accept lest I deal with you after your folly in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right like my servant Job 8. And therefore take no less then seven Bullocks and as many Rams and carry them to my Servant Job whom I appoint to be your Priest to offer for you a Burnt-offering in token of my absolute Dominion over all Creatures And that faithfull Servant of mine shall pray for you and obtain your Pardon for I have a great love to him and will be favourable to you for his sake Do not fail to go about this lest I inflict some grievous punishment upon you because as I said you have made an ill representation of my Providence and repeated those things confidently which my Servant Job shewed you to be false 9. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did according as the LORD commanded them the LORD also accepted Job 9. So Eliphaz and his two Companions submitted themselves also unto God and went as He commanded them and desired Job to intercede for them And the Lord heard his Prayer and was reconciled to them 10. And the LORD turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends also the LORD gave Job twice as much as be had before 10. And at that very time when Job was performing this charitable office for his Friends the Lord was pleased to begin to restore to him all those things which had been taken away from him and never ceased till He had not onely established him in his former Splendour but made him twice as rich as he was before 11. Then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house and they bemoned him and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him every man also gave him a piece of money and every one an ear-ring of gold 11. All his Kindred likewise and his familiar Acquaintance whom his unusual Affliction had estranged from him XIX 3. when they heard of the wonders the Lord had done for him came to visit him and feast with him And after they had condoled his Misery and testified their sorrow for all that had befaln him they congratulated his happy Recovery and in token of their joy every one of them presented him with a piece of money and a pendant of gold 12. So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more then his beginning for he had fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-asses 12. Thus the Lord impoverished this good Man onely to make him richer For in stead of seven thousand Sheep which he had before his Troubles he found he had fourteen thousand when they were ended and for three thousand Camels which were taken from him the Lord gave him six thousand and multiplied his yoke of Oxen which were but five hundred into a thousand and his she-Asses in the same proportion 13. He had also seven sons and three daughters 13. His Wife also became very fruitfull and brought him as many Children as he had lost seven Sons and three Daughters 14. And he called the name of the first Jemima and the name of the second Kezia and the name of the third Keren-happuch 14. And to preserve the memory of so marvellous a Deliverance of which they were so many living monuments he called the name of the first Jemima that is the Day because of the Felicity wherein he now shone after a sad Night of Affliction wherein he had lain and the second Kesia a Spice of an excellent smell because God had healed his filthy stinking Ulcers which made even his Wife refuse to come near him XIX 17 and the last he called Kerenhappuch i. e. Plenty restored or an Horn of varnish because God had wiped away the tears which fouled his face as he complains XVI 16. 15. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren 15. The Beauty also of these Women proved as bright as their Names for there were none so amiable in all that Country and their Father did not as the manner was endow them with a small portion of his goods but having a large estate and a great affection to them he made them Coheirs with their Brethren in the inheritance which he left them 16. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years and saw his sons and his sons sons even four generations 16. After which glorious Restitution of Himself and his Family his years were multiplied as well as his estate For the Lord added almost an Age and an half no less then an hundred and forty years to those he had lived before so that he had the pleasure to see his Childrens Children to the fourth generation 17. So Job died being old and full of days 17. And departed not out of the World till he was so fully satisfied that he desired not to live any longer AN APPENDIX TO THE PARAPHRASE HERE ends the Book of Job whose short Sufferings for the space of XII months as the Hebrews reckon in Seder Olam were recompensed with a very long Life in great Prosperity If we could rely upon all their Traditions this might have been added to the Paraphrase upon the last words that the whole time of his Life was two hundred and ten years For in the Hierusalem Targum upon XII Exod. 40. and in Bereschit Rabba upon XLII Gen. 2. they make account that the Israelites staid just so long in Egypt And in the Chronicle forenamed and in Bava Bathra and other Books they tell us that Job was born that very year when Jacob went with his Family down thither to sojourn and died that year when they were delivered from thence by the hand of Moses But this agrees neither with what other of their Authours say whom I mentioned in my Preface nor with the LXX who in the last verse but one of this Book insert this Clause All the days of his life were two hundred and forty years This indeed might be easily reconciled with the account before mentioned if we did but rectify their numbers in the beginning of that verse by the Hebrew Truth and cut off the thirty years which they have added to the true time that he lived after his recovery from his sickness for then this passage also must be corrected and in stead of 240 we must set down 210. Which we might also prove in this manner out of Seder Olam Cap. 3. to be the right account of his Age because it is said v. 10. of the last Chapter that the Lord added to Job the double of what he had before and therefore if an hundred and forty years were added he had seventy before
THE Book of Job PARAPHRAS'D BY SYMON PATRICK D. D. Rectour of Covent Garden and One of His MAJESTIE's Chaplains in Ordinary Ecclus. II. 5. Gold is tried in the Fire and acceptable men in the furnace of Adversity LONDON Printed by E. Flesher for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred MAJESTY An. Dom. MDCLXXIX To the Right Honourable WILLIAM Earl of BEDFORD Knight of the most Noble Order of the GARTER c. My very good Lord and Patron My Lord THough I have not pursued the design which I have long had in my thoughts of making some publick acknowledgment of my obligations to your Lordship for placing me when I thought not of it in this Station which I hold in Covent-Garden yet I have onely deferred it till the most proper opportunity as it seems to me for this small expression of my gratitude For I could not have prefixed your Lordships Name to any Work of mine which I believe would have been so acceptable as this wherewith I now present you desiring it may remain as a lasting Testimony of the sense I have of the favours I have received from your Lordship Whom as I have always observed to have a particular Veneration and Affection for the holy Scriptures so I know to be a constant Reader of them And therefore humbly offer this assistance to your Lordship for the understanding of the oldest Book as I have shown of that Sacred Volumn which I am confident you esteem above all earthly Treasures There have been many large Volumns written for its Explication which will cost abundance of time and pains to peruse and after all the design and scope of the Whole may not be understood while the Readers mind stays so long in the several Parts I have therefore taken quite another course and only given the sense of it in a compendious but perspicuous Paraphrase or Metaphrase rather as the Ancients would have called it which is not much longer than the Text put into other words It would have been more easie to have inlarged it than it was to make it thus short which I the rather chose to do not meerly because it will be more usefull for those who have little leasure or less money but because thereby I have preserved I perswade my self the Majesty of the Book and made it still look not like the Word of a man but as it is indeed the Word of God Which I could never have presented to your Lordship and the World more seasonably than now when the State of our affairs is so dangerously perplexed that we cannot stand upright nor preserve our souls from sinking into the saddest fears or discontents or some such troublesom passion without a strong confidence in the most Wise Just and Mercifull Providence of the Almighty which Orders things in unsearchable ways to the good of those that stedfastly adhere unto him in faithfull Obedience Which is so admirably represented in this holy Book that one cannot read it seriously and not be moved to resign the conduct of our selves and all that concerns us unto God's most blessed will and pleasure to wait patiently for him as the Psalmist speaks and keep his way not to be disheartned by any trouble that befalls us much less forsake our integrity but still expect the End of the Lord as S. James speaks i. e. the issue to which he will bring our troubles perswading our selves that he is very pitifull and of tender Mercy And therefore as He doth not love to grieve us by laying afflictions on us so is wont many times to bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil and to produce it by such unexpected means as shall surprise us with the greater admiration of his Wisedom and Goodness For a great Reader of Ancient Writers tells us he hath observed in the Histories of all Ages that the great events which determine the fate of great Affairs do happen less frequently according to design than by accident and occasion Our enterprizes here below are derived from above and we but Engins and Actors of pieces that are composed in heaven Homo histrio Deus verò Poeta est God is the Sovereign Poet and we cannot refuse the part which he appoints us to bear in the Scene All our business is to act it well chearfully complying with his Orders concerning us and submitting our selves to the direction of his Providence To which and all other Religious courses did we more heartily apply our selves there is no doubt but that in this Book we might read God's gracious intentions towards this Church and Kingdom Which his most mercifull Providence would bring as he did his Servant Job through all these clouds which now incompass us into a splendor incomparably beyond all that wherein hitherto we have appeared Why should we despair of it when he shews by the unexpected discovery which he hath made of the designs of our Enemies against us that he hath no mind to cast us off if we will not carelesly cast away our selves by the continued neglect of our duty to him God of his infinite goodness awaken all our hearts to make such a good use both of that deliverance and of our present distress which is so great that we see no way out of it but by his power alone to whom Job owed his resurrection that we may in the issue be the more happy and the better established for having been so miserably unsetled In which prayer I am sure your Lordship will cordially joyn with My Lord Your Lordships most humble and affectionate Servant Sy. Patrick April 19.79 THE PREFACE THE study of the Holy Scriptures is so much recommended to us by the Scriptures themselves and hath been judged so necessary by the holy Doctours of the Church that S. Chrysostome who was wont to press this duty with great earnestness not only in his Sermons but in his private discourses with his people adventures to say * Hom. 3. in Lazar. Tom. V. 243. that a man cannot he cannot be saved unless he be conversant in this spiritual reading But as the neglect of them is very dangerous when men are able to read them so the reading them without understanding must needs be unprofitable Though a Christian as the forenamed great Person speaks can no more be without the Scriptures than an Artificer without his tools yet we must acknowledge that he will make but ill work with them in many places unless he be instructed how to use and apply them to the purpose for which they were designed Whosoever therefore shall assist the minds of Christians by giving a clear meaning of them in which that holy Father imployed much of his time it is certain doth great service to God and to their Souls For this contributes much to the honour of the Holy Scriptures which want nothing to make them reverenced by considering men but to be understood and it invites men to the reading them and it conveyes the heaveniy
truth easily and delightfully into their minds Which hath moved me to attempt the explaining of the most ancient Book in the whole Bible by way of a short Paraphrase In which if I have not always tyed my self to our English Translation which ever gives an excellent sence of the Original words it was because I thought another meaning sometimes more agreeable to the whole discourse which I have endeavoured to carry on coherently from first to last But if the matter would bear it I have when I met with a word of two senses expressed them both And where I found any difficulty I consulted with such Interpreters as are of best note in the Church being unwilling to do any thing without the warrant of some or other of them I was forced indeed here and there to follow only my own judgement but not without the appearance of very urgent reasons of which if I should give an account by adding notes to those places it would make this which I intend for common use swell into too big a Volumn I have only therefore in the Argument presixed to each Chapter pointed to such Histories in the Bible as may help to illustrate some passages and shewn how the dispute is menaged till God himself determine it But there are two things of which I think my self bound to give a larger accompt to avoid the imputation of such novelty as may be justly censured The One is That I have interpreted those three known verses in the XIX Chapter 25 26 27. not of Job's resurrection from the dead at the last day but of his restauration to an happy estate in this world after he had been so sorely afflicted There are many of no mean esteem Mr. Calvin amongst the rest who have done so before me in following whom I do not forsake the sense of the ancient Doctours For though I take that to be the literal sense of the words yet I doubt not there is another more secret and hidden which lies covered under them and that we ought to look upon Job's Restauration and so I have always explained it as a notable type of the future Resurrection of our Bodies out of the Grave And accordingly our Church hath very fitly applied the words as many of the Fathers do to this purpose in the Office of the Burial of the Dead St. Hierome or the Author of the Commentaries upon Job under his name is my Guide in this business who saith no more then this that Job in these words resurrectionem futuram prophetat in Spiritu prophecieth in the Spirit the future Resurrection Now the words of the Prophets had commonly an immediate respect to some thing which was then doing or shortly to be done besides that sense which the Holy-Ghost directed them to signify in the latter dayes And so had these words of Job of which that Father indeed gives us only the Mystical sense but he doth so in many other places of that Book where it is certain and acknowledged the holy man had another meaning in which he was more nearly concerned I shall refer the Reader only to one place in the First Chapter where he saith that Job did ferre typum Christi * And so he saith in his Praeface Figuram Christi portavit And in his Conclusion XLII 14. Figuram manifestè habuit Salvatoris and therefore expounds those words v. 20 21. in this manner He fell on the ground when he emptied himself of the form of God to take on him the form of a Servant and came naked out of his Mothers Womb being not aspersed with the least spot of Original Sin He that will may read what follows and see how he only sets down a mystical sense when it is certain another upon which that is built is first intended And so we are to take his exposition upon these words which secundum mysticos intellectus as he speaks XXXVIII 16. according to the hidden interpretations are to be understood of the Resurrection of the dead at the second coming of Christ but relate in the first place to Job's resurrection out of that miserable condition wherein he lay which was a figure of the other They therefore who interpret these words otherways to speak with that Father in his Commentaries upon Ezek. XXXVII 1. c. ought not to make me ill thought of as if by expounding them in the literal sense only I took away a proof of the Resurrection from the dead For I know there are far stronger testimonies of which there can be no doubt nor dispute to be found for the confirmation of that truth On those let us rely on the plain words of Him who is the Truth and of whom Job was but a Figure which are abundantly sufficient to support our faith and let none imagine that we Give occasion to Hereticks as he speaks presently after if we deny these words to be meant of the general Resurrection The Second thing of which I am to give an account is that I have not expounded Behemoth to signify the Elephant nor Leviathan to signify the Whale because many of their Characters do not agree to them but every one of them to the description which the writers of Natural History have given of two other Creatures And therefore I have herein followed the guidance of that excellent Critick Bochartus who takes the former for the River-horse and the later for the Crocodile as I have expressed it in the Margin but put neither of them in the Text. For I leave every one as our Translatours have done to apply the words to any other Creatures if they can find any besides those now mentioned which have all the qualities that are here ascribed to them I have adventured also in the beginning to add a few words as the manner of Paraphrasts is to give an account of the time when Job lived which seemes to have been before the Children of Israel came out of Egypt For though there be plain mention of the drowning of the Old World and the burning of Sodom in this Book yet there is no allusion to the drowning of Pharaoh and other miraculous works which attended their deliverance Nor is there any notice taken of that Revelation of Gods will to Moses when Elihu reckons up those ways whereby God was wont to discover himself to men Such like reasons moved Origen * Lib. 1. contra Celsum p. 305. to say that Job was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more ancient than even Moses himself and Eusebius * Lib. 1. Demonstr Evang Cap. 6. to pronounce that he was before Moses two whole ages Which is conformable to the opinion of many of the Hebrew Writers who as Mr. Selden observes * Lib. VII De Jure Nat. c. Cap. 11. think Job lived in the dayes of Isaac and Jacob. The judgment of other Eastern people is not much different from this as may be seen in Hottinger's Smegma Orientale * Pag. 381
452 453. And therefore one Use we may make of this Book is to inform our selves what are the true natural dictates of humane reason which teaches greater Chastity than many Christians are now willing to observe strict Justice both private and publick compassionate Charity to those who are in need together with a pious care to please God and to worship and confide in him alone as we may learn here better than from any other Book in the World For in the XXXI Chapter Job gives such a character of his Life with respect to all these as declares both that there is a Law written in our hearts and what instructions it gives us if we will attend to it There is not the least syllable that we read concerning his being Circumcised or observing the Sabbath or such like parts of the Mosaical Discipline which assures us he was neither a natural Israelite nor a Proselyte as St. Austin speaks * Lib. XVIII Cap. 47. De Civit. Dei. and yet he found such a rule of life in himself that by the assistance of the Divine Grace he ordered not only his outward actions but the inward motions of his mind after such a manner as is not unsuitable to the Evangelical Doctrine of our Saviour They are the words of Eusebius in the place forenamed where he doth not fear to add that the Word of Christ hath published to all Nations that most ancient manner of Godliness which was among the first Fathers so that the New-Covenant is no other than that old godly polity which was before the times of Moses I may add before the time that Abraham was Circumcised when as St. Chrysostome speaks very significantly * Vpon Rom. II. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Conscience and the use of reason sufficed instead of the Law The Hebrew Books indeed are full of discourses concerning certain Precepts which all mankind after the Flood observed but cannot all of them be deduced from the principles of Reason They call them the VII Precepts of the sons of Noah who delivered them they say to all his Children by whom the World was peopled and therefore the Israelites ever exacted the observance of them from all those Gentiles whom they admitted as Proselytes at large to their Religion Two of those Precepts concerned their duty toward the blessed Creator the next Four respected their duty towards their Neighbours the Last forbad cruelty towards other Creatures They are reckoned up commonly in this order I. Concerning Strange Worship or Idolatry II. About blaspheming the Name of God III. About Murder IV. About the uncovering of Nakedness or all silthy Mixtures V. About Theft and Rapine VI. About Judicatures and Civil Government to make the other Precepts more carefully observed VII About not eating of any flesh which is cut off from any Animal alive The Authours that treat of these are innumerable among whom I shall only mention Maimonides who thus delivers his opinion of them in his Treatise of Kings Chap. IX Adam the first man received commands about Six things which are those first above mentioned from whence it is that the Mind of Man inclines more pronely to them than to the rest of the Commands which we have received from our Master Moses Besides these it is manifest Noah received another according to what we read IX Gen. 4. Flesh with the life thereof you shall not eat And thus things stood throughout the whole world until the dayes of Abraham to whom there was superadded the Precept of Circumcision But as there is not the least signe that Circumcision was part of Job's Religion so there is no footstep at all remaining of his observance of the last of those VII Precepts which they say all the Sons of Noah who were pious carefully obeyed A Great man of our own Nation * Mr. Selden L. ult de Jure Naturali c. Cap. II. hath sifted this business with as much diligence as is possible but after all his search he is fain to stop at those first Six Precepts delivered to Adam For though this General Character be given of Job in the beginning of the Book that he was a perfect or simple and upright man fearing God and eschewing evil and in the XXXI Chapter and other places there are particular instances given of his abhorring strange Worship v. 26. Blasphemy Chap. I. 5. Murder XXXI 29 31. Adultery and other filthiness Ib. v. 1 9. Theft Rapine and Deceit v. 5 6 7. for the punishment of which he mentions Judges in his days v. 11 28. and was himself one of the chief XXIX 11. Yet there is not so much as one word to be found that I can discern concerning the Seventh Precept whether we understand thereby eating flesh with the blood in it or which is more likely because other Nations that were not Jews might lawfully eat that which dyed of it self XIV Deut. 21. eating that which was cut alive from any living Creature Which makes me think that it was not so generally known as the Jews now pretend till the memory of it was revived by Moses among whose Ancestours the Tradition was more carefully preserved than in other Nations For Job and such like pious persons seem to have been governed by those Precepts only which the first Man received that is the dictates of Natural reason According to those words of Tertullian in his Book against the Jews Chap. 2. where he contends that before the Law of Moses written in Tables of Stone there was a Law not written which was naturally understood and observed by the Fathers Which he elsewhere calls the Common Law which we meet withal in publico Mundi in the streets and high-ways of the world in the natural Tables which mankind having broken our Saviour came to repair and renew abrogating the Law of Moses in which the Jews had placed too much confidence while they neglected these natural Precepts Or rather He hath not only ingaged us by his holy Sacraments to observe those more strictly but raised them also to a greater height of purity according to that of St. Chrysostome in his Book of Virginity We are to shew greater Vertue because now there is an abundant Grace poured out and great is the gift of the coming of Christ But the principal benefit to omit the naming of many other whereby I might recommend this work which I hope pious Souls especially the Afflicted will reap by this Book is to be perswaded thereby that all things are ordered and disposed by Almighty God without whose command or permission neither good Angels nor the Devil nor Men nor any other Creature can do any thing And that as his Power is infinite so is his Wisedom and Goodness which is able to bring good out of evil And therefore we ought not to complain of Him in any condition as if He neglected us or dealt hardly with us but rather chearfully submit our selves to his blessed will which never
doth any thing without reason though we cannot always comprehend it To that issue God himself at last brings all the dispute between Job and his friends representing his Works throughout the World to be so wonderful and unaccountable that it is fit for us to acknowledge our ignorance but never accuse his Providence if we cannot see the cause why he sends any affliction or continues it long upon us Instead of murmuring and complaining in such a case this Book effectually teaches us to resigne our selves absolutely to Him silently to adore and reverence the unsearchable depth of his wise counsels contentedly to bear what He inflicts upon us still to assert his righteousness in the midst of the calamities which befall the good and in the most prosperous successes of the wicked and stedfastly to believe that all at last shall turn to our advantage if like His servant Job we persevere in faith and hope and patience To which this Book gives so high an incouragement and contains such powerful comforts for the Afflicted that the old Tradition is Moses could not find any thing like it for the support and satisfaction of the Israelites in their Egyptian bondage and therefore took the pains to translate it into their Language out of the Syriack wherein it was first written Thus He who writes the Commentaries upon this Book under the name of Origen tells us That he found in Antiquorum dictis in the sayings of the Ancients that when the Great Moses was sent by God into Egypt and beheld the affliction of the Children of Israel to be so grievous that nothing he could say was able to comfort them in that lamentable condition He declared to them the terrible sufferings of Job with his happy deliverance and setting them down in writing also gave this Book to that distressed people That reading these things in their several Tribes and Families and hearing how sorely this blessed man suffered they might comfort and exhort one another to endure with patience and thanksgiving the evils which incompassed them and hearing withall how bountifully God rewarded Job for his patience they might hope for deliverance and expect the benefit of a blessed reward of their Labours Be ye constant O Children of Israel said Moses with a pleasing countenance when he delivered this Book into their hands do not faint in your minds O ye posterity of Abraham but suffer grief and bear these evils patiently as that man in the Land of Vz did whose name was Job who though he was a righteous and faithful person in whom was no fault yet suffered the sorest torments by the malice of the Devil as you do now most unjustly from Pharaoh and the Egyptians They treat you indeed very basely and have enslaved you without any fault of yours c. But do not despair of a better condition you shall be delivered as Job was and have a reward of your tribulations like that which God gave to him There follows a great deal more to the same purpose in that Writer which I shall not transcribe But only add that the Church of Christ as he observes was wont after this example to read this Passion of Job publickly in all their Assemblies upon Holy-days when they commemorated the Martyrs and upon Fasting days and days of Abstinence and upon the days of our Saviour's Passion of which they thought they saw a figure in the sufferings of Job as of our Saviour's Resurrection and exaltation in Job's wonderful recovery and advancement to a greater height of Prosperity And as they read this History in the Church publickly so when they went to visit any one privately that was in grief mourning or sorrow they read a Lesson of the patience of Job for their comfort and support under their troubles and to take away the distress and anguish of their heart I pray God it may have that effect upon all afflicted persons who shall read it and that others also considering the instability of all worldly things which is here also lively represented may use their prosperity with such moderation that they may bear a change of their condition if it come with an equal mind I am sure there is no Man of whatsoever rank or in whatsoever condition he be but may learn very much if he please from this admirable Pattern Which is the very first that is left us upon record of a Vertuous Life both in Prosperity and in adversity and that not only as a Private man but as a Prince In whom it is the greater commendation to obey the will of God because he hath more means and temptations to fulfil his own That therefore shall conclude the character of Job who when he had no superiour to controle him as you may read Chap. XXIX and XXXI gave such an example of Piety and Devotion Humility and Moderation Chastity and Purity Justice and Equity Charity and Compassion as few have done in a private Condition This is as admirable and will be praised as much to all generations as his generous Patience Which was so much famed in ancient times that from a passage which some Editions of the LXX have added to the Conclusion of this Book it went as a common Tradition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophanes speaks having nothing incredible in it that Job was one of those who had the honour to rise out of his Grave at our Saviour's Resurrection when as St. Matthew assures us XXVII 51. many bodies of Saints which slept arose and went into the holy City and appeared unto many V. James 7 11. Behold we count them happy which endure Be patient therefore Brethren unto the coming of the Lord. IMPRIMATUR Dec. 17. 1678. Guil. Jane R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à sacris dom 〈…〉 A PARAPHRASE ON The BOOK of JOB CHAP. I. ARGUMENT This Chapter is a plain Narration of the flourishing condition wherein Job lived before the envy and malice of the Devil brought upon him the sorest Calamities which are particularly described with the occasion of them and his admirable Constancy under them whereby he became as eminent an example of Patience in Adversity as he had been of Piety and all manner of Vertue in his Prosperity 1. THere was a man in the land of Vz whose name was Job and that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and eschewed evil 1. IN the time of the ancient Patriarchs before the giving of the Law of Moses there lived in Arabia a person of great eminence whose name was Job A man not more illustrious for his Birth or Place then for the height of his Vertue which appeared in a most unblamable life void of all hypocrisie both in his Piety toward God and in his dealings with men and all other ways 2. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters 2. Whom God therefore had so wonderfully blessed that his outward Prosperity was equal to the Perfections of his Mind
with a fiery Ulcer whose sharp humour was extream grievous and painfull and prick'd him according to his wish to the very bone 8. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withall and he sate down among the ashes 8. The filthiness of the Disease also increased that sorrow and heaviness which before had seized on him and made him sit down in the ashes where he laid hold on what came next to hand a piece of a broken pot to wipe away the foul Matter which issued out of his Boils 9. ¶ Then said his wife unto him Dost thou still retain thine integrity curse God and die 9. And it was a farther addition to his Grief to hear his dear Consort whom the Divine goodness he thought had still left to help him to bear his Affliction utter this profane speech What a folly is it still to persist in the Service of God when all thou gettest by it is to give Him thanks and perish 10. But he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil In all this did not Job sin with his lips 10. These words struck him to the very heart but in stead of being angry with God he onely severely reproved her telling her that she talked like one of the wicked women and then piously represented to her that we ought to take nothing ill which comes from the hand of God as all evil things do as well as good and the more good we have received from Him the less reason we have to complain when we suffer any evil No discourse but such as this was heard to come from his mouth 11. ¶ Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him they came every one from his own place Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him to comfort him 11. Now there dwelt in the neighbouring Provinces three great men with whom Job had long maintained a particular friendship who hearing the sad tidings of his Sufferings came every one from his country to visit him Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite who all three met at his house on the same day according to an appointment they had made to come and condole with him and comfort him 12. And when they lift up their eyes afar off and knew him not they lifted up their voice and wept and they rent every one his mantle sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven 12. But as soon as ever they entred into the place where he lay they were surprised with so miserable a spectacle of deformity that they shrieked aloud as men affrighted and burst out into tears and rent their garments and threw dust into the air which falling on their heads expressed the confusion they were in to find him so covered over with Ulcers that they could not know him 13. So they sats down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and none spake a word unto him for they saw that his grief was very great 13. And when they approached nearer him they onely sate down upon the earth in the same mournfull posture wherein they found him but were not able so much were they astonished for seven days and nights to say one word of the business about which they were come to him And indeed his Grief was so exceeding great that they did not well know what to say till time which alters all things had asswaged a little both his Grief and theirs CHAP. III. ARGUMENT Here begin the Discourses which Job and his Friends had about his Affliction which are all represented by the Authour of this Book poetically not as hitherto in a plain simple narration but in most elegant verse And being overcharged with Grief without the least word of comfort from his Friends he that had for some time born the weight of his Afflictions with an admirable Constancy could not contain himself any longer but bursts out to such a degree was the anguish of his spirit increased into the most passionate Complaints of the Miseries of humane Life The consideration of which made him prefer Death much before it and wish that either he had never come into the world or gone presently out of it again or at least might now forthwith be dismissed 1. AFter this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day 1. AND at the end of seven days Job himself began by Complaints to give some vent to his Grief which had stupefied him thus long But he burst out into such bitter Lamentations that he wisht a thousand times he had never been born 2. And Job spake and said 2. That which he said was to this effect 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it was said There is a man-child conceived 3. Let the Day and the Night of my Birth be never more mentioned but be quite forgotten as if it had never been 4. Let that day be darkness let not God regard it from above neither let the light shine upon it 4. Let that Day be turned into Night and not be counted among the days let the Sun then withdraw its light and never shine upon it 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it let a cloud dwell upon it let the blackness of the day terrifie it 5. Let the most dismall darkness and the thickest clouds wholly possess it and render it terrible to men 6. As for that night let darkness seise upon it let it not be joyned unto the days of the year let it not come into the number of the months 6. And let the Night be of the same sort and both of them quite blotted out of the Calendar 7. Lo let that night be solitary let no joyfull voice come therein 7. Let no body meet together on that Night to feast or make merry 8. Let them curse it that curse the day who are ready to raise up their mourning 8. Let it be as odious as the day wherein men bewail the greatest misfortune or the time wherein they see the most dreadfull apparition 9. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark let it look for light but have none neither let it see the dawning of the day 9. Let there not so much as a Star appear in that Night nor so much light as we see at peep of day 10. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb nor hid sorrow from mine eyes 10. Because it did not bury me in my mother's womb and thereby secure me from all these Miseries 11. Why died I not from the womb why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly 11. What a
tabernacle 12. Whole Armies of Evils by his order have at the same time invaded me and laid such a streight siege to me that not the smallest Comfort I had could escape their fury 13. He hath put my brethren far from me and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me 13. I look'd for some relief from my Brethren but they were so astonisht at the number and dreadfulness of my Calamities that they durst not approach me and as for my Neighbours who formerly so much courted my acquaintance they truly kept aloof off as if they had never known me 14. My kinsfolk have failed and my familiar friends have forgotten me 14. They whom Nature inclined to it have failed to perform the duties of Humanity towards me and they to whom I was tied by a stronger bond then Nature have forgotten the Friendship there was between us 15. They that dwell in mine house and my maids count me for a stranger I am an aliant in their sight 15. They that have been kindly entertain'd at my house nay the people of my Family have forgot the respect they were wont to give me and look upon me as if they had no relation to me 16. I called my servant and he gave me no answer I entreated him with my mouth 16. I called to my Slave and he regarded not what I said no not when I beseeched him as if he had been my Master 17. My breath is strange to my wife though I intreated for the childrens sake of mine own body 17. Which is the less wonder since I am become so loathsome that my Wife will not come near me though I have conjured her to it by the dear memory of our Children those common pledges of our mutual love 18. Yea young children despised me I arose and they spake against me 18. After these examples young Children and Fools despise me and when I rise up to invite them to me abusive language is all the return they make to my Courtesy 19. All my inward friends abhorred me and they whom I loved are turned against me 19. And which is worst of all the men whom I intrusted with my greatest Secrets cannot endure me and they who have received so many tokens of my Love are become mine Enemies 20. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth 20. All these Afflictions have so wasted me that I am little more then skin and bone a Mouth to complain withall is all the flesh that is left me 21. Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me 21. O ye my Friends if you still deserve that name who are the onely persons that undertake to comfort me have pity have pity I beseech you upon a miserable wretch and consider what Wounds the hand of God hath given me 22. Why do ye persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh 22. Will you assume the same prerogative and think you have the same right to afflict me And doth it not suffice you to see my Body all consumed but you will vex my very Soul also with your perverse reasonings 23. Oh that my words were now written oh that they were printed in a book 23. Oh that the Protestations and Appeals I have so often made might remain upon record and be registred in the publick Acts and Monuments 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever 24. May they be graven upon a plate of lead with an iron pen nay cut into a rock or marble pillar to continue to all Posterity 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth 25. For my Hope which was as dead as my self XVII 13 15. XIX 10. begins to revive because though I seem for the present to be forsaken of God yet I know that He can hereafter deliver me out of this miserable condition since He lives for ever and will I doubt not at last appear victorious over all the Enemies which now oppress me 26. And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God 26. And though the Worms which have eaten my Skin should proceed to consume the rest of this wretched Body yet I feel my Soul inspired with a comfortable belief that before I die I shall see my self restored by the mercy of God to a happy estate 27. Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me 27. He will not let me always lie under these Reproaches but I begin to assure my self that with these very eyes I shall see Him vindicate my Innocence not onely others but I my self shall live to see it and I even faint away with vehement desire to behold that happy day 28. But ye should say Why persecute we him seeing the root of the matter is found in me 28. Which will make you repent that you have thus persecuted me who have not without ground thus long disputed this matter with you but am sure the right lies on my side and not on yours 29. Be ye afraid of the sword for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword that ye may know there is a judgment 29. Take my advice therefore in good time and dread the just displeasure of God against you for your perverse Reasonings for his wrath punishes mens iniquity with the sword or some such sore Vengeance whereby you will know to your cost that there is a more righteous Judgment then yours CHAP. XX. ARGUMENT The abrupt beginning of this Speech of Zophar shews that he was in a passion which though he pretends to bridle it would not let him calmly consider the Protestation which Job had made of his Innocence But he goes on in the old Common place of the certain Downfall of the Wicked be he never so powerfull and well supported Which he illustrates indeed after an excellent fashion with great variety of Figures and remarks upon Histories as old as the World In some of which he had observed that the Wicked after their Fall had made not able attempts to get up again but by the hand of God were so crushed that they could never rise more All the slaw in his Discourse is this which was common to him with the rest that he imagined God never varied from this method and therefore Job without doubt was a very bad man though it did not appear he was any other way but by his Infelicity 1. THEN answered Zophar the Naamathite and said 1. HERE Zophar though he had no new thing to produce hastily interrupted Job and said 2. Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer and for this I make haste 2. These words of thine make my former
which in all make two hundred and ten But it is not worth our while to trouble our selves with such uncertainties much less is it safe to rely upon any thing which is supported by no stronger Authority then the Hebrew Tradition The vanity of which appears most notoriously in this that Manasseh Ben Israel saith * Lib. 1. de Resurrect Cap. ult it is evidently certain by Tradition that the Mahometans at this day pay a great reverence to this holy man's Sepulchre and honour it at Constantinople with much religion and devotion when all men that have any considerable acquaintance with other Authours besides those of their own Nation upon which the Hebrews dote may easily know that the Job whom the Turks honour was a Captain of the Saracens who was slain when they besieged that City in the year of Christ 675. It will be to better purpose if I take notice of an observation of theirs which hath more certainty in it because clearly founded upon the Holy Scriptures Which is that Job was a Prophet among the Gentiles and a Prophet of very eminent quality and degree Who deserved to have been at least mentioned by Josephus in his Book of Antiquities where he hath not vouchsafed to Name him nay to have been praised by the Son of Sirach in his Catalogue of famous men XLIV Ecclus c. who were honoured in their Generations and were the glory of their Times But according to the humour of the Jews he magnifies onely those of their own Country or such from whom they were directly descended not considering how much it was for their honour that by the care of their noble Ancestours the History of Job and his excellent Vertues had been preserved Which he ought not therefore to have omitted but to have celebrated him among the chief of those Worthy persons by whom God wrought great glory such as did bear rule in their Kingdoms men renowned for their power giving counsel by their understanding and declaring prophecies c. XLIV Ecclus 2 3. Nay his Friends deserved a short remembrance who seem nothing inferiour to the Wise men among the Jews though they mistook in the application of many excellent Truths but are acknowledged by themselves to have been Prophets among the Gentiles And not without reason for Eliphaz we reade IV. 13 c. had Night-visions an Apparition of an Angel and secret Whispers like the still small Voice which Elijah heard 1 Kings XIX 12. which made R. Sol. Jarchi not fear to say that the Shechinah was upon him And Elihu it is easy to discern felt a Divine Power working in him mightily XXXII 8 18 19. which was not altogether a stranger he shews XXXIII 15 16. to other men whom God in those days instructed by Dreams among other ways that he had of communicating his mind to them But there was none equal to that wherein He made Himself known to Job who in three things seems to have had the preeminence above all the Gentile Prophets First In that God was pleased to speak to him aloud by a Voice from Heaven XXXVIII 1. which the Jews call the Bath Col and not merely in such silent Whispers as He did to Eliphaz Secondly That this Voice was attended with a notable token of a Divine Presence from whence it came viz. a Whirlwind which I take to have been something like that sound as of a rushing mighty wind wherein the Holy Ghost came upon the day of Pentecost And Lastly He saw likewise in all probability the appearance of some Visible Majesty XLII 5. suppose in a glorious Cloud as the LXX seem to understand it XXXVIII 1. or something like that which Moses beheld in the Bush when God first called unto him out of the midst of it III. Ex. 4. Which need not at all puzzle our belief when we consider that the Church in those days was Catholique and not as yet confined to any one Family or Nation God was pleased indeed to shew an extraordinary grace to Abraham in calling him out of his own Country and Father's House where Idolatry had taken a deep root and had been long growing without any hope of amendment For if we may give any credit to Kessaeus a Mahometan writer or to Elmacinus a Christian they were infected with it in the days of Heber who stoutly opposed it but with so little effect that though God sent a whirlwind which threw down all their Idols and broke them in pieces that false worship still prevailed But this doth not warrant us to imagine that God utterly rejected and neglected all other people to whom He revealed Himself in a very familiar manner and gave many demonstrations of his Divine Presence among them till they corrupted their ways by such abominable Idolatries that they became altogether unprofitable and unfit for the society of that Holy Spirit which oft times moved them Even among the Canaanites into whose Country God led Abraham we find Melchisedeck was then a Priest of the most high God a greater person then that Prophet and the Minister of that Oracle some fancy which Rebekah went to consult when she felt the Twins struggling in her Womb XXV Gen. 22. To whom I might adde several others if I had a mind to prolong this discourse And though the Book before mentioned Sedar Olam Rabba Chap. 21. is pleased to say that the Holy Ghost ceased to inspire men of any other Nation after the giving of the Law yet it is easy to shew that therein it contradicts even their own affirmation elsewhere which is grounded on good reason that Balaam was a Prophet divinely moved among the Syrians in Mesopotamia He was a man indeed of naughty affections and inclined to Superstition but still had many illuminations and motions from the most High as appears not onely by his predictions but by the express words of Moses who says the Spirit of God came upon him XXIV Num. 2. To which if I should adde his own testimony concerning himself that he heard the words of God and saw the vision of the Almighty and that in an extraordinary manner having his eyes open in his ecstasy I see no reason why it should be rejected especially since he declared at the first when the Princes of Midian importuned him to goe with them that he would be wholly guided by the LORD in the buisiness and when he was come to Balack constantly went to meet the LORD to ask Him what he should say and professed his care to speak what the LORD had put in his mouth XXII 8. XXIII 3 12 15 c. These considerations to which many more might be added are sufficient to shew that there is little if any ground for the opinion of Theodoret who resolves * Quaest 39. in Num. that Balaam did not enquire of the True God though the answer was given by him of whom he was ignorant not by him whom he invoked and that the conclusion of S. Basil
Eliphaz endeavours to establish this for a certain truth That as Afflictions do not come by chance but by the Providence of God so they are sent for the sins of men and therefore without all doubt Job was a great offendour which was the cause he was handled on this manner This opinion says Maimonides he held to the last onely was fain to adde in conclusion that all the ways whereby we deserve punishment do not appear Then after him when Job had argued against this comes Bildad who produces a new opinion grounded upon the doctrine of permutation or recompence as they speak That is he believed the Evils which Job indured here should if he proved innocent be changed into good things and in the issue be highly serviceable to him in another world After whom succeeds Zophar with a different resolution from all these which was that God acts according to his own pleasure and that we are not to search for any cause of his actions out of his own will nor to say why doth he this and not that In short we are not to seek the way of equity and the decree of wisedom in his doings for it necessarily belongs to his Essence that He doe what He will and our understanding is too shallow to comprehend the secrets of his Wisedom whose right and propriety it is that He may do according to his Pleasure and for no other cause And these four Opinions about Providence Maimonides undertakes to shew have had their several Assertors since who have propagated them among their Scholars Job's opinion he saith is the same with Aristotle's who attributed all to accident Bildad was followed by the Sect of Mutazali a kind of Pharisees among the Ismaelites who ascribed all to Wisedom Zophar by the Sect of Assaria who attributed all to will and pleasure And Eliphaz he fancies held the opinion of the Law which is that God deals with men according to their works But when all that these men had disputed nothing moved Job there stands up another whose name was Elihu who first proves the Providence of God from prophetical dreams XXXIII 13. and to those things which Eliphaz had said adds according to the imagination of Menasseh Ben-Israel the doctrine of the transmigration of Souls which he labours to find in v. 14. and thereby in a wonderfull way says he resolves all the doubt by determining that Job and other just men may be punished for sins which they committed in a former body But as there is no footstep that I can see for this fond conceit which he honours with the name of a mystery so it is evident these men follow their own vain inventions in all this discourse directly contrary to the Book it self For they make Job's opinion the very worst of all the rest when the Lord himself tells Eliphaz in the conclusion of the Book XLII 7. that He was angry with him and his two other Friends because they had not spoken of him so rightly as Job had And it doth not appear by their speeches that they held several opinions about Providence and took every one of them a different way that 's a meer Rabbinical subtilty to solve the doubt wherein Job's unusual sufferings had perplexed them But they seem to have harped all of them upon one and the same string as I have represented in the Arguments before each Chapter which it is thought fit should be here set down by themselves that the Reader may take a view of the whole work all together From whence the conclusion of Maimonides will be very evident which is the best thing he says that The scope of the Book is to establish the great Article of Providence and thereby to preserve us from errour in thinking that God's Knowledge is like our Knowledge or his Intention Providence and Government like our Intention Providence and Government Which foundation being laid nothing will seem hard to a man whatsoever happens Nor will he fall into dubious thoughts concerning God whether He knows what is befaln us or no and whether He takes any care of us But rather he will be inflamed the more vehemently in the love of God as it is said in the end of this Prophecy Wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes So say our Wise men They that act out of love will rejoyce in Chastisements THE ARGUMENTS TO THE SEVERAL CHAPTERS CHAP. I. ARGUMENT THIS Chapter is a plain Narration of the flourishing condition wherein Job lived before the envy and malice of the Devil brought upon him the sorest Calamities which are particularly described with the occasion of them and his admirable Constancy under them whereby he became as eminent an example of Patience in Adversity as he had been of Piety and all manner of Vertue in his Prosperity fol. 1 CHAP. II. ARGUMENT The first part of this Chapter is a continuation of the Narration which was begun in the foregoing of the Calamities which befell this good man whom God suffered the Devil to afflict in his Body as he had already done in his Goods and Children And then follows a farther testimony of his Constancy notwithstanding his Wife 's angry and profane accusation of the Divine Providence Though it is true he was so much dejected to see himself reduced to this extremity of Misery that neither he nor his Friends that came to visit him were able for several days to speak a word fol. 11 CHAP. III. ARGUMENT Here begin the Discourses which Job and his Friends had about his Affliction which are all represented by the Authour of this Book poetically not as hitherto in a plain simple Narration but in most elegant verse And being overcharged with Grief without the least word of comfort from his Friends he that had for some time born the weight of his Asslictions with an admirable Constancy could not contain himself any longer but bursts out to such a degree was the anguish of his spirit increased into the most passionate Camplaints of the Miseries of humane Life The consideration of which made him prefer Death much before it and wish that either he had never come into the world or gone presently out of it again or at least might now forthwith he dismissed fol. 17 CHAP. IV. ARGUMENT Eliphaz incensed at this Complaint of Job in stead of condoling with him and pitying the Miseries which had put him into this Agony and applying fitting Lenitives to his Anguish bluntly rebukes him for not following the good Advice that he used to give to others in their Adversity and tells him he had reason to suspect his Piety because the Innocent were not wont to suffer such things but onely wicked Oppressours whom though never so mighty God had always humbled Witness the Horims who dwelt in Seir II. Deut. 12. whom the ancestours of Eliphaz XXXVI Gen. 11. had overcome though they were as fierce as Lions To those Beasts of prey of all sorts he compares the Tyrants whom