Part 6 (1/2)

Professor Bickell puts the matter very lucidly in his short but comprehensive introduction to the poem: ”As long as Job, solicitous for his understanding, demanded an explanation of his unutterable suffering, whereby the mysterious, piteous condition of mankind is shadowed forth, his seeking was vain, and he ran the risk of loosing himself in the problems of eternal justice, the worth of upright living, and even the existence of G.o.d; for an unjust, ruthless, almighty being is no G.o.d. But by means of the theophany--which is to be understood merely as a process in his own heart, and which clearly shows him the impotence of feeble man to unravel the world-enigmas--he attains to insight; not, indeed, of a positive kind such as a knowledge of the ways of G.o.d would confer, but negative insight by means of that resignation which flows from excess of pain. It is thus that his own heroic saying is fulfilled about the reaction of unmerited suffering upon the just man.”[69]

”But the righteous holds on his way, And the clean-handed waxeth ever stronger.”[70]

Footnotes:

[51] The prologue is contained in chaps. i.-ii.; the epilogue in chap.

xlii. 7-17 of our English Bibles.

[52] Strophe x.x.xv.

[53] Strophe lii.

[54] Psa. viii. 4, 5.

[55] Strophe liii.

[56] Strophe lxv.

[57] Strophe lxix.

[58] Strophe lxxi.

[59] Strophe lxxiii.

[60] Strophe lxxiv-lxxviii.

[61] Strophe cxv. _Cf_. strophe clxix., where he dares his friend to prove him guilty of blasphemy when he is merely giving expression to the truth:

”If indeed ye will glorify yourselves above me, And prove me guilty of blasphemy; Know, then, that G.o.d hath wronged me!”

[62] Strophe ccxvii.

[63] Strophe ccx.x.x.

[64] As Professor Bickell rightly remarks: ”At bottom what Job means is, that G.o.d alone knows the meaning of our sorrowful existence, if, indeed, He does know it” (”Das Buch Job,” p. 5).

[65] Strophe cclxxvi.

[66] The mere circ.u.mstance that the Deity is no longer called by His usual name when He appears in the whirlwind is of itself an indication that the poet was not alluding to G.o.d.

[67] Strophe ccx.x.xiv.

[68] Strophe cccix.

[69] _Cf._ Bickell, _op. cit._ pp. 8-9.