XXVII.

(1) Job continued his parable.--The remainder of Job's speech--now, for the first time, called his parable--consists of his determination not to renounce his righteousness (Job 27:2-6); his own estimate of the fate of the wicked (Job 27:7-23); his magnificent estimate of the nature of wisdom (Job 28); his comparison of his former life (Job 29) with that of his present experience (Job 30); his final declaration of his innocent and irreproachable conduct (Job 31).

Verses 1-23. - This chapter divides itself into three distinct portions. In the first, which extends to the end of ver. 6, Job is engaged in maintaining, with the utmost possible solemnity (ver. 2), both his actual integrity (ver. 6) and his determination to hold fast his integrity as long as he lives (vers. 4-6). In the second (vers. 7-10) he implicates a curse upon his enemies. In the third (vers. 11-23) he returns to the consideration of God's treatment of the wicked, and retracts the view which he had maintained controversially in Job 24:2-24, with respect to their prosperity, impunity, and equalization with the righteous in death. The retractation is so complete, the concessions are so large, that some have been induced to question whether they can possibly have been made by Job, and have been led on to suggest that we have here a third speech of Zophar's, such as "the symmetry of the general form" requires, which by accident or design has been transferred from him to Job. But the improbability of such a transfer, considering how in the Book of Job the speech of each separate interlocutor is introduced, is palpable; the dissimilarity between the speech and the other utterances of Zophar is striking; and (;he judgment of two such liberal critics as Ewald and Renan, that the passage is rightly placed, and rightly assigned to Job, should set all doubt at rest, and make an end of controversy (see Mr. Froude's 'Short Studies on Great Subjects,' vol. 1 pp. 315, 316; and Canon Cook's "Introduction to the Book of Job," in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 4. p. 7). Verse 1. - Moreover Job continued his parable, and said. The word translated "parable" (משׁל) is only used previously in Numbers 23, and 24. It is thought to "comprehend all discourses in which the results of discursive thought are concisely or figuratively expressed" (Cook). The introduction of a new term seems to imply that the present discourse occupies a position different from that of all the preceding ones. It is not tentative, controversial, or emotional, but expresses the deliberate judgment of the patriarch on the subjects discussed in it. Note the repetition of the term in Job 29:1.

27:1-6 Job's friends now suffered him to speak, and he proceeded in a grave and useful manner. Job had confidence in the goodness both of his cause and of his God; and cheerfully committed his cause to him. But Job had not due reverence when he spake of God as taking away his judgment, and vexing his soul. To resolve that our hearts shall not reproach us, while we hold fast our integrity, baffles the designs of the evil spirit.Moreover Job continued his parable,.... Having finished his discourse concerning the worlds and ways of God, and the display of his majesty, power, and glory, in them, he pauses awhile, waiting for Zophar, whose turn was next to rise up, and make a reply to him; but neither he, nor any of his friends, reassumed the debate, but kept a profound silence, and chose not to carry on the dispute any further with him; either concluding him to be an obstinate man, not open to conviction, and on whom no impressions could be made, and that it was all lost time and labour to use any argument with him; or else being convicted in their minds that he was in the right, and they in the wrong, though they did not choose to own it; and especially being surprised with what he had last said concerning God and his works, whereby they perceived he had great knowledge of divine things, and could not be the man they had suspected him to be from his afflictions: however, though they are silent, Job was not, "he added to take or lift up his parable" (a), as the words may be rendered; or his oration, as Mr. Broughton, his discourse; which, because it consisted of choice and principal things, which command regard and attention, of wise, grave, serious, and sententious sayings, and some of them such as not easy to be understood, being delivered in similes and figurative expressions, as particularly in the following chapter, it is called his parable; what are called parables being proverbial phrases, dark sayings, allegorical or metaphorical expressions, and the like; and which way of speaking Job is here said to take, "and lift up", which is an eastern phraseology, as appears from Balaam's use of it, Numbers 23:7; and may signify, that he delivered the following oration with great freedom, boldness, and confidence, and with a high tone and loud voice; to all which he might be induced by observing, through the silence of his friends, that he had got the advantage of them, and had carried his point, and had brought them to conviction or confusion, or however to silence, which gave him heart and spirit to proceed on with his oration, which he added to his former discourse:

and said; as follows.

(a) "et addidit assumere suam parabolam", Pagninus, Montanus.