"_Happy is the man whom Eloah correcteth, Therefore spurn not thou the chastening of Shaddai. For He maketh sore and bindeth up; He smiteth, but His hands make whole. In six straits He will deliver thee; In seven also shall not evil touch thee. In famine He will rescue thee from death, And in war from the power of the sword. When the tongue smiteth thou shalt be hid; Nor shalt thou fear when desolation cometh. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh; And of the beasts of the earth shalt not be afraid. For with the stones of the field shall be thy covenant; With thee shall the beasts of the field be at peace. So shalt thou find that thy tent is secure, And surveying thy homestead thou shalt miss nothing. Thou shalt find that thy seed are many, And thy offspring like the grass of the earth; Thou shalt come to thy grave with white hair, As a ripe shock of corn is carried home in its season. Behold! This we have searched out: thus it is. Hear it, and, thou, consider it for thyself!_" Fine, indeed, as dramatic poetry; but is it not, as reasoning, incoherent? The author does not mean it to be convincing. He who is chastened and receives the chastening may not be saved in those six troubles, yea seven. There is more of dream than fact. Eliphaz is apparently right in everything, as Dillmann says; but right only on the surface. _He has seen_--that they who plough iniquity and sow disaster reap the same. _He has seen_--a vision of the night, and received a message; a sign of God's favour that almost made him a prophet. _He has seen_--a fool or impious man taking root, but was not deceived; he knew what would be the end, and took upon him to curse judicially the doomed homestead. _He has seen_--the crafty confounded. _He has seen_--the man whom God corrected, who received his chastisement with submission, rescued and restored to honour. "Lo, this we have searched out," he says; "it is even thus." But the piety and orthodoxy of the good Eliphaz do not save him from blunders at every turn. And to the clearing of Job's position he offers no suggestion of value. What does he say to throw light on the condition of a believing, earnest servant of the Almighty who is _always_ poor, _always_ afflicted, who meets disappointment after disappointment, and is pursued by sorrow and disaster even to the grave? The religion of Eliphaz is made for well-to-do people like himself, and such only. If it were true that, because all are sinful before God, affliction and pain are punishments of sin, and a man is happy in receiving this Divine correction, why is Eliphaz himself not lying like Job upon a heap of ashes, racked with the torment of disease? Good orthodox prosperous man, he thinks himself a prophet, but he is none. Were he tried like Job he would be as unreasonable and passionate, as wild in