me against him to annihilate him without cause' (ii. 3). Another sarcastic word from the Adversary ('Touch his bone and his flesh, and then see. . . .'), and once more he receives permission to try Job. The affliction this time is elephantiasis, the most loathsome and dangerous form of leprosy. But Job's piety stands fast. He sits down on the heap of burnt dung and ashes at the entrance of the village, such as those where lepers are still wont to congregate, and meets the despairing counsel of his wife (comp. Tobit's wife, Tob. ii. 14) to renounce a God from whom nothing more is to be hoped but death with a calm and pious rebuke. So baseless was the malicious suggestion of the Satan! Meantime many months pass away (vii. 3), and no friend appears to condole with him. Travelling is slow in the East, and Job's three friends[1] were Emeers like himself (the Sept. makes them kings), and their residences would be at some distance from each other. At last they come, but they cannot recognise Job's features, distorted by disease (as Isa. lii. 14). Overpowered with surprise and grief, they sit down with him for seven days and seven nights (comp. Ezek. iii. 15). Up to this point no fault can be found with his friends.
I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
(Othello, act i, scene 3.)
It was their deep, unspoken sympathy which encouraged him to vent his sorrow in a flood of unpurified emotion (chap. iii.) The very next thing recorded of Job is that he 'opened his mouth and cursed his day' (i.e. his birthday; see ver. 3). This may at least be the poet's meaning, though it is also possible that the prologue and the body of the poem are not homogeneous. Not to mention other reasons at present, the tone of Job's speech in chap. iii. (the chapter read by Swift on his birthday) is entirely different from the stedfast
- ↑ Of the three friends Eliphaz comes from the Edomitish district of Teman, so famous for its wisdom; Bildad from the land of Shuah ('Suhu' lay, according to the inscriptions, between the mouths of the Belich and the Khabur, confluents of the Euphrates); Zophar from Naamah, some unknown district east of the Jordan. How well these notes of place agree with the Aramaic colouring of the book!
