sayings are proverbs of dust. This is properly the meaning of the original: 391)

zichroneycem mishley epher. This he speaks in reference to the ancient and reputedly wise saying which they had so copiously quoted against him.

Your bodies to bodies of clay.] This clause is va riously translated: Your swelling heaps are swelling heaps of mire. That is, Your high-flown speeches are dark, involved, and incoherent; they are all sound no sense; great swelling words, either of difficult o no meaning, or of no point as applicable to my case

Verse 13. Hold your peace] You have perverte righteousness and truth, and your pleadings are totall irrelevant to the case; you have travelled out of th road; you have left law and justice behind you; is high time that you should have done.

Let come on me what will.] I will now defen myself against you, and leave the cause to its issue

Verse 14. Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teet A proverbial expression. I risk every thing on t justice of my cause. I put my life in my hand, 1 Sa xxviii. 21. I run all hazards; I am fearless of t consequences.

CHAP. XIII.

A.M. cir. 2484. in him: but I will maintain | me speak, and answer thou me,

23 How many are mine inAnte U.C.c.767. 16 He also shall be my sal-iquities and sins? make me to vation for an hypocrite shall know my transgression and my

27 Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and 'lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou

21 Withdraw thine hand far from me: and settest a print upon the " heels of my feet. let not thy dread make me afraid.

28 And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as

22 Then call thou, and I will answer: or let a garment that is moth-eaten.

The weakness, vanity, and

man.

JOB.

Verse 27. Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks] Da bassad," in a clog," such as was tied to the feet of slaves, to prevent them from running away. This is still used in the West Indies, among slave-dealers; and is there called the pudding, being a large collar of iron, locked round the ancle of the unfortunate Some have had them twenty pounds' weight; | and, having been condemned to carry them for several years, when released could not walk without them! A case of this kind I knew: The slave had learnt to walk well with his pudding, but when taken off, if he attempted to walk, he fell down, and was obliged to resume it occasionally, till practice had taught him the proper centre of gravity, which had been so materially altered by wearing so large a weight; the

sinfulness of man.

badge at once of his oppression, and of the cruelty of his task-masters!

And lookest narrowly] Thou hast seen all my goings out and comings in; and there is no step I have taken in life with which thou art unacquainted. Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.] Some understand this as the mark left on the foot by the clog; or the owner's mark indented on this clog; or, Thou hast pursued me as a hound does his game, by the scent.

Verse 28. And he, as a rotten thing] I am like a vessel made of skin; rotten, because of old age; or like a garment corroded by the moth. So the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic understood it. The word he may refer to himself.

CHAPTER XIV.

The unavoidable necessity of

The shortness, misery, and sinfulness of man's life, 1-4. death; and the hope of a general resurrection, 5-15. Job deplores his own state, and the general wretchedness of man, 16–22.

are finely embodied, and happily expressed, in the beautiful lines of a very nervous and correct poet, too little known, but whose compositions deserve the first place among what may be called the minor poets of Britain. See at the end of the chapter.

Verse 3. Dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one] The whole of this chapter is directed to God alone; in no part of it does he take any notice of his friends.

Verse 1. Man-born of a woman] There is a debility, anility, and dissolution! All these images delicacy in the original, not often observed: 78 Adam yelud ishah, “ Adam born of a woman, few of days, and full of tremor." Adum, who did not spring from woman, but was immediately formed by God, had many days, for he lived nine hundred and thirty years; during which time neither sin nor death had multiplied in the earth, as they were found in the days of Job. But the Adam who springs now from woman, in the way of ordinary generation, has very few years. Seventy, on an average, being the highest term, may be well said to be few in days; and all matter of fact shows that they are full of fears and apprehensions, rogez, cares, anxieties, and tremors. He seems born, not indeed to live, but to die; and, by living, he forfeits the title to life.

Verse 2. He cometh forth like a flower] This is a frequent image both in the Old and New Testament writers; I need not quote the places here, as the readers will find them all in the margin.

He fleeth also as a shadow] Himself, as he appears among men, is only the shadow of his real, substantial, and eternal being. He is here compared to a vegetable; he springs up, bears his flower, is often nipped by disease, blasted by afflictions, and at last cut down by death. The bloom of youth, even in the most prosperous state, is only the forerunner of hoary

Verse 4. Who can bring a clean thing] This vers is thus rendered by the Chaldee :-" Who will produce a clean thing from man, who is polluted with sins, except God, who is one ?" By Coverdale thus Tho can make it cleane, that commeth of an unclean thinge? No body.

The text refers to man's original and corrupt nature Every man that is born into the world comes into i in a corrupt or sinful state. This is called origina sin; and is derived from fallen Adam, who is th stock, to the utmost ramifications of the huma family. Not one human spirit is born into the worl without this corruption of nature. All are impur and unholy; and from this principle of depravity al transgression is produced; and from this corruptio of nature God alone can save.

The Septuagint, in the Codex Alexandrinus, read