Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1522

thought, to which the following statement of the exalted nature of the divine wisdom would be suitably connected as a confirmation. We cannot, however, consider this rendering as correct. The picture ought to have been differently drawn, if it had been designed to serve as a warning to the friends.
It has a different design. Job depicts the revelation of the divine justice which is exhibited in the issue of the life of the evil doer, to teach the friends that they judge him and his lot falsely. To this description of punishment, which is intended thus and not otherwise, Job 28:1 with its confirmatory כי must be rightly connected. If this were not feasible, one would be disposed, with Pareau, to alter the position of Job 28:1, as if it were removed from its right place, and put it after Job 26:1. But we are cautioned against such a violent measure, by the consideration that it is not evident from Job 26:1 why the course of thought in Job 28:1, which begins with כי, should assume the exact form in which we find it; whereas, on the other hand, it was said in Job 27:1 that the ungodly heaps up silver, כסף, like dust, but that the innocent who live to see his fall divide this silver, כסף, among themselves; so that when in Job 28:1 it continues: כי ישׁ לכסף מוצא, there is a connection of thought for which the way has been previously prepared.
If we further take into consideration the fact of Job 28:1 being only an amplification of the one closing thought to which everything tends, viz., that the fear of God is man's true wisdom, then Job 28:1, also in reference to this its special point, is suitably attached to the description of the evil-doer's fate, Job 27:13 The miserable end of the ungodly is confirmed by this, that the wisdom of man, which he has despised, consists in the fear of God; and Job thereby at the same time attains the special aim of his teaching, which is announced at Job 27:11 by אורה אתכם ביד־אל: viz., he has at the same time proved that he who retains the