ginal seems to intimate, you are supporting a system which, like the vapoury illusion in the desert, deceives and disappoints, with the appearance of waters, the thirsty travellers who are not aware of the deception. Job proceeds to state, as I have observed, in a sort of recapitulation, his friends' hypothesis of the scheme of Providence, which he compares, for its unreality, in all the experience of mankind, to the mirage,' or spectre of the desert ".' 13. "This is the portion of the wicked man with El, "And the inheritance which oppressors receive from Shaddai : 14. "If his children be multiplied, the sword awaits them; Or, his posterity shall not be satisfied with bread. 66 15. Those of his, that escape from the sword",' shall be entombed by the pestilence, "And no widows shall make lamentations . 16. "If he shall pile up silver like sand, "And lay up raiment like dirt, 17. He may lay it up, but the just shall wear it, "And the silver the innocent shall divide. a Dr. Kennicott observes, "the eleven verses which conclude the twenty-seventh chapter, and are now given as the words of Job, cannot have been spoken by Job; because they contain such a doctrine as Job himself could not hold, and which indeed he expressly denies: namely, that great calamities prove great wickedness." He supposes them to be a third reply of Zophar's. But to take them as a recapitulation, obviates every difficulty, without any conjectural emendation of the text. b ,שרד like the Arabic, to flee from the sword. There shall be no widows in his house to celebrate the funeral rites. 18. "He hath built his house as a moth-worm, "And as a booth which the watchman constructeth. 19." He may lie down rich, but he shall not gather; "He awaketh, and nothing is there of his. 20. Terrors shall overtake him as a flood, "At night a tempest shall snatch him away. 21. "An east wind shall carry him off as it passeth, "And whirl him headlong from his place. 22. "Ay, it shall drive upon him, and not spare, "Lest he should escape by flight from its grasp. 23. "Every one shall clap his hands at him, "And shall hiss at him from his place." Such a visible retribution, their hypothesis required; but nothing like this appeared in the actual state of things, as themselves must know from their experience. They had imagined an unreality. Those who embraced such principles, and trusted to them, expecting to see them realized in life, would be in the situation of the traveller in the desert, who discovers what he had supposed, at a distance, to be waters, to be, on his near approach, nothing but an airy mist. SECTION XVII. Job states it as his opinion, that to understand the ways of Providence is a wisdom which is placed beyond the researches of man. WHAT Scheme would Job then substitute, in the room of that of his friends, in order to explain the ways of Providence to man? He has none to See Mr. Good, who refers the metaphor of this sudden destruction of the wicked to the wind called the Levanter. offer; he holds the present dispensation of the Divine government, in the affairs of men, to be everywhere involved in such mystery, that no man can hope to understand or explain it. The wisdom of the Divine proceedings is, therefore, he maintains, a matter far removed from every research of the human understanding. Whatever be the result of man's sagacity, of the spirit of discovery, and of enterprise, which he hath shown in penetrating the secret productions of nature, and, by wonderful and indefatigable skill and industry, turning them to his account; in this pursuit he will ever fail. The wisdom of the Divine proceedings, that is, the knowledge of God and of his ways, will ever escape him, and be a secret which he cannot penetrate to discover. Such is a general view of the argument of the following chapter. a Chap. xxviii. Ver. 1. There is, indeed, a mine for silver, And a place where' they wash for gold. 6 2. Iron is taken out of the earth, b And the stone poureth forth copper. Fodina. SIM. LEX. PP, to liquefy, or strain off, denotes, I conceive, not the melting, or refining of the metal, but the liquefying and drawing off the soil, which is found to contain the gold, a method still practised to obtain this precious metal. "Where water of a sufficiently high level can be commanded, the ground is cut into steps;"" on each step stands six or eight negroes, who, as the water flows gently from above, keep the earth gently in motion with shovels, until the whole is reduced to liquid mud, and washed below. The particles of gold contained in this earth, descend with it into a trench below, where, by reason of their specific gravity, they quickly precipitate. Workmen are continually employed at the trench, to remove the 3. He diggeth deep into darkness, And exploreth every inmost recess. The stones of darkness, and of the shade of death. Great has been the ingenuity of man in discovering these valuable productions, and in bringing them from the places of their concealment. 4. The torrent bursts forth from the base of the moun taind, 'Its waters' are displaced by the foot", They are drawn off, they recede before man! Great, again, is the art and ingenuity of man, and great the fruits of his persevering labour, in the constructing of waterworks, and diverting great rivers from their courses, to supply his need, or improve the cultivation of the soil; or, as some understand it, to draw off water from the mines, which, upon the whole, seems the best application. stones, and clear away the surface; which operation is much assisted by the current of water that falls into it. After five days' washing, the precipitation in the trench is carried to some convenient stream, to undergo a second clearance, &c." See account of the gold mines of Jaraqua, in Mawe's Travels in the Interior of Brazil, and compare Goquet's Origin of Laws, &c. Book xi. chap. 4. I שם Mr. Good considers p as a verb, (" man delveth." take in its primitive sense, "in loco remotiore, from no, Hebræis inusit. Arab. La altus fuit et consequenter remotus fuit." SIM. LEX. ban extremitas, etiam intimum alicujus rei. • We discover here the meaning of the phrase, the shade of death. It is a figurative expression for the most intense and permanent darkness. d radix, basis vel pes montis, ex Arab. SIM. LEX. u basis montis. "As Mr. Parkhurst supposes, some machine worked by the foot, to carry off the waters from the mine." 5. The earth, out of which cometh forth food, Even its under-strata, is turned up as it were fire. Alluding, probably, to beds of sulphur, bitumen, or coal, that the sagacity of man had already discovered in the bowels of the earth. 6. The bed of sapphire are its stones, And the dust of gold to him. 7. A pathhath he,' which the eagle hath not known, And on which the eye of the falcon hath not glanced, 8. The wild beasts have not trodden it, Nor hath the fierce lion passed over it. The allusion is still, no doubt, to the excavation of the miner in search of gems and the precious metals. Already had the superior intelligence of man discovered itself in these researches; he was, indeed, wiser than the beasts of the field;' and, however small might then be the fruits of human skill and industry in the art of mining, in comparison of its progress at this present day, yet its first efforts would be viewed with a proportionate admiration in these remote ages. 9. Against the solid rock he putteth forth his hand, 10. Through the rocks he cutteth out channels, 11. He restraineth the oozing of the streams", All this has the persevering art of man achieved. But still it may be asked: He bindeth up the dropping tears of the rills. b Mr. Good translates these lines: He restraineth the waters from ooizng, And maketh the hidden gloom become radiance. |