- drously varied and so full of Divine wisdom and goodness.
He has this great advantage in doing so, that they, like himself (and Job), are theists; they are not of those who say in their heart, 'There is no God,' but of the 'Zion' who complains, 'Jehovah has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me' (Isaiah xlix. 14). And the remedy which he applies is the same as that of the Babylonian-Jewish prophet, a wider study of the ways of God. Job had said, 'I would tell Him the number of my steps;' Jehovah replies by showing him, in a series of questions, not irritating but persuasive, the footprints of His own larger self-manifestation.
The Divine Speaker is introduced by the poet thus:
And Jehovah answered Job out of a tempest, and said.
A storm was the usual accompaniment of a Divine appearance: there was no intention of crushing Job with terror. In Blake's thirteenth drawing Job (and his wife!) are represented kneeling and listening, with countenances expressive of thankfulness; in his fourteenth, Job and his four friends kneel rapt and ecstatic, while the 'sons of God,' sweet, vital, heavenly forms, are shouting for joy. In fact, the speeches of Jehovah contain, not accusations (except in xxxviii. 2), but remonstrances, and, though the form of these is chilling to Job's self-love, yet the glorious visions which they evoke are healing to every sorrow of the mind. The text of the speeches is unfortunately not in perfect order. For instance, there are four verses which have, no one can tell how, been deposited in the description of behemoth (xli. 9-12, A. V.) but which most probably at one time or another opened the first speech of Jehovah. Perhaps the author himself removed them, feeling them to be too depressing for Job to hear; or perhaps it was purely by accident that they were transferred, and Merx and Bickell have done well to replace them in their corrected editions of Job between xxxi. 37 and xxxviii. 1. As corrected by the former they run thus:—
Behold, his hope is belied:
will he fight against mine appearing?
