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conjecture, but the latter claimed the authority of other parts of holy writ. With the last opinion the Professor coincides, and the reasons which he has given cannot easily be refuted. argues, that the book of Job is not an allegory or a fictitious history, as some have surmised, but a detail of actual facts; for if we examine the parabolic and figurative style of the sacred page, it will present the most striking marks of difference to those which we observe in this production. Here mention is made of his genealogy and of the circumstances of his family ; his children, friends, wealth, and age are particularly recited: the land of Uz is recorded as his residence, which perhaps implies his descent from a progenitor of that name; and where his friends are introduced, the tribes to which they belonged are recorded with the same scrupulous exactness; whereas in an allegory or parable these minutiae would have greatly obscured the point intended, and in fact, as in the case of Lazarus and the rich man, never occur. To which be it added, that unless Job had been a real character, Ezekiel would not have joined him with Noah and Daniel, nor would St. James have cited him as an example worthy of imitation. The contrary hypothesis amounts to a charge against the prophet of having raised a fabulous personage to the rank of a well-known and historical character, and against the apostle of having proposed one, who never existed, for imitation.

Having traced Job's descent from the family of Uz, the Professor examines the parts in which the different branches were settled. Our translators were guilty of a considerable error in confounding the descendants of Sheba with the Sabæans, as Spanheim long ago remarked an error that has misled many in their inquiries into this book, inducing them to conclude, that the false worship, at which it occasionally glances, must have been Sabæism. But Sheba, the ancestor of the nomadic horde who murdered Job's servants, and carried away his oxen and asses, is cited in conjunction with Dedan in the genealogical table of Genesis; and in Gen. xxv. 3, is enumerated among the progeny of Abraham by Keturah. In the tenth chapter, however, he occurs among the line of Ham; consequently, as we cannot affirm these varying accounts to relate to two distinct persons of the name, since both equally enumerate Dedan, it will follow that Keturah herself must have been of the line of Ham; that one genealogy traces their descent to Shem through Abraham, but the other traces it to Ham through Keturah. As Abraham, however, sent his sons by Keturah eastward into the east country, we perceive how their habitations became established in the parts in which we find them. Thus, Sheba, Dedan, Tema, Buz, Shuah, Chesed, and Uz, were sufficiently near to each other either for friendly or hostile purposes: hence the robbery committed by the one portion, and the friendly

intercourse with Job maintained by the other, have every ap pearance of historical truths.

Shuah also, (from whom descended Bildad the Shuhite) probably the Zouxos mentioned by Strabo, who built a fortress in the midland of Arabia,-was another son of Abraham and Keturah; and he is recorded (Gen. x. 23) to have been a descendant of Shem, and (xxii. 21) to have been a son of Nahor by his wife Milcah, and the brother of Chesed, from whom the Chasdim, noticed in this book, proceeded: the descendants of Shem, of whom Uz has been shown to have been one, likewise resided "from Mesha, as thou goest to Sephar, a mount of the east," which exactly corresponds to the topography which is presented to us. From profane historians it appears, that of these some were Troglodytæ, others Scenites.

The Professor infers that Job must have lived before the Exodus of the Israelites, because Eliphaz was a son of Esau and the progenitor of the Amalekites, who had at that period become a very powerful people. Now, as Esau's and Jacob's children must have been contemporaries, and as Job and Eliphaz were such, it is evident that Job must have lived in the age of the twelve patriarchs. Computing Job's age at the time of his death to have been 210 years, and the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt, according to the usual chronology, to have been 215 years (for the 430 years mentioned in the Bible are here divided between the sojourning in Canaan and Egypt), and supposing Job to have been born about the time of Levi, the Professor thus calculates the period of his death. "Jacob, it is thought, was 88 years old when Levi was born; and he was 130 when he stood before Pharaoh, that is, in the year in which he came down to Egypt. Therefore 130-88-42 will give the age of Levi, when he came into Egypt; and if Job was born in the same year with Levi, he must have been 42 years of age when the Israelites entered Egypt. Now, supposing the Israelites to have resided in Egypt 215 years, and Job to have been 42 years old when they arrived there, and that he lived, in the whole, to the age of 210, then, 210-42=168 will be the sum of the years of Job's life, during the sojourning of the Israelites in Egypt. But their sojourning was 215 years: therefore, 215-168=47, the number of years during which Job had been dead, before the Israelites left Egypt."

It is clear that this reasoning must be correct, if Eliphaz the son of Esau be identical with Eliphaz the Temanite; but as the son of Esau was the father of Duke Teman, from whom the country took its name, and as he might have received the cognomen of Temanite, either from his residence in that territory, or from having been the progenitor of the Temanites, something more than probability arises in support of the idea. It is true, that we have innumerable fictitious genealogies of the patriarch

Job: Kessai, for instance, quoted by Hottinger, pronounces him the son of Omas,* the son of Jubal, the son of Esau, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac; which direct error respecting Esau Tabri attempts thus to rectify: the son of Amos, the son of Zeraj,† the son of Esau, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, calling his wife Ruhmat the daughter of Ephraim, the son of Joseph. The rabbinical writers also exhibit an extraordinary discrepancy in their various accounts of his family and times; so that it is evident that we cannot obtain any clue beyond that which the Scriptures afford us. Warburton's idle notions are sufficiently exposed in the Introduction; but the common chronology fixes his period at 29 years before the Exodus. This has been accounted probable from no mention having been made of the passage of the Red Sea, the miracles in Egypt, or the mission of Moses; but Dr. Lee's explanation suggests better reasons for the silence in these particulars. On a similar principle others have conjectured the work to have been anterior to Abraham's migration to Canaan, because they conceive that it contains no allusion to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, and because the manners and customs which it portrays are in harmony with those of the earliest ages. But the arguments, which have been deduced from Job acting as high priest, like Melchisedek and Jethro, and from the patriarchal duration of his life, are more in favour of the chronology now suggested than of that to which they have been applied as supports: it has likewise the advantage of removing the frivolous objections which have been urged from the interlocutors having been Arabians; whence it has by others been inferred, that Job must have lived when the posterity of Ishmael, Esau, and Jacob continued to use the same language, or at least one very little diversified by dialects. The absurdity of this inference is evident from the country which the several characters occupied; and is one which a person conversant with the language would by no means have hazarded.

In a still more extraordinary manner Job has been synchronized with Terah, the father of Abraham, on the mere application of chap. viii. 8, 9, to this purpose; but the authority for referring the words to any particular generation is wanting; in the place of which it is assumed, that the fathers of the former age must have been Peleg and Joktan, in the fifth generation after the Deluge, the only plea being that after Terah's decease human life seldom exceeded 200 years. Dr. Hales, too, argues from astronomy that the period of Job's trial must have been 184 years before the birth of Abraham; calculating in a retrograde manner, that Chimah and Chesil, or Taurus and Scorpio, the

* Perhaps an error, which should be Amos.

+ The Zerah of Genesis.

principal stars mentioned in his book, were in his days the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn, of which the chief stars were Addebaran, the bull's eye, and Antares, the scorpion's heart. From the known longitude of these stars at present, and the interval of time from thence to his assumed period, he arrives at the difference of their longitudes and their positions at that epoch with respect to the points where the equator and ecliptic intersect each other at the vernal and autumnal equinox. It would be tedious to follow his calculations; suffice it, that he fixes the date at A. c. 2237, or 818 years after the Deluge, 184 years before the birth of Abraham, 474 years before the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt, and 689 before their Exodus. Unfortunately, however, for this hypothesis, the Hebrew names are generally referred to other constellations. As far as our own individual opinion is concerned, we coincide with Professor Lee.

We have likewise long since concurred in the view which he has taken of the internal structure of the book, and think it placed beyond doubt, that the first two and last chapters were not written by the author of the intermediate. The pure Hebrew in the one part, and the inclination to Chaldaic forms and senses in the other, are evidences not easy to be controverted. In the land of Uz the account of Job's losses, place of residence, return to prosperity, and death, would have been unnecessary; but if the body of the work had been carried into more western parts, the appendage of these circumstances would have been required. According to the computation, Job died about fifty years before the Exodus; but long before this event Moses became related to Jethro, the priest of Midian, the hierarch presiding over the district of that name. We also know that he must have descended from Abraham either in the line of Esau, or through Keturah; for his father Reuel, whom our translators have elsewhere strangely called Raguel, bore the name of a son of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 4, 10,) and if he was that individual, must have been the brother of Eliphaz, and Job's contemporary. Yet as the authority of Reuel, the son of Esau, lay in Idumea, the Professor surmises, that he could scarcely have been the same as Reuel the priest of Midian, and conceives it more probable that this person descended from Midian the son of Keturah. Job moreover having descended from Abraham's brother Nahor, must have been distantly related to Jethro; and as Midian and Uz were conterminal, it is highly probable that there had been a personal acquaintance between Job and Jethro.

If then the principal part of the book of Job had been committed to writing, before Moses tended his father-in-law's flocks, placing all these circumstances together we may infer, that Jethro possessed a copy of it; and if so, its transit to Moses becomes apparent. Since then the style of the first two chapters suits the times, the style, and the language of Moses, and since Moses

acted under Divine authority, and was influenced by Divine inspiration, there is no one on record to whom we can SO easily and so critically refer the completion of the book as to him for that these chapters were not written at a much later age, the language sufficiently proves. The Professor well remarks, that the passages which treat of the appearance of the sons of God before Jehovah, and of Satan's appearance among them, are not totally without their counterparts in Genesis; and perhaps there was never a greater defect in criticism, than that, which on this very account refers the date of the work to some period subsequent to the Babylonian captivity.

As to the middle part of the book, Job probably wrote it after his restored prosperity; for it every where answers our expectations of a writing before the times of Moses, and the egress from Egypt, and of one coming from a country bordering on Chaldæa. There is not one passage in it, which alludes to the person of Moses or to the miracles which attended his mission. Its language too is exactly suited to a country so situated. But allusions are made to the earlier part of Genesis, and citations repeatedly occur; yet there is not a syllable in the whole which can be referred to the events of the Exodus. Moreover, Moses informs us, that the name Jehovah had not been revealed to the patriarchs; accordingly, in the middle portion it very rarely occurs, and only in a few instances, in which we may suppose Moses to have emended it, exactly as he emended some parts of Genesis. Had it been written after the Exodus by a Jew, the Chaldaisms would require an explanation, which not one of the theorists on the subject has offered to give. The Professor too adduces weighty reasons to prove that Elihu could not have been the author; a notion adopted on no other foundation, than the circumstance of Oriental poets often introducing themselves in a laudatory manner-as in the ghazal of the Persian Diwàns-and his reasons are such as are convincing. Job, then, himself alone remains as the individual to whom the middle or interlocutory part can be attributed.

In illustration of his position, the Professor gives instances of similar phrases occurring in the two first and last chapters of Job and in the book of Genesis; and shows, that Satan, about whom a great proportion of the controversy is agitated, is mentioned in another manner and under an equivalent term by Moses. He also gives a list of pure Chaldaisms, which may be discovered in the middle part; and argues from the essential differences in the style of Moses and of Job, that the former could not have composed it. For instance, the term Shaddai no where appears in the songs of Moses, and Jehovah very rarely in the writings of Job, and even there in a manner which allows us to suppose its insertion by the redactor, whom we have presumed to have been the Hebrew legislator. The allusions to customs, manners,