(4) If a real solution is offered anywhere, one would most naturally look for it in the speeches of Jehovah (xxxviii. ff.); and at first sight they are not very promising. Their effect would most naturally be rather to silence and overwhelm Job than to convince him; and to some they have suggested no more than that the contemplation of nature may be a remedy for scepticism. But their object is profounder than that. By heightening the sense of the mystery of the universe, they show Job the folly, and almost the impertinence, of expecting an adequate answer to all his whys and wherefores. A man who cannot account for the most familiar facts of the physical world is not likely to explore the subtler mysteries of the moral world. But there is more. The divine speeches suggest that God is not only strong--Job knew that very well (ix.)--but wise, xxxviii. 2, and kind, feeding even the ravenous beasts, xxxviii. 39, and tenderly caring for the waste and desolate place where no man is, xxxviii. 26. The universe compels trust in the wisdom and love of God. (5) The epilogue, too, shows how the suffering hero was rewarded and vindicated. The reward we shall discuss afterwards; but it is with fine instinct that the epilogue represents Job as a man so powerful with God that his prayer is effectual to save his erring friends, and four times within two verses, xlii. 7 f, Jehovah calls him "My servant Job." Therein lies his real vindication, rather than in the reward of the sheep and the oxen. The book clearly intends to suggest that in this world it is vain to look for exact retribution. From calamity it is unjust to infer special or secret sin: the worst may happen to the best. Again, there is such a thing as disinterested goodness, a goodness which believes in and clings to God, when it has nothing to hope for but Himself. But the book may also be fairly regarded as a protest against contemporary theology; and, in its present form, at any rate, it suggests that God loves the independent thinker. The friends are orthodox, but shallow; "Who ever perished, being innocent?" iv. 7. They are so wedded to their theories that even the oldest and wisest among them cruelly invents falsehoods to support them (xxii.). Job replies to theories by facts. He is a man of independent observation and judgment, his mouth must "taste for itself," xii. 11. He is bold sometimes almost to blasphemy, he accuses God of destroying innocent and guilty alike, ix. 22, and does not scruple to parody a psalm, vii. 17 f. Yet he does this because he must be true to facts, whatever comes of theories: he must cling to the God of conscience against the God of convention.