Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/257

XXX.] Wait till I am well, and I will give thee a hundred strokes with a rod."

But the story is told differently by others. It is said that the third time Satan appeared as a baker, and Rahma wanted bread, but had nought to pay. Then said the pretended baker, "Thou hast locks of very beautiful hair; cut off thy hair and give it me, and thou shalt take the largest of my loaves."

Then she cut off three locks and gave them to him.

And when Job saw that she had done this, he was filled with fury, and he swore that when he was well he would beat her for having cut off her hair.

Thus Satan triumphed in making Job to sin by swearing, and threatening to ill-treat a true and good woman.

Next the Evil One went as an angel, and announced to all the people of the land that he came from God to declare to them that Job was no more reckoned among the prophets; and that they were not to trust his words and believe his doctrine, but were to return to the worship of those gods he had blasphemed and cast out.

Soon after, Job heard his three friends, Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar, converse together, and repeat what had been told them by Satan; and the thought that he was supposed to be rejected by God from among His prophets, was so distressing to him, that he cried out, "Truly, O God! evil has befallen me; but Thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy." That is, the words of men are cruel, but Thou, O God, wilt deliver me out of all my evils.

Job was sick for seven years, and all that while his wife ministered to him.

But the mediæval commentators draw a very different picture of this wife, relying on the words of Scripture which make her tempt Job to "curse God and die." They say that her tongue was one of the plagues of Job. That he bore patiently the loss of his cattle, of his children, and of his health, was indeed wonderful; but that he also endured the nagging of his wife with equanimity,—that was the most wonderful of all.

Then God looked on Job and had compassion upon him, and he said to him, "Strike the earth with thy foot." Job stamped, and from the dung-heap on which he had been seated a clear stream of water issued, the sweetest that there is, and the