ftraint, any thing of that lofs, at least, diminution of the brilliancy and fplendor of figures, or like faults which mark and characterize a verfion in contradistinction to its archetype, or the primitive work which it copies. But fays Mr. Voltaire, There are Arabic terms in it, therefore the book was written in Arabic.' And at this rate, it should alío have been written in Syriac; for there are Syriac terms in it, fay fome. And in Chaldaic; for there are Chaldaic terms in it, fay others. Ill-fated book of Job, to be in this manner diftracted and pulled different ways at once, with relation to thy native language! But there is no force in fuch premises to justify the conclufion. How indeed can there be, when, as the ingenious and learned Dr Lowth hath obferved, poetry hath always been indulged in the use of foreign words, and of certain anomalies, that is, forms of received words fomewhat varied and altered from the analogy and laws of language; as muft occur to every fcholar who thinks of Homer, and other writers in this way a mong the Greeks. Befides, when we admit there are Arabic terms here, it is only neceffary to admit it in this sense, that there are words in the dialogue of the book which are to be met with no where else in the bible, but are only to be found in fome of the numerous Arabic volumes that are tranfmitted to us, or in dictionaries formed thereon. They might however have been common in the age when Job lived, both to Jews and Arabians. For it is agreed by perfons of skill and learning on this point, that the Hebrew and Arabic are not different languages, but different See Praelect. 3. on the facred poetry of the Hebrews. dialects of the fame primaeval language: wherefore, if there is fuch a harmony and coincidence between the Hebrew, as it is preferved in the bible, and the Arabic, as it is exhibited in writings of far pofterior date, as is almoft incredible to them who are uninitiated in both, there must have been a greater refemblance and fameness between them, the nearer those who used them in fucceeding ages were to their union* in Heber, as their common parent or progenitor, whatever diverfities may have crept in gradually afterwards, in refpect of the use or difufe of the fame vocables, and in refpect of circumftantial things about those that were mutually retained. It will then still lefs follow from the appearance of Arabic terms in the book of Job, as the fenfe of the expreffion is now explained, that it was written originally in Arabic, and that the Hebrew copy is only a tranflation, as may be shortly shewed, whatever hypothe fis we embrace about the age of that compofition. The imagination indeed is excluded by their fcheme itself, who make the book to have been written in its present dress, upon some traditional oral accounts, concerning one Job in the patriarchal times, an eminently good man, who had fuffered extraordinary afflictions for the trial of his virtue, and been confpicuoufly rewarded for his patience under them, whether they date it foon after * I mention Heber, because from him the pofterity of Joktan in Arabia were derived, Gen. x. 26. 1 Chron. i. 19. The other inhabitants thereof were, I think, fprung from Nahor, Abraham's grandfather, and from Abraham himself, by Hagar or Keturah; and therefore were not fo early separated from a general ancestor or head, in whom they were combined with the Jews. the commencement of the regal government in Ifrael, or whether they date it about the aera of the Babylonish captivity*. Accordingly, Dr. Warburton, the great patron and advocate of this last date of the work, who, confiftently, will not allow the fre As the friends of the hypothefis, which affigns the book one or other of these dates, do, or may infist, in common, on allufions through the dialogue to the miraculous procedure of God at the Red Sea; and to the Jewish statutes against idolatry, and against taking a pledge from the poor, with the threatning annexed to the fecond command in the decalogue; and to the peculiar care of God over Canaan; and to the paffages in the Pfalms, of which already, page 425. So they also do, or may, jointly urge, in fupport of it, allufions to the Egyptian darkness, Job ix. 7. and to the death of the first born there, xxxiv. 20. and to the exclusive partition of the land of Canaan among the Ifraelites, xv. 19. Some of them do likewise remark the position of the book after Pfalms and Proverbs in the Hebrew Bibles, and in the lifts of the canonical books given us in Bava Bathra, and other Jewish writings; and the obfervation in the narrative with which the book concludes, xlii. 15. Job gave his three daughters inheritance among ' their brethren,' which never would have been made, they say, but for the contrary regulation of the Jewish law already established, which decreed that the paternal inheritance fhould pafs to fons wholly, where fuch were in life, as in the cafe of Job's daughters, Numb. xxvii. 6, II. And Dr. Warburton, with others who bring the book as low as he does, urge as arguments in behalf of their opinion, references in Elihu's difcourfe to Hezekiah's disease and recovery, xxxiv. 17,-26. to Manaffeh's humiliation and penitence, xxxvi. 7, 8, 9. to Amon's affaffination by his fervants, when he did not take warning by his father's punishment, xxxvi. 12. They take notice of the expreffion in the historical part for God's deliverance of Job from his miferies, xlii. 10. The Lord turned the captivity of Job,' as a hint of the Babylonish captivity. They tell us, that the word Satan is only employed about the times of the captivity, for the prince of fallen angels. And they represent the phrase, xxxi. 36. as an allufion to the phylacteries, the wearing of which about the head, was not,before that aera,introduced. E e quent ufe of the Arabic dialect to be infifled on as a proof of its high and remote original, regards it only as an evidence of the ability of the writer to give his dramatic fable fuch an air of antiquity and verifimilitude as he chofe, by making the Arabians introduced express their fentiments, as perfons living in their times would have done; though he allows, that by fuffering fome indecorums for improprieties to creep in, in fome other articles, he hath betrayed his own times and country. If, therefore, we embrace the hypothefis which fixes one or other of these greatly posterior dates of the book to Job's age, we need not be ftraitened to account for what have been called Arabisms in it, however little it can be pretended there was any connection and intercourse + Some of these indecorums which they mention, may be learned from the preceding note. They alfo reckon the putting Jehovah into the mouth of Job the Arabian, xii. 9. and perhaps xxviii. 28. as another of thefe improprieties. This, however, muft depend upon this queftion, whether that name of God was altogether unknown till God fent Mofes to deliver Ifrael. Exodus iii. 15. vi. 2, 3. Now that is far from being a certain point, as we find it used by Moses in the preceding hiftory, not only when he relates facts himself, in which he might be supposed to accommodate his style concerning God, to the manners of his own age, but even where he introduces God addressing men, and men again fpeaking unto, or about God, and denominating places from him in more antient times, as Gen. xv. 2, 7, 8. xxii. 14. xxvi. 22, 28, 29. xxviii. 13, 16. For in all these paffages, the Lord is, in the original, Jehovah. On this account God may seem to intend faying, Exod. vi. 2. 3. not that he then would be called by a name formerly unheard, but that he would act fuitably to its import, by discovering his immutability in the fulfilment of his promises. It was before observed, that this name of God was familiar to Balaam of Mefopotamia; but this tranfaction is placed by chronologers fo late as the fortieth year after the exod. between Arabians and Jews, which would taint the Hebrew language with Arabic terms and idioms, in either of these periods of the Jewish state. * On the other hand, if we adopt their hypothefis, who make the book of Job a more antient writing by Mofes, or by Job himself, as many do, because they do not acknowledge the truth of the obfervations made by the friends of the former scheme, or, *Who those are may be seen in part from Note p. 425. and they do, or may obferve these things by way of reply to the arguments before produced. That the rule followed in the arrangement of the Sacred Books, is not the order of time in which they were written, as must be admitted by those who suppose the book of Job written, either under the regal government in Ifrael, or about the captivity; for Job's book is prefixed to Ruth, and Jeremiah's Lamentations are placed before Ecclefiaftes, both in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish lifts of the canonical fcriptures.-That the hiftorian might have related the fact as he does Job, xlii. 15. to fhew Job's equity of distribution unto his children, though no fuch law had been enacted by Mofes as that supposed to be referred unto; more especially, if it was, as fome have thought, an antient custom in Arabia, to give daughters as well as fons a fhare or determinate part of their father's poffeffions, as indeed Mahomet hath established the rule in his Coran, chap. iv.- That these allufions in the dialogue, which have been mentioned, are many of them evidently the fuggeftions of mere arbitrary fancy and imagination, and even these of them which have been pointed out with the greatest plaufibility, are after all very uncertain. For might not a writer have made the interlocutors express themselves as they do, tho' he had not heard of fuch events in the Jewish history, as are supposed to have given rise to the paffages refpectively? See Note p. 420. That the phrase, of God's turning a man's captivity, in the last chapter, might have been applied to his reparation of his ruined fortunes, as foon as any captives were released and set at liberty in the world, which happened even in Abraham's days.---That Satan is the name applied to the wicked spirit in the sixth Pfalm, according to the common opinion, as indeed the 70 turn the Hebrew term there by the word AraCones, which is also their ver |