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erroneous notions as to the real cause of their sufferings . They knew that Jehovah was all-good and all-powerful . No supposition was , therefore , left to account for the degradation of his followers , but that they had , by a course of sin , forfeited his favour and protection .
This being the previous state of things , I proceed to shew that Moses is the author of the Book of Job , that while yet in the court of Pharoah , or at least before the deliverance of the Israelites , he composed this sublime
drama against the enemies of the Jews on one hand , and their mistaken friends on the other ; representing , with this view , the Egyptians under the character of Satan , the immediate author of their calamities : the sufferers under
the name of Job : while he represents the friends who consoled and comforted him in the person of Eliphaz , of Bildad and of Zophar . If we consider the prosperity of the Israelites as the descendants of Abraham , and more especially as the family of Joseph , their subsequent degradation and their
final deliverance , we shall perceive in the outlines an exact correspondence with the history of Job , and parts of the book afford unequivocal evidence that his sufferings are only a figurative representation of the hardships which the children of Israel endured
in Egypt . A very brief but important account of the manner in which the children of Israel were treated , is given in the first chapter of Exodus ; and the natural feelings of the human heart , in such circumstances , are powerfully and pathetically portrayed in the third of Job . The common version is
. so imperfect , that the sentiments are either entirely misrepresented or much weakened : I will , therefore , point out a few of the instances in which the contents of the two chapters refer to and illustrate each other , giving what I think a more correct translation of the original .
1 . We read that the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigour , and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage , having set over them task-masters for this purpose . Now read the following language of Job , ( iii . 17 , ) " There the oppressors cease to harass ; there they whose strength is exhaused find repose : the
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enslaved lie together in tranq uiHitu nor do they hear the voice of the task master . The small and the great are there , and the slave is emanci pated from the tyrant . " 2 . The command which the king of Egypt gave to destroy the male children , is thus alluded to : " Perish the day in which I was born , and the ni ght in which it is said , A male child is brought forth / ' They were concealed in order to be preserved ; and God raised a hedge around them by mak
ing the midwives appointed to destroy them , the means of preserving them . To this there seems a manifest reference in verse 6 , < c To the male child whose path is hidden , ' ( i . e . whose birth was concealed before it could be saved , ) " and around whom God hath made a fence . " 3 . Pharaoh ordered the male children to be thrown into the Nile , a prey to the crocodile : the principal agents in this work of cruelty and wickedness were probably the sorcerers and the priests , who , by a settled form , cursed the new-born babe when devoting him to destruction . Hence Job says , " Let the sorcerers curse the day , "
( that is , the day in which the infant i born , ) " and the most readv to cal up the crocodile , " i . e ., to attract i to seize its prey when thrown into th ( river . 4 . The midwives were directed t ( inspect the troughs , i . e ., the exca vated stones in which it was usual tc wash the new-born infant , where he might be stifled if a male . To thif characteristic circumstance , Job pointedly alludes , verse 7 , "Let that night be a barren stone , and let there be nu rejoicing in it , " which means this , " Let the stone which is used that night for a trough to wash the babe , be made the means of destroying him ; and let the mother , instead of having
a son the fruit of her womb , have a fruitless stone , and thus instead of rejoicing over the birth of a child , she should have to mourn over its premature death . " In order to comprehend the point of this apparently harsh
expression , it is necessary to mention a circumstance existing in Hebre w arm Arabic , which is , that ben , a son , and aben 9 a stone , are terms of the same origin , and may be used one for the other - this affinity between the ^ vo nouns is the foundation of the follo w-
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326 Ben David s Illtistrations of the Book of ^ Job
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1822, page 326, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2513/page/6/
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