from Idumaea towards Syria. Here, where the aborigines of Seir were driven back by the Aramaic immigrants, and to where in later times the territory of Edom extended, dwelt Job. His name is not symbolic with reference to the following history. It has been said, איּוב signifies one hostilely treated, by Satan namely.[1]
But the following reasons are against it: (1) that none of the other names which occur in the book are symbolically connected with the history; (2) that the form קטּול has never a properly passive signification, but either active, as יסּור, reprover (as parallel form with קטּל), or neuter, as ילּוד, born, שׁכּור, drunken, also occasionally infinitive (vid., Fürst, Concord. p. 1349 s.), so that it may be more correct, with Ewald, after the Arabic (אוּב, cognate with שׁוּב, perhaps also בּוא), to explain the “one going of himself.” Similar in sound are, יוב, the name of one of the sons of Issachar (Gen 46:13); the name of the Idumaean king, יובב, Gen 36:33 (which the lxx, Aristeas, Jul. Africanus,[2] combine with Job); and the name of the king of Mauritania, Juba, which in Greek is written Ἰόβας (Didymus Chalcenter. ed. Schmidt, p. 305): perhaps all these names belong to the root יב, to shout with joy. The lxx writes Ἰώβ with lenis; elsewhere the א at the beginning is rendered by asper, e.g., Αβραάμ, Ἡλίας. Luther writes Hiob; he has preferred the latter mode, that it may not be read Job with the consonantal Jod, when it should be Iob, as e.g., it is read by the English. It had been more correctly Ijob, but Luther wished to keep to the customary form of the name so far as he could; so we, by writing Iob with vowel I, do not wish to
- ↑ Geiger (DMZ, 1858, S. 542f.) conjectures that, Sir. xlix. 9 (καὶ γὰρ ἐμνήσθη τῶν ἐχθρῶν ἐν ὄμβρῳ), τῶν ἐχθρῶν is a false translation of איוב. Renan assents; but τῶν εχθρῶν suits there excellently, and Job would be unnaturally dragged in.
- ↑ Vid., Routh, Relinquiae ii. 154f.: Ἐκ τοῦ Ἠσαῦ ἄλλοι τε πολλοὶ καὶ Ραγουὴλ γεννᾶται ἀφ ̓ οὗ Ζάρεδ, ἐξ οὗ Ἰὼβ ὅς κατὰ συγχώρησιν θεοῦ ὑπὸ διαβόλου ἐπειράσθη καὶ ἐνίκησε τὸν πειράζοντα.
