it existed. The chief part of Proverbs and Canticles is by Solomon himself; the introductory passages (Prov 1-9) represent a later period of the Chokma, probably the time of Jehoshaphat; the book of Ecclesiastes, which is rightly assigned by H. G. Bernstein in his Questiones Kohelethanae to the time between Artaxerxes I Longimanus, and Darius Codomannus, and perhaps belongs to the time of Artaxerxes II Mnemon, represents the latest period. The book of Job is indicated as a work of the first of these three periods, by its classic, grand, and noble form. It bears throughout the stamp of that creative, beginning-period of the Chokma, - of that Salomonic age of knowledge and art, of deeper thought respecting revealed religion, and of intelligent, progressive culture of the traditional forms of art, - that unprecedented age, in which the literature corresponded to the summit of glorious magnificence to which the kingdom of the promise had then attained. The heart of Solomon (according to 1Ki 5:9., Hebrew version; 1Ki 4:29, English version) enclosed within itself a fulness of knowledge, “even as the sand that is on the seashore:” his wisdom was greater than the קרם בני, from whom the traditional matter of the book of Job is borrowed; greater than the wisdom of the מצרים, with whose country and natural marvels the author of the book of Job is intimately acquainted. The extensive knowledge of natural history and general science displayed in the book of Job, is the result of the wide circle of observation which Israel had reached. It was a time when the chasm between Israel and the nations was more than ever bridged over. The entire education of Israel at that time took a so to speak cosmopolitan direction. It was a time introductory to the extension of redemption, and the triumph of the religion of Israel, and the union of all nations in belief on the God of love.
