CHAPTER CXVII.

CONCERNING JOB'S WIFE.

This insertion is somewhat long, and utterly impertinent to the principal matter, and makes a great gap in the tale; nevertheless is no disgrace, but rather a beauty and to very good purpose.

PUTTENHAM.             

It has been a custom in popish countries, when there were no censors of the press civil or ecclesiastical to render it unnecessary, for an author to insert at the beginning of his work a protestation declaring, that if the book contained any thing contrary to the established faith, he thereby revoked any such involuntary error of opinion. Something similar has sometimes been done in free countries, and not then as a mere form, nor for prudential considerations, but in the sincerity of an upright intention and a humble mind.—“Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults!”

To be sure what I am about to say is upon a matter of less import, and may seem neither to require nor deserve so grave a prelude. But it is no part of my philosophy to turn away from serious thoughts when they lie before me.

Φράσω γὰρ δὴ ὅσον μοι
Ψυχᾷ προσφιλές ἐστιν εἰπεῖν. 1

I had no intention of quoting scripture when I began, but the words came to mind and I gave them utterance, and thou wilt not be displeased, good reader, at seeing them thus introduced.—Good reader, I have said:—if thou art not good, I would gladly persuade thee to become so;—and if thou art good, would fain assist thee in making thyself better. Si de tout ce que je vous ai dit, un mot peut vous être utile, je n'aurai nul regret à ma peine. 2

1 EURIPIDES.

2 MAD. DE MAINTENON.

Well then benevolent and patient reader, it is here my duty to confess that there is a passage in the last chapter which I am bound to retract. For since that chapter was written I have found cause to apprehend that in vindicating Guy's daughter I have wronged Job's wife, by accrediting a received calumny founded upon a mistranslation. I did not then know, what I have now learnt, that a judicious and learned writer, modest enough to conceal his name and designate himself only as a private gentleman, had many years ago, in a Review of the History of Job, stated his reasons for regarding her as a much injured woman.

Every one knows that the wife of Job in our Bible says to her husband, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!” Now this writer asserts that the Hebrew verb which our translators render in this place to curse, means also to bless, to salute, or give the knee, and that there are but four more places in all the Bible where it can be supposed to have an opposite meaning, and that even in those places it may admit of the better signification. It is not surprizing that many verbal difficulties should occur in a book, which if of later date than the books of Moses, is next to them in antiquity. Such difficulties might be expected whether we have it in its original language, or whether it were written, as many have opined, by Job himself in Syriac, Arabic or Idumean, and translated into Hebrew; much more if the opinion of Dr. Wall could be admitted, that it was written at first in hieroglyphics, against which the length of the book is a conclusive objection. “I should imagine,” says the anonymous defender, “she had so high an opinion of her husband's innocence that she might mean to advise him, seeing notwithstanding his uprightness he was thus amazingly afflicted, to go and kneel or bow down before God, and plead or as it were expostulate with him concerning the reason of these dreadful calamities,—even though he should die. If this sense of her expressions be allowed, it will justify Job's wise rebuke for her inconsiderateness, while, as he still possessed his soul in submissive patience, crying out—‘Thou speakest as a rash, thoughtless, or foolish woman: what, shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?’ Indeed it should seem that God himself did not behold her as an impious or blasphemous woman, inasmuch as we find she was made a great instrument in Job's future and remarkable prosperity, becoming after their great calamity the mother of seven sons and three most beautiful daughters. I say she was their mother, because we have no intimation that Job had any other wife.”

Now upon consulting such authorities as happen to be within my reach, I find that this interpretation is supported by the Vulgate,—benedic Deo, et morere; and also by the version of Junius and Tremellius—“adhuc tu retines integritatem tuam, benedicendo Deum atque moriendo.” Piscator too renders the word in its better sense, as I learn from the elder Wesley's elaborate collation of this most ancient book, from which I collect also that the Chaldee version gives the good meaning, the Arabian and Syriac the bad one; and that the words of the Septuagint ἀλλὰ εἰπόν τι ῥῆμα εἰς κύριον καὶ τελεύτα, are interpreted by the Scholiast κατάρασον τον θέον.

Moreover a passage of some length which is in no other translation except that of St. Ambrose, is found in three manuscripts of the Septuagint, one of them being that from which the text of the Oxford edition of 1817 is taken. It is as follows. “But after much time had elapsed, his wife said unto him, ‘how long wilt thou endure thus saying, “I will expect yet a little while, awaiting the hope of my salvation?” Behold thy memory hath past away from the earth, the sons and daughters of my womb, whom I have with pain and sorrow brought forth in vain. Thou thyself sittest among filthy worms, passing the night under the open sky; and I am a wanderer and a servant, from place to place and from house to house, looking for the sun to go down that I may rest from the grief and labour that oppress me. Speak then a word against the Lord, and die!’”

If the text were to be considered singly, without reference to any thing which may assist in determining its meaning, it would perhaps be impossible now to ascertain among these contrariant interpretations which is the true one. But the generous Englishman who in this country first in our language undertook the vindication of this Matriarch and by whom I have been led to make the present pertinent enquiry, has judiciously (as has been seen) observed in confirmation of his opinion, that the circumstance of her having been made a partaker in her husband's subsequent prosperity is proof that she also had been found righteous under all their trials. This is a valid argument deduced from the book itself.

It would be invalidated were there any truth in what certain Talmudists say, that Job came into the world only to receive his good things in it; that when Satan was permitted to afflict him he began to blaspheme and to revile his Maker, and that therefore the Lord doubled his measure of prosperity in this life, that he might be rejected from the world to come. But when we remember that he is called “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil,” we may say with the great Cistercian Rabbinomastix “hæc est magna blasphemia et convicium in Iob.” Other Rabbis represent him as a fatalist, put into his mouth the common argument of that false and impious philosophy, and affirm that there is no hope of his salvation: what they say concerning him may safely be rejected. Others of the same school assert that there never was any such person as Job, in the teeth of the Prophet Ezekiel,—and that his whole history is only a parable: if their opinion were right it would be useless to enquire into the character of his wife; sed isti redarguuntur says Bartolocci, ex nomine ipsius et nomine civitatis ejusdem. Just as, whatever inconsiderate readers may suppose who take these my reminiscences of the Doctor for a work of fiction, Daniel Dove was Daniel Dove nevertheless, and Doncaster is Doncaster.

There is nothing then among the Jewish traditions, so far as my guides lead me, that can throw any light upon the subject of this enquiry. But there is among the Arabian, where it was more likely to be found; and though the Arabic translation supports the evil meaning of the equivocal text, the tradition on the contrary is in favour of Job's wife. It is indeed a legend, a mere figment, plainly fabulous; but it is founded upon the traditional character of Job's wife in Job's own country. There are two versions of the legend. The one Sale has given as a comment upon the text of the Koran,—“Remember Job when he cried unto his Lord, saying, Verily evil hath afflicted me; but Thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy!”

When Job, says this legend, was in so loathsome a condition that as he lay on a dunghill none could bear to come near him, his wife alone attended him dutifully with great patience, and supported him with what she earned by her labour. One day the Devil appeared to her, reminded her of their former prosperity, and promised to restore all they had lost if she would worship him. He had overcome Eve by a less temptation; the Matriarch did not yield like the Mother of Mankind, but neither did she withstand it; she took a middle course, and going to her husband repeated to him the proposal, and asked his consent: whereat he was so indignant that he swore if he recovered to give her an hundred stripes; and then it was that he uttered the ejaculation recorded in the Koran. Immediately the Lord sent Gabriel, who took him by the hand and raised him up; a fountain sprung up at his feet, he drank of it, and the worms fell from his wounds, and he washed in it, and his health and beauty were restored. What his wife had done was not imputed to her for sin, doubtless in consideration of the motive, and the sense of duty and obedience to her lord and master which she had manifested. She also became young and beautiful again; and that Job might keep his oath and neither hurt her nor his own conscience, he was directed to give her one blow with a palm branch having an hundred leaves.

The legend as related in D'Herbelot, is more favourable to her and exempts her from all blame. According to Khondemir whom he follows, what Job's wife, here called Rasima, provided for her miserable husband, Satan stole from her, till he deprived her at last of all means of supporting him, and thus rendered him utterly destitute. As soon as the tempter had effected this, he appeared to Rasima in the form of a bald old woman, and offered if she would give him the two locks which hung down upon her neck, to supply her every day with whatever she wanted for her husband. Rasima joyfully accepted the proposal, cut off her locks and gave them to the false old woman. No sooner was Satan possessed of them than he went to Job, told him that his wife had been detected in dishonouring herself and him, and that she had been ignominiously shorn in consequence, in proof of which he produced the locks. Job when he saw that his wife had indeed been shorn of her tresses, believed the story, and not doubting that she had allowed the Devil to prevail over her, swore if ever he recovered his health to punish her severely. Upon this Satan exulting that he had provoked Job to anger, assumed the form of an Angel of Light, and appearing to the people of the land, said he was sent by the Lord to tell them that Job had drawn upon himself the displeasure of the Most High, wherefore he had lost the rank of Prophet which theretofore he had held, and they must not suffer him to remain among them, otherwise the wrath of the Lord would be extended to them also. Job then breathed the prayer which is in the Koran, and the legend proceeds as in the other version, except that nothing is said concerning the manner in which he was discharged of his vow, the vow itself being annulled when Rasima's innocence was made known.

The Koran where it touches upon this legend, says, it was said to Job, “take a handful of rods in thy hand, and strike thy wife therewith, and break not thine oath.” Sale observes upon this that as the text does not express what this handful of rods was to be, some commentators have supposed it to be dry grass, and others rushes, and others (as in the legend) a palm branch. But the elder Wesley takes the words in their direct and rigorous meaning, and says that as the Devil had no small part in the Koran, this passage indubitably bears his stamp, for who but the Devil would instigate any one to beat his wife? This erudite commentator, (he deserves to be so called,) vindicates the Matriarch in one of his Dissertations, and says that in the speech for which Job reproved her she only advised him to pray for death: in the mouth of a Greek or Roman matron it might have been understood as an exhortation to suicide;—Hæc ore Græcæ aut Romanæ mulieris prolata ut heroica quædam exhortatio esset suspecta.

His favourable opinion is entitled to more weight, because it was formed when he made the book of Job his particular study, whereas in an earlier work, the History of the Bible in verse, he had followed the common error, and made Satan as the last and worst of Job's torments play his wife against him, saying that the fiercest shock which the Patriarch sustained was from the tempest raised by her tongue.

The expositors who comment upon this text of the Koran without reference to the legend, have differed in opinion as to the offence which Job's wife had committed thus to provoke her husband, some asserting that he swore to punish her with stripes because she had stayed too long on an errand,—an opinion by no means consistent with his patience.

Returning to the main argument I conclude, that if upon the meaning of the doubtful word in the Hebrew text authorities are so equipoised as to leave it doubtful, these traditions being of Arabian growth have sufficient weight to turn the scale; even if it were not a maxim that in cases of this kind the most charitable opinion ought to be preferred. And as Dr. Southey has classed this injured Matriarch in a triad with Xantippe and Mrs. Wesley, I cannot but hope that the candid and learned Laureate, who as I before observed, has condescended to clear the character of some Irish cast-off cavalry horses, will, when he has perused this chapter, render the same justice to Job's wife; and in the next edition of his Life of Wesley, substitute Hooker's in her place.