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 He is not so bold as to stir me up; who indeed could stand before me? Who ever attacks me in safety? all beneath the whole heaven is mine. I will not take his babbling in silence, his mighty speech and its comely arrangement.

We must regard this as a soliloquy, after which, directly addressing Job, Jehovah upbraids the 'mighty speaker' with having shut himself out by his 'blind clamour' from a view of the Divine plan of his life.

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (xxxviii. 2.)

To gain that 'knowledge' which will 'make darkness light before him,' Job must enrich his conception of God. Those striking pictures already referred to have no lower aim than to display the great All-wise God, and the irony of the catechising is only designed to bring home the more forcibly to Job human littleness and ignorance. Modern readers, however, cannot help turning aside to admire the genius of the poet and his sympathetic interest in nature. His scientific ideas may be crude; but he observes as a poet, and not as a naturalist. Earth, sea, and sky successively enchain him, and we can hardly doubt that the natural philosophy of the Chaldæans was superficially at least known to him. In his childlike curiosity and willingness to tell us everything he reminds us of the poet of the Commedia.

Has the rain a father? or who has begotten the dew-drops? from whose womb came forth the ice, and the hoar frost of heaven—who engendered it, (that) the waters close together like a stone, and the face of the deep hides itself?