put me to the proof, to discover what thou dost not know already.

14. If I have sinned, thou hast also observed me; And from my iniquity thou canst not have supposed me guiltless.

15. If I am guilty, alas for me!

And if I am just, I cannot lift up my head.

Be satisfied with my debasement, and look on my affliction.

This is not an ingenuous confession of guilt, from a true conviction of sin. Job claims, indeed, the pity of the great God: guilty or innocent, he cannot contend with him! and therefore, brought low as he is, he wonders, and thinks it hard, that the Almighty should still continue so heavily to afflict him. He exclaims, respecting his affliction,

16. Yet it is increased! like a lion thou lurkest beside meb:

Then thou returnest, to catch me by surprise.

Or, but it increases, grows higher and higher,' i. e. the affliction, or, perhaps, better, yet he rises higher and higher, i.e. my powerful afflicter, like a lion in the act of springing on his prey. Mr. Good makes a participle of r," for uprousing, as a ravenous lion, thou springest upon me."

Or, thou doest what is unexpected to me,' or, thou appearest extraordinary to me.' Or, perhaps, it might be rendered" like a lion thou seizest upon me. Then thou departest and separatest thyself from me." The allusion being to that tormenting triumph and contempt, which animals of this species exhibit towards their feeble enemies; first catching their prey, then leaving it, and retiring to a distance, as if to

17. Thou renewest thy jaws before me, And multipliest thy rage upon me :

Fresh harasses and conflicts are about me '.

If we bear in mind, that the roaring lion,' who was now, as the instrument of God, harassing Job, was permitted indeed to do his worst, but prohibited in his attacks to touch his life. The metaphor which is here used, may very naturally represent these attacks as they would appear to the sufferer: -Each attack sufficient to destroy him, and apparently aimed at that end;-but that end strangely suspended! as he thinks merely, to increase and prolong his misery. Giving way, therefore, to his despairing thoughts, Job again bewails that ever he had been permitted to live.

18. Why then didst thou bring me forth from the womb? I might have expired, and no eye have seen me. 19. I might have been as though I had not existed; Have been carried from the womb to the grave.

20. Are not my few days now failing?

Spare me, that I may refresh me a little;

21. Before I depart to return no more:

tempt it to escape, but only with the intention of again seizing it in their horrid and well-measured grasp.

, in several passages, is rendered mouth.' Parkhurst rather questions it; we may then adopt the hostile attacks' of Schultens: Mr. Good has trials.'

So Mr. Good. But it is possible this line should be constructed with the following:

"Changes and the appointed time is come," &c.

C

וחדל Many MSS, have

The mournful sentiment is, how much better had it been if I had never lived, or had been cut off in carliest infancy. And now, also, that my short period is almost exhausted, and I am visibly going to the dark mansions of the dead, Oh, for a little interval of rest!

His gloomy prospect of the state of departed souls next follows.

To the land of obscurity, and of the deadly shade; 22. The land of concealment, as of total darkness d

It is difficult to express, in our language, the exact meaning and peculiar force of the different words in this passage, denoting darkness generally.

signifies darkness, in allusion to its obscurity;' by reason of the olstruction of light, and hence, like our word obscure, it is used for ignoble.' Perhaps it strictly means. 'stagnation,' as opposed to all motion or vibrations of light. See Gen. i. 2.

my, as has been intimated before, is a metaphorical expression, alluding to that shade which closes the eyes of a dying man in perpetual darkness.' But from this passage, as well as from several others, the state of the departed spirit seems principally intended.

с

by is darkness; perhaps, in allusion to its occasional cause, something that involves' or covers,' and so shuts out the light. Thus the Syriac and as, is to double,' to' involve,' to fold up as a garment: 8, land of concealment, or of darkness,' that covers or shuts out of sight, agrees well with the common term which is used for the departed state,, or N," the place of those that are out of the way, and are asked for." BATE. Or, the place which baffles all inquiry.' The Syriac, x, in one of its conjugations, signifies to 'shun, to avoid, to refuse, to excuse oneself.’ This answers to the ‘O aïîŋs Toos, the unseen place' of the Greeks; to orcus, shades' of the Latins; and to the hell' of

The deadly shade, where are no vicissitudes;

b

But the noon-tide is as total darkness!

Gloomy as was the prospect of the state of departed spirits, to living men; yet there alone could the afflicted sufferer hope to find an extinction of his sorrows and pains. The language of all the ancient saints in scripture, we may again remark, is always express respecting the abode of the departed spirit, as distinct from the tomb or grave that received the remains of the body. Their views of this state, however, are full of obscurity and darkness, life and immortality' was not then brought to light.' The believers in a covenant Elohim, knew that they should live to God,' and obey his call in the morning of the resurrection. They conceived of the separate state, as a safe and quiet restingplace, from all the ills of life: clearly, not as a total extinction of consciousness; but, in many respects,

our own language, as derived from the Saxon hillan' or helan,' to hide.' "The concealed, or hidden place." The term being anciently used not for the place of punishment or misery exclusively, but for the place of departed souls generally.

seems to express darkness negatively, as the extinction of light. Jil, box, signifies to consume by decrease, or continual wasting,' and is applied to the setting of the sun and

stars.

No vicissitudes' of day and night: 77 in the Chaldee signifies to arrange, set in order.' As does the Syriac 70, whence an order' or 'disposition of things.' The Arabic, however signifies 'light,'' brightness.' Hence some translate, where there is no light.'

Mr. Good, yn, jubar,'' effulgence.'

as the intervention of darkness between the retiring and the returning day, a time of inactivity, the 'night when no man can work.' They could not know, at least not so clearly, what we now know, 'that to depart from the body is to be present with the Lord,' and far better than to continue here in the flesh.' The present hope of them that fall asleep in Jesus,' whose 'spirits are' caught away into paradise; where, delivered from the burden of the flesh, they are in joy and felicity, waiting to come with Christ when his glory shall be revealed.

SECTION V.

The Address of Zophar.

THE last of the three friendsnext addresses Job, fully agreeing with the two former, in their estimate of his case, and joining in their severe censure of the manner in which he argued in order to avoid the conclusion, that his sufferings had come upon him on account of his transgressions.

Chap. xi. Ver. 1. Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said:

2. Are a multitude of words not to be answered ?

And must a man of lips be right?

3. At thy hand must men keep silence?

And shalt thou scorn, and no one put thee' to shame?

At the waving of thy hand; or, "Shall thy vain talk make men silent?"