of Genesis, whence indeed even the chief thought of Canticles and the figure of חיים עץ, e.g., frequently occurring in Proverbs are drawn, it is difficulty to conceive why the evil spirit, that in its guise of a serpent aimed its malice against man, could not have been called השׂטן so early as the Salomonic period.
The wisdom of the author of the book of Job, we have said above, springs from paradise. Thence he obtains the highest and ultimate solution of his problem. It is now time to give expression to this. At present we need only do so in outline, since it is simply of use to place us from the commencement at the right standpoint for understanding the book of Job.
11. The Ultimate Solution of the Problem
The nature of sin is two-sided. It consists in the creature's setting up himself in opposition to God, who is the essence of the personality of the creature. It consists also, on the other side, in the stirring up of the depth of the nature of the creature, whose essential consistence has its harmony in God; and by this stirring up, falls into a wild confusion. In other words, evil has a personal side and a natural side. And just so, also, is God's wrath which it excites, and which operates against it. For God's wrath is, on the one hand, the personal displeasure or aversion into which His love is changed, since the will of the creature and the will of God are in opposition; on the other hand, an excited condition of the contrary forces of the divine nature, or, as Scripture expresses it, the kindling of the fire of the divine glory, in which sense it is often said of wrath, that God sends it forth, that He pours it forth, and that man has to drink of it (Job 21:20, comp. Job 6:4).[1]
In reference to the creature, we call evil according to its personal side ἔχηθρα, and according to its natural side ἀταξία,
- ↑ Vid., my Proleg. to Weber's book on the Wrath of God.
