CHAPTER VI.
THE EPILOGUE AND ITS MEANING.
We now come to the dénoûment of the story (xlii. 7-17),
against which, from the point of view of internal criticism,
much were possible to be said. We shall not, however, here
dwell upon the inconsistencies between the epilogue on the
one hand and the prologue and the speeches on the other.
The main point for us to emphasise is the disappointingness
of the events of the epilogue regarded as the final outcome
of Job's spiritual discipline. Surely the high thoughts
which have now and then visited Job's mind, and which,
combined with the personal self-revelation of the Creator,
must have brought back the sufferer to a state of childlike
resignation, stand in inappropriate companionship with a tame
and commonplace renewal of mere earthly prosperity. Would
it not have been fitter for the hero on whom so much moral
training had been lavished to pass with humble but courageous
demeanour through the dark valley, at the issue of which he
would 'see God'? It is hardly a sufficient answer that a
concession was necessary to the prejudices of the unspiritual
multitude; for what was the object of the poem, if not to
subvert the dominion of a one-sided retribution theory? The
solution probably is that Job in the epilogue is a type of
suffering, believing, and glorified Israel. Not only the
individual believer, not only all the elect spirits of suffering
humanity, but the beloved nation of the poet.—Israel, the
'Servant of Jehovah'—must receive a special message of comfort
from the great poem. In Isa. lxi. 7 we read that glorified
Israel is to 'have double (compensation) instead of its shame;'
comp. Zech. ix. 12, Jer. xvi. 14-18. The people of Israel,
