If we compare the postscript of the lxx with the legend of Islam, we find in both the Esauitish genealogy of Job; the genealogy of the legend is: Êjûb ibn Zârih (זרח) ibn Reû'îl ibn el-'Ais ibn Ishâk ibn Ibrâhîm; and we may suppose that it is borrowed directly from the lxx, and that it reached Arabia and Mekka even in the pre-Islamic times by means of the (Arabian) Christians east of Jordan, who had the Old Testament only in the Greek translation. Even the Arabic orthography of the biblical proper names, which can be explained only on the supposition of their transfer from the Greek, is in favour of this mode of the transmission of the Christian religion and its legends to the people of the Higaz. Certainly there can be no doubt as to an historical connection between the postscript and the legend, and therefore it would be strange if they did not accord respecting the home of Job. The progenitor el-'Ais (עיץ), in the genealogy of the legend, is also a remarkable counterpart to the Ausitis ἐν τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς Ἰδουμ. καὶ Ἀρ., for it is a blending of עשׂו and עוּץ, and it has to solve the difficult problem, as to how Job can be at the same time an Usite and an Esauite; for that Job as an Aisite no longer belongs to Idumaea, but to the district of the more northern Aramaeans, is shown e.g., from the following passage in Mugîr ed-dîn's History of Jerusalem: “Job belonged to the people of the Romans (i.e., the Aisites),[1]
- ↑ We will spare ourselves the ungrateful task of an inquiry into the origin of this ‘Ais and his Protean nature. Biblical passages like Lam 4:21, or those in which the readings ארם and אדום are doubtful, or the erroneous supposition (Jos. Ant. viii. 7) that the Ben-Hadad dynasty in Damascus is of Edomitish origin, may have contributed to his rise. Moreover, he is altogether one and the same with the Edom of the Jerish tradition: he is called the father of Rûm, Asfar, Sôfar, Sîfûn (מלך חצפון), and Nidr (Hamz. Isfah. Ann. p. 79, l. 18, read Arab. ndr for ntsr, and Zeitschr. d. d. m. Gesellsch. ii. 239, 3, 6, read ennidr for ennefer), i.e., of the Messiah of the Christians (according to Isa 11:1)
