8. The Parable of Figurative Prophecy.
PARABLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
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CHAPTER VIII. THE PARABLE OF FIGURATIVE PROPHECY. Its relation to the other forms of parable. — I. The parables of Balaam. — II. The parable of Job. — III. The song of Israel over the fall of the King of Babylon.
WE have now to examine that last use of the name “ parable,” which appears to be most remote from the original idea of the word. The name is applied to the prophecies of Balaam (seven times); to the final chapters of the discussion of the book of Job; and to the magnificent song of triumph over Babylon in Is. xiv. Yet all of these are direct utterances, not veiled, either in fable and allegory, or in proverb and symbol. Similarly in Numbers 21:27-30 poetical fragment is quoted from “ those who speak in proverbs,’’ — i.e, “parables,” — which is merely a song of triumph over Moab, of a highly antithetical and poetical character; and in Micah 2:4; Habakkuk 2:6, short antithetical utterances of lamentation or remonstrances are called “ parables.” The remnant (for it is little more) of the idea of the parable is probably to be found in the largely gnomic (or quasi-proverbial) character of the utterances themselves, the unusually marked elaboration of the parallelism, characteristic of all Hebrew poetry, and the lavish use of metaphor. Each, therefore, has to be studied separately, and in itself.
I. In referring first, to the prophecies of Balaam, it is not necessary to dwell upon the difficult questions, and the profound spiritual lessons, which belong to the history of the prophet himself — standing out, as it does, in vivid and detailed beauty amidst the brief annals of Israel in the wilderness, recorded to us, generally in a dry and bare simplicity, in the Book of Numbers. We are concerned with these only so far as they are expressed or implied in the four “ parables,” which he delivers to Balak — the first two after going to “ seek for enchantments “ — the last two (which are continuous) when, “ perceiving that it pleased God to bless Israel,” he puts aside all attempt at divination. They have some marked peculiarities of style. All are singularly full of meaning and poetical beauty; in all, and especially in the last, the spirit of the prophet, worldly and degraded as he had allowed it to become, rises to higher aspirations, singularly contradicted by his own life and death. But still, as is natural, their scope is in the main earthly. Numbers, victorious strength, outward prosperity, future empire of warlike conquest, — these form the substance of the prophecies of the future of Israel. Perhaps we are apt to read as to them more than they really contain of spiritual import. Their general drift is clear, although they present some difficulties of detail, both in version and explanation. In uttering the first (Numbers 33:7-10) the eye of Balaam ranges over “the utmost part of the people.” Accordingly,— after the repetition of the declaration that he cannot curse or defy, except at the bidding of the Lord,— the leading idea which expresses itself is the idea of their vast multitude, dwelling apart from the nations, in “ numbers numberless “ as the sand on the seashore.
Numbers 23:7-10.— “And he took up his parable, and said, — From Aram hath Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East Come, curse me Jacob, And come, defy Israel.
How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? And how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him, Lo, it is a people that dwell alone, And shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my last end be like his!” The parable, as a whole, is as simple as it is forcible. The only point which needs explanation is the connexion with the context of the celebrated aspiration of the last couplet, — suddenly introducing the conception of the blessing of righteousness after the mere contemplation of multitude and strength. That connexion is probably to be found in the allusions made in the previous couplets to the separation of the people from all others, and the comparison of them to the “ dust “ or sand. It is hardly possible not to trace in these signs of some knowledge, in itself most probable, of the great promises to Abraham (Genesis 22:17) and to his descendants: “ I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.” These are the “ righteous ones.” To them is fulfilled, in special fulness, that general promise of offspring from generation to generation, which ancient faith believed to be given to all the righteous. “ Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great; and thine offspring as the grass of the field “ (Job 5:25); “ His seed shall be mighty upon earth; the generation of the upright shall be blessed “ (Psalms 112:2). Hence the aspiration of Balaam is that he may die as they died, full of years and honour, — their last hour lighted up by the promise of seed as the stars of heaven, — sure that the same blessing of God, under which they had lived, would deepen and widen out into the greatness of a magnificent future.
Against this rendering here is the breach of absolute parallelism.
Grand as it is, that aspiration seems still to look primarily, if not wholly, to the present life. Probably we read our own meaning into it, as into other passages of the Old Testament, when we apply it to a death, which has the sure and certain hope of a resurrection and of a heaven. The extension of idea in regard to the patriarchs themselves is perfectly justifiable. It is expressly made in the celebrated eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; it may be considered as gaining, at least, indirect sanction from Our Lord’s reasoning with the Sadducees, that the God of the covenant is “ the God, not of the dead, but of the living.” But it is an extension still; and we may well doubt whether it was likely to be present to such a mind as that of Balaam.
Yet even in its original sense it is impossible not to contrast this utterance with the actual “ last state “of Balaam, dying (Numbers 31:8) by the avenging sword of Israel, when (see Numbers 31:16; Revelation 2:14) he had, with fiendish ingenuity, made Israel draw down on themselves the curse which he could not pronounce, and, no doubt, received “ the wages of unrighteousness,” stained with the blood of the thousands who died in their sins.
It is the leading idea of this first parable which induces the strange suggestion of Balak, that the next prophecy shall be uttered from a place where Balaam shall “ see but the utmost part of them, and shall not see them all,” — that thus his soul may not be overpowered by the impressiveness of multitude. To this gross superstition Balaam characteristically panders by consent. Accordingly, in the very opening of the next parable, his unwilling tongue, mastered by the inspiration of God, is taught to rebuke it.
Numbers 23:18-20, “And he took up his parable, and said, —
Rise up, Balak, and hear:
Hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor;
God is not a man, that he should lie;
Neither the son of man, that he should repent:
Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Behold, I have received commandment to bless: And he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it.”
It is here, again, impossible not to contrast this strong utterance of conviction of the unchangeable truth of God, and of the impossibility of disobeying His command to bless, with Balaam’s own past conduct; when, having received a plain command not to go to Balak, he attempted to change God’s command, and was allowed to deceive himself into that acceptance of an extorted permission, which was itself a sin (Numbers 22:12, Numbers 22:19-21). But for the time it so possesses his soul, that he perceives how it pleases the Lord to bless Israel, and accordingly he goes no more hereafter “ to seek enchantments,” that is “ omens,” which he might so interpret according to the rules of his art as to draw from them some augury, at least sufficient to satisfy Balak.
It would hardly be necessary to explain the relation of such a passage as this to those which speak of the “ repentance “ of God, had not some rather superficial difficulties been raised upon it. The ’’ repentance “ here disclaimed is, of course, causeless and capricious change of purpose, absolutely incompatible with the stately march of God’s All-seeing and All-ordaining Providence. The repentance, which (in language drawn from human emotions in order to be intelligible to man) is attributed elsewhere to God, is sometimes (as in Genesis 6:6), the Divine sorrow over man’s sin and consequent suffering; sometimes (as in Exodus 32:14, and many other places) the Divine forgiveness, on the penitence of the sinner, or at the prayer of an intercessor. On this there is a striking declaration in Jeremiah 18:8-10, of the conditionality of all God’s promises and threatenings, and therefore of His “ repentance,” on occasion of that change of conduct in the subjects of His dispensation, which He and His Divine prescience foresees. It will be seen, on thoughtful consideration, that the mystery, which is, as usual, implied in the apparent contradiction, is simply the great ultimate mystery of the reconcilement of the absolute sovereignty of God with the freedom and probation of man. From this exordium Balaam’s parable proceeds (Numbers 23:21-24) “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: The Lord his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them.
God bringeth them forth out of Egypt;
He hath as it were the strength of the wild ox.
Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob, Neither is there any divination with Israel, Now shall it be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!
Behold, the people riseth up as a lioness. And as a lion doth he lift himself up, He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, And drink of the blood of the slain.”
It will be at once observed that this second utterance rises far higher than the former. First it dwells on the present. It passes from the mere contemplation of numbers and material strength, to the higher spiritual strength of righteousness, free from all touch of “ iniquity” and “perverseness,” and to the indwelling presence of God, as a King, among a righteous people, hailed in glad trumpet-tones of triumph. It is against these that all auguries would be sought, and all divination drawn from them, in vain. Then the prophecy goes on to the future. In its own due time the hand of God over them, which brought them out of Egypt, shall be revealed to work out that future; at His call the people shall rise up, untamable as the wild bull, fierce as the lion, and shall not lie down, till they have devoured the prey and drunk the blood of the slain. It would be impossible to draw a more vivid picture of the avenging nation, now eagerly expecting on the border of their promised land the call of God, for which they had waited forty years, and when it came, ready for the bloody and unsparing conquest of extermination, by which those whose “ iniquity was full “ were to be swept away. No wonder that Balak, in despair, asks no longer anything, except “ Neither curse them nor bless them at all.” The next two parables are continuous, but distinct in themselves. Before uttering them Balaam still allows Balak to offer fresh sacrifice, and to conceive hope against hope, that a curse may be uttered in one place, against the blessing in another. But, when the time comes, he seeks no more omens or auguries; he beholds Israel in the well-marshalled encampment of their tribes round the tabernacle of God’s presence; and ** the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him.” In both utterances he speaks thus of himself, as overmastered by the inspiration of God: — Numbers 24:3-4, — “ And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor saith, And the man whose eye was closed [1] saith:
He saith, which heareth the words of God. Which seeth the vision of the Almighty.
Falling down,” and having his eyes open.” This splendid description refers to revelation under two metaphors, the “ hearing the word of God,” and the “seeing the vision of the Almighty.” But the stress is so entirely on the latter, and it is so emphatically spoken of as coming to one whose eyes had been shut and now are opened, that it is impossible not to compare it with the celebrated passage in Job (Job 52:5), “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.”
Balaam is clearly conscious of a special and higher inspiration, carrying him out of himself into an ecstatic vision of God’s present and future dealings with the world. Unhappily for himself, the vision tells on his mind, not on his heart and spirit. He stands out as the very type of that knowledge without righteousness and love, which (as St. Paul warns us) “puffs up” rather than “builds up “ (1 Corinthians 13:1), because it dwells on the surface and cannot pierce to the heart of things. The next prophecy, still dealing with the present and immediate future, hardly goes beyond the last (Numbers 24:5-9): —
“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, Thy tabernacles, O Israel! As valleys are they spread forth. As gardens by the river side. As lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, As cedar trees beside the waters.
Water shall flow from his buckets, And his seed shall be in many waters. And his king shall be higher than Agag, And his kingdom shall be exalted.
God bringeth him forth out of Egypt;
He hath as it were the strength of the wild-ox:
He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, And shall break their bones in pieces, And smite them through with his arrows.
He couched, he lay down as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?
Blessed be every one that blesseth thee, And cursed be every one that curseth thee.” The blessing here is clearly two-fold — of fruitfulness and beauty in peace, and of victory in war. The description of the former is drawn, as is not unnatural in Eastern poetry, from the priceless blessing of water, and the luxuriant vegetation which it fosters. To be “ like a tree planted by the water side “ is the constant description of peaceful prosperity. The tabernacles of Israel are compared, now to the brooks flowing into the Jordan through the camp in the plains of Moab; now to the well-watered gardens by the great river Euphrates; now to the aloes, the trees of precious fragrance; now to the cedars, the emblems of greatness and magnificence of strength, spreading out, not on the heights of Lebanon, but beside the waters. In the land of their inheritance Israel shall not only “ pour water from his buckets,” — that is, water the fields by the simple means customary in the East, — but “ his seed shall be among many waters,” flowing freely without the labour of man. The picture exactly corresponds to the celebrated passage of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 11:10-11): “ The land whither thou goest on to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs. But the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven; a land which the Lord thy God careth for “ (see also 8:7, 8). It was suggested, no doubt, by the view over the deep valley of the Jordan, rich in almost tropical vegetation. But it is a picture of general fruitfulness, growth, and prosperity, in which the king of Israel “ shall be higher than Agag,” the king of what was then the first of the nations (see 5:20), and his “ kingdom exalted “above all the world. The mention of the king of the fierce tribe of Amalek leads naturally from the beauty of peace to the terrible glory of war. The phrases and ideas of the last parable are repeated; but with greater fulness and emphasis. The strength of the wild bull, the fierceness of the lion, are again made emblems of the warlike prowess of Israel. But the picture is now of the lion not as rousing himself to the fight, but as having conquered already, devouring his prostrate prey, sucking the marrow of its bones, and then couching down in a grim repose, from which none dare rouse him up. The vision of the prophet passes on beyond the impending conflict to the completion of the conquest, and to the victorious rest after its labour is over. It will be observed that here again the prophecy is only of temporal prosperity and victory. There is nothing in it of that golden thread of higher spiritual idea, which in the true prophets of Israel runs through the texture of these temporal promises. The whole ends emphatically with the confession, wrung from the unwilling prophet, and stirring the bitter anger of the king: —
“Blessed is he that blessed thee, And cursed is he that curseth thee.” With this it would seem as if Balaam had desired to end his prophecy.
IV. But the last parable is apparently drawn from him by the remonstrance of Balak. He can at least warn him of the future, if he cannot curse at his bidding. It opens with the same solemn exordium as the last. But it is distinct from all going before, in being not only benedictory, but distinctly predictive of that which shall be “ in the latter days.” The first section is the famous prophecy of the victorious king of Israel: — Numbers 24:15-19. — “And he took up his parable, and said, — Balaam the son of Beor saith, And the man whose eye was closed saith:
He saith, which heareth the words of God, And knoweth the knowledge of the Most High, Which seeth the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open:
I see him, but not now:
I behold him, but not nigh:
There shall come forth a star out of Jacob, And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, And shall smite through the corners of Moab, And break down all the sons of tumult. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession, which were his enemies;
While Israel doeth valiantly. And out of Jacob shall one have dominion. And shall destroy the remnant from the city.” The prophecy has clearly a personal reference, not merely to a triumph of Israel, but to some Great King, — the Star of their glory, and the Sceptre of their power — already seen, though far away in the distance of futurity — on whom all glory should be concentrated. The old Jewish interpreters referred this prophecy as a matter of course to the Messiah; it has always been a belief in the Church that, treasured in the tenacious Oriental memory, it was to be to the Magi hereafter the interpretation of the Star of Bethlehem; it is certain that the great pretender to Messiahship, the leader of the terrible revolt under Hadrian, referred to the prophecy, when he called himself Bar-cochab, “ the Son of the Star.”
Nothing is more likely than that the prophecy of some great king to come, which was at all times, under various phases, “ the hope of Israel,” should have been in some measure known and believed by this heathen seer. At the same time it appears clear that the kingdom foreseen by Balaam has no such signs of higher glory about it, as those which prophets of more spiritual character always associated with the kingdom of the Messiah. It is a kingdom of mere temporal victory by the sword, in which Moab and her men of war, and Edom in the strong fastnesses of Mount Seir, shall fall under the hand of the conqueror, who shall root out his enemies, and take them city by city. In itself it was adequately fulfilled in the warlike empire of David, certainly extending to these lands and far beyond them. It is only in virtue of the general principle, which makes David’s kingdom a type of the higher spiritual victories of Him who was at once the Son and Lord of David, and which often expresses itself in not dissimilar language in the prophets of Israel, that this prophecy can be extended further. We may well see in it what perhaps was hardly visible to Balaam’s own eyes, — too apt, as we know, to be dazzled with mere earthly wealth and glory, — and, translating it into a more spiritual language, justify the hopes which the old Jewish interpreters drew from it. In the latter section of this prophecy Balaam turns his eyes on the Amalekites and Kenites, the two great tribes of the desert, and foretells their future destiny; and at last, in tones of gloomy foreboding, he tells of an invasion from the West, and a yet more widespread destruction.
Numbers 24:20-24. — “ And he looked on Amalek, and took up his parable, and said, —
Amalek was the first of the nations; But his latter end shall come to destruction. And he looked on the Kenite, and took up his parable, and said, —
Strong is thy dwelling place, And thy nest is set in the rock.
Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive. And he took up his parable, and said, —
Alas, who shall live when God doeth this? But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim, And they shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber. And he also shall come to destruction.” Of the first two utterances the interpretation is clear enough. Amalek, the robber tribe of the desert, and the constant enemy of Israel, now “first of the nations “ in strength, is doomed to a destruction, which was to come (though the prophecy says not so) from the hand of the first king of Israel. The Kenites, the friends and allies of Israel both in the wilderness and in the promised land, shall continue safe in their strong nest in the rock, till after many centuries the great Assyrian invasion shall sweep all away. Both these predictions were obviously fulfilled. In the last utterance, wrung out from the soul of the prophet, overwhelmed with the thought of a suffering, even to death, in the last terrible times, we see in dim but unmistakable forms the visions of a far remoter future. The “ ships of Kittim “ bring with them a host of destroyers. That Kittim is originally Citium in Cyprus appears certain; but it is equally certain that it was extended to include all the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean west of Palestine. In this passage (and in Daniel 11:30) the Latin version and the Targums all refer it to Italy, evidently interpreting it of the future conquest by Rome. Probably in its original use it was vague, a prophecy simply foreshadowing some great invasion from the land of the West. It is to afflict the Assyrian Empire, which had afflicted all other lands. It is to afflict also “ Eber,” — that is, probably the country or the inhabitants ** beyond “ the river Euphrates, far away to the East. But at the end the destroyers themselves shall be destroyed. The Jewish interpreters added that this should be by the kingdom of the Messiah, as is prophesied in the great vision of Daniel; but of this there is nothing in Balaam’s own utterance. It simply closes in a dark and terrible picture of affliction and destruction; and it is strikingly characteristic that the prophet, whose heart was set on this world, and whose vision was bounded by it, should see as the ultimate goal of his prophecy nothing but images of gloom and terror. With these words of doom on his lips he “ rises up and returns to his place.”
Such is the general outline of these parables of Balaam, in some sense unique in the Old Testament, distinguished in tone and style from the utterances of all Jewish prophets, and, up to this point of Holy Scripture, the most vivid in their prophetic interpretation of the present, and reaching farthest as predictions of the future. But their tone and spirit are heathenish still. There is in them no germ of true spirituality, and therefore no germ of the undying life and hope of the prophets of Israel.
II. A second example of the parable of this same class — most remote from the original idea of “ teaching by comparison,” and retaining little right to the name beyond that which is given by elaborate parallelism of construction and highly metaphorical style — is the parable of Job. The name is given to a remarkable discourse, or series of discourses, extending through no less than six chapters (xxvi.xxxi.), in which, having silenced the contention of his friends, he closes the great discussion of the book. Twice (in xxvii. i, and xxix. i) he is expressly said to “continue his parable.” If we take each occurrence of this expression to mark the beginning of a new section of the discourse, the whole will fall naturally into three divisions, — an introduction in ch. xxvi, a first main portion in ch. 27:-xxviii, and a second in ch. 29:-xxxi.
Before attempting to estimate the general meaning of this “ parable,” it is perhaps necessary to glance at the great subject of Job’s controversy with his friends. It should be remembered that this is not the whole subject of the book, as we have it now; for in the Prologue and Epilogue we have a glimpse of the probationary and disciplinary purpose of God’s dispensation, overruling to good the disturbing element of a supernatural power of Moral Evil in the world, of which Job and his friends know nothing. But the question of the controversy is essentially one form of the perplexity, which is the great stumbling-block of Natural Theology, — the only thing which really staggers our sense of God’s Righteousness and Wisdom, and so our living faith in Him. That perplexity comes from the permitted existence in the world of evil — sin, and (in less degree) suffering and death — which tempts men to Manichaean theories of Dualism, or to the blank despair of Pessimism. In the Book of Job it takes the simplest form, of difficulty as to the perfection of what is still felt to be a Moral Government of God, in respect of the distribution of joy and sorrow, success and failure, in the world. For this is obviously the form which the history of Job’s strange and unexpected suffering suggests.
It assumes two distinct phases of inquiry. First, whether special suffering implies special sinfulness, and whether prosperity is invariably and necessarily a reward of well-doing before God. Next, whether, in any case, man has a right to complain of the dealings of God with him — whether, in fact, he is not too insignificant, too weak, and too sinful, to have any rights at all before the most High. On the former of these points Job’s friends maintain, as a time-honoured maxim of ancient experience, that joy and sorrow in this world are invariably proportioned to the good or evil doing of the recipient; and hence, at first indirectly and gently, afterwards with a plainspoken harshness, they infer that Job’s sufferings argue in him some flagrant sinfulness, and urge him to repent, in hope of forgiveness and renewed blessing. They feel, like those who insist on “ poetic justice,” that this is the simplest way to sustain a belief in God as the Moral Governor of the world.
Accordingly, they refuse to acknowledge any imperfection or error in its application; they shut their eyes to unwelcome and perplexing facts, and so become “ false witnesses for God.” Job, on the other hand, emphatically denies that actual experience bears out this easy and comfortable theory. Not without wonder and perplexity, he dwells on the imperfection of God’s retribution in this life — on the disheartened suffering of the righteous, and the insolent prosperity of the wicked. As for himself, he boldly and pathetically pleads that, according to the standard of human capacity, he is not specially a sinner; and in the extremity of his pain he cries out to God, and asks why he is so heavily visited. This leads on to the second point in the discussion.
Scandalized by his outcry, the friends urge that in any case God’s dealings cannot be questioned; that He is too high for any plea[of justice or injustice from man; that all Job has to do is to submit absolutely to One, who has an absolute right to do precisely as He wills with the creatures of His hand. They support this view of God’s relation to man by descriptions — in themselves most true and majestic — of God’s infinite glory as the Creator, the Sustainer, the Destroyer, of all created things. Here again Job meets them face to face. He accepts to the full their declarations of the majesty of God, His unsearchable wisdom, His infinite power; but He believes that weak and sinful as he is, man has rights before God’ which the All-just and All-merciful cannot and will not disregard. Hence he will still cry out to God to show him the reason of His ways. He longs for a Daysman to decide his cause; he believes that his Redeemer (or Avenger) liveth. Though at times he goes to the very verge of presumption, he still holds firm the conviction that ’’ the Judge of the whole world must do right.” It is notable that in the close of the book. Job, when he comes to the sight of God, does accept the answer of an unqualified faith in, His infinite and mysterious Wisdom, and, casting off his self-confidence, “abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes “; yet he is declared, in acknowledging the true facts of life, to have spoken of God “ the thing that is right,” and the complacent theories, by which his friends seek to defend God’s justice, are condemned. The “ parable “ of Job, closing the dialogue with his three friends, is clearly intended to sum up the whole controversy. In it accordingly, the two subjects of his contention alternate, and in some degree blend, with each other.
Thus, in the introductory chapter (xxvi.), after a bitter reproach of the unmercifulness and the futility of the argument of his friends (vv. 2-4), he suddenly turns to dwell on the all-embracing greatness of God’s kingdom — over the deep abyss, where the dead tremble before Him, over the earth “hanging on nothing,” over the cloudy region of the firmament, over the sea, to which He has set a boundary, and the stars, with which He hath garnished heaven (vv. 5-13); and he ends all with the declaration: — “ Lo! these are but the outskirts of His ways I Scarcely has a whisper of them reached our ears; The thunder of His power who can understand“
There runs through the whole a kind of impatience, that all this, which he knows so well, should be urged as if it were new to him, and that the truth, itself indisputable, should be made the occasion of more than doubtful inference.
{b.) The second division of the parable (ch. xxvii.-xxviii.), following this introduction, is somewhat obscure as to its general drift and coherence. In one part, indeed, of the former chapter many have doubted whether there is not some corruption of the text, and whether vv. 13-23 do not contain the third speech of Zophar the Naamathite, otherwise missing in the dialogue. For this there appears hardly sufficient ground; but the very supposition shows the obscurity of the internal connexion. The whole fall into two parts. The first (ch. xxvii.) opens with a solemn declaration of Job, that “ as God liveth, who hath taken away his judgment,” he will not utter conventional falsehoods, and will not “justify his friends” by an insincere confession, while his heart condemns him not (vv. 1-6): — “ My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.
Let mine enemy be as the wicked, And let him that riseth against me be as the unrighteous.”
Then, taking up the truth which they themselves had seen and declared again and again, he acknowledges that if the unrighteous does gain, yet in the end God’s retribution shall come on him, —
“For what is the hope of the godless, tho’ he get him gain, When God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry. When trouble cometh upon him?”
No! his prosperity is frail as the spider’s web; his power only a temporary tabernacle; his children shall be born to trouble; his wealth shall be gathered for the righteous; he shall pass away like the wind under God’s wrath, and amidst the hissing of men (vv. 7-23). So far all is clear. Then — so abruptly that it seems as if some link had been lost — there comes in a sudden change of thought; and in the next chapter (xxviii.), one of the noblest and most figurative of the whole book. Job dwells on the vain search of man after “ wisdom “; that is, after the knowledge of the secrets of God’s Providence over him and over the world. The connexion with the preceding chapter is certainly obscure; but it seems to lie in the thought of the inscrutable method of this Divine retribution, into which man would so gladly look. At the end he gives up the search; he knows that the secret is known to God from the beginning; but for man there remains only obedience and faith.
“ The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” This latter chapter demands a more detailed explanation.
It opens (vv. i-ii) with a vivid and picturesque description of the work of the miner, searching into the very depths of the earth — a description clearly drawn from eye-witness in the mines, perhaps of Egypt, perhaps of the Hauran itself.
Job xxviii. i-ii. — “Surely there is a mine for silver, And a place for gold which they refine.
Iron is taken out of the earth, And brass is molten out of the stone.
Man setteth an end to darkness, And searcheth out to the furthest bound The stones of thick darkness and the shadow of death.
He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn;
They are forgotten of the foot that passeth by;
They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, And it hath dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knoweth, Neither hath the falcon’s eye seen it; The proud beasts have not trodden it, Nor hath the fierce lion passed thereby.
He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock;
He overturneth the mountains by the roots.
He cutteth out channels among the rocks; And his eye seeth every precious thing.
He bindeth the streams that they trickle not; And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.” The whole passage dwells (much in the spirit of a famous chorus of Sophocles) on the wonders of man’s skill and enterprise in the material world, shaming the instinct of all other creatures, overcoming all natural obstacles, and piercing to the dark secrets of the earth.
Then follows the contrast of his ignorance of the deeper mysteries of the spiritual world (vv. 12-22).
Job 28:12-22. — “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof;
Neither is it found in the land of the living. The deep saith. It is not in me: And the sea saith, It is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold, Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
Gold and glass cannot equal it:
Neither shall the exchange thereof be jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal, Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
Whence then cometh wisdom? And where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living. And kept close from the fowls of the air.”
Destruction and Death say, We have heard a rumour thereof with our ears.
“ Wisdom “ is here the secret of God’s will to man, on which depend the whole meaning and value of life • to know it is precious beyond all precious things. But man knows it not in itself; he searches for it vainly through the land of the living, the sea, and “the waters under the earth.” Even in the unseen world of hell and death there is but a faint echo of the voice of wisdom. At last comes the grand climax.
Job 28:22-28: —
“God understandeth the way thereof, And he knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, And seeth under the whole heaven; To make a weight for the wind;
Yea, he meteth out the waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, And a way for the lightning of the thunder:
Then did he see it, and declare it;
He established it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.” The wisdom of God He alone knows; and it is represented (with a faint indication of that personification so magnificently worked out in Proverbs 8:22-31) as being with Him in the hour of Creation, declared by Him as the pattern — the “ Law Eternal “— of His works. As for man, he cannot know this wisdom in itself; he can gain a glimpse of it, only so far as he accepts God’s Revelation in godly fear, and follows His commandments in departing from evil. The conclusion breathes much of the spirit of the teaching of the Book of Proverbs. But, as is natural in one who, like Job, had not the full light and privilege of the Covenant with Israel, it claims even less of full knowledge of Him and of wisdom in Him. Here the fear of the Lord is wisdom: in the teaching of Solomon, it is but “the beginning of wisdom,” — the condition (as Our Lord Himself teaches) of fuller knowledge of God.
(c.) From this magnificent parable, full of poetical beauty and high prophetic inspiration, Job passes on to the concluding portion of his discourse. This occupies three chapters (chaps, 29:-xxxi.) coinciding with three natural divisions of the subject.
It is marked by a simplicity of construction and connexion, and by a continuous flow of thought, pathetic indeed in its sorrow, but free from all the excitement and ruggedness of his earlier cries of pain.
It forms a sad but trustful conclusion to his struggle; he simply “ delivers his soul,” and leaves all in the hands of God. The first chapter is a lovely picture of the life which he once led in the light of God’s presence — first, in the richness of material blessing, and with all his children around him; then in the dignity of universal reverence from young and old, nobles and princes of the land; lastly, in the higher glory of acknowledged beneficence, “ because he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him “; “ he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.” In that blessedness he thought to live and die, and the reverence of men chimed in with his hope.
Job 29:14, Job 29:18-19, Job 29:25: —
“I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was as a robe and a diadem.
Then I said, I shall die in my nest. And I shall multiply my days as the sand: My root is spread out to the waters, And the dew lieth all night upon my branch:
I chose out their way, and sat as chief. And dwelt as a king in the army, As one that comforteth the mourners.”
There is throughout a certain tenderness and calmness of pathos, as of one looking back on life from another world. The next chapter (xxix.) describes the terrible contrast of his present condition — despised even by the lowest of men, the vagabond races who prowled on the edges of the higher civilisation — humiliated and tortured by loathsome disease — looking to God in vain for relief, and to man for the pity which once he himself had shown.
Job 30:1-4, Job 30:8-9, Job 30:12-13, Job 30:16-17, Job 30:20, Job 30:22-23, Job 30:25-26, Job 30:31:—
“But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?
Men in whom ripe age is perished.
They are gaunt with want and famine:
They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.
They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; And the roots of the broom are their meat.
They are children of fools, yea, children of base men;
They were scourged out of the land. And now I am become their song, Yea, I am a byword unto them.
Upon my right hand rise the rabble;
They thrust aside my feet, And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
They mar my path, They set forward my calamity.
Even men that have no helper. And now my soul is poured out within me;
Days of affliction have taken hold upon me. In the night season my bones are pierced in me, And the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me:
I stand up, and thou lookest at me.
Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it; And thou dissolvest me in the storm. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death. And to the house appointed for all living. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy } When I looked for good, then evil came; And when I waited for light, there came darkness.
Therefore is my harp turned to mourning. And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.” The picture is painted, deliberately and bitterly, stroke by stroke, without, however, the anguish and the distempered vehemence of some of the earlier chapters.
Then in the last chapter (xxxi.) comes a simple and earnest protestation of his innocence of all the various charges made or insinuated against him.
He calls God to witness of the purity and integrity of his life past (vv. i-i i); of his reverence for the weak, and compassion for the poor and destitute (vv. 12-23); of his hatred of idolatry, whether the gross idolatry of the sun and the moon, or of the subtler worship of gold and prosperity (vv. 24-28); of his freedom from malignity and parsimony, from cowardice and from fraudulent oppression (vv. 29-40).
He ends all with the following declaration, full of a truthful and pathetic dignity.
Job 31:35 to end: —
“Oh that I had one to hear me!
(Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me); And that I had the indictment which mine advcrsary hath written!
Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder;
I would bind it unto me as a crown.
I would declare unto him the number of my steps; As a prince would I go near unto him.
If my land cry out against me, And the furrows thereof weep together;
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, Or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life:
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, And cockle instead of barley. “ The whole of this concluding section of the parable breathes a tone of subdued, patient, sorrowful earnestness; submissive to God’s hand, yet still cherishing a consciousness of true devotion to His service, and refusing to acknowledge a special sinfulness, which the heart does not feel. It is profoundly instructive that (in ch. xli. 5, 6) at the very moment when God accepts his plea, Job is so penetrated with the sense of the Divine wisdom and goodness, that every shred even of this righteous self-confidence is torn away; he comes to feel what previously he did not feel of the imperfection of his service, and immediately “ repents in dust and ashes.” The protestation of his “ parable “ is his last word to man; but it is not his last word to God. The whole parable is one of the noblest specimens of the poetry of the Old Testament — in its perfection of stately form, clothing complete simplicity of idea, in its singular union of dignity with reverence, and in its sight only by glimpses of the Divine ideal of goodness and of man’s declension from it, thoroughly characteristic of the ancient wisdom, of which it is the expression.
III. The last example of this species of parable is the grand triumphant and denunciatory song of Isaiah over the fall of the king of Babylon.
It is a portion of the burden of Babylon, opening a series of the “burdens of the nations,” which occupy a considerable section (cc. 13:-xxiii.) of the prophecies of Isaiah. The prophet beholds in vision the “ ensign of the Lord “ set up against Babylon, and, gathered around it, the “ consecrated ones “ and the “ mighty men “ of His host. He sees the terror, and hears the wailing, of the doomed city; he discerns even the instruments of the Divine vengeance — “ the Medes,” who “ regard not silver and gold,” and whose “ eye has no pity.”
“ Babylon the glory of kingdoms “ is to be “ as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah “ (cc, xiii. I; 14:2). Then he turns to Israel, to whom the fall of the oppressor is to bring “ rest from sorrow, and from trouble and from hard service,” and bids her “ take up her parable against the king of Babylon.”
Isaiah 14:4-23. — “ How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers; that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained. The whole earth is at rest, arid is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us t Thy pomp is brought down to hell, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation in the uttermost parts of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit.
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, they shall consider thee, saying. Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home? All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones, of the pit; as a carcase trodden under foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever. Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers, that they rise not up, and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities. And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son, saith the LORD.
I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.” This splendid burst of figurative poetry tells its own story, with little need of explanation and interpretation. It falls into four striking pictures. That with which it opens is one to which we find parallels elsewhere, of the quiet rest of the whole earth at the fall of the oppressive magnificence of Babylon. The very cedars and cypresses of Lebanon rejoice that the havoc made by its fleet-building and palace building is to cease; the earth itself breaks forth into a song of relief and freedom. But to this succeeds a grand vision, which stands out unique in its terrible force, of the realms of Sheol, — the unseen world of the fabled Rephaim, and of the shades of the royal dead, — a land (as always in the Old Testament) of shadowy gloom and dreariness, — now stirred by the expectation of the descent of the soul of the great king, and exulting over his fall to the level of its impotence and nothingness. His is “the fall of Lucifer,” “the day-star,” “son of the morning,” made hereafter in Christian poetry a type of the fall from Heaven of the prince of the angels. For alike in type and antitype, the root of evil is the pride, aspiring to God’s honour, to place for itself “ a throne above the stars, and to be like the most High,” — now brought down to the gloom of Sheol, “ to the uttermost parts of the pit.”
Then the scene seems to change, and go back to some field of battle on earth, where the dead body of the conquered king lies, unburied and dishonoured.
Men look upon it and say, “ Is this the man that made the earth to tremble? “ Other kings lie in honoured graves; but he is cast out far away from the sepulchre, which he has prepared for himself, “ as an abominable branch”; lost in the heaps of the slain; because he had been the ruin of his own land and the slayer of his people. His spirit is taunted in Sheol; his body trampled down on the blood-stained earth. Nor is the vengeance to be stayed even then.
“Prepare “ (the prophet cries) “ slaughter for his children,” that they rise not up again. The Lord “ will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son, and son’s son.” He will make it a desolation, and “ sweep it with the besom of destruction.” As always in the vengeance upon Babylon, there is no sparing in the present, or hope of restoration. For Babylon is the type of utterly cruel and ruthless wickedness, that satanic rebellion against good and against God v;hich may not be forgiven. The whole “ parable “ is one of the grandest specimens, even of the grandeur of Isaiah. Its tone breathes not so much fierceness or exultation, as an awful sense of God’s righteous retribution upon evil; alike in the world visible and the world unseen. With these last and faintest examples of the principles of parabolic teaching, the investigation of its various phases may fitly close.^ The simplest thought will convince us that it indicates a great law of truth, first grasped by poetic intuition, and afterwards worked out by philosophic thought. In this, as in other respects, Holy Scripture is at once an epitome of the highest human literature, and the revelation of that which is the Divine answer to all its searchings after truth.
* It will be sufficient merely to refer to the “proverb” of Numbers 20:27-30, which is a fragment of some triumphant exultation from the land of Sihon over the defeat and desolation of Moab; to the “parable” of Micah 2:4, which is a short “ doleful lamentation “ over the spoiling of God’s people; and to “the parable and taunting proverb” of Habakkuk 2:6, scorning the rapacity and recklessness of the spoiler. These examples are brief and simple, and require no detailed treatment.