CHAPTER XXIII.

ON THE BOOK OF JOB.

THE history of Job is a continuation of the patriarchal prophetical history of Genesis; or, rather I should say, an appendix to it. Job is a type, and a prophetic type, of the Church one with Christ from the beginning to the end of time. It is also one of the most marvellous revelations we have, of Christ in the Church her hope of glory, and of Satan in the world, the certain ground of utter destruction. God or Satan is in every individual; our experience must be like Job's, or that of the Antichristian world around him. If we study the history with a truly teachable and believing spirit, we shall find our minds become quiescent, and acquiescent to the Divine will, as Job's became under the teaching and discipline of the Supreme Being. In his mind, under the chastening hand, there was agitation, confusion, and alarm ̧ as the whirlwind of loss and affliction swept over his soul; but in the mind of God, purpose, composure, majesty, and love; omnipotent power and control are the masterpiece of the book.

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and

here shall thy proud waves be stayed" (Job xxxviii. 11) issued from the mouth of God as He rode upon the whirlwind and the storm.

It is most impious to suppose, as some do, that Job's was not a real character. The lineaments of his life are too true to nature to doubt its genuineness; when I have arranged its parts, set forth its features, the life will be seen, and that a very counterpart of every child of God. God and Satan will, too, be seen.

In this patriarchal age, God did, by the leadings of His providence, so weave an individual history, as that it should set forth to the world a long page of Church history. In Joseph, and in Jacob, we have seen this; and now we shall see it in the history of Job. God stands by in awful silence and majesty, while He exhibits to the world her faith, her hope, her charity, patience, genuine piety, all the graces of His Spirit, the Foundation upon which she stands, the heaven to which she soars. Believer, know for your encouragement that He is thus manifesting your faith, your strong, deep principle to angels and to men, it may be to unknown worlds; another world will explain all His dealings with us here.

Various have been the conjectures as to the precise time at which Job lived; some have thought that he was an immediate descendant of Nahor, Abraham's brother, because he makes no mention of the religion of the Covenant, and because Nahor had two sons, named Huz, and Buz; but not

once from Joseph, during all his affliction in Egypt, is there any mention of that Covenant. I think there is not a doubt, but that the Job of the Book of Job was the same as is mentioned in Gen. xlvi. 13, the son of Issachar, and the grandson of Jacob. The religion and faith of the Patriarchs are very conspicuous throughout the book; and I shall show later why Job was silent upon the subject of the Everlasting Covenant; truth lay deeply hidden in his soul, although he was silent.

As we have seen, Job, the grandson of Jacob, went down with his family into Egypt, and most likely went up with Joseph when he went to bury his father; but, as we read, all who went down with him, returned again with him into Egypt. (1. 14.) It is possible that Job returned again, and settled just without the border of the promised land, fearing the enemy within. The land of Uz lay to the northeast of Jerusalem, bordering upon the plain of Aram, PadanAram, or Mesopotamia, the country where Jacob had dwelt twenty-one years with Laban. Job must have heard much of that country from his father, and from his grandfather and grandmother, Jacob and Leah. Perhaps he had heard of Jacob's journey there to take a wife, and what was so natural as that he should migrate from Egypt to the country of romance and real history. Or perhaps, like his great grandsire, he seized the promises by faith, and returned to the confines of the land of his progenitors, not knowing whither he went, rejecting the splendour of Egypt, while his

family only remained to be enslaved. God had said that the Israelites in Egypt should be afflicted four hundred years (xv. 13); but perhaps this was because he knew their heart; for certainly Pharaoh governs the history, if I may not say the religion, of Joseph, although the great Head of the Church was his security and strength. We hear him say in prosperity, "God hath made me forget all my father's house." Perhaps Job received a call of God from Egypt: the whole length of the land of Canaan had been consecrated by his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Beersheba, Hebron, Salem, Bethel, Shiloh, Shechem; there the New Jerusalem was to rise. Would God then leave it without a witness of Himself, without a high priest to overshadow the hallowed precinct? "A land which the Lord thy God careth for the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it." (Deut. xi. 12.) Job was such a witness, and such a shadowing priest. And beneath his influence soon sprang up an organized religious community. "The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord." And again, we read of the Divine institutions of the Patriarchal Church. (i. 5.) His own words tell us that he lived before the time of the Levitical priesthood. "Oh that a man might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!" Doubtless, he had heard of Jacob at Peniel, "As a prince hast thou power with God and with men." And later we shall see Job attain to the same holy office. How sublime and simple

is this spiritual theocracy, how docs ecclesiastical formulary wane before it.

Another passage lights us to believe that Job was the grandson of Jacob; he had been in Egypt. "With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves." (iii. 14.) This referred to the pyramids. And there is in the book throughout much that could only have been penned by some one who had a knowledge of the Egyptian arts and sciences. Moses may have rearranged the matter of it, and added it to the sacred writings, but the style of writing is not at all his, it was written before his time. The Chaldean schools of philosophy were established at a very early period; Job was surrounded by that people, and doubtless they gave to his writings their lofty, poetical style; for there is not to be found in all antiquity a piece of poetry more copious, lofty, magnificent, diversified, more adorned, or more affecting; it rises to the highest point of sublimity and grandeur.

But, before proceeding to the prophetic history of Job, I must glance for a moment at a phase of the book, which will throw much light upon his real history, and, I think, shame that impious infidelity, that, at the end of the first Christian dispensation, still dares affirm that the book of Job is a mythical one.

We have seen Joseph in Egypt, his life a changeful portion, sometimes in affliction and in prison; we have seen Israel in