13-19)? Alas! this melancholy dream does but aggravate Job's mental agony. He broods on the horror of his situation, and even makes a shy allusion to God as the author of his woe—
Wherefore gives he light to the miserable,
and life to the bitter in soul? (iii. 20.)
And now Job's friends are shaken out of their composure. They have been meditating on Job's calamity, which is so difficult to reconcile with their previous high opinion of him; for they are the representatives of orthodoxy, of the orthodoxy which received the high sanction of the Deuteronomic Tōra], and which connected obedience and prosperity, disobedience and adversity. Still it is not a stiff, extreme orthodoxy which the three friends maintain: calamity, as Eliphaz represents their opinion (v. 17; comp. 27), is not always a punishment, but sometimes a discipline. The question therefore has forced itself upon them, Has the calamity which has befallen our friend a judicial or a disciplinary, educational purpose? At first they may have leaned to the latter alternative; but Job's violent outburst, so unbecoming in a devout man, too clearly pointed in the other direction, and already they are beginning to lose their first hopeful view of his case. One after another they debate the question with Job (Eliphaz as the depositary of a revelation, Bildad as the advocate of tradition, Zophar as the man of common sense)—the question of the cause and meaning of his sufferings, which means further, since Job is not merely an individual but a type,[1] the question of the vast mass of evil in the world. This main part of the work falls into three cycles of dialogue (ch. iv.-xiv., ch. xv.-xxi., ch. xxii.-xxxi.) In each there are three pairs of speeches, belonging respectively to Eliphaz and Job, Bildad and Job, Zophar and Job. Eliphaz opens the debate as being the oldest (xv. 10) and the most experienced of Job's friends. There is much to admire in his speech; if he could only have adopted the tone of a sympathising friend and not of a lecturer—
- ↑ See Chap. VII. (end of Section 2
