The latter is much older than the last century; it explains the Jewish saying (p. 60) that 'Job was a parable,' and the fascination which the book possessed for the age preceding the final dispersion of the Jews.[1]
8. Page 81 (further correction of text of Deut. xxxii. 8, 9).—The passage becomes more rhythmical if with Bickell we reproduce the Septuagint Hebrew text at the close of ver. 8 as (
Hebrew characters) and continue (ver. 9),
(Hebrew characters)
The correction of the last couplet is important as a supplement of the explanation of ver. 8 given in the text. To other nations God gave protective angels, but He reserved Israel for Himself. (See Bickell, Zeitschrift f. kathol. Theologie, 1885, pp. 718-19, and comp. his Carmina V. T. metricè, 1882, p. 192, where he adheres in both verses to the received text.) The Style of Elihu.
9. Page 92.—No student of the Hebrew of Fob will overlook the admirable 'studies' on the style of Elihu by J. G. Stickel (Das Buch Hiob, 1842, pp. 248-262) and Carl Budde (Beiträge sur Kritik des Buches Hiob, 1876, pp. 65-160). The former succeeded in obtaining the admission of such an eminent critical analyst as Kuenen, that style by itself would be scarcely sufficient to prove the later origin of the Elihu speeches. It also, no doubt, assisted Delitzsch to recognise in Elihu the same 'Hebræoarabic' impress as in the rest of the book. In spite of this effective 'study,' Dillmann's brief treatment of the same subject in 1869 made it clear that the subject had not yet by any means been threshed out, and perhaps no more powerful argument against chaps. xxxii.-xxxvii. has been produced than that contained in a single closely-printed page (289) of his commentary. There was therefore a good chance for a Privatdocent to win himself a name by a renewed attempt to state the linguistic facts more thoroughly and impartially than before. This indeed fairly expresses Budde's object, which is not at all to offer a direct proof that the disputed chapters belong to the original poem, but merely to show that the opposite view cannot be demonstrated on stylistic grounds. His method is to collect, first of all, points of resemblance and then points of difference between 'Elihu' and the rest of the book. Last among the latter appear the Aramaisms and Arabisms. Budde
- ↑ See Rosenthal, Vier apokryphische Bücher ans der Zeit und Schule Akiba's (1885), pp. 6-12.
