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 CHAPTER XIII.

IS JOB A HEBRÆO-ARABIC POEM?

That the Book of Job is not as deeply penetrated with the spirit of revelation, nor even as distinctly Israelitish a production, as most of the Old Testament writings, requires no argument. May we venture to go further, and infer from various phenomena that, not merely the artistic form of the māshāl, but the thoughts and even the language of Job came in a greater or less degree from a foreign source? The question has been answered in the affirmative (as in the case of the words of Agur in Prov. xxx., and those of Lemuel in chap. xxxi.) by some early as well as some more modern writers. This view has been supposed to be implied in the Greek postscript to the Septuagint version (strongly redolent of Jewish Midrash), which contains the statement, [Greek: outos hermêneuetai ek tês Syriakês biblou], but though Origen appears so to have understood, it is more probable that [Greek: outos] merely refers to the postscript (Zunz; Frankl). Ibn Ezra, however, on independent grounds does express the opinion (commenting on Job ii. 11) that the Book of Job is a translation; he ascribes to the translator the words in xxxviii. 1