Job (II)

II. JOB, so celebrated for his patience, and the constancy of his piety and virtue, dwelt in the land of Uz, or in the Ausitis, in east Edom, not far from Bozra. There are different opinions concerning his original, and the time wherein he lived. At the end of the Greek and Arabic copies of Job, and in the old Latin Vulgate, we read these words, and they are there said to be taken from the Syriac. Job dwelt in the Ausitis, upon the confines of Idumæa and Arabia; his name at first was Jobab. He maried an Arabian Woman, by whom he had a son, called Ennon. For his part he was the son of Zerah, of the posterity of Esau, and a native of Bozrah; so that he was the fifth from Abraham. He reigned in Edom; and the Kings before and after him reigned in this order. Balak the son of Beor, in the city of Dinhabah, after him Job, otherwise called Jobab. Job was succeeded by Husham prince of Teman. After him reigned Hadad the son of Bedad, who defeated the Midianites in the fields of Moab. The name of his city was Arith. Job’s friends who came to visit him were Eliphaz, of the posterity of Esau, and King of Teman, Bildad King of the Shuhites, and Zophar the King of the Naamathites.

This is the most antient account we have of Job’s Genealogy. Aristeus, Philo, and Polyhistor¹, acknowledged this Genealogy to be true: the old Greek and Latin Fathers did the same, and cited this addition; and Theodotion has preserved it in his translation of the book of Job. We see no good reason for rejecting this tradition, which is derived, probably, from the Jews, and was received by the primitive Fathers. In tracing it we find Job to have been contemporary with Moses.

Abraham.

Isaac.

Jacob. Esau. Levi. Reuel. Amram. Zerah. Moses. Jobab.

1 Chr. i. 35---44.

Job was a man of great probity, virtue Job i. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c.and religion, and he was possessed of very great riches, which consisted in cattle and Job i. 3.slaves; whereof, at that time, the wealth even of princes chiefly was made up, especially in Arabia and Edom. His family was numerous; for he had seven sons and three daughters, and probably by the same wife. Lastly, he was in great repute among all the eastern people, and those who dwelt on both sides of the Euphrates. His sons, by turns, made entertainments for each other; and when they had gone through the circle of their days of feasting, Job sent to them, purified them, and offered burnt-offerings for each of them; to the end that God might pardon them, if they had committed any faults against him. For his part he tells us himself, that he was infinitely averse not only to Injustice, Idolatry, Fraud, and Adultery; but that he avoided xxix. 7. xxxi. 26.evil thoughts, and dangerous looks, and that he had made a covenant with his eyes not so much as to cast a glance upon a Job xxxi. 9. Job xxix. 13, 14, 15, 16. Job i. 6, 7, 8, &c.woman; that he was naturally compassionate to the miseries of the poor; that he was a father to the orphan, protector to the widow, a guide to the blind, and a support to the lame.

Now there was a day when the sons of God, or the Angels, came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan appeared with them. The Lord asked him, whether he had observed Job, and his way of living. Satan answered, that Job had reason to love and fear the Lord, since he had blessed him with so much riches. But, added he, put thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. God permitted Satan to tempt Job, and gave him power over all that he had, but forbad him to touch his person. Satan therefore going out from the presence of the Lord, made use of the permission which God had given him. He began with his Oxen. A company of Sabeans, people of Arabia, fell upon Job’s husbandmen, put them to the sword, and carried away all the Oxen. One servant only escaped to carry the news of this accident. While he was telling what had happened, a second came and told Job, that fire from Heaven had fallen upon his Sheep, and those who kept them, and had reduced them all to ashes: and that he alone had escaped to tell him.

He had not done speaking, when a third person came to Job, and said, the Chaldeans being divided into three bands, fell upon thy Camels, and have carried them away: they have killed all thy servants, and I only am escaped to tell thee. While he was relating this, another came, and said, While thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking in their eldest brother’s house, an impetuous wind blew suddenly upon it, and it fell down upon them, and they were all crushed to death under the ruins of it. I alone am escaped to bring thee this news. Then Job rent his clothes, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, saying, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Satan once more presented himself before Job xi. 1, 2, 3. &c.the Lord; and the Lord asking him if he had not considered the patience of Job in the midst of all the evils wherewith he had afflicted him, Satan replied, Skin for skin, and all that a man hath will he give for his life; but put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. The Lord answered, Behold, he is in thine hand, but touch not his life. Satan therefore smote him with dreadful sores from head to foot, and Job being seated on a dunghil, with a potsherd scraped off the corruption which issued from his ulcers. Then came his wife and said, Doest thou still retain thy simplicity and piety, Curse God, and then die. Job answered her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. 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. In the mean time three of, Job’s friends were made acquainted with the misfortunes which had happened to him, and came each of them out of his own country to visit him; Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shubite, and Zophar the Naamathite. There was a fourth likewise, whose name was Elihu the Buzite, who appears in cap. xxxii. of Job, and has a Job xxxii. 2. Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram.part in their dialogue. These friends therefore visited Job, and lifting up their eyes at a distance to view him, they did not know him. At last as they came nearer to him, they began to weep, to tear their clothes, and throw dust into the air, that it might fall upon their heads. They continued for seven days sitting on the ground by him, without saying any thing to him. But at last Job broke silence, and complained bitterly of his misery. His friends making no distinction between the evils wherewith Job iii. 1, 2, 3, &c.God tries those whom he loves, and the afflictions wherewith he punishes the wicked, took Job’s complaints for so many marks of his impatience, and accused him of impiety towards God, inviting him to return to him by repentance, and humbly to submit to his justice, since he suffered nothing but what he had very well deserved by his preceding crimes.

Job being convinced of his own innocence, and assured that he had the testimony of his conscience, on the contrary maintained, that his sufferings were greater than his faults, and proved, that God sometimes chastised the righteous to try them only, to give them an opportunity of growing up more to perfection; or lastly, because it was his good pleasure for reasons unknown to mankind. These were Job’s principles. His friends were of a different opinion. The whole book of Job, and all the discourses contained in it, are to this purpose. To terminate this dispute, God appears in a cloud, and decides in favour of Job xxxviii. xxxix. xl. xli.Job; nevertheless without approving the harsh expressions, which the extremity of his sorrow, and the warmth of dispute, had, as it were, wrested from him. He humbly acknowledged his fault, and asked forgiveness for it. The Lord condemns Job’s friends, and enjoins them to expiate their sins with sacrifices, which he directs them to offer by the hands of Job. He drives away the devil, and restrains his power, restores Job to health, gives him double the riches which he before possessed, blesses him with a beautiful and numerous family, and crowns an holy life with an happy death. This is the substance of Job’s history.

The time wherein this pious man lived is a point very much contested. But supposing him to have been contemporary with Moses², and fixing the time of his trial to some years after the departure of the Hebrews out of Egypt, (it cannot be placed earlier, because he speaks of this event;) he might have lived till the time of Othniel. Supposing, for example, that he was afflicted by God seven years after the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt in the year of the world 2520, before J.C. 1480, before the vulgar Æra 1484, and having lived an hundred and forty years after his recovery, as he himself says, he must have been dead in 2660, two years before the death of Othniel. Some believe³ that he lived seventy years in prosperity, and that after his misfortunes, God doubled this number. By which account he must have lived in all two hundred and ten years; supposing his afflictions to have continued but a year. They who affirm that he lay seven years or even longer under his diseases, may in proportion increase the number assigned by us; for in this we have nothing very certain.

His tomb has been shewn in several places. The most celebrated is that in the Trachonitis, towards the springs of Jordan, where for many ages a Pyramid has been Brocard. Adrichom. Tirin. Cotovic. alii.observed, which some believe to be Job’s tomb. It is placed between the cities of Teman, Shuah, and Naamath, which are supposed to have been in this country. The Chaldee Paraphrast, whose name is Cock, makes him to have lived in Armenia; and Travellers tell us, that Job’s Tomb is shewn there. But this Job is thought to have been a Mahometan captain, of modern date. Another Chaldee interpreter places Job at Constantinople. There is a tomb to be seen near the walls of this City, which some have taken for Job’s⁴: but it is an Arabian’s killed at the siege of Constantinople, in 672, and buried at the foot of the walls. In the sixth Age there was a Monastery at Constantinople, dedicated to S. Job⁵; but it is not said that his body was there. Eusebius and S. Jerom assure us, that there was a traditional account of Job’s having dwelt at Astaroth-Carnaim, a city situated in the Batanæa beyond Jordan; and that his house was still to be seen there. The Scripture relates Dinhabah to have been the capital of Jobab’s kingdom, which Jobab we believe to be the same as Job. This City was in the Ausitis, or in Arabia Deserta. As we suppose Job and Jobab to be the same person, we must say likewise, that he lived and dyed at Dinhabah.

It has been maintained by some, that Holy Job’s relicks were at Rome, whither they are said to have been brought by Rhotaris King of the Lombards, in the seventh age. There they remained till the last age, Vid. Guall. Sanctuas. Pap. l. 4. c. 2.when they were stolen from thence by thieves, without any one’s knowing what afterwards became of them. We meet with the name of Job in the ancient Martyrologies with the title of Prophet, Saint, and Martyr. The worship of him is of great antiquity, and very extensive among the Greeks and Latins. The Greeks have chosen the sixth of May for celebrating the festival of S. Job, and herein they have been followed by the Christians of Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Russia, or Muscovy. The Latins keep his festival on the tenth of May. This, next to the Maccabees, brothers and martyrs, is the first Saint to whom the western Church has decreed publick and religious honours; and we know not of any Saint among the Patriarchs and Prophets to whom Churches have been consecrated, or chapels dedicated, in greater number than to this holy man. We see abundance of them, particularly in Spain and Italy; and he is invoked principally against the leprosy, itch, foul disease, and other distempers which relate to these. See M. Baillet’s lives of the Saints of the Old Testament, the tenth of May.

We have treated of Job’s disease in a particular dissertation printed before our Comment upon Job. Pineda examined the same subject long before us, and discovered two or three and thirty several kinds of diseases in this good man’s body. Bartholin⁶ reckons up about twelve; and S. Chrysostom makes no scruple of saying⁷, that Job endured all the evils that a man is capable of suffering, and that he suffered them in the utmost degree; that the Devil exhausted his whole stock of malice in tormenting him; in a word, that he was tried every way, and in his single body endured all the afflictions in the world. When we consider accurately all that Job in his Book says of himself, it seems to us, that the circumstances of his disease are for the most part symptoms of a leprosy; and we may affirm, that the Fathers and Commentators are generally of this opinion. S. Chrysostom, Apollinarius, Polychronius, Philip the Priest, venerable Bede, the author of the Sermons ad Fratres in eremo, cited under S. Austin’s name, Pineda, Bartholin, Bolduc, Vatablus, Cyprian of the Cistercians, and many others tell us so in an explicite, or at least in an implicite manner.

They who say that he was attacked with that infamous disease which is called the Neapolitan, or foul disease, agree almost in the same opinion, since this, in all probability, is no other than a leprosy. The Latin Church invokes S. Job in diseases of this nature, and Lazarettos and Hospitals, wherein care is taken of persons who have this scandalous distemper upon them, are for the most part dedicated to him. We do not mean hereby to cast any blemish upon the honour and sanctity of the Saint we are speaking of. People may have this disease upon them, without having committed any act of intemperance; and Travellers⁸ inform us, that in the hot countries, it is communicated with such great activity, that to converse familiarly with any person infected with it, is oftentimes sufficient to catch it. See our Dissertation on this Subject.

Some⁹ have questioned whether there ever was such a person as Job, and have esteemed his book to be a fabulous history, and mere invention. Spinoza believed Job Origen. l. 6. contra Celsum.to have been a Pagan. Others say he lived before Moses; others, in the time of Moses; and others again, after him, and under the Judges. There are some who bring him so far backward as the time of David and Solomon c; others as far as the time of the captivity, or very near it. Lastly there are some Rabbins of opinion, that he lived in the reign of Ahasuerus and Esther, and that he had a School at Tiberias in Palestine, before he was carried away to Babylon. But there is no denying that there was such a person as Job, without contradicting Ezekiel, Tobit, and S. James, who Talmud. tract. Baba Batra. Ezek. xiv. 14. Tob. ii. 12, 15. James v. 11.speak of him as an holy man, and a true pattern of patience, without opposing the torrent of tradition among both Jews and Christians, and all the authority of the Greek and Latin Fathers. Job did not live under the Jewish law, and perhaps was not subject to the law of circumcision; and in this sense we may confess, that he was a Pagan, as Melchisedeck and some other good men are said to have been: but there is nothing odious or contemptible in the name of Heathen thus understood. Although the time wherein this holy man lived be still dubious, we cannot however place him so far back as the time of David and Solomon, and much less so far as to the captivity of Babylon, since he is cited by Tobit and Ezekiel as an old Patriarch, and speaks of Pharaoh, and the passage of the Red Sea, in a very express manner. Notwithstanding Job xxvi. 12. & xv. 24, 25.it is not impossible but that he who wrote his book, as we now have it, might have lived after David and Solomon: because he seems sometimes to allude to the Psalms, Jeremiah, and the Proverbs.

The eastern people relate several particulars of Job, which we do not read in Scripture. They deduce his Genealogy after this manner. Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Bibl. Orient. p. 81. Aiub.Razakh, Anosch, Job, or Aiub as they write it. Eutychius Patriarch of Alexandria makes him likewise to descend from Esau thus; Esau, Raguel, Razakh, Amos, Job. But there are some Arabian Historians Idem. p. 466. col. 1.who derive his descent from Ishmael, and pretend, that he is the first of the three Prophets sprung from Ishmael; which three Prophets in their account are Job, Jethro, and Mahomet. The same Authors believe, that his wife’s name was Rasima, and that she descended from Lot’s race, that is to say from the Moabites or Ammonites; that Job was afflicted with a sore disease for three years, as some say; as others, seven.

That having then recovered his health, at the age of 80, he had a son named Basch -Ben-Aiub or Basch the son of Job. Some other Historians declare, that he had five sons, with whom, they say, he made war against an Arabian nation which bordered upon Edom, and was called Dhal-Khefel: this name was given them because they were hip-shot, and in their legs and thighs resembled the hinder parts of a horse, much after the manner wherein the Centaurs are described. Job, assisted by his sons, extirpated this brutal people, who refused to receive the worship of one God, which he preached to them.

The Lord having blessed Job, and enriched him, the Devil grew envious at it, and presenting himself before God, told him, that Job served him purely out of interest; that if he would once withdraw his favours from him, Job would not pay his adorations to him once a day. God hereupon permitted him to deprive this holy man of his wealth and children, but he became not at all the less faithful in serving God, nor less submissive to his will.

This circumstance encreased the rage and envy of the Devil; he once more presented himself before the Lord and told him, that Job continued thus to serve him, only with the hopes of receiving new benefits from his liberality; but that if he afflicted him in his body, he would then see that he would intirely abandon his service, and would break out into loud murmurs against him. God therefore permitted the Devil once more to try Job with a dangerous disease, upon condition, notwithstanding, that he should spare his mouth, his eyes, and ears. Hereupon the Devil blowed such a pestilential heat upon him thro’ the nose, that the mass of his blood was immediately corrupted with it, and his whole Body became one ulcer, the stench whereof kept all those at a distance from him, who were inclinable to go near him.

They were obliged to put him out of the City in a very remote place, and notwithstanding all these misfortunes, Job still continued patient. His wife named Rasima, did not fail to carry him every thing that was necessary. The Devil for his part stole every thing away from her¹⁰ that she had provided for him, and having at last reduced her to such a condition, that she had nothing wherewithal to relieve her husband, he appeared to her in the form of a woman that was bald, who told her, that if she would give her two tresses of her hair, which hung upon her neck, she would supply her every day with what was necessary for the subsistence of her husband. Rasima accepted this offer, and gave the old woman her two tresses.

The Devil went immediately to Job, and told him, that his wife had been surprized in the act of leudness, and her hair had been cut off. Job perceived very soon that her hair was wanting, and suspecting very much that she had suffered herself to be deluded by the Devil, he swore if he recovered his health, that he would severely chastise her for this fault. The Devil being very well satisfied with having got the better of Job’s patience, transformed himself immediately into an Angel of light, and declared to the people of the country, as one sent by God for that purpose, that Job had forfeited the favour of God, and that they ought not any longer to give credit to his words, nor permit him to abide among them; lest the wrath of God should be extended to their whole nation.

Job upon information of what had passed, had recourse to God, and said to him with confidence: Lord I am every way oppressed with grief; but thou art the most merciful of all those who shew mercy. As soon as this prayer was finished, God in a moment put an end to all the sufferings of Job. The Angel Gabriel descended from Heaven, took him by the hand, raised him from the place where he was, struck the earth with his foot, and caused a fountain of the purest water to spring out of it, wherein Job having washed his body, and drank of it, found he was on a sudden absolutely cured, and restored to perfect health; after this God restored him to his wealth, and multiplied it in such a manner, that to express the abundance of it the Arabian Authors say, a golden shower fell upon him.

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