Chapter XII: Part 12

_Integrity._--Doubts whether particular portions of the present book belonged to the original form of it have been raised by many. M. L. De Wette expressed himself as follows: "It appears to us that the present book of Job has not all flowed from one pen. As many books of the Old Testament have been several times written over, so has this also" (Ersch and Gruber, _Ency._, sect. ii. vol. viii.). The judgment formed by De Wette has been adhered to more or less by most of those who have studied the book. Questions regarding the unity of such books as this are difficult to settle; there is not unanimity among scholars regarding the idea of the book, and consequently they differ as to what parts are in harmony or conflict with unity; and it is dangerous to apply modern ideas of literary composition and artistic unity to the works of antiquity and of the East. The problem raised in the book of Job has certainly received frequent treatment in the Old Testament; and there is no likelihood that all efforts in this direction have been preserved to us. It is probable that the book of Job was but a great effort amidst or after many smaller. It is scarcely to be supposed that one with such poetic and literary power as the author of chap. iii-xxxi., xxxviii.-xli. would embody the work of any other writer in his own. If there be elements in the book which must be pronounced foreign, they have been inserted in the work of the author by a later hand. It is not unlikely that our present book may, in addition to the great work of the original author, contain some fragments of the thoughts of other religious minds upon the same question, and that these, instead of being loosely appended, have been fitted into the mechanism of the first work. Some of these fragments may have originated at first quite independently of our book, while others may be expansions and insertions that never existed separately. At the same time it is scarcely safe to throw out any portion of the book merely because it seems to us out of harmony with the unity of the main part of the poem, or unless several distinct lines of consideration conspire to point it out as an extraneous element.

The arguments against the originality of the prologue--as, that it is
written in prose, that the name Yahweh appears in it, that sacrifice
is referred to, and that there are inconsistencies between it and the
body of the book--are of little weight. There must have been some
introduction to the poem explaining the circumstances of Job,
otherwise the poetical dispute would have been unintelligible, for it
is improbable that the story of Job was so familiar that a poem in
which he and his friends figured as they do here would have been
understood. And there is no trace of any other prologue or
introduction having ever existed. The prologue, too, is an essential
element of the work, containing the author's positive contribution to
the doctrine of suffering, for which the discussion in the poem
prepares the way. The intermixture of prose and poetry is common in
Oriental works containing similar discussions; the reference to
sacrifice is to primitive not to Mosaic sacrifice; and the author,
while using the name Yahweh freely himself, puts the patriarchal
Divine names into the mouth of Job and his friends because he regards
them as belonging to the patriarchal age and to a country outside of
Israel. That the observance of this rule had a certain awkwardness for
the writer appears perhaps from his allowing the name Yahweh to slip
in once or twice (xii. 9, cf. xxviii. 28) in familiar phrases in the
body of the poem. The discrepancies, such as Job's references to his
children as still alive (xix. 17, the interpretation is doubtful), and
to his servants, are trivial, and even if real imply nothing in a book
admittedly poetical and not historical. The objections to the epilogue
are equally unimportant--as that the Satan is not mentioned in it, and
that Job's restoration is in conflict with the main idea of the
poem--that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness. The
epilogue confirms the teaching of the poem when it gives the divine
sanction to Job's doctrine regarding God in opposition to that of the
friends (xlii. 7). And it is certainly not the intention of the poem
to teach that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness; its
purpose is to correct the exclusiveness with which the friends of Job
maintained that principle. The Satan is introduced in the prologue,
exercising his function as minister of God in heaven; but it is to
misinterpret wholly the doctrine of evil in the Old Testament to
assign to the Satan any such personal importance or independence of
power as that he should be called before the curtain to receive the
hisses that accompany his own discomfiture. The Satan, though he here
appears with the beginnings of a malevolent will of his own, is but
the instrument of the sifting providence of God. His work was to try;
that done he disappears, his personality being too slight to have any
place in the result.

Much graver are the suspicions that attach to the speeches of Elihu.
Most of those who have studied the book carefully hold that this part
does not belong to the original cast, but has been introduced at a
considerably later time. The piece is one of the most interesting
parts of the book; both the person and the thoughts of Elihu are
marked by a strong individuality. This individuality has indeed been
very diversely estimated. The ancients for the most part passed a very
severe judgment on Elihu: he is a buffoon, a boastful youth whose
shallow intermeddling is only to be explained by the fewness of his
years, the incarnation of folly, or even the Satan himself gone
a-mumming. Some moderns on the other hand have regarded him as the
incarnation of the voice of God or even of God himself. The main
objections to the connexion of the episode of Elihu with the original
book are: that the prologue and epilogue know nothing of him; that on
the cause of Job's afflictions he occupies virtually the same position
as the friends; that his speeches destroy the dramatic effect of the
divine manifestation by introducing a lengthened break between Job's
challenge and the answer of God; that the language and style of the
piece are marked by an excessive mannerism, too great to have been
created by the author of the rest of the poem; that the allusions to
the rest of the book are so minute as to betray a reader rather than a
hearer; and that the views regarding sin, and especially the scandal
given to the author by the irreverence of Job, indicate a religious
advance which marks a later age. The position taken by Elihu is almost
that of a critic of the book. Regarding the origin of afflictions he
is at one with the friends, although he dwells more on the general
sinfulness of man than on actual sins, and his reprobation of Job's
position is even greater than theirs. His anger was kindled against
Job because he made himself righteous before God, and against his
friends because they found no answer to Job. His whole object is to
refute Job's charge of injustice against God. What is novel in Elihu,
therefore, is not his position but his arguments. These do not lack
cogency, but betray a kind of thought different from that of the
friends. Injustice in God, he argues, can only arise from selfishness
in Him; but the very existence of creation implies unselfish love on
God's part, for if He thought only of Himself, He would cease actively
to uphold creation, and it would fall into death. Again, without
justice mere earthly rule is impossible; how then is injustice
conceivable in Him who rules over all? It is probable that the
original author found his three interlocutors a sufficient medium for
expression, and that this new speaker is the creation of another. To a
devout and thoughtful reader of the original book, belonging perhaps
to a more reverential age, it appeared that the language and bearing
of Job had scarcely been sufficiently reprobated by the original
speakers, and that the religious reason, apart from any theophany,
could suggest arguments sufficient to condemn such demeanour on the
part of any man. (For an able though hardly convincing argument for
the originality of the discourses of Elihu see Budde's _Commentary_.)

It is more difficult to come to a decision in regard to some other
portions of the book, particularly ch. xxvii. 7-xxviii. In the latter
part of ch. xxvii. Job seems to go over to the camp of his opponents,
and expresses sentiments in complete contradiction to his former
views. Hence some have thought the passage to be the missing speech of
Zophar. Others, as Hitzig, believe that Job is parodying the ideas of
the friends; while others, like Ewald, consider that he is recanting
his former excesses, and making such a modification as to express
correctly his views on evil. None of these opinions is quite
satisfactory, though the last probably expresses the view with which
the passage was introduced, whether it be original or not. The meaning
of ch. xxviii. can only be that "Wisdom," that is, a theoretical
comprehension of providence, is unattainable by man, whose only wisdom
is the fear of the Lord or practical piety. But to bring Job to the
feeling of this truth was just the purpose of the theophany and the
divine speeches; and, if Job had reached it already through his own
reflection, the theophany becomes an irrelevancy. It is difficult,
therefore, to find a place for these two chapters in the original
work. The hymn on Wisdom is a most exquisite poem, which probably
originated separately, and was brought into our book with a purpose
similar to that which suggested the speeches of Elihu. Objections have
also been raised to the descriptions of leviathan and behemoth (ch.
xl. 15-xli.). Regarding these it may be enough to say that in meaning
these passages are in perfect harmony with other parts of the Divine
words, although there is a breadth and detail in the style unlike the
sharp, short, ironical touches otherwise characteristic of this part
of the poem. (Other longer passages, the originality of which has been
called into question, are: xvii. 8 seq.; xxi. 16-18; xxii. 17 seq.;
xxiii. 8 seq.; xxiv. 9, 18-24; xxvi. 5-14. On these see the
commentaries.)

_Date._--The age of such a book as Job, dealing only with principles and having no direct references to historical events can be fixed only approximately. Any conclusion can be reached only by an induction founded on matters which do not afford perfect certainty, such as the comparative development of certain moral ideas in different ages, the pressing claims of certain problems for solution at particular epochs of the history of Israel, and points of contact with other writings of which the age may with some certainty be determined. The Jewish tradition that the book is Mosaic, and the idea that it is a production of the desert, written in another tongue and translated into Hebrew, want even a shadow of probability. The book is a genuine outcome of the religious life and thought of Israel, the product of a religious knowledge and experience that were possible among no other people. That the author lays the scene of the poem outside his own nation and in the patriarchal age is a proceeding common to him with other dramatic writers, who find freer play for their principles in a region removed from the present, where they are not hampered by the obtrusive forms of actual life, but are free to mould occurrences into the moral form that their ideas require.

It is the opinion of some scholars, e.g. Delitzsch, that the book belongs to the age of Solomon. It cannot be earlier than this age, for Job (vii. 17) travesties the ideas of Ps. viii. in a manner which shows that this hymn was well known. To infer the date from a comparison of literary coincidences and allusions is however a very delicate operation. For, first, owing to the unity of thought and language which pervades the Old Testament, in which, regarded merely as a national literature, it differs from all other national literatures, we are apt to be deceived, and to take mere similarities for literary allusions and quotations; and, secondly, even when we are sure that there is dependence, it is often uncommonly difficult to decide which is the original source. The reference to Job in Ezek. xiv. 14 is not to our book, but to the man (a legendary figure) who was afterwards made the hero of it. The affinities on the other hand between Job and Isa. xl.-lv. are very close. The date, however, of this part of Isaiah is uncertain, though it cannot have received its final form, if it be composite, long before the return. Between Job iii. and Jer. xx. 14 seq. there is, again, certainly literary connexion. But the judgment of different minds differs on the question which passage is dependent on the other. The language of Jeremiah, however, has a natural pathos and genuineness of feeling in it, somewhat in contrast with the elaborate poetical finish of Job's words, which might suggest the originality of the former.

The tendency among recent scholars is to put the book of Job not earlier than the 5th century B.C. There are good reasons for putting it in the 4th century. It stands at the beginning of the era of Jewish philosophical inquiry--its affinities are with Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Solomon, a body of writings that belongs to the latest period of pre-Christian Jewish literary development (see WISDOM LITERATURE). Its points of connexion with Isa. xl.-lv. relate only to the problem of the suffering of the righteous, and that it is later than the Isaiah passage appears from the fact that this latter is national and ritual in scope, while Job is universal and ethical.

The book of Job is not literal history, though it reposes on historical tradition. To this tradition belong probably the name of Job and his country, and the names of his three friends, and perhaps also many other details impossible to specify particularly. The view that the book is entirely a literary creation with no basis in historical tradition is as old as the Talmud (_Baba Bathra_, xv. 1), in which a rabbi is cited who says: Job was not, and was not created, but is an allegory. This view is supported by Hengstenberg and others. But pure poetical creations on so extensive a scale are not probable in the East and at so early an age.

_Author._--The author of the book is wholly unknown. The religious life of Israel was at certain periods very intense, and at those times the spiritual energy of the nation expressed itself almost impersonally, through men who forgot themselves and were speedily forgotten in name by others. Hitzig conjectures that the author was a native of the north on account of the free criticism of providence which he allows himself. Others, on account of some affinities with the prophet Amos, infer that he belonged to the south of Judah, and this is supposed to account for his intimate acquaintance with the desert. Ewald considers that he belonged to the exile in Egypt, on account of his minute acquaintance with that country. But all these conjectures localize an author whose knowledge was not confined to any locality, who was a true child of the East and familiar with life and nature in every country there, who was at the same time a true Israelite and felt that the earth was the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and whose sympathies and thought took in all God's works.

LITERATURE.--Commentaries by Ewald (1854); Renan (1859); Delitzsch
(1864); Zöckler in Lange's _Bibelwerk_ (1872); F. C. Cook in
_Speaker's Comm._ (1880); A. B. Davidson in _Cambridge Bible_ (1884);
Dillmann (1891); K. Budde (1896); Duhm (1897). See also Hoekstra, "Job
de Knecht van Jehovah" in _Theol. Tijdschr._ (1871), and, in reply, A.
Kuenen, "Job en de leidende Knecht van Jahveh," ibid. (1873); C. H. H.
Wright in _Bib. Essays_ (1886); G. G. Bradley, _Lects. on Job_ (2nd
ed., 1888); Cheyne, _Job and Solomon_ (1887); Dawson, _Wisd. Lit._
(1893); D. B. Macdonald, "The Original Form of the Legend of Job" in
_Journ. Bib. Lit._ (1895); E. Hatch, _Essays in Bib. Gk._ (1889); A.
Dillmann, in _Trans. of Roy. Pruss. Acad._ (1890).
(A. B. D., C. H. T.*)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Exceptions must be made in the cases of Esther and the Song of
Songs, which do not mention God, and the original writer in
Ecclesiastes who is a philosopher.

[2] This remarkable passage reads thus: "_But I know that my redeemer
liveth, and afterwards he shall arise upon the dust, and after my
skin, even this body, is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a
stranger; my reins within me are consumed_ with longing." The
redeemer who liveth and shall arise or stand upon the earth is God
whom he shall see with his own eyes, on his side. The course of
exegesis was greatly influenced by the translation of Jerome, who,
departing from the Itala, rendered: "In novissimo die de terra
surrecturus sum ... et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea
videbo deum meum." The only point now in question is whether: (a) Job
looks for this manifestation of God to him while he is still alive,
or (b) after death, and therefore in the sense of a spiritual vision
and union with God in another life; that is, whether the words
"destroyed" and "without my flesh" are to be taken relatively only,
of the extremest effects of his disease upon him, or literally, of
the separation of the body in death. A third view which assumes that
the words rendered "without my flesh," which run literally, "out of
my flesh," mean _looking_ out from my flesh, that is, clothed with a
new body, and finds the idea of resurrection repeated, perhaps
imports more into the language than it will fairly bear. In favour of
(b) may be adduced the persistent refusal of Job throughout to
entertain the idea of a restoration in this life: the word
"afterwards"; and perhaps the analogy of other passages where the
same situation appears, as Ps. xlix. and lxxiii., although the actual
dénouement of the tragedy supports (a). The difference between the
two senses is not important, when the Old Testament view of
immortality is considered. To the Hebrew the life beyond was not what
it is to us, a freedom from sin and sorrow and admission to an
immediate divine fellowship not attainable here. To him the life
beyond was at best a prolongation of the life here; all he desired
was that his fellowship with God here should not be interrupted in
death, and that Sheol, the place into which deceased persons
descended and where they remained, cut off from all life with God,
might be overleapt. On this account the theory of Ewald, which throws
the centre of gravity of the book into this passage in ch. xix.,
considering its purpose to be to teach that the riddles of this life
shall be solved and its inequalities corrected in a future life,
appears one-sided. The point of the passage does not lie in any
distinction which it draws between this life and a future life; it
lies in the assurance which Job expresses that God, who even now
knows his innocence, will vindicate it in the future, and that,
though estranged now, He will at last take him to His heart.

JOBST, or JODOCUS (c. 1350-1411), margrave of Moravia, was a son of John Henry of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, and grandson of John, the blind king of Bohemia. He became margrave of Moravia on his father's death in 1375, and his clever and unscrupulous character enabled him to amass a considerable amount of wealth, while his ambition led him into constant quarrels with his brother Procop, his cousins, the German king Wenceslaus and Sigismund, margrave of Brandenburg, and others. By taking advantage of their difficulties he won considerable power, and the record of his life is one of warfare and treachery, followed by broken promises and transitory reconciliations. In 1385 and 1388 he purchased Brandenburg from Sigismund, and the duchy of Luxemburg from Wenceslaus; and in 1397 he also became possessed of upper and lower Lusatia. For some time he had entertained hopes of the German throne and had negotiated with Wenceslaus and others to this end. When, however, King Rupert died in 1410 he maintained at first that there was no vacancy, as Wenceslaus, who had been deposed in 1400, was still king; but changing his attitude, he was chosen German king at Frankfort on the 1st of October 1410 in opposition to Sigismund, who had been elected a few days previously. Jobst however was never crowned, and his death on the 17th of January 1411 prevented hostilities between the rival kings.

See F. M. Pelzel, _Lebensgeschichte des römischen und böhmischen
Königs Wenceslaus_ (1788-1790); J. Heidemann, _Die Mark Brandenburg
unter Jobst von Mähren_ (1881); J. Aschbach, _Geschichte Kaiser
Sigmunds_ (1838-1845); F. Palacky, _Geschichte von Böhmen_, iii.
(1864-1874); and T. Lindner, _Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches vom
Ende des 14 Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation_, i. (1875-1880).

JOB'S TEARS, in botany, the popular name for _Coix Lachryma-Jobi_, a species of grass, of the tribe _maydeae_, which also includes the maize (see GRASSES). The seeds, or properly fruits, are contained singly in a stony involucre or bract, which does not open until the enclosed seed germinates. The young involucre surrounds the female flower and the stalk supporting the spike of male flowers, and when ripe has the appearance of bluish-white porcelain. Being shaped somewhat like a large drop of fluid, the form has suggested the name. The fruits are esculent, but the involucres are the part chiefly used, for making necklaces and other ornaments. The plant is a native of India, but is now widely spread throughout the tropical zone. It grows in marshy places; and is cultivated in China, the fruit having a supposed value as a diuretic and anti-phthisic. It was cultivated by John Gerard, author of the famous _Herball_, at the end of the 16th century as a tender annual.

JOCASTA, or IOCASTA ([Greek: Iokastê]; in Homer, [Greek: Epikastê]), in Greek legend, wife of Laïus, mother (afterwards wife) of Oedipus (q.v.), daughter of Menoeceus, sister (or daughter) of Creon. According to Homer (_Od._ xi. 271) and Sophocles (_Oed. Tyr._ 1241), on learning that Oedipus was her son she immediately hanged herself; but in Euripides (_Phoenissae_, 1455) she stabs herself over the bodies of her sons Eteocles and Polynices, who had slain each other in single combat before the walls of Thebes.

JOCKEY, a professional rider of race-horses, now the current usage (see HORSE-RACING). The word is by origin a diminutive of "Jock," the Northern or Scots colloquial equivalent of the name "John" (cf. JACK). A familiar instance of the use of the word as a name is in "Jockey of Norfolk" in Shakespeare's _Richard III._ v. 3, 304. In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was applied to horse-dealers, postilions, itinerant minstrels and vagabonds, and thus frequently bore the meaning of a cunning trickster, a "sharp," whence "to jockey," to outwit, or "do" a person out of something. The current usage is found in John Evelyn's _Diary_, 1670, when it was clearly well known. George Borrow's attempt to derive the word from the gipsy _chukni_, a heavy whip used by horse-dealing gipsies, has no foundation.

JODELLE, ÉTIENNE, seigneur de Limodin (1532-1573), French dramatist and poet, was born in Paris of a noble family. He attached himself to the poetic circle of the Pléiade (see DAURAT) and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different from the moralities and _soties_ that then occupied the French stage. His first play, _Cléopâtre captive_, was represented before the court at Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title rôle, and the cast included his friends Remy Belleau and Jean de la Péruse. In honour of the play's success the friends organized a little fête at Arcueil when a goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the author--a ceremony exaggerated by the enemies of the Ronsardists into a renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of Bacchus. Jodelle wrote two other plays. _Eugène_, a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle's predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very different from theirs. _Didon se sacrifiant_, a tragedy which follows Virgil's narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous verse dating chiefly from Jodelle's youth. The intrinsic value of his tragedies is small. _Cléopâtre_ is lyric rather than dramatic. Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The death of Antony is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of Cleopatra's suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was soon followed by the _Médée_ (1553) of Jean de la Péruse and the _Aman_ (1561) of André de Rivaudeau. Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems gave no adequate idea of his powers.

Jodelle's works are collected (1868) in the _Pléiade française_ of
Charles Marty-Laveaux. The prefatory notice gives full information of
the sources of Jodelle's biography, and La Mothe's criticism is
reprinted in its entirety.

JODHPUR, or MARWAR, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. Area, 34,963 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,935,565, showing a decrease of 23% in the decade, due to the results of famine. Estimated revenue, £373,600; tribute, £14,000. The general aspect of the country is that of a sandy plain, divided into two unequal parts by the river Luni, and dotted with picturesque conical hills, attaining in places an elevation of 3000 ft. The river Luni is the principal feature in the physical aspects of Jodhpur. One of its head-streams rises in the sacred lake of Pushkar in Ajmere, and the main river flows through Jodhpur in a south-westerly direction till it is finally lost in the marshy ground at the head of the Runn of Cutch. It is fed by numerous tributaries and occasionally overflows its banks, fine crops of wheat and barley being grown on the saturated soil. Its water is, as a rule, saline or brackish, but comparatively sweet water is obtained from wells sunk at a distance of 20 or 30 yds. from the river bank. The famous salt-lake of Sambhar is situated on the borders of Jodhpur and Jaipur, and two smaller lakes of the same description lie within the limits of the state, from which large quantities of salt are extracted. Marble is mined in the north of the state and along the south-east border.

The population consists of Rathor Rajputs (who form the ruling class), Brahmans, Charans, Bhats, Mahajans or traders, and Jats. The Charans, a sacred race, hold large religious grants of land, and enjoy peculiar immunities as traders in local produce. The Bhats are by profession genealogists, but also engage in trade. Marwari traders are an enterprising class to be found throughout the length and breadth of India.

The principal crops are millets and pulses, but wheat and barley are largely produced in the fertile tract watered by the Luni river. The manufactures comprise leather boxes and brass utensils; and turbans and scarfs and a description of embroidered silk knotted thread are specialities of the country.

The Maharaja belongs to the Rathor clan of Rajputs. The family chronicles relate that after the downfall of the Rathor dynasty of Kanauj in 1194, Sivaji, the grandson of Jai Chand, the last king of Kanauj, entered Marwar on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and on halting at the town of Pali he and his followers settled there to protect the Brahman community from the constant raids of marauding bands. The Rathor chief thus laid the foundation of the state, but it was not till the time of Rao Chanda, the tenth in succession from Sivaji, that Marwar was actually conquered. His grandson Jodha founded the city of Jodhpur, which he made his capital. In 1561 the country was invaded by Akbar, and the chief was forced to submit, and to send his son as a mark of homage to take service under the Mogul emperor. When this son Udai Singh succeeded to the chiefship, he gave his sister Jodhbai in marriage to Akbar, and was rewarded by the restoration of most of his former possessions. Udai Singh's son, Gaj Singh, held high service under Akbar, and conducted successful expeditions in Gujarat and the Deccan. The bigoted and intolerant Aurangzeb invaded Marwar in 1679, plundered Jodhpur, sacked all the large towns, and commanded the conversion of the Rathors to Mahommedanism. This cemented all the Rajput clans into a bond of union, and a triple alliance was formed by the three states of Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur, to throw off the Mahommedan yoke. One of the conditions of this alliance was that the chiefs of Jodhpur and Jaipur should regain the privilege of marriage with the Udaipur family, which they had forfeited by contracting alliances with the Mogul emperors, on the understanding that the offspring of Udaipur princesses should succeed to the state in preference to all other children. The quarrels arising from this stipulation lasted through many generations, and led to the invitation of Mahratta help from the rival aspirants to power, and finally to the subjection of all the Rajput states to the Mahrattas. Jodhpur was conquered by Sindhia, who levied a tribute of £60,000, and took from it the fort and town of Ajmere. Internecine disputes and succession wars disturbed the peace of the early years of the century, until in January 1818 Jodhpur was taken under British protection. In 1839 the misgovernment of the raja led to an insurrection which compelled the interference of the British. In 1843, the chief having died without a son, and without having adopted an heir, the nobles and state officials were left to select a successor from the nearest of kin. Their choice fell upon Raja Takht Sinh, chief of Ahmednagar. This chief, who did good service during the Mutiny, died in 1873. Maharaja Jaswant Singh, who died in 1896, was a very enlightened ruler. His brother, Sir Pertab Singh (q.v.), conducted the administration until his nephew, Sardar Singh, came of age in 1898. The imperial service cavalry formed part of the reserve brigade during the Tirah campaign.

The state maintains a railway running to Bikanir, and there is also a branch railway into Sind. Gold, silver and copper money is coined. The state emblems are a _jhar_ or sprig of seven branches and a _khanda_ or sword. Jodhpur practically escaped the plague, but it suffered more severely than any other part of Rajputana from the famine of 1899-1900. In February 1900 more than 110,000 persons were in receipt of famine relief.

The city of JODHPUR is 64 m. by rail N.W. of Marwar junction, on the Rajputana railway. Pop. (1901), 60,437. It was built by Rao Jodha in 1459, and from that time has been the seat of government. It is surrounded by a strong wall nearly 6 m. in extent, with seventy gates. The fort, which stands on an isolated rock, contains the maharaja's palace, a large and handsome building, completely covering the crest of the hill on which it stands, and overlooking the city, which lies several hundred feet below. The city contains palaces of the maharaja, and town residences of the _thakurs_ or nobles, besides numerous fine temples and tanks. Building stone is plentiful and close at hand, and the architecture is solid and handsome. Three miles north of Jodhpur are the ruins of Mandor, the site of the ancient capital of the Parihar princes of Marwar, before its conquest by the Rathors. Mills for grinding flour and crushing grain have been constructed for the imperial service troops. The Jaswant college is affiliated to the B.A. standard of the Allahabad university. To the Hewson hospital a wing for eye diseases was added in 1898, and the Jaswant hospital for women is under an English lady doctor.

JOEL. The second book among the minor prophets in the Bible is entitled _The word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel_, or, as the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac and other versions read, _Bethuel_. Nothing is recorded as to the date or occasion of the prophecy. Most Hebrew prophecies contain pointed references to the foreign politics and social relations of the nation at the time. In the book of Joel there are only scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet's own people are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons; and even here there are features in the description which have led many expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. The most remarkable part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as foreshadowing the final judgment--the great day or assize of Yahweh, in which Israel's enemies are destroyed--is so unique as greatly to complicate the exegetical problem. It is not therefore surprising that the most various views are still held as to the date and meaning of the book. Allegorists and literalists still contend over the first and still more over the second chapter, and, while the largest number of recent interpreters accept Credner's view that the prophecy was written in the reign of Joash of Judah (835-796 B.C.?), a powerful school of critics (including A. B. Davidson) follow the view suggested by Vatke (_Bib. Theol._ p. 462 seq.), and reckon Joel among the post-exile prophets. Other scholars give yet other dates: see the particulars in the elaborate work of Merx. The followers of Credner are literalists; the opposite school of moderns includes some literalists (as Duhm), while others (like Hilgenfeld, and in a modified sense Merx) adopt the old allegorical interpretation which treats the locusts as a figure for the enemies of Jerusalem.

There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than
the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first
proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile.
In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among
those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place.
This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing
Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the
empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is
further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between
spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets
from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of
Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and
priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs
forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly
divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of
spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh
involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding
nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the
ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into
conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the
restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than
political existence had decided the contest in favour of the
prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately
crystallized.

The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel
are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great
oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of
Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of
the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16
(Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken
as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be
inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact
between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joel ii. 2,
Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3)
make it not incredible that the purity of his style--which is rather
elegant than original and strongly marked--is in large measure the
fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or
oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that
the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When
the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the
municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent
figures. The king is not mentioned--which on Credner's view is
explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash,
when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power--and the princes,
councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so
often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether
lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly
aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the
Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh
and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not
invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their
neighbours, just as appears in Joel.[1] Those, however, who place our
prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the
mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19),
pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the
incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16,
xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like
manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back
to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is
rather specious than sound. Edom's hostility to Judah was incessant,
but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of
Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew
profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly
occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of
Jerusalem (Obad. _passim_; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence
of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after
these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against
Joram.

As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the
statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history,
and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the
Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a
slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so
till Roman times.

Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must
rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an
important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the
slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were sold _en masse_ to
Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they
were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).[2] It is probable that
some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean
coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of
Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia
and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became
extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the
chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan
exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in
Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special
request in Greece.[3] And the name of Javan is not found in any part
of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to
stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by
the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians, _Sabaeans_,
ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea.
This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author
of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish =
Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.

Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner's
theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before
Joash. From this time down to the last period of the Hebrew monarchy
Egypt was not the enemy of Judah.

If the arguments chiefly relied on for an early date are so precarious
or can even be turned against their inventors, there are others of an
unambiguous kind which make for a date in the Persian period. It
appears from ch. iii. 1, 2, that Joel wrote after the exile. The
phrase "to bring again the captivity" would not alone suffice to prove
this, for it is used in a wide sense, and perhaps means rather to
"reverse the calamity,"[4] but the dispersion of Israel among the
nations, and the allotment of the Holy Land to new occupants, cannot
fairly be referred to any calamity less than that of the captivity.
With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah
and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has
disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the
history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always
treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact
with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under
Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of
Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a
quite different standpoint; otherwise indeed the books of northern
prophets and historians could never have been admitted into the Jewish
canon. Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king
and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be
invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of
Joash's minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada.[5] And the
assumption that there was a period before the prophetic conflicts of
the 8th century B.C. when spiritual prophecy had unchallenged sway,
when there was no gross idolatry or superstition, when the priests of
Jerusalem, acting in accord with prophets like Joel, held the same
place as heads of a pure worship which they occupied after the exile
(cf. Ewald, _Propheten_, i. 89), is not consistent with history. It
rests on the old theory of the antiquity of the Levitical legislation,
so that in fact all who place that legislation later than Ezekiel are
agreed that the book of Joel is also late. In this connexion one point
deserves special notice. The religious significance of the plague of
drought and locusts is expressed in ch. i. 9 in the observation that
the daily meat and drink offering are cut off, and the token of new
blessing is the restoration of this service, ch. ii. 14. In other
words, the daily offering is the continual symbol of gracious
intercourse between Yahweh and his people and the main office of
religion. This conception, which finds its parallel in Dan. viii. 11,
xi. 31, xii. 11, is quite in accordance with the later law. But under
the monarchy the daily oblation was the king's private offering, and
not till Ezra's reformation did it become the affair of the community
and the central act of national worship (Neh. x. 33 seq.).[6] That
Joel wrote not only after the exile but after the work of Ezra and
Nehemiah may be viewed as confirmed by the allusions to the walls of
Jerusalem in ch. ii. 7, 9. Such is the historical basis which we seem
to be able to lay for the study of the exegetical problems of the
book.

The style of Joel is clear (which hardly favours an early date), and his language presents peculiarities which are evidences of a late origin. But the structure of the book, the symbolism and the connexion of the prophet's thoughts have given rise to much controversy. It seems safest to start from the fact that the prophecy is divided into two well-marked sections by ch. ii. 18, 19a. According to the Massoretic vocalization, which is in harmony with the most ancient exegetical tradition as contained in the LXX, these words are historical: "Then the Lord was jealous,... and answered and said unto his people, Behold," &c. Such is the natural meaning of the words as pointed.

Thus the book falls into two parts. In the first the prophet speaks in his own name, addressing himself to the people in a lively description of a present calamity caused by a terrible plague of locusts which threatens the entire destruction of the country, and appears to be the vehicle of a final consuming judgment (the day of Yahweh). There is no hope save in repentance and prayer; and in ch. ii. 12 the prophet, speaking now for the first time in Yahweh's name, calls the people to a solemn fast at the sanctuary, and invites the intercession of the priests. The calamity is described in the strongest colours of Hebrew hyperbole, and it seems arbitrary to seek too literal an interpretation of details, e.g. to lay weight on the four names of locusts, or to take ch. i. 20 of a conflagration produced by drought, when it appears from ii. 3 that the ravages of the locusts themselves are compared to those of fire. But when due allowance is made for Eastern rhetoric, there is no occasion to seek in this section anything else than literal locusts. Nay, the allegorical interpretation, which takes the locusts to be hostile invaders, breaks through the laws of all reasonable writing; for the poetical hyperbole which compares the invading swarms to an army (ii. 4 seq.) would be inconceivably lame if a literal army was already concealed under the figure of the locusts. Nor could the prophet so far forget himself in his allegory as to speak of a victorious host as entering the conquered city like a thief (ii. 9). The second part of the book is Yahweh's answer to the people's prayer. The answer begins with a promise of deliverance from famine, and of fruitful seasons compensating for the ravages of the locusts. In the new prosperity of the land the union of Yahweh and his people shall be sealed anew, and so the Lord will proceed to pour down further and higher blessings. The aspiration of Moses (Num. xi. 29) and the hope of earlier prophets (Isa. xxxii. 15, lix. 21; Jer. xxxi. 33) shall be fully realized in the outpouring of the Spirit on all the Jews and even upon their servants (Isa. lxi. 5 with lvi. 6, 7); and then the great day of judgment, which had seemed to overshadow Jerusalem in the now averted plague, shall draw near with awful tokens of blood and fire and darkness. But the terrors of that day are not for the Jews but for their enemies. The worshippers of Yahweh on Zion shall be delivered (cf. Obad. v. 17, whose words Joel expressly quotes in ch. ii. 32), and it is their heathen enemies, assembled before Jerusalem to war against Yahweh, who shall be mowed down in the valley of Jehoshaphat ("Yahweh judgeth") by no human arm, but by heavenly warriors. Thus definitively freed from the profane foot of the stranger (Isa. lii. 1), Jerusalem shall abide a holy city for ever. The fertility of the land shall be such as was long ago predicted in Amos ix. 13, and streams issuing from the Temple, as Ezekiel had described in his picture of the restored Jerusalem (Ezek. xlvii.), shall fertilize the barren Wadi of Acacias. Egypt and Edom, on the other hand, shall be desolate, because they have shed the blood of Yahweh's innocents. Compare the similar predictions against Edom, Isa. xxxiv. 9 seq. (Mal. i. 3), and against Egypt, Isa. xix. 5 seq., Ezek. xxix. Joel's eschatological picture appears indeed to be largely a combination of elements from older unfulfilled prophecies. Its central feature, the assembling of the nations to judgment, is already found in Zeph. iii. 8, and in Ezekiel's prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, where the wonders of fire and blood named in Joel ii. 30 are also mentioned (Ezek. xxxviii. 22). The other physical features of the great day, the darkening of the lights of heaven, are a standing figure of the prophets from Amos v. 6, viii. 9, downwards. It is characteristic of the prophetic eschatology that images suggested by one prophet are adopted by his successors, and gradually become part of the permanent scenery of the last times; and it is a proof of the late date of Joel that almost his whole picture is made up of such features. In this respect there is a close parallelism, extending to minor details, between Joel and the last chapters of Zechariah.

That Joel's delineation of the final deliverance and glory attaches itself directly to the deliverance of the nation from a present calamity is quite in the manner of the so-called prophetic perspective. But the fact that the calamity which bulks so largely is natural and not political is characteristic of the post-exile period. Other prophets of the same age speak much of dearth and failure of crops, which in Palestine then as now were aggravated by bad government, and were far more serious to a small and isolated community than they could ever have been to the old kingdom. It was indeed by no means impossible that Jerusalem might have been altogether undone by the famine caused by the locusts; and so the conception of these visitants as the destroying army, executing Yahweh's final judgment, is really much more natural than appears to us at first sight, and does not need to be explained away by allegory. The chief argument relied upon by those who still find allegory at least in ch. ii. is the expression _hassephoni_, "the northerner"[7] [if this rendering is correct], in ii. 20. In view of the other points of affinity between Joel and Ezekiel, this word inevitably suggests Gog and Magog, and it is difficult to see how a swarm of locusts could receive such a name, or if they came from the north could perish, as the verse puts it, in the desert between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The verse remains a _crux interpretum_, and no exegesis hitherto given can be deemed thoroughly satisfactory; but the interpretation of the whole book must not be made to hinge on a single word in a verse which might be altogether removed without affecting the general course of the prophet's argument.

The whole verse is perhaps the addition of an allegorizing glossator. The prediction in _v._ 19, that the seasons shall henceforth be fruitful, is given after Yahweh has shown his zeal and pity for Israel, not of course by mere words, but by acts, as appears in verses 20, 21, where the verbs are properly perfects recording that Yahweh hath already done great things, and that vegetation has already revived. In other words, the mercy already experienced in the removal of the plague is taken as a pledge of future grace not to stop short till all God's old promises are fulfilled. In this context v. 20 is out of place. Observe also that in v. 25 the locusts are spoken of in the plain language of chap. i.

See the separate commentaries on Joel by Credner (1831), Wünsche
(1872), Merx (1879). The last-named gives an elaborate history of
interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the
Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann. Nowack and Marti should also be
consulted (see their respective series of commentaries); also G. A.
Smith, in _The Book of the Twelve Prophets_, vol. i. (1896), and S. R.
Driver, _Joel and Amos_ (1897). On the language of Joel, see
Holzinger, _Z. A. T. W._ (1889), pp. 89-131. Of older commentaries the
most valuable is Pocock's (Oxford, 1691). Bochart's _Hierozoïcon_ may
also be consulted. (W. R. S.; T. K. C.)

FOOTNOTES: