syllables, to read which, however, it is often needful to dispense with Metheg and with the Chateph vowels, and contract the dual terminations. Mr. Wright, building upon Dr. Merx's foundation, offers a more elaborate scheme, which cannot be discussed here. It was a misfortune for him that he had not before him the ambitious metrical transliteration of Job by G. Bickell, in his Carmina Vet. Test. metrice, of which I would rather say nothing here than too little.
Subsequent editors of the text of Job will have one advantage, which will affect their critical use of the Septuagint. It is well known that the Alexandrine version was largely interpolated from that of Theodotion. The early Septuagint text itself can however now be reconstructed, through a manuscript of the Sahidic or Thebaic version from Upper Egypt. (Comp. Lagarde, Mittheilungen, pp. 203-5; Agapios Bsciai, art. in Moniteur de Rome, Oct. 26, 1883.) Dr. Merx was well aware of the necessity of expurgating the Septuagint, and would have hailed this much-desired aid in the work (see p. lxxi. of his introduction).
So much must suffice in my present limits on the subject of metre and textual emendation. I need not thus qualify the list which follows of gaps and misplacements of text in our Book of Job. Observe (1) that Bildad's third speech (chap. xxv.) is too short. Probably, as Mr. Elzas has suggested,[1] the continuation of it has been wrongly placed as xxvi. 5-14; the affinity of this passage to chap. xxv. is obvious. Probably the close of Bildad's speech is wanting. If so (2), something must have dropped out of Job's reply, since xxvi. 4 has no connection with xxvii. 2. (3) Zophar's third speech appears to be wanting, but may really be contained in chap. xxvii. (ver. 8 to end). The student should not fail to observe that xxvii. 13 is a repetition of xx. 29. As the text stands, Job is made to recant his statements in chaps. xxi., xxiv., and to assert that there is (not merely ought to be) a just and exact retribution. The tone, moreover, of xxvii. 9, 10 is not in accordance with Job's previous speeches. If this view be correct, an introductory formula ('And Zophar answered and said') must have fallen out at the beginning of ver. 7, and probably one or more introductory verses.[2] (4) The verses which originally introduced chap. xxviii. must (on account of the causal particle 'for' in ver. 1) either have dropped out, or else have been neglected by the person who inserted the chapter in the Book of Job. (5) The passage xxxi. 38-40 has at any rate been
- ↑ Elzas, The Book of Job (1872), p. 83; Grätz inclines to a similar view.
- ↑ A similar view has been propounded by Kennicott, and also more recently by Grätz (Monatsschrift, 1872, p. 247). But Kennicott regarded chap. xxviii. as Job's reply to Zophar, while Grätz would include it in the speech of Zophar.
