Chapter XXIX: Epilogue

CHAP. xlii. 7-17.

After the argument of the Divine voice from the storm the epilogue is a surprise, and many have doubted whether it is in line with the rest of the work. Did Job need these multitudes of camels and sheep to supplement his new faith and his reconciliation to the Almighty will? Is there not something incongruous in the large award of temporal good, and even something unnecessary in the renewed honour among men? To us it seems that a good man will be satisfied with the favour and fellowship of a loving God. Yet, assuming that the conclusion is a part of the history on which the poem was founded, we can justify the blaze of splendour that bursts on Job after sorrow, instruction and reconciliation.

Life only can reward life. That great principle was rudely shadowed forth in the old belief that God protects His servants even to a green old age. The poet of our book clearly apprehended the principle; it inspired his noblest flights. Up to the closing moment Job has lived strongly, alike in the mundane and the moral region. How is he to find continued life? The author's power could not pass the limits of the natural in order to promise a reward. Not yet was it possible, even for a great thinker, to affirm that continued fellowship with Eloah, that continued intellectual and spiritual energy which we name eternal life. A vision of it had come to him; he had seen the day of the Lord afar off, but dimly, by moments. To carry a life into it was beyond his power. Sheol made nothing perfect; and beyond Sheol no prophet eye had ever travelled.

There was nothing for it, then, but to use the history as it stood, adding symbolic touches, and show the restored life in development on earth, more powerful than ever, more esteemed, more richly endowed for good action. In one point the symbolism is very significant. Priestly office and power are given to Job; his sacrifice and intercession mediate between the friends who traduced him and Eloah who hears His faithful servant's prayer. The epilogue, as a parable of the reward of faithfulness, has deep and abiding truth. Wider opportunity of service, more cordial esteem and affection, the highest office that man can bear, these are the reward of Job; and with the terms of the symbolism we shall not quarrel who have heard the Lord say: "Well done, thou good servant, because thou wast found faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities!"

Another indication of purpose must not be overlooked. It may be said that Job's renewal in soul should have been enough for him, that he might have spent humbly what remained of life, at peace with men, in submission to God. But our author was animated by the Hebrew realism, that healthy belief in life as the gift of God, which kept him always clear on the one hand of Greek fatalism, on the other of Oriental asceticism. This strong faith in life might well lead him into the details of sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, flocks, tribute, and years of honour. Nor did he care at the end though any one said that after all the Adversary was right. He had to show expanding life as Gods recompense of faithfulness. Satan has long ago disappeared from the drama; and in any case the epilogue is chiefly a parable. It is, however, a parable involving, as our Lord's parables always involve, the sound view of man's existence, neither that of Prometheus on the rock nor of the grim anchorite in the Egyptian cave.

The writer's finest things came to him by flashes. When he reached the close of his book he was not able to make a tragedy and leave his readers rapt above the world. No pre-Christian thinker could have bound together the gleams of truth in a vision of the spirit's undying nature and immortal youth. But Job must find restored power and energy; and the close had to come, as it does, in the time sphere. We can bear to see a soul go forth naked, driven, tormented; we can bear to see the great good life pass from the scaffold or the fire, because we see God meeting it in the heaven. But we have seen Christ.

A third point is that for dramatic completeness the action had to bring Job to full acquittal in view of his friends. Nothing less will satisfy the sense of poetic justice which rules the whole work.

Finally, a biographical reminiscence may have given colour to the epilogue. If, as we have supposed, the author was once a man of substance and power in Israel, and, reduced to poverty in the time of the Assyrian conquest, found himself an exile in Arabia--the wistful sense of impotence in the world must have touched all his thinking. Perhaps he could not expect for himself renewed power and place; perhaps he had regretfully to confess a want of faithfulness in his own past. All the more might he incline to bring his great work to a close with a testimony to the worth and design of the earthly gifts of God, the temporal life which He appoints to man, that present discipline most graciously adapted to our present powers and yet full of preparation for a higher evolution, the life not seen, eternal in the heavens.

INDEX

Abraham faith of, 27.

Accadian psalms, 3.

Acquittal, Job expects, 285.

Agnostic, 117.

Amiel quoted, 88, 288.

Amos, chap. iv. 4, 44.

Angel-interpreter, 351.

Argument, the reconciling, 392.

Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 95.

Assize, the Great, 292.

Astrology, neglected, 317.

Author, his greatness, 6;
lives in the poem, 7;
member of Northern Kingdom, 15;
in the desert, 17;
inspiration of, 32;
paints his own trials, 68;
his brave truthfulness, 224;
his prophetic insight, 303.

Bene-Kedem, 23.

Bible, universality of, 17.

Bigot, the, 244.

Bildad, character of, 102;
his first speech, 135;
his second speech, 215;
his bitterness, 216;
his third speech, 298.

Boethius quoted, 288.

Book of Job, a poem of the soul, 3;
precursors of, 3;
poetical art of, 5;
date of, 6;
autobiographical, 7, 411;
style of, 8;
problem of, 11;
personality in, 12;
place in canon, 27;
main controversy of, 101;
inspiration of, 122;
logic of, 295;
prepares for Christ, 265, 404.

Bunyan quoted, 144.

Bushnell, H., quoted, 259.

Carlyle, T., quoted, 68, 223.

Catholic theologian, 135.

Chaldæans, 65.

Chaos, no moral, 273.

Christ, sacrifice of, 62;
mediation of, 121;
his preaching, 276;
Redeemer, 242, 404;
preparation for, 265.

Church, the Jewish, 14.

Church, complaints against, 264;
its duty, 295.

Cliff in the desert, 231.

Consolation, 80.

Corporate sympathy, 230.

Creed of Job's friends, 155.

Criticism of first author, 346.

Dante, 60.

Davidson, Dr. A. B., 11, 96, 311, 333.

Davidson, Dr. S., 6.

Death, finality of, 187.

Deism and positivism, 365.

Delay of the Almighty, 269.

Dogmatism, 136.

Doughty, Mr. C. M., 20.

Dualism, 166.

Duty, keep close to, 88.

Edwards, Jonathan, quoted, 274.

Egyptian "Book of the Dead," 212.

Elihu, who was he? 343;
inspiration claimed by, 342.

Eliphaz, character of, 102;
his first speech, 99;
vision of, 106;
apparently right, 113;
his religion, 114;
his second speech, 187;
a pure Temanite, 189;
jealous for God, 191;
his third speech, 269.

Eloah, the righteous, 232;
and the work of His hands, 233;
opening Sheol, 233.

Emerson, R. W., quoted, 257.

Eschatology, rose-water, 55.

"Everlasting Yea," 67.

Evolution, spiritual, 58;
of religion, 180;
physical, completes nothing, 241;
reveals Divine wisdom, 318.

Ewald, H., 11, 15.

Failure of old world, 280.

Fairbairn, Dr. A. M., 57.

Faith, and happiness, 45;
three barriers of, 235.

False judgments, 86.

Fate of the wicked, 219.

Festus quoted, 290.

Finality and progress, 193.

Funeral in the desert, 264.

God, no despot, 149;
seems to persecute, 176, 204;
and nature, 301.

Godliness, earthly reward of, 245.

Goël, the, 234.

Happiness and faith, 45.

Hauran, 20.

Hebrew thought, limitations of, 164;
realism, 410.

Hokhma, 9, 16.

Human frailty, 177.

Idealism, 65, 79.

Idolatry, 333.

Idumæa, religion of, 25.

Individualism of psalms, 13.

Inherited opinions, 169.

Inquiry and reverence, 389.

Inspiration, of author, 32, 33;
within limits, 224, 384, 387;
claimed by Elihu, 342.

Irresistible power, 141.

Isaiah compared with Job, 10.

Jauf, 20.

Jehovah, servant of, 15.

Jewel in the lotus, 364.

Jewish Church, 14.

Job, a real man, 22;
religion of, 24;
character of, 28;
early prosperity of, 29;
dream-life of, 30;
when he lived, 31;
trials of, 63;
type of righteous sufferer, 67;
his integrity, 72;
his faith, 74;
his wife, 75;
his friends, 78;
curses his day, 89;
praises death, 92;
rebuked for scepticism, 154;
prophetic, 208;
idealised, 337;
made priest, 410.

Justice, of man no refuge, 86;
in every matter, 237;
physical argument for, 238.

Kings, their favour, 357, 369.

Kinship with Eloah, 181.

Knowledge not the main thing, 390.

Koheleth, 38.

Letters and theology, 4.

Life, is it for enjoyment? 52;
meaning of, in the Gospels, 61;
as vigour, 260;
principle of man's, 382;
rewards life, 409.

Materialism, 54.

Mediator, desire for a, 147.

Mephistopheles, 36.

_Mezbele_, 72.

Microcosm and macrocosm, 402.

Mill, J. S., quoted, 256.

Mining, 314.

Modern science, 165.

Natural religion, 25;
source of, 178;
ends with a sigh, 290.

Nature and God, 166, 287, 301.

Necessity, 130.

Obedience, reward of, 42.

Ode cited by Elihu, 370.

Oriental, society, ideas of, 50;
life, contrasts of, 72;
character, 131.

Orthodoxy uncorrupted, 197.

Pain, not evil, 52-5;
and imprudence, 59;
mystery of, 120.

Paley quoted, 53.

Palgrave, W. G., quoted, 20.

Personality, 12.

Pessimism, 38.

Pharisee and Sadducee, germs of, 377.

Phœnix, 324.

Piety, daring, 133.

Pity of it, the, 229.

"Positive evil," 77.

Poverty of spirit, 196.

Precursors of Job, 3.

Primitive religion of Semites, 180.

Probation, 47.

Problem, of the book, 11;
universal, 403.

Prophet, the, a critic, 246.

Proverbs, chaps. iii., viii., 9.

Providence, enigma of, 207;
special, 225.

Psalms, individualism in, 12.

Punishment of sin, 59.

Rabbi, the, 368.

Real and ideal, 152.

Religion, decay of, 16;
evolution of, 180.

Renan quoted, 399.

Revelation, 117.

Righteousness, man not saved by, 388.

Ruskin, J., quoted, 372, 374, 396.

Sabeans, 65.

Sacrifice of Christ, 62.

Sacrificed classes, 170.

Satan, 34;
Dante's, 35;
Milton's, 35;
power of, 36;
challenged by the Almighty, 40;
his question, 42;
disappears, 71.

Scepticism, 41, 140.

Schopenhauer, 37, 39.

Semites, primitive religion of, 180.

Servant of Jehovah, 15.

Sheol, life in, 183;
no hope in, 211;
no penalty in, 255.

Sin, punishment of, 59;
does it bring suffering? 157.

Sincerity of mind, 169.

Skin for skin, 69.

Smith, Dr. Robertson, 43.

Social, meliorism, 46;
tyranny, 331.

Sons of the Elohim, 37.

Soulless human beings, 70.

Special pleading for God, 171.

Spencer, H., 52.

Spiritual evolution, 58.

Suicide, 97, 124.

Teman, 15.

Theology and letters, 4;
new beginning in, 15.

Theosophy, 39.

Total depravity, 195.

Trouble, wherefore? 282.

Universal problem, 403.

Uz, 19.

Wisdom, of the past, 138, 192;
quest of, 313.

Woman's life, 75.

Worldly prosperity offered to Job, 137, 159.

Zophar, his character, 102;
his first speech, 154;
no mere echo, 161;
his second speech, 243;
his third speech, 309.

Transciber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.

Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original text.