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The "Book of Job, Interpreted

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THE BOOK OF JOB

INTERPRETED

ILLUSTRATED WITH THE DESIGNS

OF
WILLIAM BLAKE

by
EMILY S. HAMBLEN

AUTHOR OF

On the Minor Prophecies of William Blake

DELPHIC STUDIOS, Publishers
NEW YORK

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

y^LTHOUGH this interpretation of the Book of Job
^SjL is illustrated by the designs of William Blake, it was
not inspired by them. The great drama itself is a perpetual
source of inspiration, and expositions of it by students come
easily to hand. After the work done upon the ancient scrip-
tures in preparation for my On the Minor Prophecies of Wil-
liam Blake, it was impossible to accept any of these as true
renderings of the essential meaning of the book; also, even a
slight application of the method which had been employed for
the elucidation of the classic symbols revealed the fact that the
Book of Job holds what might almost be called a strategic
position between the cultures of the ancient and the modern
worlds. Its relation to each is definite beyond that of any other
work familiar to us, in that the argument of the book is both
clearly a searching evaluation of the culture that had come
down to the age in which it was written and a conscious projec-
tion into the future of such elements as were found to have
in them both the principle of endurance and the capacity to
assimilate with new values just appearing in the germ. I
think if safe to say that the beginnings of Christianity cannot be
known, lacking a clear comprehension of the psychology
of Job.

Another point of interest is that, while the story is less on
the mythological plane than any which has not the specious
effect of being historical, yet it cannot be read aright unless we
accept as fact, evidence that the ancients created and possessed
a certain consistent form of language by means of which, one
and all, they expressed and conveyed the spiritual and philo-
sophic truths of their respective cultures. The laws of this
language were the same for all the great nations, though the
genius of each appeared in variations and especially in nuance.

Vi- PREFACE

This language, I am entirely convinced, is a key to all the
ancient scriptures and to the real classics. When its use is
abandoned, thought, religious practice, social life, art most
of all the literary sink to a lower plane. Whenever this fall
occurs there is a break in the one and only Great Tradition.
When a new culture links back across such a chasm the Great
Tradition is revived and again becomes a vitalising influence
in the world. But any work of recovery that might now be
done, even by a generation of students, necessarily would be
but a scratching of the surface over a buried treasure, itself so
deep that new departments of personality must be opened up
before its nature and its efficacy can be understood.

In some reviews of my earlier book, the work was criticised
as being too difficult for the general reader. As a matter of
fact, the general reader was not in mind during study and
writing, but the student, or would-be student, who had ex-
perienced an urgent need to understand the spiritual message
of a great mind and a phenomenally advanced soul. It is with
any great work of art, literary or other, as in the case of a friend.
If a fundamentally true and enduring relationship is to be
established, there must be both a need and an intention to
penetrate to the inmost nature of the one with whom the al-
liance is sought.

This is an older attitude toward the classics than is met
today, except in the case of an occasional student who goes to
them in the spirit of deep personal inquiry. For the approach
of scholarship has been a purely objective one and the result
of this characteristic has been a stark literalness of acceptance
of subject matter that to ages in which poetic insight was still
alive would have seemed ridiculous.

In the case of Blake this literalness is obviously so inap-
plicable that no attempt ever has been made to fasten it upon
his writings ; but because these are so unyielding to the "true"
method of interpretation they are looked upon as, in large
measure, meaningless even to their author. Some day we shall
know better than this and it is the hope of the author of this
book that among its effects may be an opening of the under-
standing of its readers to the extraordinary percipience with
which the creator of the illustrative designs was endowed.

PREFACE vii

One thing, however, probably will be conceded with re-
gard to Blake, even by those who still believe that his mind
worked in a fog. This is that the personalities of his imaginary
world stood in his intention for various forms of energy; for
elemental, moral, psychic, intellectual and spiritual forces.
Visualising these forces as beings, he creates for them worlds
more or less possible in which to function.

Let us accept this concession without stopping to criticise
its limitations, for it offers us a clue, through both similarity
and dissimilarity, to the principles of symbology followed in
the ancient scriptures and classics. Through similarity in the
case of deities; through dissimilarity when the interpretation
of actual life and experience is intended. For, in this latter
case, the ancients adopted as symbols, not imaginary beings
and episodes but actual historic persons and events. Man's
higher and inner life moves in the etheric medium where
oversouls are realised. His outer life adumbrates definite
forms of motivating energy. The inquiry is regarding these
forms, so that man may comprehend his own psychology ; know
himself in the uniqueness of his type. Consequently it is logi-
cal to take the actual event or a dominating character as a
mere symbol ; for its revelation regarding man's state at the
time of occurrence is the truth sought after. The event, the
place, the era, the personality therefore take their place side by
side with the invented myth to perform exactly the same office
that the myth is intended to perform. And I believe that the
creative process makes the same demand upon subconscious
knowledge and upon the imagination where actualities become
symbols as where abstractions shape themselves into personali-
ties. At all events there is nothing more moving in Oriental
or Greek mythology than the apparently literal accounts of
Hebrew movements when symbolically read according to
the principles of a consistent psychology.

Of these occult dramas perhaps the story of Job is the most
stirring and the most capable of offering high inspiration
particularly to such a transition time as this in which the whole
world now finds itself. But the thought is rather to be kept
in mind during the reading of this interpretation of Job than
to be elucidated here.

viii PREFACE

The method of interpretation also is expounded in the text
of the work as well as may be in a comparatively short study.
I believe that enough has been said to make the treatment of
the story entirely clear to the reader ; many sidelights, however,
would be thrown for one who had read the more thorough
exposition and application of this interpretive method in the
earlier chapters of my book on Blake, named above.

But while this preparation for the completest understand-
ing of the study here presented may be ignored without great
loss, another form is absolutely indispensable. This is a pre-
liminary reading of the Biblical story itself, unbiased by any
previously held expositions and made unresistingly, so that
one is swayed by the power and the passion of the soul force
there in movement. Primarily it is feeling for these that com-
pels one to enlarge their scope beyond the merely personal
field. For the particularly interested student is also advised
careful comparison of the interpretation with the Bible narra-
tive of Job, chapter by chapter. For notes on the opinions of
scholars I have depended upon the Job of Dr. A. S. Peake.

Finally it may be asked why so much time should be given
to an antiquated subject like Job when contemporary problems
press so hard upon all thoughtful minds. In finding the true
answer to this question I believe that one might go far toward
a resolution of our present chaos into a new order and this
for the following reasons :

When we come to a full understanding of the content, the
historic placement and the interrelationships among the an-
cient scriptures, we shall know, as has been intimated above,
that the source of them all was a single universal culture and
that only devolution made for disparate religions and morali-
ties and we shall look forward more hopefully to a triumph
of the international idea.

We shall have learned that the true world, the world with
which we must deal if real causes are to be discovered and en-
during evolutionary effects obtained, is the inner one and we
shall probe more deeply into the problems ol our own time
and alter our educational methods in accordance with our
findings.

Above all, everyone really possessed of a mind will subject

PREFACE ix

this and his soul to the discipline of submergence in the tide of
human spiritual and cultural history and thus stir in himself
deep latent powers that will both modify and enhance that
analytic mind which, working alone, produces such devastat-
ing effects as the chief ones from which our weary world now
is suffering.

Contents

PAGE

INTERPRETATION i

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 141

COMMENTARY 195

OUTLINE OF THE ARGUMENT 251

TART I

INTERPRETATION

The *Book of Job, Interpreted

ILLUSTRATED WITH THE DESIGNS OF WILLIAM BLAKE

Chapter 1

/T IS said by Biblical scholars that the problem of the
Book of Job is in the relation of its parts. There is in-
herent evidence that some verses and a few short passages are
in transposed positions, but there is no inherent evidence that
the narrative, as it follows the larger divisions, fails to meet
those principles of organic structure, of demonstrable con-
tinuity and of a dominating intention which are essential to a
work of literary art. The mistake which modern readers of
the ancient classical writings make is that they impose their per-
sonal points of view and contemporary values upon expressions
quite differently motivated than our own. The method is one
which forbids the alien art form to unveil its inner meanings
and deliver its own message, and that establishes and constantly
widens a gap between the age of production and the age of in-
terpretation. On the other hand, while variant motives and
psychologies are ignored, the truth is forgotten that the basic
needs and relationships of mankind and the fundamental
psychological laws are eternally the same. Thus as an ex-
ample we demand that Job have a mentality that would
stand the test of the Christian outlook upon life while we find
an author capable of the most magnificent cosmic perceptions
ever put on record, a wielder of language which for grandeur
and beauty never has been surpassed, and a supreme master
of pathos in itself proof of capacity for sensitive apprehen-
sion not only so deficient in the sense of form that in his
composition there is juxtaposition of essentially disparate
parts, but possessed of a mentality that can confuse natural
causes with spiritual effects and accept as authentic crude
superstitions of the folk mind. Let us for once assume that
the anomaly is in ourselves and credit the very makers of

4 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

language man's most astonishing intellectual feat; per-
ceivers of truths which we ourselves hold mainly at second
hand, and progenitors of cultures which are the sources of our
own inspiring traditions, with a consistency of viewpoint and
of intention worth searching for. Let us then endeavor to
learn the very language which these men employed to ex-
press the verities of that inner world which was their realm of
consciousness and that, in their belief, imposed its forms upon
the life of action and upon the full historical progression of
the race. This language is not primarily a matter of racial
utterance and of grammatical forms; its animating principle
is a subliminal union between the subconscious and the con-
scious departments of man's nature which spontaneously ex-
presses itself in such art forms as the crafts, the plastic arts,
the dance, song, the symbol and the myth. These forms, far
from leading us away from the actual lives of their creators,
even in their outward expression, take us into the very heart of
them, just because it is life and living which have been the
energising motive in their production. Sequences may not be
so identifiable with the data of time and space as we, the more
rationally minded, find them, but they accomplish the aim of
their creators in more directly, and according to more subtle
psychological laws than the literalist knows, relating to each
other cause and effect. This language moreover has the ad-
vantage of possessing a universal import and, in consequence,
is interpretable whenever and wherever experience and in-
tellect have met in a vital union. When however we come
into the field of the highest classics, more particularly the
great and enduring scriptures of the race, we find that the
conscious epic intention of their authors has added to this
language of spontaneous origin one of a deliberate and pur-
poseful invention; and this conscious creation it is which,
more than any other element in the classic writings, supplies
the thread of spiritual and historical continuity which keeps
art and religion active in a nation's life and presents in later
times its racial genius to the seeker of knowledge of himself
and his kind. This language resides chiefly in the names of
human characters, of places, of ceremonies, often of events. It
is not radically different from the intellectual language of

INTERPRETATION 5

the developed class in a nation, for it incorporates phonetic
radicals in its built up forms, but it differs from the speech
medium in the absence of coordinations produced by inflec-
tion and also in the persistence of original forms and meanings
where language, as customarily defined, consistently changes
in conformity with changing habits and interests. A record,
for example, which to our older generation means the regis-
tering of an event, to our youngest stands for the phonograph
disc which carries a song. But if the original meaning of
Adam, considered as a symbol, could be determined, it would
suffer no change throughout the ages. For these symbolic
meanings we have, in classic literature, etymological and cor-
responding psychological clues, and in works which have
either an epic or a dramatic quality, or both, there is in addi-
tion an underlying structure. This, for the moment, must
stand merely as a statement. It will be in interpretation of
the work we are studying that evidence of the truth will ap-
pear.

Job as a character has seemed to stand so apart from the
history of the Jewish nation that doubt always has existed as
to whether the book is of Hebrew origin. There are argu-
ments for and against either theory. I believe the book to be
historically of Hebrew derivation, of a time during, or shortly
after, the captivity and expressive of the very depths of the
Hebrew soul. But if, instead of assuming that Job is a person
an individual man tried in the stress and strain of living
and meeting singly the large questions of life we interpret
him as the representative of a great class, the movement of
which through the periods of history was vital to the progress
of the race, we shall understand also that this Hebrew story
is closely interlocked with other spiritual events of both its
own and preceding times.

What shall this class be for which Job stands? The name
in Hebrew has no known meaning. But if we reduce it to the
nearest sounds in Greek that language which, unquestion-
ably, best preserves the phonetic sounds, with their psychol-
ogy, of the original pre-Sanskrit tongue we have lob (from
io-boleo, to send forth an arrow), while ios (io) means poison
as well as arrow. Job employs both meanings when he says

6 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

that the arrows of the Almighty are within him, the poison
whereof drinketh up his spirit. But the arrow is the sym-
bol of the Prophet, his sign in the zodiacal counterpart of
man's body being Sagittarius. The Prophet, as interpreter of
man to himself, of the godlike in man, is that spiritual leader
who directs the race to its proper aims. He stands for the
truth and the potentialities of man as a type as the central
and dominant type on earth and, by the force of his revela-
tions, exists and functions as the vital activity, not only in com-
pany with other forms of governance but within each of these.
To him, indeed, has been committed the central among all
spiritual tasks and the hope of man for realisation of himself
on ever higher planes of existence. The very fate of the race
is bound up with his purity and well-being.

It will be obvious then, under this interpretation, that Job
cannot be fully explained by limiting his problem to the ex-
pression of Prophetism in Hebrew history. For not only had
every other great religion of antiquity its prophetic interpreter
but the whole movement of Prophetism began in a time which
predates any national history. The Prophet as such, without
regard to racial interpretation of his nature and function, is
the very origin and source of all the spiritual group movements
of which the world has any record. In order to make this
statement clear and to give it validity, it will be necessary to
preface the interpretation of Job as he is portrayed in the book
which bears his name by a quick resume of a few of those out-
standing religious concepts which are of greater antiquity than
any which we associate with the story of Israel.

Chapter 2

/T IS impossible to make the effort to exhaust the symbols
of ancient literature of their psychological content, to
find among series of them organic relationships, and to dis-
cover the universal element in each and all without coming to
a realisation that back of the very earliest records lie states of
consciousness lost to historic times, social formations which
remain only as vague memories and long evolutionary trends
which, with varying degrees of success, have lifted mass man
toward planes of higher intelligence and more significant
group action. But this general upward movement, we soon
shall realise, is of herd-man alone and affects the higher men,
not so much in their religious consciousness as in the detail of
their social philosophy. For, as spiritual leaders, it is im-
perative with them to discover what form of appeal most
vitally reaches the folk and to use this as a means of culture
employing the term in its broadest and most fundamental sense.
As regards the leader class itself, it is absolutely necessary to
accept the hypothesis that they were men endowed with higher
powers than even the most gifted individuals of later times can
illustrate and possessed of a consciousness so truly cosmic that
the universe itself was to them as a home. But even less than
with mass man could this development have gone on by any
inherent, seemingly automatic process and as a background to
it we must discover the Mystery Schools. The history and
the effects of these schools are recorded principally in the
myth, but prior to the myth we must assume a state of human
living in which men were divided only into two major classes
the illuminated minority and the folk majority. The latter
must have been differentiated in its parts mainly by necessary
adaptations to the physical conditions of climate rather than by
institutions or activities, for the folk lived on the soil. Segmen-
tation and aggregation came about through the stimulating

8 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

effect of varying emotions and ideals, and social practices fol-
lowed these. The nation never is the source of a dominant
concept or ideal, nor has locality anything to tell us of the in-
ception of a given movement. The central fact and influence
is the concept; or, it may be, an emotional surge. Localising
and nationalising of the group follow upon the effects of these
stimuli. We may, therefore, safely turn to the earliest place
names for light upon the genesis of a people, for information
upon its fulfilments or its aberrations; but not until we are
certain of being upon historic ground and even then only
with reference to source ideas may we find roots of any kind
in a national psychology. This fact will receive illustration
as religious movements are followed.

There was, then, but one link between the two classes that
constituted the social as opposed, in all probability, to the
nomadic element of remote antiquity, and that was the Initiate.
Here and there a specially endowed individual must have been
selected for the discipline of the schools, and the chief pur-
pose of the earlier stages of this discipline must have been to
substitute some continuous process for the tumultuous develop-
ment of the adolescent phase, so that the soul and the mind
passed from the innocence and the unity of childhood to the
higher purity and unity of conscious illumination. The total
scheme of things must have seemed settled, satisfactory, and
comprehensive. Then came the greatest debacle of recorded
times. It is in the recovery of the human soul from the results
of this catastrophe in the setting into motion of the first con-
structive social plans that history begins. This history,
however, could not have been written until many ages had
punctuated the movement designed to remove the weakness to
which the great cataclysm had been due, by bringing all orders
of men into organic relationships one with another first by
one process, then by another and the first specific records
which have come down to us are in the myths, chiefly of the
Hindus, the Persians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks. The
Hebrew story weaves the whole underlying and implicit
psychology contained in these myths into a consecutive, con-
tinuous narrative. It is the greatest example of literary art
that the world contains. The story itself is written in the first

INTERPRETATION 9

four books of the Pentateuch, in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings. The prophets interpret it; the psalmists light their
torches at its flame. The concern of the student of the Book
of Job is with the inception, the rise and fall, the critical mo-
ments, the general flow of the movement of Prophetism. In-
deed, this is the main concern of the whole Hebrew story.
Only the salient points of this history, however, may here be
touched upon.

Chapter 3

/T IS probable that every ancient culture had its own
mythical account of the stages through which its religious
life had passed, and when any one of them is traced back far
enough, it clearly shows an attempt to adumbrate that original
universal state of seership which for all succeeding times was
to be the goal not of a select class, as at the beginning, but
of all humanity. The two nations however which most clearly
have distinguished the stages through which the mind of the
higher class passed, up to the moment when history begins,
are the Hindu and the Greek. In each of these the great ages
are three ; in each there is a crisis in the third age which brings
the Prophet into prominence and definitely establishes him as
the director of that new stream of consciousness and of human
idealism whose source is to be found in the spring of up-
gushing life which finally, perhaps after many generations, re-
stored the soul of the higher class, crushed as it had been in
the overthrow of the ancient order which they had so faith-
fully and, as it must have seemed, so wisely built up. The
Greeks named the three phases through which this great soul
had passed, Uranus, Kronos, and Zeus. The Hindus named
them Veruna, Agni, and Indra. Scholars are inclined to
identify Uranus and Veruna and this I had done before learn-
ing of their decision. Identification with shades of difference,
here as elsewhere, proves very illuminating. Veruna, his-
torically, goes back of Uranus and, psychologically, stands for
something more primal. The name, I believe, means the
force, or the swing in cycles, of Light pha and ruma. As the
great quest of the mystery seeker was the meaning of light, and
the power to perceive the ineffable cosmic lumination within
and dominating all lights from physical centers, the rendering
may stand. Uranus, not greatly unlike, is the mind flowing
free; ourizo and nous. The Greek interpreter is more con-
scious and more rational than the interpreter of the East. The

INTERPRETATION 11

associates of Veruna and of Uranus also mark differences in
the retrospective visions of the two peoples, for while Veruna
had two brothers, Mitra and Aryaman, Uranus had a consort,
Gaea. The absolutely fundamental concept of Relation is
found in each band, but the Greek, more concerned with what
followed upon this primal condition than upon the inner
meaning of the condition itself, emphasises the element within
it to which the termination of this highest condition was due.
It is the principle of Duality, essence of the earth life. Gaea
is from gaea, earth. Varuna and his brothers had forgotten
that this duality had any lingering part in their own life and
composition; any relation to that unity to which through long
effort they had attained. Thus, as we have said, the state of
this enlightened class existed without interrelationship with
the state of the yet undeveloped masses of men. There was
connection but not relation; a system but not an organism.
The story of Uranus makes clear where the weakness of this
order lay. There are certain essential qualities and charac-
teristics in the folk element, as a mass, to which the higher
man is blind. Chief among these is the instinct of aspiration.
He has not seen that, unconsciously and inarticulately, the
whole creation groans and travails in spirit, waiting for some
consummation of its inner urges to life and dimly desiring that
it shall be directed to these by the highest members of its own
race. But there is a class in which as a class developed to a
median position the desire for fusion of the dual opposites
into unity is active and conscious, and because of the lack of
recognition of this in themselves on the part of the seer class
resentment, with all the strains that attend it, becomes mani-
festation. Then is the Titanic revolt; and the word Titan
in spite of the philologist and the archaeologist I derive from
titaino, to strain. What an accumulation of repressed bit-
terness and rage there must have been here, in this middle
class! Then, what an outburst! What fury! What destruc-
tion! And in the spiritual class, so contained, so creative, so
well wishing to their subordinates, and so alert to find among
them the connecting individual, what a frightful hurt at the
attack! What a wounding! It must be this event of which
the Scandinavian saga holds the memory :

12 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

I wot that I hung on the wind-rocked tree,

Nine long nights.
With a spear wounded.

Nine long nights! A full period of incubation for the
birth of a new emotional life. But finally Kronos is installed
in the seat of power and recovery begins. Creation begins.
The dispossessed spiritual class really has not been dispos-
sessed. It could not be, for conscience, spirituality, and intel-
lect are consciously here and nowhere else. Kronos is their
creation as well as Uranus and Varuna, but a more ample
creation than the first order because, taken into its scope, are
the entire elemental realm and the Dual order of life. Earth,
from which the soul had seemed emancipated, is readopted as
no less integral to the cosmic order than are those constellated,
law-controlled stars of night which must first have stirred in
man awareness of the basic principles of Relation. The ele-
mental had had previous recognition, also the Dual as
ground for unitive creation in isolated individuals. Only the
creativeness of the Dual as such and the evidence which this
creativeness bore to the fundamental principle of aspiration
had been overlooked. But out of the great passion of defeat
a great pity is born. The Great Mother awakens and embraces
all forms of life. "Everything that lives is holy." All things
which are of spontaneous origin have some portion and some
essential and functioning part in the whole. The Great Hu-
man Experiment begins right here. In some way the humblest
man must be led toward the next stage of being. It is the
concept of evolution. The Son is its symbol, for he may
prove even in nature an inherent, undirected upward trend.
Some stream of life flows on continuously, connecting one
generation with another, age with age. It is an emotional flow
where mental life may be discontinuous; as when the songs
of a people live on while political and other ideas vary. Rhea,
wife of Kronos, is its fount; reo, to flow.

Chapter 4

seems to be nothing in the Orient that corre-
j[ sponds as closely with Kronos as Uranus corresponds
with Varuna. Nevertheless, the basic idea is there; the idea
of the periodic nature of the life of man on earth. In the vast
cosmic cycles, the Seer might have felt that the spirit of man
had a creative part to play. Indeed, this is the acme of realisa-
tion, the occasion of ecstasy for the hymn makers of the Book
of the Dead; but how utterly is the life of natural man con-
trolled by periodic manifestations! The word Kronos must
be derived from Krouma a beat. Measure and rhythm had
been discerned as fundamental and architectonic principles
in both nature and even elemental man. But the supreme
measurer of earth man's life the man of the soil is the
planetary system. So there is withdrawal from the cosmos to
that interior circle of which the sun is the center. St. John
of the Apocalypse sees in vision the day when the sun's light
will be no more needed than the light of a candle. Up, out
of his buried consciousness must have come the memory of
that early day when the internal cosmic light effaced all lesser
lights. But the vision is not to John alone. It has been ex-
perience for many souls since his day. No wonder that it has
been called a "cleansing light," for all the vagueness and un-
reality which constitute perspective are stripped away, and
only forms and the relations among them remain. Therefore
it is, I believe, that the greatest art conveys the sense of pro-
portion with the minimum of perspective, if with any. It was
however in this withdrawal of the perceptions of the Seer class
to the outlook upon the universe of the man who was rooted
in nature that Heaven and Earth were created. God exists :
perhaps there was awareness of Personality at the heart of all
aspiring life and a new consciousness of a Universal Presence,
born of a new sense of the meaning of creativeness. The uni-

14 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

verse is brought into being. I had realised that the creation
story of Genesis must belong to the age of Kronos, before
learning that Herodotus assigns the birth of the gods to the
Golden Age, The very word God may be found in the radical
that means dawn, and, for confirmation, there is the Hindu
conception of the gods as the "Sons of Dawn." It was then
that existent God-consciousness which created Heaven and
Earth. Both antithesis and a unit, the disparate united pair
were accepted as the most comprehensive statement of univer-
sal truth that man could reach, and the task of bringing heaven
down to earth, of lifting earth to heaven, was definitely under-
taken. The central fact of this new physical cosmos evidently
will be the man who draws his sustenance from the soil, and
we find imagery everywhere more interwoven with the features
of folk life than with any other form.

In India, following Varuna, there was Agni, then Indra.
In the time of the latter, the Iranians evidently left the pater-
nal home. Each of these lines of development of religious
thought is of fundamental importance to the student of He-
brew literature, for always throughout the narrative sources
are kept in mind and sought with a new zeal when conscious-
ness awakens that the sense of their meaning is running low.

Agni is said by the scholars to stand for Fire. He is, in
reality, not the natural element, but the fire of new life which
flamed in mass man when awareness of an Oversoul came to
him through identification of himself with a group. Agni is
the flame of group life. In this association the individual was
purified of his strictly selfish desires, and his heightened
sensibilities felt the stimulus of the corporate spirit opening
his mind to the existence and the significance of universal
things. For it is a demonstrable fact that individuality itself
is intensified through functioning with a group ; that is, of the
man not yet ready to become the Initiate. The name Agni
means purity agneia and Agni in the Vedas is ever Lord of
the Clans.

It is evident, therefore, what line a very early social move-
ment followed. The undeveloped man standing alone is an
Untouchable. The life and the desires of the spiritually moti-
vated man are for him as though they did not exist. But he

INTERPRETATION 15

has the human awareness of kind and, responding to this in
group activities, he may participate in deeds which are es-
sentially of a creative nature. The most inspiring of these
would be song, and we find the deities of song first associated
with Agni. As Lord of the Clan he suggests that patriarchal
social unit which was first taken as the basis of a designed
theocracy and later abandoned because the natural bonds con-
tinued to show greater strength than the spiritual ; but he unites
with the clan life to a greater extent than the Hebrew
narrative implies stress upon the folk arts and their power
to elevate man in the evolutionary scale. The Vedas belong
to the period of Agni, and in form, language, and spiritual
fervor they surpass all later Hindu expression. As with the
Seer class we must here recognise sensitised and liberated
faculties, the power of which gave an interior look into nature,
of which even the most gifted modern genius knows little.
Transfiguration evidently was an effect obtained by the disci-
plines to which the selected Agni groups were subjected, so
that inner states became objectified and personalised as active
deities. It seems probable, as suggested above, that the lines
of discipline followed the processes of artistic production,
but these, of course, no less than those of initiation and like
the processes of athletic training call for a certain amount of
ascetic control. The whole question comes into a clearer light
as it is studied under the Persian aspect.

Indra follows Agni and has a field to himself, with all the
honors of a ruling god ; but often he is a companion of Agni.
He is, I am confident, the spiritual effect of creative activity
within the folk element as a whole; probably a direction by
leaders of the mass body as distinguished from the selective
Agni group; the leader himself taking direction from the
characteristic impulses of the people. The name Indra is most
fittingly interpreted as coming from in and the Sanskrit da
to divide; the r apparently added for euphony, as also in
Rudra. Activity is not with the dual but within it; a self-
originating, self-impelling energy. Indra is closer to the
elemental man than was Agni. Here, as in the Hebrew effort,
there was at the beginning a steady devolution. The two move-
ments suggest two types of priest : the High Priest from the

14 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

verse is brought into being. I had realised that the creation
story of Genesis must belong to the age of Kronos, before
learning that Herodotus assigns the birth of the gods to the
Golden Age. The very word God may be found in the radical
that means dawn, and, for confirmation, there is the Hindu
conception of the gods as the "Sons of Dawn." It was then
that existent God-consciousness which created Heaven and
Earth. Both antithesis and a unit, the disparate united pair
were accepted as the most comprehensive statement of univer-
sal truth that man could reach, and the task of bringing heaven
down to earth, of lifting earth to heaven, was definitely under-
taken. The central fact of this new physical cosmos evidently
will be the man who draws his sustenance from the soil, and
we find imagery everywhere more interwoven with the features
of folk life than with any other form.

INTERPRETATION 15

16 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

intellectual class ; the provincial priest who must have taken
the place of that head of the family who, in the primal order,
officiated at the religious ceremonies in the household sacred
enclosure, or temen. The designation High, throughout the
sacred writings, evidently points back to the very earliest
sources of the general religious life. Abram is said to mean
High Father, and although the designation can be only a
secondary interpretation, because it is etymologically un-
sound, the synonym proves that the patriarchal concept was of
a very early origin.

Another indication that Indra stands for a more hetero-
geneous grouping and less control by the leaders is the fact
that in the reign of this god the Iranian schism occurred. A
large body of Aryans left their natal home and went to a land
where they could be free to restore religion to its original
purity. For, contrary to the general opinion, the faith and the
philosophy of Zarathustra were not the statement of a hostile
dualism at the heart of the universe but were a protest against
this philosophy as a heresy. The lower spiritual duality of
the Indra worship must have passed the bounds of a search for
unity through fusion and emphasised the fundamental duals
thought and emotion each excessively on its own line. Then,
when intellect took a hand in the effort to counteract and
correct this excess, it passed into the realm of abstraction. The
Trimurti followed Indra: Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. The
Upanishads, weighted with thought, succeed the spontaneous
hymns of praise of the Vedas.

Zarathustra, founder of the Persian religion, is indubitably
the prototype of the prophets of history, though the function
must have existed before this personification. There seems to
me no evidence that he was a historic personality. He is
essentially the purest representative of a complementary
dualism and historically and socially its recognised interpreter.
He would be identifiable with that insight of the Seer class
which discovered forms in which duality was so pure that it
could pass without conflict into the unified consciousness of
the initiate ; duality in struggle being left to men and women
on the lower plane. When the Iranians revolted from both
a debased Indra and the Brahmanic metaphysics, they took not

INTERPRETATION 17

the priest but the prophet as their leader and returned to the
early, simple, spontaneous worship and the philosophy of an
innocent Duality, the essential urge of which was to unity
through fusion of any two opposites fundamentally, thought
and emotion ; or mind and impulse ; derivatively, positive and
negative, male and female, good and evil. The Iranian con-
sciousness clings to earth but interprets the earth experience
in terms of man's spirit. It utterly repudiates the abstract.
Much is said, even in the early Persian literature, of opposing
principles, but the reference is to the moment of decision
regarding the form of faith. Every man and every woman is
called upon to make a conscious and explicit choice between
the rejected Indian philosophy of life and the new, or revised,
Iranian philosophy. It is because the decision was in favor
of the pure Dualism that the Iranian worship became so strong
an element of the Hebrew movement and that the chief
Iranian divinity, Ahura-Mazda, approximates more closely
to God-Jehovah or Elohim-Yahweh than the supreme god
of any other nation. It is necessary however to keep in sight
the truth that this faith supremely intellectual as is its ex-
pression stresses the emotional and the spontaneous and the
inspirational as source rather than the mental; for where,
later, there is dangerous excess of one power the other is called
upon to check it. Thus, when Jacob unwittingly weds with
Leah whose name is interpreted as gazelle, one of the chief
motives of Persian art and standing for that faculty of intui-
tion so highly prized by the Prophet the Hebrew movement
tending to rationality in Jacob contacts the Persian culture.
Then when Reuben, Leah's first born, is displaced as head of
the tribes by Ephraim, the emotional power gives place to
that intellectual ideal which the culture of Egypt has stamped
upon the Hebrew consciousness. There is indeed this con-
tinuous checking and balancing of the dual elements all
through the history of Israel's life, and the Prophet's relation
to Priest and King will be determined by the degree of
balance and of fusion achieved by the component elements.
All this must be kept in mind as we follow the course of Job's
mystification under the breakdown of the system which he, the
Prophet, more than any other power, had built up.

Chapter 5

/N ORDER to learn what strains of emotion and of ideal-
ism have entered into the type of Prophetism for which
Job stands, it is important to follow his genealogy as far back
as possible. The account of his life says simply, There was a
man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was
perfect and upright; one who feared God and eschewed evil.
To the ancient reader no doubt this was a full and complete
description of all that Job stood for at the time of his presenta-
tion and of all that he was; but the modern finds it necessary
to search the records. It was all the more a clear statement
to the contemporaries of the writer because Job was one of the
three dominant types recognized by Hebraism and, no doubt,
by other Oriental religions of the same era, as governing and
coordinating principles. Ezekiel, unquestionably writing be-
fore the Book of Job could have been definitively composed,
says that there are conditions of the national life which would
make impossible the saving of the purposes of Israel even by
Noah, Daniel, or Job, or by all three. The first must be
recognised as the concept of a creative mind in control no
(nous) and ia (the birth cry) ; Dr. Moffatt translates Know a
way, etc. The second has reference I am convinced both
by the etymology of the name and the psychological indica-
tions of the Book of Daniel to the designs, or the plans, of
the unitary primal deity in the elemental essences e I, elohim
and thus is, in all crises, the criterion for checking up upon
the departures from the fundamental laws of life. The third,
Job, is Prophetism, a principle of life equally fundamental
with the others because it is concerned with the spontaneous
bursting out of energy. These are three men : three intellectual
concepts which have dominated all the sincere religious
thought and search since the Great Human Experiment was
begun.

INTERPRETATION 19

The typical nature of Prophetism is stressed in the book
we are studying: Job was perfect, upright (the human erect
posture), God-fearing, and a denier that anything in life is
essentially evil. The pure, complementary Dualism is posited
at once and indicated as Job's realm by the term Uz. The
word us refers to swine, or the boar, and would seem to have
become affixed after the Dual principle became an evil thing
in men's eyes. Sus is another term for the same thing.

Because Elihu claims near relationship with Job and is a
descendant of Buz son of Nahor and Milcah, brother and
sister-in-law of Abram it is assumed that the Uz of Job is
the older brother of Buz, named in the Nahor genealogy. No
doubt this relationship is intended, but with all symbols it
is important to go back as near as possible to their first ap-
pearance in a narrative; for it is there that what a symbol
stands for is seen most clearly in its biological, psychological,
and ideal relation to other essential principles or governing
ideals. Accordingly we will note the Uz who is a grandson
of Shem and seek to learn the processes through which he
came into being. It will be to go back to Adam.

As I have elsewhere On the Minor Prophecies of Wil-
liam Blake given my interpretation, in psychological terms,
of the Creation and the Eden stories, I need not repeat the
account here. But it is necessary to admit that the suggestion
there made, that a downfall into a dualism of good and evil
may have been the cause of a deep introspection which re-
vealed the nature of the creative processes and marked the
beginning of the historic world, is out of place. Deeper and
wider study of the ancient myths revealed the probability of
the much more profound cause that already has been sug-
gested, and assigned the Dual rift to a much later period. But
in the main the interpretation may stand. A few additional
points however may have a direct bearing upon the problem
of Job. Perhaps chief among these is the idea of design im-
plicit in the Eden story. Creation in the archetypal world
from the unitary standpoint and within the consciousness of
the self-knowing soul has taken place during the first period.
Now the creative process which will apply to man in the earth
world of Duality must be understood. The leader class must

20 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

acquire this understanding. They are held in the grip of
the conception of design throughout the universe, because
this was impressed upon them when the necessity of taking
mass man and his environment into their cosmic order was
revealed. Heretofore they have not yet seen a full cycle of
life rain, the last term in that moisture cycle upon which the
folk man depends, has not fallen and they must follow ob-
jectively the processes of life, beginning with the mist that
rises from the ground and the man whose ultimate physical
elements are as the dust. The underlying idea, evidently, is
that of instruction of men with a view to continuous evolution
of the race in general, so that consciousness of design may
steadily grow deeper through art. The expression of this
which would best fit folk activities would be the garden. We
touch a Persian thought, but it is almost certain that it was
the definition of the idea rather than the conception, which
was Iranian. For it was after the movement was in progress
that the serpent of rationalistic analysis the Adversary, of
good against evil came in to vitiate that emotional life Eve
of the importance of which the thinker had only just be-
come conscious. But analysis goes on until man is seen but as
another incarnation of the animal and leaves Eden wearing
skins. At first he was naked; instinct was to the Seer a pure
thing. Then he becomes fellow to the brute. Later he as-
sumes a characteristically human covering the garment.

The Hostile Dualism now being in the field, it will have
a representative. This is Cain. Again correcting an earlier
interpretation, I derive the name from Kainnummi to excel,
rather than from Kaino to kill. The Lord accuses Cain of
wanting the excellency (margin). The competitive struggle
begins. Civilisations ensue. A city was named for Cain's
first son. But this motive is not a true and enduring evolu-
tionary principle though it so trains the mind that if Cain is
killed that sevenfold process of incubation will have to be gone
through with again. The line ends in Lamech, who is impor-
tant for our purpose because another Lamech is in the Job
ancestry and an Adah, Lamech's wife, is in the lineage of
Eliphaz. The radicals and the story both suggest a mental
principle that breaks down into emotional and rationalistic

INTERPRETATION 21

elements: lema purpose; Adah a intensive and da to
divide; evidently the pure primitive dual. I have elsewhere
suggested that Lemnos may be identified with Lamech as a
parallel symbol, though at the time of writing this the myth
of the killing of the men of Lemnos by the women of the island
was not known to me. Each name evidently registers some
extremely critical event in this early evolutionary movement.

After Lamech's termination of the Cain line, Seth is born
once and again. In the first birth he is the son of Adam and
Eve; in the second, of Adam alone, conceived in his likeness.
The first has the emotional element in equal strength with the
mental, and at that time man began to recognize the indwell-
ing God : Yahweh of the Dual earth, who directed its di-
verse energies toward the harmony and unity of form; of
design. Job laments the shortness of life of the man born of a
woman; some influence from this first birth must have persisted.
Seth had one son, Enos. The Greek word refers to periods of
the moon, substantiating the emotional idea as well as the idea
that at last a cycle has been marked in the life of the mass man.
Seth however is most important as the head of the line from
which spring Shem, Ham, and Japhet. These stand, respec-
tively, for the Priest, King, and Prophet ideas of governance.
But it is the Priest who conducts us to Hebraism and that
modification and elevation of the prophetic ideal which leads
eventually to Job. All the genealogies of the narrative go back
to Shem.

The progeny of only two of the Sons of Shem is noted :
Aram and Arphaxad. Each is important to us; Aram as the
father of the first Uz; Arphaxad as progenitor of Eber, head
of the Hebrew line. Aram indicates folk origins by clues
which will be explained later. Arphaxad is more advanced,
suggesting the early Aryan religious ceremonies: ara to
pray and phokalos using faggots. His son is Salah, a tide
of emotional life Zelos a surge. Salah's son is Eber ; be
prime vigor. Eber has two sons, Peleg and Joktan, and in
the time of the former 'was the earth divided. His name stands
for the ubiquitous and mysterious double axe the Swastika
and means just that pelakus. It must have been the time
when the Aryan religious community met the schism of the

22 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Iranians. What was left behind was decidedly decadent. For
Joktan's name means a dying out of the prophetic aim iok
and than and each one of his descendants stands through
his name for aridity, weakness, and other forms of degen-
eracy. The schism was on intellectual lines; hence the axe.
Abstract philosophy was left behind, and a philosophy in-
spired by a new faith in the original religious emotions of the
race went out to new fields. It will be wise, at this point, to
warn the reader against limiting the term Hebrew. We must
keep in mind a movement designed to form a religious or-
ganisation of which not a class but a People should be the
foundation and realise that this may and will have many
contacts with other cultures ; also that it will adopt from them
institutions and practices as these seem appropriate to its
own ends. Only late in the course of the movement does
nationality define it.

Peleg's place as fifth and last in the Shem generations
proves a mental control the Priest always is that and his
progeny, as clearly as possible, indicate the Iranian schism.
The first son is Reu clearly the Reustum of Persia and
expressive of Reuben, first son of Leah, the Persian gazelle.
Reu's son is Serug, the Sohrab of Persia. Serug's son is Na-
hor; his son, Terah father of Abram, another Nahor and
Haran. Reu may be derived from reo, reusomai to flow.
Serug suggests Zeug joined, yoked. Words which stress
flow, stream, etc. especially the earlier ones are likely, un-
less characterised, to refer to the ancient vital tradition. The
central principle of the Iranian philosophy was the capacity
of the Duals to be yoked, married, fused into a union. Only
the later Persians perverted this pure faith.

Nahor is from naos sanctuary. Evidently the Priest be-
comes prominent again, though it was the Prophet who in-
spired the first Iranian worshippers. But, conformably with
the mental influence which he adds, a new sign a portent
of change comes into being : Terah tepas sign ; evidently
similar to the Greek interpreter, Tiresias. The portent is of a
revival of the Prophet-Priest-King form of governance:
Abram, Nahor, Haran. Father and sons, with the wives and
children of Abram and Nahor, leave Ur of the Chaldees

INTERPRETATION 23

which from all indications registers a fall into a still cruder
form of Dualism than the first one and initiate that move-
ment designed to educe the spiritual from the natural of which
the family is the social unit. This is the perfect beginning to
which Job's thought goes back : the patriarchal estate. It is
a very great and important motive in human history : to evolve
the natural relationships into essentially spiritual ones. It is
as strongly stressed in Greek mythology as in the Hebrew
the focal point being Thebes, settled by Cadmus, whose name
means relation by marriage kaedmon.

Abram is the progenitor of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Elihu,
as well as of Job, which proves that each governing ideal in the
ancient religious world had its pure source in that primal con-
cept of life as energy, energy as life each the ultimate defini-
tion of the other which predates and subtends any formulated
expression of spiritual consciousness and faith. It is said
by students of the Hindu religions that Brahma, though exist-
ent, had slight notice in Vedic times. Evidently it was only
when metaphysical activity began that this outbursting energy
Protean and unseizable was fastened to a definite form.
But, wherever the root of bruon appears in a name, we may be
sure that the idea or the event under investigation had its
source in this early recognition of the fluent nature of life. It
is this which makes Liberty and Liberation the outstanding
goals of every vital philosophy and faith. The name of Eli-
phaz, as well as his descent, shows that he is a priest of this
high order: the parts are elix spiral and phasis word.
He is of the line which built up the intellectual phonetic lan-
guage on the basis and by analysis of that spontaneous utterance
of the folk which, as said elsewhere, was probably phraseology
like the language of the birds. If Remy de Gourmont is
right, that the phrase is the first linguistic form, then the
Evangelist, too, is right when he says that in the beginning (of
every conscious creative process) was the word. The spiral is
the symbol of the submerged nature, probably the original
Kundalini.

That Priest type, however, which is of importance to the
analyst of the history of the period, or post period, of the
Captivity, has certain acquired characteristics which may be

24 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

learned through his genealogy. He is not definitely of the
Hebrew type, for he derives from Esau, rather than from
Jacob. It is the mother of Eliphaz who complicates matters
somewhat Adah, first wife of Esau. She was of the daugh-
ters of Canaan ; her father, Elon the Hittite. The Hittites are
a standing mystery to the ethnologist. It is so difficult for
those who have all but seen a continent peopled by groups held
together by ideals to dissociate spiritual and social forces from
nationalism! I believe that the Hittite was an influence last-
ing over from the period when the cyclic psychology was ap-
plied to the life of folk man the name coming from itus a
circle or rim of a wheel or shield. The folk derivation is es-
tablished by the Canaanites among whom Adah moved, for
Canaan, indisputably, refers to a mass society united under
common impulses; kanna a reed, being the symbol of the
swaying of a popular element and aan , most reasonably being
a modification of amm sand always meaning a mass ele-
ment. Adah's father also comes into this class. He is Elon,
and one is the radical of ass, symbol of the mass element in the
East: El-one essentially of the masses. Esau was the un-
restricted son of Isaac, taking his nature from the father's
affinity for Ishmael a strong emotional influence out of
Egypt. Esau dwelt in Mount Seir. Seir is the same as cheir
hand and the handicrafts were characteristic activities of
the folk. Observe how repeatedly the term hand is used in
the account of Jacob's last meeting with Esau. One brother
has remained close to the spontaneous life of the people; the
other is moving toward a definitely planned discipline. But
the plan never can overlook the work of the hand expression
of the folk temperament and there are several contacts be-
tween the two lines. Finally there is Adah who first ap-
peared as the wife of the earlier Lamech and who certifies
the pure creative Dual both by her name and by the sons
whom she bore at her first appearance: Jabal, the father of
such as dwell in tents and have cattle (the tent is a field of the
force involved in a given effort or experiment; cattle are the
accumulated effects), and Jubal, father of such as handle the
harp and the organ. Each of these instruments is associated
with a general social life, but at an advanced cultural stage.

INTERPRETATION 25

So it was a very refined emotional life from which Eliphaz
sprang and from which he derived the elements of that potent
instrument speech. But, at the same time, the cruder ele-
ments had had their part in its evolution. In connection with
Eliphaz' name let us notice the emphasis on the word at the
very beginning of his answers to Job.

Additional light is thrown upon Eliphaz by the names of
his children. These indicate both an original Aryan and an
Iranian strain. The first son is Teman who characterises
Eliphaz in the narrative and in him there is the reminiscence
of the early household sacred enclosure, the temen. The
second son is Omar, suggestive of the early Aryan Om later
Amen. It is, I am convinced, a combination of vowel and con-
sonant designed to create the greatest resonance of tone of
which the human organism is capable. Hence the root prin-
ciples of balladry, the folk tale, and all that may be subsumed
under the name of Omar or Homer. Here the name takes
us far back into the East.

The next son, Zipho, perhaps accounts for that strain of
rationalism in Eliphaz which seems so out of keeping with
his derivations. For Zipho is easily Ziphos a sword, and the
sword consistently stands for incisive mental work, generally on
the part of the priest. This son may mark the transition from
the Aryan to the Iranian period, as it was transcendentalism
quite as much as naturalism which prompted the revival of
Zarathustra and brought about the well known schism.

The fourth son is Gatam. How well he indicates the
earliest hymns of the Iranians, the Gathas: getho to rejoice.
The second syllable gives us a people again versus a caste for-
mation. Kenaz comes last as the fifth son. His name exactly
means young deer, the chief motive of Persian art. The five
sons indicate that a mental line is to be followed no doubt as
a reaction from too much emotionalism. The emotional, how-
ever, breaks out strongly at the beginning in the Iranian ex-
pression. Perhaps it is the best example of intellectual passion
that the scriptural archives afford until the time of the later
Hebrew prophets.

There is less to say about Bildad than about Eliphaz be-
cause he is much closer to Abraham. At the very end of his

26 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

career this patriarch steps aside, marries Keturah and has by
her six sons. The youngest of these is Shuah, ancestor of
Bildad. The name Keturah is easily chitra an earthen jar,
and the training of a group by advancement in the crafts the
most primitive of which is pottery is clearly indicated.
Shuah may be derived from zuo to refine, polish; and Bil-
dad, long before this, has been defined by boule the will and
the first syllable of daedallo to work cunningly. There are
no other near derivations and these exactly fit the norm of a
nation builder. But nationalism did not come into the
Abrahamic ideal. The father of these children carefully sent
them away from the posterity of Isaac, at the same time giv-
ing them gifts. The historic nation of Israel was a decline
from the original theocratic ideal. It will be remembered
how reluctantly the Prophet Samuel yielded to the demand
of the people for a king. It is interesting to note that Bildad is
the only one of the Friends to whom Blake gives the Jewish
cast of countenance.

Elihu alone remains to be associated with Abraham, but
he is not a descendant; he is of a collateral line. His ancestor
is Buz, and the father and mother of Buz were Nahor and
Milcah. Nahor, brother and companion of Abram, already
has been defined as the priest who stands archetypally at the
head of the proposed new social order. Milcah comes very
easily from mel root of words for sheep, and cheo mean-
ing in some of its forms, the sacrifice. Sheep sacrifice was an
ancient Aryan ceremony questioned by the Buddhists as to
its efficacy; but complete demonstration is afforded by the
emphasis upon sheep in Jacob's adventure with Laban, direct
descendant of Nahor. Sheep are the symbol of infolded hab-
its by which a popular element is lifted in the evolutionary
scale. Bous, Buz, will mark a slight decline, for the ox is the
symbol of a people trained sometimes restrained into obe-
dience to an ideal, rather than led there persuasively. It is
important to note the priestly derivation of Elihu, for it was
this class which, after the captivity, became the main vehicle
of that prophetic inspiration and urge which eventually found
expression in Christianity.

Elihu, as the new type of Priest-Prophet, or Prophet-

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\, V'N

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^a-|.rr|,it C'HpnrKt I ft,sSpir,l,ull v D,^md 1 C*

INTERPRETATION 27

Priest, may consistently be construed as finding his name in the
radicals el and iud, which indicate the essential principle of
that Jewish movement which, after the captivity, succeeded
the Hebrew experiment. Barachel, father of Elihu, strength-
ens the priest motive, showing that this form of governance
had taken on a new lease of life in the captivity. The radicals
are be (baino) proceeding from; rachis the back bone;
generally applied, as in Rachel and other names, to the insti-
tution of priesthood: an enduring control however the asso-
ciate influences might weaken or die out ; and el again denoting
that the order holds and exemplifies the essential typical idea
of the priestly function.

We now have followed down to the era of Babylon that
great crisis in the religious history of the human race the
Prophet-Priest-King forms of governance, direction, repre-
sentation, and stimulation. Bildad, as nation builder, of course
culminates in the king. There remains only Zophar, the
Naamathite or, as given by Dr. Moffatt, the Minaean. But,
like Melchizedek though not a priest (notice the Mel desig-
nation) Zophar is without father, without mother, without
descent; having neither beginning of days nor end of life. He
is the representative of the Wisdom School and tradition ; of
that Seer class which antedates all historical social formula-
tions. His name is immediately expressive almost identical
with zophoria, the Zodiac framework of the wisdom psy-
chology and guide to the later systems of folk discipline. In-
asmuch as Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden clothed in
the skins of animals and the trends toward city building and
civilisations begin with Cain, it would seem as though the
Wisdom School had remained paramount up to the time of
this new movement. The priest, no doubt, was but an instru-
mentality within it and the prophet may have been identified
with the bardic activity which, remaining close to the folk,
kept watch over them for the possible initiate and, later, for
the spiritual elements in the folk art. No doubt this precursor
of Zarathustra died with Abel. There are lines of research
which might be followed profitably to clear up these questions
of derivation and of sequence. Minaean suggests men the
moon, and not only clearly points to the Zodiac but suggests

28 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

man as well ; man, like the moon, being the measurer of the
phenomenal world.

We are now somewhat prepared to take up the story of
Job and his Friends with reference to learning from it some-
thing of that inner world from which, a few centuries later,
emerged the spiritual state under which we ourselves live.

Chapter 6

JOB I

E HAVE now to consider Job's estate at the time he
comes upon the stage. There were seven sons and
three daughters. There had been a full evolutionary se-
quence toward mental creations under the inspiration of
Prophetism. The instinctive nature of the people had been
tempered to the human relationships. The inheritance from
the movement was substance (cattle] a subconscious store,
or treasure, piled up through generations of folk training to
the amount of seven thousand sheep (idealised, inherited val-
ues in which the mental (10 x 10) was dominant over the emo-
tional) ; three hundred camels (the elemental responsive to
mind's control and willing to bear the heavier burdens) ; five
hundred oxen (the proud spirit subordinated to ruling pur-
poses) ; and five hundred she asses (the emotions of the masses
become intelligent; the five}. Altogether a very great hus-
bandry or harvest from the vigorous working of the Dual
mass life. So that this concept of Prophetism was the greatest
result that had come out of that pristine East where the dawn
of new perceptions occurred. This definitely traces the
Prophet back to the very beginnings of the new social move-
ment. We find him inherent in the art education and the
construction of a phonetic language even in Eden.

There was a feast in the house of each son upon his day;
that is, each mental principle ran its course, and its activities
the work of the day were appraised. Seven refers to the
educational stimuli. The sisters the elemental principles
partook in order to lift, by progressive movements, the char-
acter of the instinctive life. But after the full appraisal Job
measured the conclusions by the original cosmic relationships,
the perception of which was at the bottom of all later activities.

30 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Job feared that his sons might have deviated from the pure
ideal, losing the intellectual quality of it and blessing God
only in their hearts. (Bless in the Hebrew instead of curse;
Peake.) Thus did Job all the days: after each active move-
ment had run its course. Such was one function of the
Prophet: evaluation.

But a day of a different kind finally dawned upon man and
his world when the ideals of the Seer class the men of cosmic
consciousness came before the Lord and appraised their own
success under that faith in the Yahweh Power the divine
inner energy which works in the natural and the human world
toward design. The movement had not been entirely a pro-
gressive one. Part of it was adverse, for Satan too appears at
this examination. The word may come from zeteo to ex-
amine, to investigate. That is what the Serpent advised in
Eden and what Satan had been doing in the world. He was
cold blooded and analytical, non-cooperative, non-believing,
unimaginative, lacking the creative fire. On the earth he could
find nothing but recurrence (walking to and fro) and processes
of evolution followed by devolution (up and down) . But had
he paid any attention to this Prophetic movement surely a
continuous culture stream? It was different from any other of
the earth phenomena, seeking the highest ends, centered in man
as a dominant type, guided by aspiration and recognising noth-
ing that could counter the life principle. Yes, but to Satan,
to the critic, this is not part of the nature of life ; not something
that would go on by an energy self directed or divinely di-
rected: it is active only within a guarded area; it has been
hedged about. This has been thoroughly done. Protection
has been on every side and, in consequence, the temperamental
life has advanced to higher levels the work of the hands has
been blessed. Also, more material for higher social formations
has accrued substance has increased in the land (symbol of
malleable human material). But if all this advance is tested
and proved to be essentially only of the quality of the impulsive
nature born in this nature and thus undependable the whole
effort will be renounced.

The faith in an immanent deity a force that makes the
Dual innocent by reason of its capacity for unity rose to meet

INTERPRETATION 31

this test. The gains that had been made might be should be
tested by the Adversary and by the urges of his peculiar dy-
namic his hands. But faith in the Tightness of the Prophetic
impulse itself must not be lost. Let man retain that, even
though all expression of this faith might prove faulty and ques-
tionable. A rational movement ensues quite separate from
the creative movement of Prophecy: Satan goes out from
the presence of the Lord.

There was a drinking of wine in the eldest brother's house
a lapse into emotionalism. Yet still he was a son of Job
a mental activity stimulated by the Prophet. Abram, as we
have seen, was the representative of the Prophet in the Priest
controlled line, descended from Shem, and associated with
Nahor, his brother. His eldest son was Ishmael is-ma-el:
force, maternal essence an Egyptian influence. The mater-
nal energy emotional life was itself the potent force.
Hence the wine. It is this early-instilled energy which is un-
der trial. Is it this which has been the weakness of Prophet-
ism? Emotion may be born of intellectual perception but is
likely to be allied to impulse. And impulse is stimulated
through the senses. The Sabaeans destroy the oxen at their
plowing and slay the servants with the edge of the sword. We
derive from sebo to feel awe and associate with the worship
of magic when the context shows tendencies of decadence.
The well-trained mental powers in the masses obedient to
the Prophetic leading are destroyed, and the sharp mental
activity in the rationalism that urged the new worship on the
people annihilated the idea of service of an ideal. Satan got
in his work right here. Only one thing remained intact: what
through the generations had sunk into the subconscious a
department of personality never forgotten by the ancient psy-
chologists. The messenger meso, middle only was still all-
one: I only am left alone to tell thee. The fire of God fallen
from heaven unmistakably refers to an outbreak of the ele-
mental forces. The ideal stimuli of life have fallen to this
low level. Rationalisation having no part in this event, no
servant is killed by the sword. Everything is consumed. The
sword is the penetrating mind of the Priest.

The third messenger next reports three bands of Chalde-

32 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

ans Hebrew Kasdim, Kassim, is suggested. It is likely, as
the radical of the word refers to things stitched together
kassuo. The three elemental parts of personality ought to be
fused into one not artificially bound. If stitched, they will
disintegrate and render unserviceable the forces that, united
under intelligence, may be fortifying. The camels were three
hundred in number; evidently the subdued elemental, but not
yet high enough in the scale to have power to resist the analyti-
cal attack. Again the servants are slain by the sword. This
third debacle would seem to refer to the advent of abstract
philosophy in India. To what does the second refer? Prob-
ably a lapse into the elemental from which there seemed no
recovery except through transcendental imaginings. Indra
broke down as a Hindu deity and the Trimurti succeeded to
power.

The fourth messenger reports the wine drinking and the
place of it the eldest brother's house. Although this must,
probably, be associated with Ishmael, the ethnic connection
will be Persian. For derivations refer to psychological con-
ditions, not to localities. Hagar was an Egyptian because she
had the impetus of the nest, of physical generation, the source
idea of Egyptian culture gups, vulture; but especially the
Phoenix. This, however, may be sublimated as the mother
love which embraces all forms of life, undeterred by accepted
codes. It is Ishmael is-ma-el. To this the Persian went
back, parting from the abstractionist. The angel coming to
Hagar in the wilderness is another Persian mark. Abram is
the continuing stream of dynamic consciousness from the be-
ginning of time; to eventuate in Israel. The Persian line is a
collateral movement which sustained the Dual principle in
its purity. As such it is the main ally of the Prophet in ac-
tion. The bowshot distance in the wilderness of Beersheba,
and Ishmael as an archer, are of Persian coinage. Circumci-
sion too, probably, unites the two strains, as asceticism was
stronger in these than with other groups. But the closest as-
similation is in the wind that came from aside a parallel
movement with the Hebrew. It was the Iranian stream
augmented artificially and falsified that developed into the
Persian empire, and the theogony and cosmogony of this

INTERPRETATION 33

people, bearing upon the purer theism of Israel, is what de-
stroys the proportions of Israel's scheme of life thought and
action: the four corners of the house. The image even is
taken from the Persian scriptures, where Mithra, guardian
over proportions and relationships, is described as "he who
upholds the columns of the lofty house and makes its pillars
solid; who gives herds of oxen and male children to the
house in which he has been satisfied. He breaks to pieces
those in which he has been offended."

Each messenger, after the first, arrives while his prede-
cessor is yet speaking. Looking back over the history of
Prophetism, a continuous strain of decadence within it has
become apparent. But its followers are not bereft of faith in
it because of the downfall of its structure. They rise up for
renewed effort, cast off the old forms garments; accept a
more incisive test (shave the head as the Persian priests) and
worship. Out of that great mother compassion came the im-
pulse unattached to any form naked. It will return to this
great inclusive emotion now bereft of all its outward mani-
festations. These came about in the first place through belief
in the Lord the inner creative life. He truly gave those man-
ifestations. They have done their work. It is He who has
taken them away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We will
cling to this faith in a Personal God and take a new direction.
Job sinned not nor charged God with folly. The way was not
renounced : the inspiration that came from those early Seers
was not regarded as mistaken and misleading.

Chapter 7

JOB II

there was a day. If the smiting of the four
corners was the apparent submergence of the He-
brew experiment under the wave of Persian imperialism
carrying with it the decadent Persian religion what could this
second day have been? Quite evidently, I think, it must be
identified with the inner crisis through which the souls of the
religious leaders passed as they witnessed what apparently was
the complete failure and downfall of Prophetism. The loss
of its forms had been accepted; Job rent his garment: pre-
pared his intellect for a revaluation and reiterated the basic
principle of his philosophy of life. The Lord said to the
Adversary, Still he holds fast his integrity, even though he
might have been swallowed up (margin) : seeming result of
the impact of Persian intellectual life.

To the cynic however this seeming rejection of the old
was simply a willingness to put on a new skin as expediency
while under it the old faith would remain intact. Here was
a question that must be met. It is one of the most critical mo-
ments in the history of the race. If the highest values are to
be retained, they must be held by a few thoroughly self-
conscious leaders with a conviction that has withstood the
assaults of the most devastating doubts, defeats, and disillu-
sionment. Touch his bone, his flesh, said the Lord to Satan,
only spare his life.

This passage is so clearly reminiscent of Eden and the
creation of Eve that it cannot be understood without reference
to the psychology of that myth. Adam had been all-one so
complete was his consciousness of an inner unity. But if he
was to tackle a great social task, he must realise the creative
processes through which man evolves toward this high plane.
He sets his own type over against the animal types. Some-
thing of their nature is in him, or he could not name them.

WhcnlKc AlnugKty wasjct witk me ,Wken my Children
were about me

London Pulltshed 03 tfu Art

INTERPRETATION 35

But it is not these qualities upon which he has built up the
higher consciousness. No spiritually creative impulse is in
them. This resides only in that subconscious part of his being
which has been stored, or enfolded, in him by his life through
the ages as man. He has lived in accordance with his typical
nature. This latent energy is, of course, impulsive and emo-
tional. That was why it had been overlooked ; for the intel-
lectual life has emotions and passions of a different kind.
Deep consideration however shows that the subconscious en-
ergy is a true propulsion and it is accepted as a structural ele-
ment in man's life bone of the bone, flesh of the flesh: Isha
where the man is Ish : the creative element in that energy which
is man : is and is-ia, the birth cry. Atrophy and decomposition
are now with Job to fall upon this impulsive life; everything
that has resulted from it will appear revolting. Nothing more
will be expected of it. Lost, lost are my emanations, said
Tharmas the elemental urge to creation in Blake's cosmology
after this great disillusionment fell upon him. Note that Job
was smitten from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. It
is the course taken by the magnetic current; the mental going
in the opposite direction. What now is left? The heroic in-
tention. The athlete, after his struggle, scraped off blood, dirt
and sweat with the strigil. Job's is a potsherd, a fragment of
a broken pot. He has come down to the lowest example of
man's creative powers pottery. This is the primitive art of
merely temperamental man, a bodily urge for the vase or
urn is an outline of the human trunk. Psychological inference
led to this conclusion but Blake had reached it first. I know
of no other artist whose work indicates such knowledge, but
it must have been common to the ancients.

The higher impulses however do not react in unison with
this heroic acceptance of the final result of analysis. Dost thou
still retain thine integrity? asked the wife Job's bone and
flesh. This poor thing cannot affiliate you with God. This is
but chance, not of a divine purpose; curse God; give up this
idealistic work you have been doing. This thought however
is impious folly, or an impious emotion. The long course of
education in idealism swings back and cannot accept such
doubt. For the end and aim of the Prophetic institution has

36 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

been to turn the natural human relationships into spiritual
bonds. The brother must become the friend, the wife the
sister. This is the meaning of the relationships among the
gods and the culture heroes ; as Abram marrying a sister. The
word pious must therefore come from pios relation by mar-
riage. To be pious is to have achieved the spiritual unity.
Until this derivation of the word pious had been discovered the
drama of the Bacchae, forceful and significant up to the final
exhortations of Dionysus, seemed to me at that point to break
down into a weak moralism: Had you but known to be pious
this calamity would not have come upon you. But with this
radical interpretation of the weakened word the fundamental
intention and philosophic content of the drama are brought
out: if a man can realise this spiritual relationship, he will
know that what appears to him as good and what appears to
him as evil may each be a way of approach to God. In all this
Job did not sin with his lips. The lip is the index of tempera-
ment, its degree and quality. The Prophetic class did not fall
into emotional excesses. It held on to its moralities even
though all which had prompted to these seemed to be proved
meaningless. This might have been a reaffirmation and a new
start if the Friends had not, just at this point, appeared each
coming from his own place. Each had a special function
which gave him a definite relation to the Prophet.

Recapitulating, the temen, we will recall, was the original
sacred enclosure of the Aryan peoples, where the father as
priest officiated at the sacred ceremonies. Eliphaz stands for
the Priesthood. But though he is of the teman tradition, his
actual status with reference to Job is both higher and later.
For he is the son of Esau by Adah, daughter of Elon, the
Hittite. But Esau has married into the earliest strain, since
Adah is that primitive unity in which the dual is not per-
ceived ; while Elon, as we have seen, seems to come from radi-
cals which point to popular elements. Elon was a Canaanite
that is, derived from an emotionally homogeneous people.
The Canaanite came from the Hittite, which I derived from
itus, a circle ; meaning the early cycle-concept of Kronian rule,
under which the people became the focal point of interest.

Bildad is the Shuhite. The margin refers us to Shuah, son

INTERPRETATION 3

of Abraham by Keturah that wife whom he took at the ver
end of his career. The Hebrew line, after developing institu
tional principles, must definitely have attached itself to som
racial strain which would serve for basic strength and as ;
continuous hereditary influence; even though the dominan
and significant principle is the intellectual idealism imper
sonated in Israel. To the children of Keturah Abram gav
gifts; that is, stimulated their native talents. Bildad stand
for the moulding of a nation through instructing them in re
gard to a definite purpose, or through acting upon their wil
to achieve. He is the nation builder and, as such, the moralist

Zophar, we recall, stands for the zodiac and thus is market
as a representative of the Wisdom School. As the most ancien
of the four persons of the drama he has no place in the Hebrew
lineage. His is the Wisdom line, or tradition; nema, threac
and math radical of learn.

Why had these three made an appointment to come t
mourn with Job? Because that moment in the history o
man's religious life has been reached when sorrow and suf
fering are to be the central concepts of his effort. It is righ
to connect Job with the suffering servant of Isaiah. And suf
fering implies comfort. Comforting will be the great idea
and the chief activity. It breaks down Job's heroism. Neithe
he nor the friends had realised how far apart their respectiv
movements and interests had drifted. They lifted up their eye
afar off and knew not Job. That was sufficient cause both f o
grief and for a decision to cast off the forms that had proves
so separative. Each rent his garment and threw dust upo]
his head ; accepting that complete disintegration of the earl
order which had proved so untrustworthy that, in order to re
build, the mind must accept life in its most drastically analyse(
constituents. They sprinkled the dust toward heaven. A ne\
ideal was to be lifted up. A new incubation period is ac
cepted the seven days. But none spake a word for they sa\
it was a moment of intense grief. They saw that grief wa
great. (The his is not in the original text.) It was a tim
when the instituted powers had no new motive to offer in
word because of an overwhelming sense of calamity. Thi
had not been realised in its completeness until the utter de

38 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

struction of Prophetism had dawned upon the mind. Then
the ineffectiveness of the old forms became apparent and the
need of a new constructive concept was recognised. But any
concept was wanting except as the old continued its struggling
and embittered existence in the Prophet's tenacity.

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eldest BmtluT-j L/ ;r;' * Mi Jd there m- a ^r cat wtd li

"/, /',,V/.i, /..,'' A- - V.n/, >~

Chapter 8

JOB III

FTER this : now that it has become clear that not only
the expressions of Prophetism were of an ephemeral
nature but that all those structures within which it worked
and that had seemed to have an organic place in human so-
ciety have no aptness to the human problem as it exists at the
moment Job curses his day. This whole matter of getting
to the heart of man and of nature to understand them and
prompt them to creative activity has been a series of meaning-
less activities, (cursed, kurso of chance and theday). Notyet
has man learned how to fit himself to the universe. He is
plunged back into the very heart of the problem of method
not of man's inner nature, as will appear later. This vast
enigma, this pressing question, he will try to answer (margin
for spake).

Some slight changes must be made in the next few verses.
The exegetes are at variance upon the first line of V. 4. Shall
it read, Let that day be darkness or that night? The reason
for selecting day that the night otherwise would have a dis-
proportionate emphasis is not a valid one. All these ques-
tions must be settled by an appeal to psychology. The central
thought is that day is the period of activity of the working of
the conscious, rational mind, while night is that vast, un-
plumbed state in which the energies of inheritance, of un-
noted impressions, of unknown relationships, stir and seek to
stimulate consciousness and imagination. It is the conception
phase. Because it conceived so futile a thing as himself Job
wishes that it might remain in the realm of darkness, uninter-
preted, unembodied. Let it continue dark; let not God seek
it from above (Peake) to draw it up above the threshold of
consciousness toward the ideal world. Neither let the light
shine upon it, says the translator, rendering the next line. But

40 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the word taken for light is unknown. Light is only a guess.
It is n'hara; much like the aura from which we have derived
Ahura consciousness, in that medium in which impulses and
thoughts meeting turn to design. Let the line then be read,
Neither let the ether penetrate it. Rather let darkness, deep
darkness, claim it as its own. Let a cloud dwell upon it in-
stead of rising out of it, as a dim shape that will be enlight-
ened, (c/f the Maruts of India). Let all that obscures the
meaning of the active faculties discourage it from being ener-
getic terrify it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year
nor come into the number of the months. (The first line of
V. 6 is unnecessary). It cannot be part of any cycle. Let it
be stony not creative; without the voice of joy. When it
might pass into day at the dawn let its twilight stars be
dark; neither let it have perception of any lifting curtain the
eyelids of the morning. Because it shut not up the doors of the
womb in which Job was conceived, thereby to hide trouble
from his eyes. Why this monstrous waste of man's energy?
Had it not been put forth, had men been allowed to go on
their normal way, creating unthinkingly and seeking no eter-
nal principle, the Prophet would have been a mere instructor
in technique like kings and counsellors bent only upon
earthly results, whose work has no ultimate or lasting effects ;
or like princes who possessed the gold or inherited wealth
(the prince is this symbol) but reached out only for silver.
Better to have sought no enduring principle than to have
sought and found nothing. Still better that there had been
no birth at all, for in the realm of the unconscious the stings
and inequalities of life are not felt. The small and the great
are there without suspicion of their difference that funda-
mental cause of strain; also the slave, free from his master;
there being no mastery. Oh, the misery of consciousness
when there is no light upon the pressing problems of life.
How much better the grave than futility! A man's 'way the
course which, as man, he should take is hid. An Omnipotent
Power hedges him about. What can consciousness, intelli-
gence, aspiration do but stir up an inner tempest of despair,
revolt, and fear? And these passions bring their attendant
troubling results.

Chapter 9

JOB IV AND V

cannot be stirred as deeply as this. He has lived
always under the shelter of an institution and employed
institutional means in his dealings with men. The ele-
mental problems have not pressed upon him; the terrors of
stark reality. But he is moved at the sight of suffering and
would bring out his philosophy of life for the comfort he feels
it should give. Job has not been futile in the past even though
he now seems to have broken down. He has upheld others
who were falling, why not believe that some power will in like
manner uphold him? He, as the Prophet, the interpreter, has
lived in the fear of God, in acknowledgment of his own im-
potence. His procedure has been sincere. Has he ever yet
seen innocence perish or uprightness cut off? Here we have
a concealed affirmation regarding Unity and its prior claim
over Duality to respect and belief. For the innocent are the
unconscious babes of intellect while the upright are those
who have achieved living consistently with the type. Op-
posed to them are the Dualists; those who find action upon
the opposites a necessary and a holy process. For iniquity
undoubtedly is inequity non-equality and they who work
upon it plan it necessarily sow trouble and necessarily must
reap the same. They have no organic place in the creation. A
wind of God some unforseeable rush of events will destroy
them. His anger will burst out and consume them. Duality
is the source of man's fierce arrogance and greed. But these
will not withstand the rule of a God who demands singleness.
Unity always must conquer. What then must be man's attitude
toward the great Unitary Power caught in the net of Duality
as he is and the Lion personality being impossible?

Eliphaz has had his problem as Job has his. The answer

42 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

came out of his own subconscious that of the priest of many
obedient generations. He meditated upon the visions of the
night, when deep sleep (a mystery process) falls upon men
and by stealth, as it were, a voice whispered something to him
that made all his bones to shake. Had his structure been a
perfect one? Was the Priest's attitude toward the Infinite a
right one? Sight and hearing go together as in the ancient
visionary days. The Rishis saw their hymns. Amos heard
his vision. This spirit which his fears had evoked took form.
It spoke: Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a
man be more pure than his Maker? This is the right render-
ing; not Shall mortal man be just before God, etc. For
Eliphaz is distinctly implying that a man who affirms the jus-
tice and the purity of the Dual composition of life has assumed
an arrogant attitude toward God. But below this reasoning
there are man's instincts unitary in the elemental sense
servants of his higher moods and of the Divine purpose.
Above it are the angels in whom He has put light (margin) ;
the etheric forms which subtly move man to his ideal thoughts
and deeds. And neither of these is strictly unassailable im-
perishable. Shall man in his mortality clay being moulded
into various forms ; man of that prophetic experiment which
began with the dust; not a type as even the day moth is, but a
creature of his own conception ask that God trust him as
something implicit and indestructible in the universe? Why,
in his manifestations he dies out between the beginning and
the end of a period; perishing forever and no one regarding
the loss. His excellency, which was within him, is removed
(margin) : that surplus of power which he thinks he acquires
over and above the physical continuum as Cain sought to
excel through the rational processes. There is no progress
along this way. A man may take it but, unlike the higher man
who looks only to God as the Seer class he dies without hav-
ing attained to wisdom. Can Job call upon any who have
attained by the Dual method? Or can he turn to any who
have taken the Unitary the holy ones and expect support?
It is an impossible egress ; bringing only vexation and jealousy :
the way of the foolish. Sometimes these seem to take root but
all of a sudden what has built them up their heritage of habit,

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Young Men &, consumed them <Jjl only dm escaped alone to tell rlur

INTERPRETATION 43

habitations show to be things of chance. What follows from
the course they take is crushed out of existence when forces
press upon them the gate (usually the passage into the world
of spiritual tradition) ; everything conspires to destroy what
substance seems to have been acquired. For inequity (not af-
fliction] does not belong to the ultimate principles of life, nor
does the trouble from it spring out from the ground of ex-
istence. But man begets trouble as the sparks fly out of the
burning coals (of his passions). If Eliphaz were Job, he
would give up that insistence upon the purity of the Dual
complements and seek God, to commit his cause to that higher
faith. For it is this Omnipotence that performs the great
things not to be searched and marvellous things beyond num-
bering the ultimate aim of the Initiate after searching and
analysing are exhausted ; and so mysterious is He in His work-
ings that He sets up on high those whom man has felt to be
low (V. 10 interpolated) and makes safe those who mourned
their insecurity. The rationalist the crafty has many de-
vices for achieving what he considers desirable ends, but this
Omnipotence working in laws that lie outside of man's un-
derstanding frustrates his designs and saves from his seem-
ingly logical (sword), though injurious, conclusions. So the
poor who cannot devise in these adroit ways have hope, and
inequity finally loses its presumption stoppeth her mouth.
The Prophet may find himself in this class which cannot yet
understand who may be lifted up, if only he will trust that
God is correcting him by these afflictions that have come.

The consolation offered is typically that of the Priest, but
is reminiscent of the psychology which underlay the first folk
training. Those beasts of the earth whose likeness man dis-
covered within himself will be subdued to his higher powers;
those of any field he is cultivating will be as allies; he himself
will have the enduring quality of the stones. They are the
material of art, and man's creative efforts, inspired by the
highest conception of Godhead, will be a permanent influence.
The tent the time of trying, of experiment will be on the
line of peace, of reconciliation ; nothing that should become
inherited power and capacity the fold shall fail. The fruit
of the effort shall be abundant or the seed for a new trial.

44 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

The result shall be wide spread among the people the
Prophet's field. The Prophet shall go on to fruition without
break in the line of his development. As the cut corn stalk
was an important feature of the mysteries, while here the un-
cut is held up as superior, it would seem that the uncut was
used in the higher mysteries and the cut in the folk schools.
For out of nature there has to be a second birth which reverses
the desires and the aims of the earlier life. This we see, as
Eliphaz himself discloses, is no consolatory reasoning inspired
by the sight of Job's suffering, but a basic philosophy the roots
of which go back to the earliest religious efforts of the higher
man for men in general, and carefully searched out from ex-
perience. Eliphaz cannot believe that the Prophet has any
faith so adapted to his need as this one.

Chapter 10

JOB VI AND VII

/OB'S reply to Eliphaz is a direct rejoinder to the Priest's
exhortation and refers closely to the functions of the lat-
ter and to the relationship that should exist between the
Priest and the Prophet. Then, as the destruction of his ideal
world stirs the tragic consciousness of man's dependence upon
a Power which he cannot fully realise, Job's thought turns with
greater intensity to that sense of a relation between God and
man which had been the continuing inspiration of his life work
and that, in spite of God's seeming alienation from him, he
cannot yet deny. No words of trusting dependence ever have
carried greater conviction of the bond between man and a
Power supreme in his life than do Job's accusations and com-
plaints. Stirred by the suggestion of Eliphaz that he has so cut
himself off from channels of relief that he may destroy himself
through pent up vexation, Job sees his vexation and the calam-
ity which has aroused it in a balance, and the sand of the sea not
heavy enough to weigh it down. He carries the burden of
earth, he, earth's spokesman, more conscious than the elements.
It is so terrific, therefore have his words been wild. He had
supposed that he had an aim a direction akin to the intention
of the Almighty One, but now the arrows of God whatever
aim they may indicate are within him and they are barbed
with poison. The words for arrow and poison in Greek from
which we take the radical phonetics are the same, and the
arrow is the Prophet's symbol. His spirit is drinking up this
poison in full bitterness. Also the terrors of God, of which
Eliphaz has been discoursing really an attitude in man which
he has commended are troubling him (not in array; Peake)
from this very blindness regarding God's aim. The wild ass
finds an end in the grass which is his subsistence and does not

46 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

bray; the ox in his mixed fodder and does not low symbols
of free and of subdued instincts. If a thing does not show its
true nature and the stimulus which would bring this out is
lacking, can it be assimilated? If the vital germ-bearing part
of an organism is lacking, is there anything gratifying about the
mere medium in which it floats? In short, what is life worth
unless an aim of life may be apprehended? The whole thing
is anti-natural. But these things which his soul hitherto had
refused have now become as loathsome meat to him; some-
thing that he is forced to digest. There might however be an
alternative. He might be entirely crushed out of existence.
If he only could deny himself and the significance of the pro-
phetic faith from the beginning! That would be a keen in-
tellectual experience that would bring exultation with it; the
pain itself would be an ecstasy, searching the innermost being.
For the words of the Holy One the cosmic penetration into
the most fragmentary part of the order he never has denied.
If he and his imaginations really had no organic place there,
the exercise of finding this out will be a tremendous experience.
Why if it might come should he have to wait for it? What
is his strength, his end, his flesh, any help that he may give, any
effectual working, that he should be patient? He is really at
the fainting point and if his friend feels that he should re-
vive, he should show him kindness. This would seem the only
hope. He himself in truth has forsaken the fear of the Al-
mighty. He has not that attitude which Eliphaz had in his
vision; nevertheless, his friend should stand by. But what
have these companion movements and those who have con-
ducted them the Brethren of the Prophet actually done?
They have ebbed away as a brook. They have been only spe-
cious allies showing no course that the masses should take.
The paths along their border are lost. The travelers who
started from Teman that early simple unintellectual worship
looked for enlightenment to them ; the groups brought to-
gether by reverence sebo waited for their help: all this
only to be more ashamed because they had cherished hope.
They gathered where the stream should be and were con-
founded by its absence. That is what has happened between
you and your people ; as their stimulus, you have failed. Now

Tnoi wcntSalan. fortk from ike presence of Uie Lord vjljt^

,wtf

INTERPRETATION 47

you are in their state as them. You see something terrible in
me in my condition and you are confounded. But have
I asked you for my rehabilitation for something that would
overtax you a gift? something of your method, or orders
substance? Deliverance from my own philosophy of Dual-
ism the adversary's hand? Deliverance from the oppressive
conditions of life? I ask only teaching from you that I may
have understanding. I want only words of uprightness;
straight truth ; facing of facts. What does your reproving of
my passionate outbursts amount to? The central principle of
my faith has been the Fatherhood of God. You treat that as
though it must belong to a philosophy of chance; telling me
that this is all I have. Friendship is the essential relationship
in my creed. You make that a mere matter of exchange.
Please look upon me just as I am, for surely I will not lie to
your face. Return to our original relations, before unjust
interpretation had crept into them. Yea, return again, for
my cause is righteous: the cause of my being in existence, here
by your side. Am I unjust in rebelling at what has come upon
me? Do I not know when a thing is of a nature to work mis-
chief? You, Eliphaz, have been saying that the man who
commits his way unto God will have a perfect protection.
Can you really deny that there is a warfare to man upon
earth? That he is here to struggle? Can he decide for him-
self what the rewards of his labor shall be; or rather are his
days like those of a hireling? I know how these things are
with me. As a slave I pant for the shadows of the evening;
as a hireling I take my pay. Thus deprived of all conscious-
ness of being creative, of all assurance that my own will is
building something permanent I possess months of vanity
and find wearisome nights in my lot. All my subconscious
activities are void of fruit. (Months and nights are periods
of incubation.) There is no progress : only tossings to and fro
and longings for the dawn of a new day: a span of some other
kind of effort. But how could this come to degeneracy such
as mine? My only clothing is the physical enduring life
worm and the clod. If one ailment is healed, another soon
breaks out. My days carry me forward, then back ; forward
and back ; hope is wanting in them. They are spent without it.

48 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

At this point Job's sense of the tragedy of his defeat becomes
too intense to be related to the failure of any companion efforts
on the part of his fellow men and his soul cries out to the Be-
ing within whose all embracing life these things are included :
Oh remember, my God! that my life my one poor life is
wind; more probably wind blown. Mine eye shall no more see
good. I have no power left to rebuild, I cannot live long
enough for that. The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me
no more. Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be. As
the cloud is consumed so he who has been brought to complete
nakedness Sheol (psyloo} shall come up no more: cannot be
rehabilitated. He cannot get back to his center his house
and his place. Therefore because of this complete frustra-
tion I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish
of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. It
is to the Prophet of that devastated time as though a watch had
been set over him, as if in fear that some new monstrous im-
pulse would proceed from him a sea, or a sea monster. At
every moment the fearful, watchful pressure is with him. The
bed should comfort him; the couch ease his complaint sym-
bols of the beginning and the end of a movement: its period.
That full view should bring relief. But dreams and visions
past reproduced and future foreshadowed are both distress-
ful. The prophetic soul would choose strangling and death
rather than such structural forms bones. It loathes the
thought of a permanent structure. It would not live alway.
Why should it live as permanent form when the very root idea
of Prophecy is that of a force, an up-gushing energy, which
continuously seeks expression in subconscious forms? But
when there is no creation at all, when one's days are vanity,
why should God harass the mind of man? Let me alone.
What is man, anyway, that Thou, Thou, shouldst magnify him?
That Thou shouldst set thy heart upon him? (How deep and
persistent the faith that God needs man as man needs God!)
That Thou shouldst come so near him in the first hours of his
inspired efforts the morning? That Thou shouldst make
every crisis in his life a time of testing the moment? How
long wilt Thou keep Thy gaze bent upon me so that I cannot
feel alone and get some stimulus from my own mind my own

INTERPRETATION 49

thoughts? (The glandular action is referred to in the spittle :
its stimulating effect upon the brain.) Granted that I have
sinned, have gone out of the right way, how has that done
anything to Thee, O Thou Watcher of Men? Why should so
great a power take me as a target for its aim; to show by me
the misdirection of man's best efforts? What can the result
of this be, other than to make man a burden to himself? Thou
art so great, I am so small, why hinge so much upon what I do
making consequences inevitable? Why dost Thou not par-
don my transgression and take away mine iniquity any fail-
ure to deal rightly with inequity? The treatment I receive is
too rigorous. I cannot persist under it. Now shall I lie down
in the dust. Thou shalt seek me diligently. I shall not be.

Chapter 11

JOB VIII

/S IT an historical order of priority that makes Eliphaz
the first respondent to Job, Bildad the second, and Zophar
the third? I am inclined to think so as regards the Hebrew
movement; though the representative of the Wisdom School
would be the oldest in universal history. As connected with
the Zodiacal system, he would appear contemporaneously
with the new attention given to the masses.

We can go back no farther, that I can find, than the Sao-
shants, the first ceremonial leaders whose mission was to save
and to heal sao and iaomai. Possibly there was no organised
nor localised institution. Preceding anything of this kind
would be the appearance of Zarathustra, for it is the Prophet's
work to take actuality being just as it is, learn its inner laws,
the quality of its energy, its creative capacity; to forecast the
inevitable expression and outcome of these things and thus
provide for instruction in the higher law and give to the na-
tion builder a sure foundation for his work. The quest for
wisdom, it would seem, would stand somewhat aside from
the close relations of the other three groups, as a matter of
more individual concern. Wisdom is more or less merged
with the mystical powers, according to the nature of the desire
for enlightenment. It may be very practical and sententious,
as with the spokesmen for the folk, in parts of Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes ; or it may illumine the highest processes of the
spirit. After the Prophetic preparation there naturally would
come the associate Priest; out of the groups which would
form under his tuition would arise the nations. As mind de-
veloped the keener intelligence, so that man became analyti-
cal even toward himself would be formed those psycho-
physiological disciplines of which the body of the zodiacal

And smote Job witk sore Boils
irom tKc sole of Ks foot to the crowa of his neao

INTERPRETATION 51

man is the structure. The basis is earth man, for nothing
greater than the planetary system is its scope. The oldest
zodiacal system seems to be that of the Chinese. That of the
Hindus though, as lunar, may have been earlier. William
Blake says that it was in Egypt that the mystical processes be-
came rationalised. There are many indications that he is cor-
rect. Zophar, of course, would go back in suggestion as far
as the conception itself, even though he is, in the drama, a
representative of the later Wisdom Schools. We shall see,
when his turn comes to speak, what light his words throw upon
the problem.

The themes of Bildad are judgment and justice entirely
appropriate to the man who has in hand the duty of establish-
ing a nation a thing that can be done only by establishing the
sanctity of law. He does not like it that the words of Job's
mouth should be a mighty wind, for winds overthrow things
that have been built up with care and labor, as the fate of
Job's own family has shown. God is the sender of all such
visitations as this of Job unforeseeable by man and shall it
be said that He perverts judgment and justice? Job is
aroused to this fury by the loss of his children, but they have
been delivered by God into the hand of their own transgres-
sion. They have stepped aside from the way of God's law
and the result is inevitable. The calamity however does not
prove that Job himself is lawless, that the Prophet is not a
right and typical expression of human life. If there can be a
return to the idea and the function in the purity of these, surely
there will be another awakening of man's spirit and, even
though it be slight at the beginning, its latter end shall show a
great increase. But the new endeavor must root itself in the
spiritual tradition common to the whole religious world; just
as the movement toward the formation of a people was so
rooted. For this tradition goes back to a great cosmic philos-
ophy, while all that has succeeded it has been but a matter of
time periods, and results in man's earth life have been only
shadows cut out of the sunlight ephemeral things, though in-
struments of man's progress toward enlightenment. The cut-
ting, of course, is done in conformity with law, and for this
reason man must know his lineage and his background. Can

52 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the papyrus grow without the mire in which plant food has
been deposited? Can the flag grow without water? A culture
stream? While yet green and uncut the flag would wither;
it would not have the survival powers of an herb. The sug-
gestion is that anything of a cultural intention which does not
root in a long spiritual tradition will have a shorter term than
an effort to heal the dual cleft, which probably would be more
emotional in its nature. The beginning of every course that is
to be perpetual must be remembrance of that realisation of
God which came so early in universal man's history. Without
this hope will perish, confidence shall fail, any support shall
be as a spider's web. Anything which seems to have been
established shall not stand; man will hold on to it but it will
not endure. Man himself is green only until the full light and
heat of reality beat upon him; his shoots extend only over his
own individual garden a non-continuous art movement like
that of Eden. His roots are not deep in the soil of human life
as this has been augmented throughout the ages, but wrap
themselves round artificial structures or the things of life that
pile up by artificial process as cities and civilisations (Your
cities are heaps; Isaiah). He sees the stones only in their
places; not as material for making the pillar. Just as Laban
chose the heap and Jacob the pillar. The one letting life
govern him, the other bent upon using his intelligence to
direct the issues of life. The former can gain no foothold.
The place in which he stood will remain, but no impression
upon it that he has made. That is all of joy that can be in the
way he has chosen the day's work and no result. Not out
of his achievements but out of the primal earth again shall
others spring. But if the zeal of perfection is present in man's
life and deeds he cannot be separated from the cosmic order.
God will not cast him away. On the contrary, great and in-
extinguishable joy shall be his, while those who have hated the
pursuit of perfection shall be clothed with shame and any
endeavor they have made wiped out.

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recicve Evil

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YA iwinil' 1 * fr VMJ inl*l^l clwit upon llieir K^Js towards Keavea

Yi l"vf Iv .\i*l"l ilif [alienee oUob and Iwvc .een ^he end of the Lord

Chapter 12

JOB IX AND X

C i ^HIS was good, straightforward, idealistic reasoning and
J^ Job begins to answer it in kind. The difference between
the two men is that Job has passionate need of realisation
within himself, while Bildad has found a philosophic state-
ment upon which he can rest his faith and his effort. There-
fore Job passes into passionate remonstrance where Bildad
sustained an argument.

All that Bildad has said about founding the law, which is
to be the basis of judgment, upon that early high consciousness
of God which the ancient men had, is true reasoning but before
such an ideal how can man ever achieve justice in his own life?
There are a thousand questions relating to God's power over
the world of which not more than one could be answered.
Wisdom and might are at the heart of God's governance yet
who, following his own ideal of these, has ever continued for
his belief and prospered? The vast reserves of wrath! what
have they not done? Removed mountains without conscious-
ness of a change which, to man, seems so great; shaken earth
out of her place until her pillars have trembled ; commanded
the sun not to shine; sealed up the stars. It all must refer to
that stupendous change of consciousness which came about as
a result of the Titanic revolt. Then, in a change of mood, God
stretches out the heavens man's ideal world takes on great
proportions; treadeth upon the waves of the sea the impul-
sive life comes under control; law is seen everywhere. As
when the Persian worshipper says, Should the evil thoughts,
words or deeds of the earthly man be a hundred times worse
than they can be they would not rise so high as the good
thoughts of the heavenly Mithra God of relationships.

There is other control; Orion and the Pleiades and the

54 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

chambers of the south are made. Orion, both by etymology
and reference, must refer to the bounds of the physical vision,
the horizon orios presiding over boundaries, Job 38, 31;
Orion and his bands. Horus, not unlike, is Horus of the
Horizon. This latter derivation had been reached on other
grounds. The moment in time must be that of the contraction
of higher man's vision to that solar order which rules the life
of earth man. Still, the longer cycle remained in conscious-
ness. Pleiades is, by some, identified with the constellation in
which the star Sirius stands. This star is the controlling in-
fluence of the greatest of the cycles the Sothic. The births of
Osiris and Isis are identified with it by Pindar a conclusion
anticipated by the present interpreter more than 2,000 years
after Pindar's time, (c/f chapter on Book of the Dead in my
On the Minor Prophecies of William Blake.) The chambers
of the south puzzle the translators but the sun is like a bride-
groom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as a strong
man to run a race. The sun is at the zenith in the south, at
the point of greatest concentration and power. This con-
centrated power is God's. It radiates throughout the world.
Through it He doeth great things past finding out. How per-
sonal Job makes this wondering declaration of Eliphaz: Lo,
He goeth by me and I see Him not. He passeth me and I per-
ceive Him not. If He seizeth upon some particular man or
object, who can hinder Him? Ask, What doest Thou? His
vehemence will not be checked. In former times more pro-
pitious than the present the men who were God's own
assistants in conducting the Hebrew stream stooped under Him.
How should one farther removed from that prime vigor (ebe)
argue any case? Even though Job were in strict conformity
with the Prophetic type, he would not answer as an equal but
would make supplication, knowing that in some sense his own
limited knowledge must be adverse to the omniscience of God.
Even if God had seemed to call him to a session, he would not
believe that his desire to know justice had reached Him, for it
must be God's doing that he has been broken by these on-
slaughts of fortune and his wounds multiplied without dis-
cernible cause. Under such circumstances a man cannot even
take breath, he is so filled with bitterness. Regarded from the

Lo Irt that night be Solitary
>joy

let no joyful voice come. tlurrew

^r-^^ Let the Day perisk wherein I was Born. /tf^T

^H^ ~ /

Aiu! tlicy $at down witk him upon tile ground seven Jays <5cSeYei\

y ftigMs &none spakff .1 worJ unto kirn for tKry ^awtkat his grief

V j ,^>LyL^ WA5 vfrv dt^A^H ^^^^ AV

INTERPRETATION 55

standpoint of strength which is might, this is God's. If judg-
ment is to be given, what particular time of the Prophet's
career would be appointed? For though the principle, the
nature, of the Prophet's mission is righteous, the expression
has not always been so. Job's own mouth would condemn
him. Though essentially he is a perfect part of Being, his
utterances would prove that there has been perversity in his
life. The trouble is that, while assured of this essential perfec-
tion, Job does not know himself (V. 21 / know not myself
Peake), and he despises the imperfections of his life, as every
man does. The being and the life, however, look like one,
and God destroys the two together the perfect and the
wicked. (Job does not know of the restraint which the Lord
had imposed upon Satan.) If a scourge fall upon man with
sudden destruction and this is a test of innocence in the way
that it is met the innocent are not in consequence left in
power; the faces of the judges are covered (the true aspects
of the disaster), and the earth, more than ever, is given into
the hand of the wicked. If this does not come about by God's
ruling, then by whose?

This method of God's dealing with the world is applied to
the current situation. The Prophet's days the periods that
should be given to thoughtful activity rush by, realising no
good. They are like swift runners, swift ships, swooping
eagles. In such rapidity of events no consummations can be
reached. One might forget what the hopes had been, put off
the sad countenance and assume good cheer. But there are
the sorrows. What can these be but results? There was lack
of innocence somewhere in past promptings to action. Con-
demnation must follow. Appraising of values cannot be
evaded. Why then continue to labor, if all results must be in
vain? It is impossible for a man to establish his purity.
When he looks at God he knows that he is not pure. He is not
a man, as I am. There can be no judgment between two so
disparate beings, and no daysman, no umpire, between shar-
ing in the nature of each who could bring about an adjust-
ment. And here we must bear in mind that, fundamentally,
the Prophet was not one who received revelations and achieved
the mystical experience. His chief sensibilities lay in the

56 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

intuitions by which he was enabled to interpret truly the
nature of the living beings of earth, and it was only as re-
ligious feeling deepened and the intellect expanded that he
approached the great visionary the man of intellectual and
spiritual perception, of cosmic consciousness. Job, in spite of
his earnestness and his belief in the true nature of his function,
is conscious of the limitations of these and terrified by the
thought of the unknowable which lies beyond them. If this
fear could be removed, he would meet the higher challenge
for, in himself as a justified being, he is not fearful. As it is,
not inquiry, not a seeking for judgment is possible, but only
complaint; complaint in the bitterness of a defeated soul.
God is arraigned; despising the work of His own hands. He
shines upon the counsel of the wicked. Not limited in out-
look and in time as man is limited ; with an eternity in which
to realise His ends; knowing that the Prophet had no wicked
intention; that His grasp on man's life is secure yet He
searches after sin and inquires after iniquity. Why, O why,
should Omnipotence wish to find a trifle of waywardness in
something which had been a great product of His own hands?
They framed me and fashioned me together and round about.
It was the need of communion between man and God that
inspired the Prophetic mission. It took man as he lived out
his earth life and fashioned him into more spiritual forms, as
the potter fashions the clay. After all the ages through which
this effort has endured, shall evolved man be brought to dust
again? Pouring him out as milk, then compacting him into
form, building the disparate into finer structures knit with
bone and sinews? Life and favor that seemed gifts of God have
been experienced; His visitation has preserved the spirit with
which all the effort was informed. Yet this final frustration
was a part of it all, a part of God's purpose, hidden in His
heart. What difference can it make whether man be righteous
or wicked? He cannot be acquitted of sinfulness ; if righteous,
he must remain so humble that he cannot lift up his head.
For affliction fills one with a sense of ignominy. Contradic-
tions everywhere! Where can a man's thoughts come out?
If he have a moment of exaltation, some power greater than
his own oppresses him he is hunted as a lion; and again, what

INTERPRETATION 57

wonders! God shows Himself as marvellous toward man.
Then, shortly, He renews His witnesses against man and
manifests His indignation. Changes and warfare, changes
and warfare, what else does life yield to a man?

But if this is all and I, Thy most percipient servant, must
encounter it and nothing more, wherefore hast Thou brought
me out of the womb? I need not have come into existence.
Men had lived for long ages without the Prophet. All would
have been including my unconscious self as though I had
not been. And now, it is evident, my remaining days are few.
What is the justification of further persecution? Let me alone
that I may take comfort a little before I go whence I shall not
return; to the land of thick darkness; a land of the shadow of
death ; without any order how I had believed in one! where
the light itself is as darkness!

Chapter 13

JOB XI

ELIPHAZ reacted against the seeming irreverence
of Job and Bildad against his destructive philosophy,
so Zophar is antagonised by the excess of temperamental ex-
pression in Job's words. He does not like the multitude of
uncoordinated words. They should be reproved. And should
a man of lips of the folk-temperament be accredited? Can
he be trusted to define justice? Should men real men
endure such babblings and not make such a superficial mocker
ashamed? For Job says that his doctrine is pure and that he,
himself, is clean in God's eyes. That is, that the acceptance
of Duality upon which Prophetism is based is a true philoso-
phy and its teaching a pure activity. But if the Divine emo-
tions could be known, if God would open His lips against
Job's lips and would show the great secrets of Wisdom, then
Job would know that it is twofold, but lies within a single
creative aim. For manifold in V. 6 is twofold in the original
and the meaning of the word tushayyah is unknown. It may
be accepted as a significant word close to its radicals in mean-
ing and, as such, would divide into toxeu and ia, using the bow
and the healing motive. The secret of Wisdom is to turn the
twofold to the aim of healing. But God hath caused this to be
forgotten by Job and his philosophy remains one of inequity.
This is a passage which well illustrates the necessity upon the
interpreter of keeping in mind the psychology peculiar to each
type and the philosophy which underlies the expression of
each. For more closely than any modern argument is knit do
all the elements which enter into an ancient writing interlock
and their meanings permeate every part of the medium of
expression. It is, in consequence, more dangerous to accept a
plausible interpretation of a given word or phrase than to ad-

INTERPRETATION 59

just either to those parts which suggest the appropriate psy-
chology in such a way as to bear this out.

Job, having this defective form of Dualism this inequity
how can he find out the deep things of God? How can he
reach, in imagination, the perfection of the Almighty? This
is as high as heaven. What can this mere earth worm do with
it? It is deeper than Sheol the ultimate elemental. How
may a Dualist know that? The measure of it is longer than
the earth and broader than the sea man's scope. But if while
God, in passing these bounds, keeps men shut within them,
calling meanwhile for an assembling of the two realms, who
can hinder Him? He keepeth men shut up because by nature
they are vain ; they would proceed to nothing and produce
nothing. Also He sees inequity and has regard for the bear-
ings of that upon the problems of man and God of wisdom.
But vain man is void of understanding upon this matter. He
is born as an ass's colt. The progeny of man after he has be-
come a seeker his son is an advance structure, a new ap-
proach to superman. The quest of the father is just that home
of the son which is wisdom uis and dome. But until the
evolutionary training has been directly taken up the son is
born as an ass's colt is born, a mere reproduction of its parent.
Zophar however is not behind his companions in holding out
encouragement to Job that he may become acceptable to God
if he can, or will, give up this inequity. Need must be in him
and functioning must be on right lines. Then the aspect of his
case will not show any marks of deterioration, and Prophetism
shall become an established thing, beyond fear of destruction.
Life shall be a clearer problem than the noonday and, if there
seem at times to be obscurity, this will be only a new meaning.
There will be a feeling of security because there will be hope.
General confidence in all that Job stands for will be estab-
lished. But those who fail to make such a change the wicked
shall have no way to flee and their only hope can be ex-
tinction.

Chapter 14
JOB XII-XIV

/OB has answered Eliphaz with a grieved resentment
and Bildad in the spirit of reasonableness willing to
argue the point that the latter makes. Zophar, the great ex-
ponent of the Wisdom School, he meets with sarcasm. Trans-
lators are disposed to alter the first lines: no doubt ye are the
people and wisdom shall die with you. Consistency requires
that they stand. For a people, originally, was not a nation.
It was a group drawn together by a common belief and a
common purpose. The word may be derived from papalon
pallo with the idea of quivering. All quiver under the same
emotion ; a reed shaken by the wind of one great feeling.
Kanna a reed is a common symbol for a people. But the
word here is amm sand; as Abraham's progeny shall be like
the sand of the seashore. The reference seems to be to mould-
ing by the great elemental impulse, rather than by psychic
influences, as art, social ideals, etc. Abram is the first of the
patriarchs. In him all the nations of the earth are to be
blessed; the relationships which nature establishes are to be
used as the foundation wall of the great international body
which the Hebrew undertakes to build up. But the natural
will not be left to its own development. It will be subjected
to a severe discipline, for the idea of selecting, of choosing, is
evolution, and the Son must be more firmly established in the
laws of God than the father before him. This is advance
along the Way. The discipline is not that of the Wisdom
School. This leadership movement must have replaced the
folk mystery schools. Zophar stands for the leaders who
brought the people to the level of intelligence which justified
the freer disciplines under the Priest, therefore for the last

INTERPRETATION 61

word in wisdom. Moreover the framework of this system
was the body ideally the zodiacal man and the prime ob-
ject, to reconcile its dual expressions, to marry impulse to
intelligence. It was a discipline for the individual, at this
stage, rather than for the group or the people. Zophar has
charged that Job, in his insistence upon the innocence of the
dual nature, has overlooked the necessity of bringing about a
union. He stands for inequity as the basis of that temperamen-
tal life of which he thinks so highly.

Job meets the charge on a deeper level than the one upon
which it was made. He not only knows well such things as
Zophar has thought he was elucidating for him but he has seen
that design which means the victory of unity over disparate
impulses even in the lower forms of life. (Verses 4-6 must be
eliminated. I had done this before finding that the translators
are willing.) Job says, you have been talking about that unity
which God expects, but see what the Lord achieves in the
beasts, the fowls, the fishes, the very earth itself. It is just
because I find design even there, an inner divine plastic power
at work to shape energy into form, that I am a Prophet. Why!
this Lord; in His hand is the soul of every living thing and
the breath of all mankind. It is the first use of the word since
the Lord put Job in Satan's hands and does not appear again
until the end of the narrative. Consonantly with his function,
each of the Friends is interested primarily with the Cosmic
Omnipotence and Omniscience, and it is this before which Job
wishes to bring his own case for judgment.

V. 11. Although God is not mentioned at the beginning
of the passage which starts with this verse, the transition from
the one which precedes it is marked, and the thought works
out logically to the overruling power which controls the
greater combinations and controls the destinies of man. The
Lord-God is much the same as Ahura-Mazda, only with the
names reversed. Statements which are too general, too philo-
sophic, like Zophar's, miss the fine distinctions which the
knower would have. The ear must try words even as the
palate tastes its meat. (V. 12 would be more suitable in
Bildad's speech. It is out of place here.) After asking for
the fine distinction between the indwelling and the overruling,

62 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the overpowering divinities, Job goes on to show his knowl-
edge of God's workings, as he had shown his understanding
of those of the Lord. He controls life in its great surges and in
its periods. His is the strength and the objective (effectual
working is the same word which we have translated as the di-
rection given to the bow) ; all men are caught in the great cycles,
no matter whether their aims be consonant with those of God or
not; the deceived (not cognisant) and the deceiver are His.
What man intends, the larger purpose usually reverses. Wise
judges are proved by the issues to have been fools. Kings have
bound their subjects and find themselves encircled with re-
straints upon their power. Priests have led, and are led away
discredited by the results of their teaching. Men are wise
by reason of age and it turns out that they have had no real
understanding. Deep things come up out of what has been
hidden and are as the shadow of death upon the superficial
structures which have ignored them, bringing the poverty of
these into the light. The sweep becomes greater: He in-
creaseth the nations, then destroys them; spreads them abroad
and brings them in. More terribly yet: He taketh away the
heart of the chiefs of the people of the earth and causeth them
to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope
in the dark without light and stagger like a drunken man.
Well may Job declare that he has seen all this, for he was
painting a picture of his own time ; of that cataclysm in the
civilised world in which all the values which man had found in
life appear to have been lost or destroyed. A time strikingly
like our own. The tragedy of Job was that the cohesive
principle had been lost. Why should a form continue to exist
when the inner vitality is gone? Seeing all this both great
and small, both good and evil accepting no fictitious systems
such as the Friends, forgers of lies, have built up, Job desires
to reason out the situation with God. He wants the Friends to
give close attention to this and to his pleading; for in his heart
Job knows that it is into this that his reasoning will break
down. Nevertheless, he is not before God in the position of
the Friends, who speak deceitfully in God's name, contending
for His virtue, as they conceive it, with lies. Would they like
really to be searched out? The very God whom they are up-

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INTERPRETATION 63

holding will reprove them and His excellency over their
paltry view of Him when declared, will make them afraid.
What devastation of the sacred things! Your memorable say-
ings are proverbs of ashes; your defences, defences of clay.
Keep quiet about the outworn, worthless things and let me
speak, come on me what will. You wonder why I am willing
to take my flesh in my teeth and my life in my hand. Because,
such is my fundamental trust that, though He slay me now, I
am willing to wait for Him. None the less I shall not be
moved from that faith which is the law of my being. I will
maintain my ways before Him. But this very steadfastness
will be my salvation, for a godless man one who felt the life
principle in himself as other than divine could not come
before Him. So now, at last, I have ordered my cause. My
confidence is complete. I know that I am righteous. The
confidence becomes almost belligerent: Who is he that will
contend with me? For after my demonstration I shall be
willing to hold my peace and give up the ghost.

At this point Job answers his own question and knows that
it will be God who will contend with him that very God of
whom he has just asserted that in the sweep of His vast knowl-
edge and power it is inevitable that man's systems shall break
down, their wise conclusions turn out to be folly and Job sees
that he himself cannot escape inclusion in this devastating
search of the spirit for the enduring values: the primordial
laws. He must be rid of the terror of such penetration or he
cannot really go to that judgment for which he has been clam-
oring. If he may throw off this Then call Thou and I will
answer, or let me speak and answer Thou me. The "haughti-
ness before man" gives way to "humility before God." There
were iniquities in the time of youth ; what have been the real
transgressions? Make them known to me. Why hide Thy
face? Why pursue dry stubble and write bitter things about
me? Though I am like a rotten, moth-eaten garment, I am
circumscribed as though I still had great and dangerous power.
Should God not know how ephemeral a life like mine must
be in the very nature of things? I, the Prophet, am not the
child of cosmic vision, of archetypal values, of illuminated
perceptions. My birth was in an emotional urge. The great

64 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

mother heart spoke and desired to embrace all mankind in her
love and aspiration. That is beautiful in itself but the en-
during life is not in it; for the essential enduring principle is
mind. Pity, insight, are beautiful origins but, at the end, to
what must desire turn? Sight, riches, healing of the mind!
Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.
He cometh forth like a flower but is cut down. He fleeth also
as a shadow, continuing not. Dost Thou open Thine eyes upon
such an one? Dost Thou bring me into judgment with Thee?
This is the Job who had been begging that God would call him
to a hearing. (Omit Verses 4 & 5. ) Here is the man for whom
I stand. I have portrayed him. Look away from him that he
may rest, till he shall accomplish merely as a hireling his
day. If a tree be cut down, some tender branch of it may hold
the germ of a new life while the old root and stock die out.
The scent of water a quickened impulse in something new
and fluent will make it bud. But man moveth away and
where is he? What is left of his functioning here on earth?
He decays and dries up like the rivers. He lies down, not to
be awakened till the heavens be no more. Yet he might go
down to Sheol to sheer nakedness of his vital principle if
he might have a cycle of his own. If a set time could be ap-
pointed to him and this be remembered, one with such a mis-
sion as the Prophet's would wait all the days of his warfare
for his release. For a revival, a new birth, after the burden
had been borne long enough, would be in sight. What re-
sponse there would be to a new demand upon the powers of an
idealist! Thou shouldst call and I would answer Thee. Thou
wouldst have a desire to what had been the work of Thy hands
unwilling to see Thy own child extinguished. But no man
can see his own cycle. This Thou dost not permit. The
inability is like a numbering of my steps ; a watching over my
sin; like sealing up my errors so that their true nature cannot
be revealed. The only cycle that man may see is that the
mountain falls to nothing, that the firmly planted rock has no
true tenure, that the waters wear away earth and even stones,
that man's hopes are never realised. The aspect of things
changes, that is all. Thou sendest him away fain to be content
with a slight change of view. But how limited this is! He

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INTERPRETATION 65

cannot even look into the next generation. His sons attain
honor or much degradation, and he knows nothing of either.
Oh, the weariness, the vacuity of this pent up, visionless life!
Man's flesh upon him has pain and his soul within him mourns.

Chapter 15

JOB XV

j"DACH of the three friends of Job has two more speeches
(^ but there is nothing in them which has the significance of
the first utterances. These bring out most clearly the respec-
tive types. After Job's angry reactions and charges of in-
sincerity the responses are largely in the nature of reprisals.
Each Friend speaks from his own point of view, but there is
one principle upon which they are united and to which Job
stands in opposition. This lies within the philosophy of
Dualism. Duality is not denied by any of the four teachers.
Division is upon its nature and the means of overcoming it.
To the Friends it is a parallel course the lines of which may be
made to converge into a unity by reverent worship of the one
God, by training of the will, by knowledge, or by Wisdom.
Conceived as a struggle within man and nature which may be
resolved through spontaneous creative activities, it is to the
Friends an evil, an inequity. Job, they say, justifies this condi-
tion. It is to him "the Lord Himself taking form." Duality
is an innocent condition, the struggle, essentially the need and
the desire of harmony, of unity. If the Friends had had to
admit the necessity of struggle they would have been able to
see only the hostile opposites of the Hindus after Indra and
the decadent Persians. It is significant that this degenerate
form of Dualism does not crop out along any of these philo-
sophic lines and argues much for the Hebraic origin of the
Book of Job. But so wide is the cleft between the two sides
Job and the Friends so far have the latter retreated into the
world of abstractions, that neither the acuteness of Job's dis-
tress nor the depth of his sincerity can penetrate the hostility
which his persistence in his own faith has aroused. Eliphaz
can find nothing but folly and futility in his words and accuses

INTERPRETATION 67

him of restricting devotion to God by refusing the attitude of
unquestioning humility, of fear. It is that wretched inequity
which directs his words and which, because struggle is in-
volved in it, becomes a matter of craft. The wished-for
dominance can be won by shrewdness as well as by violence;
neither of which methods would Job himself condone. But
the Friends fix them upon him, while Eliphaz is declaring
that Job's own mouth condemns him. He then reminds Job
how much more recent his faith is than that of the other three,
although he really talks as though he were the first of all con-
ceptions the first man born and one brought forth before
there had been any great upwelling of the emotional nature.
It is as though Job thought there was some secret way of learn-
ing God's counsel his methods of dealing with man. The
Friends would resent that presumption. In their line are the
gray headed and the aged men, much older than Job's father.
Gray, I believe, must be derived from graio, old ; and the term
is used in classical Greek literature to point to the ancients and
the ancient tradition. Aged means, in symbolic literature, hav-
ing run through the ages. The ancient men then, and the ones
continuous through history, antedate Job's father. But if the
Hebrew genealogies are followed back to the source of each
they have a common beginning. Also we have found in other
passages that the Prophetic function coincides with the very
beginning of the social task which the higher men undertook.
The meaning, unquestionably, is that their religion, which
centers in God, is earlier than that of the Father-concept, as
descriptive of the divine relation to man. God said to Moses
that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob under the
name of God Almighty, but by the name of Jehovah He was
not known to them. Yet all through the patriarchal narrative
the name occurs. It is a later perception applied to a move-
ment, or a stimulation of perception active at the beginning but
not understood until a true leader of the people as such arose.
And it is doubtful, so far as I can find, whether the thought of
the Lord as a divine Father is earlier than the Hebrew proph-
ets. The father is so prominent as the social, racial, and
religious source of all good that can come to the generations
of men that he almost amounts to an earthly divinity. Job,

68 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

as representative of the Prophet, according to the Friends, is
responsible for this compromise measure. Why? were the
consolations of God too small for him (the note is sarcastic),
and the word that gave gentle judgment not sufficiently warm?
The emotional nature has run riot and Job's eyes have blinked
the truth or he would not so have turned his spirit against God.
Then, reiteration of man's humbleness, of the reward that
comes to them that acknowledge this extreme dependence and
of the penalties that are visited upon pride. (Verses 31 and
32 should be left out.)

Chapter 16

JOB XVI AND XVII

/OB is continually brought down by the obtuseness and
the superficiality of the Friends from the exalted ex-
pression called out of tragic depths of misery and bewilder-
ment to irritable rejoinders. What provokes these men that
they argue with him in so resentful a spirit and offer so many
platitudes to his misery and his desperate need? If lots were
exchanged he could speak as they are speaking, assuming the
same dubious manner. But he would not; his lips would as-
suage their grief. Speaking however does not assuage his
own grief ; on the other hand, if he forbears, what misery goes
from him? All is hostility in the universe. Every force is
arrayed against him and, in the desperation of mood which
such a belief engenders, Job sees God, the Friends, society as
a whole, in a general antagonism toward himself and all that he
has stood for. God has made him weary and turned to deso-
lation all that had companioned him. The laying fast hold
upon him and the leanness the poverty of feeling and under-
standing that he encounters are witness and testimony of
this desolation. Chapter XVII, 6, 7, comes in here appro-
priately. He hath made me also a byword of the people and
I am become an open abhorring. His eye is dim by reason of
sorrow and all his members are as a shadow. A direct attack
by God is then furiously conceived. He has torn and perse-
cuted him, gnashed upon him with His teeth, sharpened His
eyes upon him. Job's thought then turns to the scornful at-
titudes which he has met. (XVII, 12 should be found here.)
Surely there are mockers with me and mine eye abideth in
their provocation. They have gaped upon the sunken man,
smitten him themselves, gathered themselves together against
him. XVII, 10 should follow: But return ye, all of you and

70 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

come now. I shall not find a wise man among you. God de-
livereth me to the ungodly. He casts His victim into the
hands of the wicked. Job was at ease and He broke him
asunder; took him by the neck and dashed him to pieces; set
him up as a mark; compassed him around with His archers.
One indignity after another is visited upon him until on his
eyelids falls the shadow of death. And this, though there
was no violence in Job's hands and his prayer was pure. Earth
must not cover his blood until there has been judgment. His
cry of remonstrance must have a place in the universe.
(Verses 20 & 21 suit best here.) Job's friends scorn him but
his eye pours out tears to God that He would maintain that
relation between a man and God and that between man and
man which is a true and right one. Job trusts that this sup-
port will be given. Even now (V. 19) his witness is in heaven,
He that vouches for him is on high. (XVII, 3-5.) Give him
a pledge, Job begs : Be surety for me with Thyself. Who else
is there to strike hands with him? God has hid the heart of
men from understanding so that He cannot exalt them to the
seat of judgment. If a man denounces his friends in a violent,
rapacious spirit, even the eyes of his children shall fail to find
truth (XVII, 1 ) . But now Job's spirit is consumed. He feels
that the grave is ready for him (XVI, 22) and that when only
a few years are come he shall go the way whence he shall not
return. His days are past (XVII, 11), his purposes broken
off. The thoughts of his heart are so broken that they change
the night into day and cause light to approach darkness. But
in this sheer nakedness of human being when the cycle
(couch] moves in complete obscurity of its significance; when
corruption is source and elemental recurrence the only emo-
tional urge where is hope? Who shall find hope under such
conditions of life as these? It consists only in the stark naked-
ness of Sheol and of rest in the dust.

Chapter 17

JOB XVIII

is willing to accept Job's account of the state to
which he is tending and add to it all that can possibly go
with it. He does not enjoy Job's imagery, feeling that it refers
too directly to the three Friends. They will speak to him after
he has decided to use words more devoid of slurs. How does
he dare suggest that his companions are unclean beasts? In
his wrath he is tearing himself apart and thinking that the
earth can be correspondingly torn. Can this be done for him?
What presumption! But what Job has said about his decline
and descent into darkness is true enough, for such is the fate
of the wicked. His own counsel so mistaken shall cast him
down. The net, the gin, the noose and the trap all of his own
forging are ready for him. Calamity and death shall devour
his members. Has he trusted in his tent? He shall be routed
out and brought before the King of Terrors. Nothing at all
shall be left of him even in succession. He is to be chased
out of the world. Bildad cannot stop at Sheol. Nothing less
than complete annihilation will do for him. He has become
slightly bitter, this argumentative man. But he is quite sure
that he is speaking for God and describing the dwellings en-
tirely adapted to the unrighteous. Also, as a nation builder,
intent upon the continuance of good families, he is quite within
his province in promising that a man like Job shall have
neither son nor son's son among his people.

Chapter 18

JOB XIX

/T WOULD seem as though some sense of kinship with
Bildad closer than any link with the other two Friends
moderated Job's words when he replies to this speaker. No
one has been so insultingly disdainful as Bildad, yet the wish
to argue questions out with him tempers Job's anger at such
treatment. This is another suggestion regarding the author-
ship of the book.

Job complains that he has been reproached ten times.
We must in all references to numbers recall the Zodiacal plan.
Ten and its multiples refer to mental processes, or the simple
number may indicate the signs through which a process under
consideration has passed. The latter interpretation applies
here. The consciousness and the influence of the Prophet as
originally conceived do not rise to the realms of intellect and
of vision. Of the Word intellect's supreme creation he
could not have full comprehension. This is in Taurus the
neck. The visions of the Seer the man of illuminated per-
ception also lie beyond his powers. This is in Aries. The
ten stages precessional order end in Gemini, sign of arts
and crafts, social consciousness, burden bearing, etc. The
higher type of Hebrew prophet passes the border line but Job
is talking now with reference to his origin and the funda-
mental value of the Prophet's function which was to be in
temperamental unison with the folk soul, but sufficiently ad-
vanced above its level to lead instinct on to intuitive under-
standing and those creative desires which arouse the powers
of mind. The individual brought thus far through group
inspiration is then on the way to become master of himself.
He will soon speak out of self consciousness. As an artist, the
lyre will for him replace the flute. Bildad, therefore, has

INTERPRETATION 73

reproached Job for complete failure as an inspirer of the folk
soul. But if he is right in so doing, Job contends, this error
remains with himself ; the other leaders, having different of-
fices, need not be infected by his disease. And, if they wish
to magnify their own rectitude in comparison with his devia-
tions, let them know that it is even their own God who /has
subverted that first prophetic conception and caught the
processes assigned to it in His net. For it was at first the
Lord the power within the phenomenal world to which the
Prophet bowed. Then, as the level of his effort rose with his
success in lifting the people, his mind and soul reached out to
Almighty God, omnipotent and omniscient. Here was a clash
of two forms of consciousness. They must and may be recon-
ciled, but Job has not yet achieved reconciliation. It is vio-
lence at this stage. He cries this out and wants judgment
some decision regarding his true status and his future but he
cannot pass the fence that stands between the two states and
the two fields ; the paths of procedure are dark. The
former glory is departed the ability to create a glow of feel-
ing and the crown of a definite personality has been taken
away. The whole structure has fallen to pieces; hope of any
future development has been pulled like a tree out of the
ground. The whole trend of the new impulses is now against
the formerly revered Prophet. He is adverse to the new spirit.
All the tendencies come together against him in a united force
and shut him within the bounds of his own peculiar experi-
ment. He cannot join his force with operative forces. His
former brethren in the movement are far from it now; those
who have known and accepted it are estranged. What was
akin has forgotten the tie. Even to those within the movement,
especially the new virgin impulses, the leader is virtually a
stranger: an alien with reference to the different viewpoints
that the inmates have. Even the temperamental affinities have
been disowned; the servant (instinct) does not respond to the
master's call, even though it be made emotionally with my
mouth. The emotions and the psychic nature have become
disparate. Job's breath is strange to his wife. Even the off-
spring of his early and essential desire seem to turn this into
something that smells of decay. Even the most undeveloped

74 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

of the new wishes that are now stirring are antagonistic to the
old urges. The bonds that have been most spiritual most
of the inward nature of the Prophet now are the very things
which seem most to impede any further progress. In short,
t^ere is no flesh left; all that softened, filled out the basic struc-
ture, giving it outlines of softness, beauty and appeal, is gone.
The bone now cleaves to the skin and the exponent of that
structural basic prophetic idea escapes with only a phraseology
which has grown out of its movement the skin of the teeth.
Desolation! Complete desolation! Have pity on me, O ye,
my friends, for it is the hand of your own God that hath
touched me. But why should you my co-workers to whom
my office has been a fundamental activity persecute me now
from the standpoint of that supreme ideal as God? Why
can you not be satisfied that all which expressed the more
limited consciousness is now non-existent as a set of values?
Though I myself do not admit that these are of a perishable
nature. They have become a current phraseology and, even
as such, will remain an influence in human affairs, but I would
that they were in some fixed and enduring form; that they
were inscribed in a book; had become a classic literary achieve-
ment. (Is the Book of Job a result of this wish?) The iron
pen and the engraving in the rock suggest the monumental
inscriptions in reality older than any book that has come
down to us. But the language is, of course, metaphorical; its
meaning, that Job would wish to see his work consummated
in some specific, imperishable forms. That it should have
established the truth of certain types.

Yet, after all, this is a matter that need give man no con-
cern, for it is taken care of by the very constitution of the uni-
verse. Time itself is only an illusion and when the last day
shall have disappeared, the basic realities which redeem all
effort to reach them shall stand up to the view of all. The
outer skin that covered the real being will crumble away, but
in the strength of that emotional content which a passionate
desire for truth and perfection have added to life, out of this
flesh shall the searcher and the striver behold God the power
which shapes from within and rules from above the entire
universe. And this vision shall be given to the eye cleared by

INTERPRETATION 7S

individual longing and striving; not to what has been received
and facilely accepted, not even to that part of a man which
is an endowment by inheritance. All that has been consumed
by the flame of self-consciousness and of a fully realised de-
sire for knowledge of God and union with Him. The reins
are the kidneys and, as I have explained in my study of the
Zodiacal man, were looked upon as the depositories of all the
inherited powers.

To this future Job, knowing in his heart that ultimately
he will have power to rise to the higher level of prophetic
understanding, can look forward with assurance. But if his
associates wish to persecute him in this transition time saying
that the root of the existing trouble must be found in his
failure let them look out for that same devastating sword
that has been cutting between body and spirit in his case; that
superhuman intelligence which seems to emerge out of great
cataclysmic events, laying upon those that have consciousness
the imperative of the most incisive and clear-cut decisions in
all matters of vital concern. When this testing comes to the
religious institution, the state, higher learning the repre-
sentatives of these also will know that there is a judgment.
Clear away all that has not been written in a book or inscribed
on rock with an iron pen; psychologically, all that has not
sunk into the subconscious of man or been won by heroism.

Chapter 19
JOB xx

T'OPHAR, of the Wisdom Class, has not paid much atten-
Xj tion to this eloquence. He was in too much of a hurry
to take it in that it would move men for millennia to come. He
has to tell the answers that his own thoughts give to that slight-
ing reference to his wisdom which Job made just before Bil-
dad spoke the last time: that reproof that put him to shame.
He knows better than to believe that not a wise man is among
Job's audience. The spirit of his understanding allayed any
fears he might momentarily feel that Job was right. Here
now is the true case. Let us put it forth as philosophically and
transcendentally as possible. It is a case of Monism against
Dualism. What difference can Job's inward assurances make?
What does his passionate need amount to? The issue is clear
cut, not between man and God, but between one way or an-
other way of running the universe. God is one; therefore
nothing can represent Him; nothing can be innocent; nothing
holy (have within itself the germ of wholeness) until unity
has been achieved. All below this stage is negligible as a
value; transitory; fallen. Job stands for essential innocence
in the component parts of being; for the permanence of their
level as a phase in the evolutionary movement; for the po-
tencies which lie in forms that emerge out of the struggle
toward unity. As exponent of all this foolishness, this falsity,
this anti-God conception of life, he can expect nothing but all
kinds of devastating experience. So Zophar piles it up then
and there before Job's eyes. It's easy for him to do so because
he knows what has been going on ever since man was placed
on the earth. The wicked may appear to triumph but how
short that triumphing isl Wicked, I am convinced, must be
derived from the same roots that give swine, constant symbol

INTERPRETATION 77

of the dual: us swine; uikos like swine. The connection
will be seen to be very direct. In castigating the wicked, there-
fore, Zophar is scourging the adherents of the Dual view of
life in its earth phase. Seed time and harvest; heat and cold ;
summer and winter shall endure while the earth lasts. But
Zophar thinks poorly of earth.

There is some evidence, to be sure, for the validity of the
Dualist's faith. Sometimes his excellency mounts up to the
heavens and his head reaches into the clouds. But just watch
out; eventually he is going to perish like his own dung. He
is to be chased away as a vision of the night. His place never-
more shall behold him. His children shall become poorer
than the poor. He will continue to insist that his belief is a
structural principle the bones of his youth but that belief
will go with himself to the dust. He will hold to this faith
of his as a relish to life, but it will turn to gall within him and
what he thinks he has swallowed of richness he will have to
vomit up. God will not stand for such things. It is He who
will turn the unnourished belly upside down. (Verse 16 is
evidently an interpolation or a gloss.) There will be no stream
of continuity nor accretion of any kind; no augmentation of
mental and spiritual wealth. That which was labored for
shall be restored to its first principles. The wicked may not
rejoice in any additions to those things that he has conceived.
For, in this struggle that the dual creed involves, in the self-
confidence which it implies, he has borne too heavily upon
those who have that true attitude of humility the poor and
forsaken their cause. In doing this he has violently taken
away a house a shelter in the universe because a stable prin-
ciple which he did not build himself, as he has built his own
philosophy. But as this leaves a man with no quietness within
him, but forces him everlastingly to go on with the struggle,
nothing can be saved made permanent that would cause de-
light. Everything is devoured as soon as formed. Conse-
quently any seeming prosperity will not be able to endure. In
a full sufficiency where no cause for struggle, for satisfaction
of that urge to excel seems to exist he is in desperate mental
straits. Every power of misery comes upon him (Peake) . In
this very filling of his belly God casts the fierceness of wrath

78 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

upon him (his own suppressed wrath) . And this he shall have
in excess in a full cyclic measure (rain). Finally he shall
become afraid of this iron weapon which he has been wield-
ing (iron is the metal of the Dual) and he shall be struck
through by that very aim which he took in trying to refine
upon the harsh iron method of cleavage: the art-train-
ing, etc. Everything he has done has engendered bitterness
gall; stirred up the spirit of rivalry and finally brought the
terrors of rivalry. All that has been treasured under the
wicked system will fail to throw light upon what is ahead ; the
elemental fire shall consume anything of his life experiment
or testing (the tent) that may be left. Everything of
heavenly origin of man's ideal world shall reveal what the
true nature of Duality is an inequity; the earth itself shall
deny that this principle is her life. All apparent increase shall
be as things washed away. This is the portion of a wicked man
from God and the heritage appointed unto him by God. This
time Zophar does not offer Job a return to righteousness or a
means of escape. He has gone too far. His doom is sealed.

Chapter 20

JOB XXI

/OB has paid little more attention to Zophar's speech than
Zophar paid to his. He simply has caught the theme
that the wicked have had, have, can, and shall have no place on
this earth and it reminds him of a problem that always has
vexed him. The simple fact is that the wicked have a place on
the earth, that they do flourish and that there is nothing dis-
tinguishable in the way God treats them in their outward lives
from the way He treats the righteous. Job does not argue the
point with Zophar; he simply pours out the questionings of
his own soul. His companions might console him by listening
diligently to what thoughts he would like to utter and after
that, if they are not impressed by the sincerity of these thoughts,
they may mock him. But in one point he is unlike the Friends.
They have complained of him a man. His complaint is
against something more incomprehensible, more elusive than
his fellow creatures. What is this law of the universe that
seems to run so counter to his own sense of justice? It arouses
in him a vast impatience. It may well excite in the Friends
the same horror that he feels. Even when he remembers
when actual evidence is not before him horror takes hold of
his flesh. The wicked? Zophar has named him in this class.
He does not belong there. He does not stand for emulation,
rivalries, craft, violence, all the jealousies that grow out of
their methods. He has tried to make man creative, that he
may come to an understanding of a Lord who is creative; that
he may follow a divine law in his own members. To this the
wicked are diametrically opposed. If he is right, wherefore
then do the wicked live? Yea, become old and wax mighty
in power? Such power that they establish their offspring and
their house the basic principles upon which they work. No

8o THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

measurement which one would deem to be of God the rod
is seen upon them. Generation goes steadily on the bull, the
cow, the little ones. Joy comes with the irresponsible life
the dance, the timbrel, the harp, the pipe; general prosperity.
Without yielding anything of value they go in a moment down
to Sheol. Futility and waywardness rewarded on the earth,
and their end the same as the righteous man's. For they had
utterly spurned God, asking what profit there would be in
praying to the Almighty. He had nothing to give, so far as
life gave any evidence, that they could want. Was not their
prosperity then in their own hand? (Omit second line of
V. 16.) How often, indeed, is it that the lamp of the wicked
is put out? That God distributes to them sorrows in anger?
That they are declared in their lightness as stubble before the
wind, as chaff that the storm carries away? Let the wicked
not lay up inequity by which his children will suffer as you
say that he does; let him have that recompense in his own
experience. He should see his own destruction and himself
drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what interest has he
in his house after his departure if it is not affected by the cut-
ting off of his own months in the midst? The actual conse-
quences must be his to experience. God judges regarding the
high things. Does He need to be taught regarding these
mundane matters? One would believe so from the confusion
that reigns. One lives opulently and dies at ease. Another
never tastes of good and dies in bitterness of soul. They lie
down alike in the dust and the worm covers them both. You,
my friends, are ready to controvert this. You have at hand
devices that you imagine will quiet me. But you are wrong
about that. You are going to imply that I have not followed
the way long enough to know what the actual outcomes have
been. "The prince and the tent stand for long sequences, but
these you have not interrogated," you are going to say. You
would tell me that I do not know these tokens and that, in con-
sequence, I am blind to the fact that the evil man ultimately
meets calamity and is led on to the day of wrath. Perhaps
this is the ultimate doom at the end of a long line. But I am
talking about the individual experiencing man a counter-
part to myself. Who shall declare this far off extinction to

INTERPRETATION 81

his face? Who shall repay him what he hath done? He shall
be borne to the grave; the clods of the valley shall be sweet
unto him and all men shall draw after him as there were in-
numerable before him. That is the only line that involves him.
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there
remains only falsehood you who will wholly close your eyes
to actuality?

Chapter 21

JOB XXII

C7 1ERY evident confusion of the text begins in this chap-
^/ter, but it is due to additions rather than omissions, so
that the line of argument once discovered it is comparatively
easy to follow it. Eliphaz, less egotistical than Zophar, and
not so quick to take offence on personal grounds as Bildad,
this time listens more closely to Job's lines of inquiry than
the others do and recognises them, as they do not, as searchings
of the heart. The Priest comes nearer to the individual and
his troubles than does the lawmaker or the philosopher. He
probes Job's resentment, therefore, at the undistinguishing
treatment which the wicked and the righteous receive, by ask-
ing whether any man even the best among men can be
profitable to God? But a wise man is profitable to himself and
this is sufficient reason for seeking wisdom. But Job surely
cannot think that his righteousness gives pleasure to the Al-
mighty or that his perfect way is any gain to Him. (Poor
Job had thought so.) Does God reprove men from fear of
them, or enter into judgment with them from this considera-
tion? Job's wickedness in believing in a dependence of God
upon man has been great and a contributing cause to his great
inequity. It has made him give pledges to his brother-in-need
which he could not fulfill and has stripped those who had no
philosophy of life at all of the warmth that life itself gave
them. No water has been his to give to the weary to drink
and he has been forced to withhold bread from the hungry.
(Omit V. 8.) Widows have been sent away empty (souls that
have lost a faith) and the efforts of those who have lost an
imaginary father, in whom they had been taught to believe,
have been rendered useless. No wonder then, in the face of

all this failure to realise anything actual from your creed, that

INTERPRETATION 83

you find yourself in the midst of snares and troubled by fears
and darkness ; that you cannot see where you stand and that
you are submerged in the tides of events. Forget about that
immanent God. Is not God in the height of heaven? And
see by the stars how very high that is. You have been asking
whether God can know about these inequalities on earth and
whether He can judge through the thick darkness that en-
velops man's life. Know that thick clouds are a chosen cover-
ing for Him, in order that He may not see. He walketh in the
circuit of heaven ; earth is not in that circuit. Mark, Job, that
old way which wicked men have trodden, men who did not
last long because their foundation was poured out as a stream.
Seeing how ephemeral all that has been you will come back to
the cosmic ideals. The reference here, quite plainly, seems
to be to the cultural streams which leaders found and worked
upon in the religious training of the folk. The original con-
cept was Rhea, wife of Kronos standing for that continuous
emotional and imaginative flow through men's lives which
carries culture to the ages and takes no cues from the periods
which political, social, and natural events create. The radical
is reo and it is a frequent part of many significant symbols.
But to Eliphaz, lover of the comprehensive and the secure,
those streams were naught but unreliable phenomena. Omit-
ting verse 21, he calls Job to acquaint himself with this High
God this cosmic intelligence so that God at last may come
to him. He begs Job to receive the law from this source in-
stead of hunting for it in things of the earthly life, lay up
God's words in his heart. By such a return he shall be built
up and he will put away non-righteous methods from his tent
his earthly experiment. The exhortation to return is clear
proof that the Prophetism for which Job stands is not that
original impulse to understand and interpret all life which
must be identified with Zarathustra. That was more closely
associated with the higher class, while in Job's time it has be-
come representative of the masses. But if Job will return to
the Almighty he will find delight in Him. (Omit verses 24
and 25.) He shall lift up his face unto God and see life under
a different aspect. His prayers shall be heard and his vows ac-
cepted. He will then make decisions with reference to the

84 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

true laws and what he decrees shall be established. He will
come out of his present darkness and light shall shine upon his
way. Eliphaz confidently believed that he was administering
true consolation and pointing Job to a way of relief. He was
a good, human priest. What was the matter with his philos-
ophy? The exhortation evidently ends with V. 28.

Chapter 22

JOB XXIII

taking suggestion from the other speaker but
n t directly replying to his argument, Job now finds
himself confronted by the task of reconciling the incontro-
vertible statement of Eliphaz, that God will enlighten his way
if Job can reach Him, with the actualities of a situation upon
which no gleam of light can be found to shine. Job is entirely
willing to believe that both law and grace are with God, but
he wants to experience a divine presence in life as it is for him
at the moment. How may remoteness and immanence be
made one? That is the problem upon which Job's mind turns.
He admits that Eliphaz' complaint of him, that even today he
is in rebellion, is a just one, but the hand upon him is still
heavier than the groaning which it elicits. There is one and
only one possible relief that he might reach the actual seat
of God, the center from which emanate His power and His
laws. With that clear knowledge Job could order his cause
and present his arguments to One whom he acknowledges as
his Maker. He would know the words used and understand
God's meanings. For would God put His great power against
the limited amount which even a prophet has? No, He would
be open to Job's meanings ; the upright the man true to his
typical nature as man might reason as he was prompted from
within, even with God. And thus reasdhing, thus finding
himself in this accepted distinction from what is infinitely
greater than himself, he would be freed forever from judg-
ment. Nothing which acts according to the inspiration of its
essential and entirely unique nature ever need be judged. It
cannot be judged. Judgment came into the world at some
critical moment in man's spiritual history. It must have been
at the time when the first expedient was employed. The

86 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

earliest use of it in the Old Testament, I think, is to be found
in the remark of Sarai to Abraham when Hagar, his Egyptian
handmaiden, was found with child and despised her mistress :
The Lord judge between thee and me. Hagar surely was an
expedient. Is the passage intended to bring out this meaning
of judgment? But other passages also are significant.

The vision of deliverance, however, seems not to be realis-
able by Job. He casts his thoughts into the future but cannot
find God there; into the past; in the emotional life when He
works within it; in that mental life in which the divine reason
is hidden; but he cannot see Him. But all the time Job un-
derstands that God knows the way he is taking and that the
issue of this testing will be the fine gold of what is essential
and eternal in himself. For the Prophet in his inmost heart
has not departed from that early pure consciousness of a just
and loving Power in the universe nor gone back on the com-
mand which such knowledge lays upon the soul. The words
that are God-inspired he has treasured above even the law of
his own being for the lesser must abide in the greater. But
when it comes to ability to understand the creative line which
God takes that one direction it is a different matter. It
doesn't always look right to Job. But who can turn God to
one's own conception of justice? He performs what His own
soul desires and sometimes that which has seemed to belong
to the appointment of one of His creatures especially here to
the Prophet He takes upon Himself. This is what troubles
Job at His presence, because he himself would have done so
differently. When he considers this, Job is afraid. God
terrifies him because He has done the incomprehensible thing
of making him survive the submersion of all his values, the
blotting out of all which life had seemed to prove to be real
and enduring. Neither did He cover the thick darkness from
my face. The passage must end here ; the next chapter would
be an impossible anti-climax even if it did not contain senti-
ments which, in the main, are alien to Job's viewpoints. It
belongs most consistently to Bildad.

Chapter 23

JOB XXIV

/OB has been talking as though he would like to have God
come down to his level; to be measured by periods
those divisions of time which bring out discrepancies, failures,
irreconcilable phenomena. Why cannot the Almighty lay
these sections together so that they who know Him may see His
days the meaning of His activities? Men might have this
knowledge Bildad believes if they would not remove the
landmarks. The nation builder is speaking, the conservator
of morals. There is no iniquity or inhumanity which men do
not practice and employ for the defeat of a continuous develop-
ment. This turns all things not likewise sophisticated back
to the elemental life; the single need that remains in the con-
sciousness is that of food, and this they obtain in all ways primi-
tive, cruel, animal-like. From out of the city of men there is
groaning and the soul of the wretched crieth out. But God
will not impute this inhumanity to folly and pass an easy judg-
ment upon it. These offenders are of them that rebel against
the light. They do not try to know the ways thereof nor to
abide in its paths. Illustrations follow: the murderer, the
thief, the adulterer, each has his own nefarious method of
reaching his victim and his own way of finding concealment.
Some do not operate in the daylight at all. Morning is to them
the synonym of the shadow of death, for if they were to seek
it, it would mean exposure and the consequences of their sin.
Here is a literalness which would be impossible to Job; and
following it is the moral climax all Bildad's own. Some
verses, however, must be omitted; one or two transposed.
Verse 21 belongs among those which list the inhuman practices
of the deniers of God's authority those who reject the values
that their forerunners have sought to establish. But God's

88 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

handling of such things may be noted by one who will carefully
observe, and it is not tardy. He is swift upon the waters. He
does not wait for the pressing out done in the vineyards. The
portion of these criminals is cursed in the earth. Nature itself
overturns them. Its drought and heat consume snow waters ;
so does Sheol extinction those who have sinned. The
womb forgets them; the worm feeds without remorse upon
their bones. They shall be no more remembered, for un-
righteousness always will be broken as a tree generation from
such beings will cease. If this be not so, concludes Bildad,
who will prove me a liar and make my speech nothing worth?
Verses 22-24 must be assigned to some other place or left
out. The rest of the conversation is a general mix-up, but
perhaps by this time we are well enough acquainted with the
participants to assign to each his proper part. As the text is
given, Zophar has no third speech, but this mars the symmetry
of the total design and we are glad to find portions which the
wisdom lover would not reject.

Chapter 24

JOB XXV

HAPTER XXV must, for the moment, be passed over.
Job will speak after Bildad and we shall have to follow
Chapter XXIV with Chapter XXVI. But only the first five
verses here sound like Job. He is sarcastic toward Bildad this
time, wondering how this diatribe against the removers of
landmarks touches the problem of his own lack of power and
of wisdom. Does Bildad think that he has plentifully de-
clared sound knowledge? To whom, asks Job, hast thou ut-
tered words? And whose spirit was it that came forth from
thee? Is it not clear that this sarcasm would be quite inap-
propriate following the short and innocuous Chapter XXV?
But Verse 5 does not connect with the passage preceding it.
It is better at this point to let Job blow a counter blast to that
one of Bildad's of which he is so scornful. We pass to XXVII,
2, and go through Verse 12, then back to XXVI, 5, and on to
the end of the chapter. Bildad has been giving very strange
and wide-of-the-mark interpretations of God's ways, and Job
will try to speak more sincerely and to the point. As God
liveth, he declares, who hath taken away my right even
though I cannot be numbered among your sinners and the
Almighty who hath vexed my soul (but my life is yet whole
in me and the breath of God is in my nostrils) my lips shall not
speak unrighteousness nor my tongue utter deceit. Job will
not justify Bildad's facile definition of justice; till he dies he
will not put his integrity from him. His heart never shall have
an opportunity to reproach him for letting go his righteous-
ness. He will leave all that to his enemy; for what gain, if
God take away the soul? Will God hear a godless man's cry
when trouble comes upon him? Can such a man delight him-
self in the Almighty and call upon Him at all times? I will

90 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

answer this question myself. / will teach you concerning the
hand of God, and what is with the Almighty I will not con-
ceal. But you yourselves have seen it; why then have you
become so altogether vain ; your talk never touching truth or
reality? The truth about God is that (XXVI, 5) they that
are deceased tremble beneath the waters, for even Sheol is
naked before Him and Abaddon has no covering. He is even
where substance is not, stretching out the north over empty
space and hanging the earth upon nothing. He binds the
waters into clouds but closes in the face of His throne. He
describes boundaries upon the waters, light, and darkness. At
His rebuke the pillars of heaven tremble. He stirs up the sea
and by understanding subdues elemental strength. By his
spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand hath pierced the
swift serpent overcoming recurrence. These are but the out-
skirts of His ways you who speak so conclusively about Him ;
just a whisper that we have. Who could understand the thun-
der of His full power? Job here shows that he has a soul
ready to receive the message out of the whirlwind. But this
is another climax and another than Job must descend from it.
It is the turn of Zophar, who will make the last speech of the
Friends. It begins with Chapter XXV and passes to XXVII,
13, continuing to this chapter's end.

Chapter 25
JOB xxv-xxvn

OPHAR this time is responsive. Job has been talking
\^ somewhat in his own vein. But the new sympathy does
not prevent him from trailing off into the old moralism. Yes,
indeed, he begins, mentally taking up Job's thought of the im-
mensity of God's power: Dominion and fear are with Him;
there is peace only in His high places. Can His armies be
numbered? Is there any who lives beyond the bounds of His
light? Even the moon has no brightness and the stars are not
pure in His sight. The statement must find acceptance, and
this gives Zophar his opportunity: How much less man that
is a worm; and the son of man that is a worm! Yea, verily,
this is the portion of a wicked man with God (XXVII, 13)
and of oppressors: If his children be multiplied, it is for the
sword. He shall have such restlessness that when he is buried
in death his widow will make no lamentation. He may heap
up great wealth but it shall fall to the just and the innocent.
His house will have the durability of the moths; more like a
booth than a house. Terrors overtake him like tempests; an
east wind can sweep him out of his place. God shall hurl at
him and men hiss him out of his place. The Friends certainly
were not interpreters.

NOTE. I have just discovered that Dr. Peake was inclined
to assign XXVII, 13-23, to Zophar.

Chapter 26

JOB XXVIII

/OB fittingly closes the discourses, as he began them. And
Job again took up his parable (XXVII, 1) and said,
Surely there is a mine for silver and a place for gold which
they refine. Iron is taken out of the earth and copper is molten
out of the stone. This chapter has given trouble to all transla-
tors because it fits no conception that one has formed of any
one of the four speakers. It has been by some regarded as an
addition from a later Wisdom literature because of its theme
of wisdom. Dr. Moffatt gives it to Zophar, not realising that
his narrow mind would be incapable of so sustained a flight.
Indeed his arrangement of these last chapters shows no se-
quence of thought or argument and suggests no thread of
common interest among the speakers or current of emotion
which bears them all along. The last exists however, for the
last third of the discourses falls toward the paean strain;
vitiated with each of the Friends by his particular bias, turn-
ing with Job into a misericordia because of the descent from
his early exalted state.

The first verse of XXVIII has given trouble because of its
detached beginning. The first word For, rendered Surely in
the English text, seems to connect with nothing. But in the
arrangement given above, this chapter begins a new utterance.
It connects closely however in Job's mind with the last words
of his preceding speech, those in which he asserts that man
hears only a whisper of the powers of the Almighty and could
not endure the full thunder of it. Now in the paean mood
not having been brought back to earth by Zophar's interrup-
tion, especially as his first words show that he too has been
touched with exhilaration at the thought of the unapproach-
able might of the Almighty Job continues what began as an

INTERPRETATION 93

argument in the form of a parable. He added to take up a
parable (margin). Verse 3 of XXVIII would most fittingly
come first. There is proof that man could not bear the sight
of God's greatness because he has everywhere been searching
for the key to it and yet never has this been found. Man sets
an end to darkness by exploring the inward parts of the earth;
he searches out all perfection ; he attacks substance in its most
hopeless aspects, the stones of darkness the limit of the inert,
a condition which foreshadows universal death. In the search
he has found a place and a line of movement for everything
except the wisdom and the perfection of knowledge for which
he so longs. The place and the trend eventually may not be
undiscoverable, but they have been lost. If wisdom might
be found, perhaps this shadow of death would not hang over
all things. Silver has a mine, gold a place, iron has its room
in the earth, copper is molten out of stone. Men break shafts
to these things in places far from men's abodes, then these
explored caves are abandoned though the stones thereof are the
place of sapphires and the cave has dust of gold. As for the
surface of the earth, sustenance comes of it in orderly fashion,
but underneath it is burned up as it were by fire. We continue
with Verse 9. Man puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock;
he overturns the mountains by their roots; he cuts out chan-
nels among the rocks; he binds the streams that they trickle
not; the thing that is hid every precious thing he brings
forth to light. But where shall wisdom be found and the place
of understanding? Man cannot discover the price of its at-
tainment nor is it to be found in the land of the living. All
things disclaim knowledge of its abiding place; the deep the
sea declares, It is not in me. That path (Vs. 7, 8) no bird
of prey knoweth, nor the falcon's eye, nor the beasts, nor the
fierce lion. There is nothing in nature which is an exchange
for it gold, silver, the precious onyx, the sapphire, coral, or
crystal. Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies. Whence
then cometh this thing which no man or bird or beast can
trace? Where is its hidden place? Might it emerge in na-
ture's downfall? Destruction and death say, We have heard
a rumor of this thing with our ears. How fruitless seems the
quest! Ah, but there is One with knowledge; God under-

94 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

standeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof. For
into all those places which man and beast have visited He
penetrates ; beyond them He measures and controls. He is the
master of the measure and the rhythm of everything that is
wind, water, lightning, thunder; He is the source of all pulsa-
tions of energy and life. He searched out the meaning of
wisdom ; established it and declares it and to man He says :

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ;

And to depart from evil, that is understanding.

If otherwise there had been any question, the term Lord as-
sures us that this passage belongs to Job. We will recall that
throughout the discourses he alone has used the word and
previously only once. It is his term because it is the Prophet
who stands for that immanent divine power to which must be
traced back everything having design in the world. And fear
of the Lord reverent aspiration; desire to be creative with
Him that is wisdom. To find a way of departure from the
Dual from evil that is understanding. The paean of praise
registers Job's recollection of the time when, in the first days of
Prophecy, he stood with his companion leaders close to that
God who had been realised in the cosmos and Whom he espe-
cially was to realise on earth and in the daily life of man. He
has told his companions that through mental and spiritual
inertness which makes them take refuge in abstractions they
have become vain. He now turns to a bewailing of his own
descent from that first high plane of consciousness, but he will
not be able to see that some loss of integrity in himself can ac-
count for the fall until he has been staggered by the difference
between his own best effort and the underived power and
majesty of the Lord.

Chapter 27

JOB XXIX

parable ended in the last chapter; the present one
J[ should begin with the old announcement And Job an-
swered and said. The later translators bear this out.

Probably there is in all literature no so exact a record of
the early days of Prophetism as we have here. The question
of the exact time is of interest. Is it that primal Zarathustrian
period which coincides with the very first activities of earth's
interpreters, or is it the age in which Job, as ancestor of the
Semitic line of prophets, took his rise? The latter, as noted
above, seems to me more probable. An advanced civilisation
is indicated; a thoroughly adjusted relationship between the
Prophet and the social order. Zarathustra or his inspiration
in the pre-historic Saoshants affiliated his teachings and his
ceremonies rather to an agricultural order. But whichever
line may be intended, the God-consciousness was still active
and the Prophet, though God for him in the exercise of his
duties was the Lord everywhere fulfilling design on the
earth, from the fish in the chaotic waters up to man's own ideal
of a universal and organic humanity nevertheless understood
the cosmic vision as attainable and as a continuing bond be-
tween himself and those leaders who, in their several functions,
turned more to an overruling power. For no less than with
these God watched over His prophets. It was the Almighty
who continued with him. The intellectual perception was a
God-consciousness and lighted the way through the obscuri-
ties of life. This was in the autumn of Job's days (margin) ; a
pretty clear indication that the more advanced stage is in-
tended. It was a harvesting time after a prolonged period of
working the soil of the folk soul. Job longs for the same emo-
tional urges that moved him and his followers then the

96 THE BOOKOFJOB, INTERPRETED

months of old and for the activities days when his eyes
were fixed on the ultimate goal. Then the results of his minis-
trations remained and were additional supports of his work
the children; all advances led to discovery of essential things
butter and oil. It is an immense loss to translate such symbols
casually, as in changing butter to a flow of milk; for not only
is the inner significance of the passage destroyed but relation-
ships to other religious expressions are hidden. This is a good
example of such loss, for butter and oil are most important
objects in the early Persian religious ceremonies.

The latter part of this chapter from V. 7 to the end pictures
the Prophet or the order of Prophets as almost pre-
eminent among the social elements of this early happy time.
Young and old, princes and nobles recognise the superior au-
thority of the exponent of higher and more inclusive values
than those which they themselves represent. When the eye
the inner eye saw what the Prophet really meant in life, it
gave witness unto the world's need of him. He delivered the
poor that cried and the fatherless that had none to help him.
We are not at this moment in the material world. That comes
into the picture later. But in the spiritual world there are
those that are ready to perish ; those widowed of intellectual
convictions. If one who stands above the common level puts
on righteousness as a garment, if he wears justice as a robe and
a diadem, then confidence in an ideal world, faith in man's pos-
sibilities, belief in a God who cares come to the less developed
souls. The higher soul and its faith are eyes to the blind, feet
to the lame, providence to the needy. And this high faith, es-
tablished in a social order, breaks the power the jaws of the
unrighteous (the anti-typical) tendencies and saves those who
would have been their victims. Verses 18-21 are rightly put
at the end of the chapter by Dr. Moffatt. Here they break the
continuity of thought. For Job goes on to speak even more em-
phatically of the honor accorded him by those whom he led in
the days of his undiminished glory, describing the silence with
which his counsel was waited for and the unquestioning accept-
ance of his decisions; the utter dependance upon the revela-
tions which he brought; the glad surprise when he pronounced
commendations; the unquestioning acquiescence in his guid-

INTERPRETATION 97

ance. All the elements of permanence seemed to exist in the
situation. The Prophet had adapted himself and his teachings
to the most fundamental of the social orders the family on the
soil and had sought by allying these relationships to an
emerging order of spiritual values to keep all systems favorable
to preservation of purity in the basic things. When princes
and nobles looked to him for their laws, it was natural to as-
sume that a permanent social system of the theocratic type had
been established. Then I said, / shall die in my nest and I shall
multiply my days after the manner of the phoenix. For my
root is spread out to the waters and the dew lieth all night upon
my branch (continuous nourishment of both the elemental and
the most highly evolved). My glory is fresh in me and my
bow is renewed in my hand; always some new joy and some
fresh aim.

Chapter 28

JOB XXX AND XXXI

rHE transition to the present state of misery is abrupt.
Job does not hint at the nature of the transitional stages.
If he were able to follow these, he could go back to the cause of
his breakdown. Not having this ability he is concerned chiefly
to prove that he himself did not lapse and to establish his
present integrity. A more searching light must be thrown into
his soul before he will come to realisation of the fact that a
social breakdown is always and inevitably due to some weak-
ness in the intellectually higher class. He pictures an age of
extreme degeneracy. Instinct even the dog has become
perverted and that in a past generation the fathers. Intel-
lectual strength is quite gone from the breakdown of tradi-
tions ; ripe age is perished. A fearfully arid condition ensues ;
men are gaunt with want and famine. They gnaw the dry
ground in the gloom of waste and desolation no doubt
making politics their serious concern and looking to vaudeville
for their inspirations. At any rate a thoroughly husky diet is
theirs and habitation in the most dreary of rabble-run places.
What would, what could, such a generation do with a Prophet
other than to make him their song and to stand aloof from him
except when they want to spit in his face?

But Job attributes all this change to God. He has for some
reason changed His aim bow-cord; His intention regarding
men; and this has become the affliction of His Prophet. It
has discredited him with the populace and they have cast off
all the old restraints, blaming him for all their own destruc-
tive ways. The onslaught of the mob upon the idealist is ter-
rific. The welfare of the latter is passed away as a cloud.
His soul is poured out within him. He cries unto God but
hears no answer. God has turned cruel to him. He is desolat-

INTERPRETATION 99

ing him in this fearful storm. Job knows that He now intends
for him nothing but death ; that he shall go to the house ap-
pointed for all living. Then breaks out a cry of the old trust
and confidence: Surely against a ruined heap He 'will not put
forth His hand. Though these things be in the plan of destruc-
tion, one may utter a cry against them. It is hard to under-
stand such ruthlessness. I am but a man but did not I weep
for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for
the needy? But I ! when I looked for good, then trouble came.
When I waited for light, then came darkness. I go mourning
without the sun. I belong out in the waste places, so devastated
is my spirit. My skin is black and my bones are burned with
heat. Inward fires are consuming me. Therefore is my harp
turned to mourning and my voice into the voice of them that
weep.

Chapter 29

JOB XXXI

/OB at this point remembers how his Friends have been
explaining his downfall, united in their views as to its
cause. He has persisted in his assertion that his Dualism is a
pure philosophy and a true method of reading man's life on
earth. His integrity, his very being, is bound up with this
faith. Indeed he himself grew out of it, for it was accepted
in the ancient time the time of the High Father by all the
cosmic-minded men and he, the Prophet, became established
as a social institution when he was changed from an influence
into a function by the appointment (Seth-tithemi) of one of the
spiritual classes as leader of the masses. How could he re-
nounce this basic faith? How could he assert only unity in this
universe? It was a matter of covenant with Noah (seed time
and harvest; heat and cold; summer and winter shall not pass
away while earth endures) that he should not do this but that
he should open his eyes to the fact that the dual earth has an
impregnable place in the cosmic scheme, as a stage through
which in its evolution the soul must pass. How then should
I look upon a maid that total virginity which the Seer class
so long sought, forgetting its own origin? You, my Friends,
Job had said in a previous speech, have retained this virginity
by becoming ineffectual; by retreating into the abstractions of
transcendentalism, moralism, and metaphysical wisdom. /
need life; 'tis life whereof my nerves are scant; more life and
fuller that I want. Therefore, necessarily, I deal with the
world, and with man, in the portions that come under my own
observation ; here I use my eyes. I do not live all the time in
the sense of the cosmic whole. And I have to take into ac-
count the processes of life ; the 'way by which man acquires that
heritage those stored powers of the subconscious upon

100

INTERPRETATION 101

which I work. But shall I call these portions the product of
unity? They are too palpably the results of a dualistic strug-
gle. The portion does not belong to the God who is above;
the heritage is not from the Almighty on high. Yet just here
is my particular field. How then should I look upon a maid?
Does destruction decimation come from God or is it the
work of the unrighteous; of men who know and care nothing
about the human type? Does disaster belong to unity or to
the workers of iniquity? I am making a true distinction and
God, I am confident, must be watching all my ways and
mustering all my steps. If I have swerved from the truths
of actual experience to vanity; if I have practiced deceit for
the sake of quick results, let me be estimated in accordance
with the faith and the philosophy which I have held since the
beginning, so that God may know what integrity is for me.
But as I have taken my philosophy from life and the actual
world, so I have endeavored to direct my own and others' con-
duct toward realisation of the vital truth and power that reside
in my creed. And if my step has turned out of the way and
my heart walked after what the physical eye sees, or if any
spot cleaves to my hands then let me sow and another reap ;
yea, more, let the produce of my field be rooted out.

Two other passages in the narrative refer to the portion
and the heritage; the first is in Zophar's second speech, the
second in what we have assigned as his third speech.

Certain courses then come to Job's mind which place in-
superable obstacles in the way of the carrying out of construc-
tive ideals, and he enumerates some of these. The first and
most important among them not only because purity and
unity are ultimately the aim of the Prophetic effort but be-
cause the social basis of the effort is the family is sexual
irregularities. If in this matter Job has disturbed the relation-
ships which ought to exist between a man and his neighbor,
let woman revert to the slave and become the victim of men.
But such impulses as would bring about this degradation were
a heinous crime, an iniquity form of inequity which the
other leaders, as judges, would have a right to punish. For
these impulses come from a fire that consumeth unto destruc-
tion and would root out all the increase of the movement in

102 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

which Job's heart and life are centered. He is very emphatic
upon this point.

The next one is the matter of justice between the social
superior and inferior master and servant. If Job has for-
gotten the common origin of the two, what shall he do when
God riseth up? When his vision is cleansed and again he sees
what in the ancient days dawned so luminously upon the
Higher Men: that all humanity is one family; sprung from
one source and directed by an inner divine law of design to
one end? What answer could Job make to a God visiting his
field if he were to repudiate the very revelation that brought
himself into being?

Other relations of which Job studiously preserved the in-
trinsic quality were those which impose upon the fortunate
specific duties toward the unfortunate, such as relief, help to
overcome obstacles to progression and, above all, strict justice
when decisions are rendered in any cases which the non-
favored classes bring to the gate. If Job has failed along any
of these lines, then the whole structure which Prophetism has
built up, the entire social burden which the class has assumed,
should be disrupted. (Verse 25 clearly belongs in some other
place.) The list is carried on consecutively. Love of money,
of state, greed had not had indulgence. The enticements of
nature which lead to the worship of natural objects, the sun
and the moon in particular a descent made by other peoples
had not prevailed where Prophetism had guided thought.
That also would have been an example of inequity upon which
the judges might have lighted. Revenge never had been
cherished against those who had been hostile. Generous hos-
pitality had been exercised. Where there had been faults
and errors concealment, from fear of danger and contempt,
had not been practiced. How clear and open the whole life
had been ! Why can there not be One to hear this defence? I
am making affirmations to meet which there should be some
expression of the viewpoint of the Almighty; but I have not
even the indictment which He has written against me. If I
had one I would adjust it to the manner in which I have
carried my responsibilities; I would make it part of that
higher sense of personality which has come about through my

INTERPRETATION 103

instructions the crown. I would make evident the nature of
all the steps I have taken and prove that there have been cumu-
lative results ; that each generation has had a richer inheritance
than its predecessors the prince. Finally and inclusively, if
the land which I have worked upon is now in rebellion against
my methods; if my ways of cultivating it have produced dis-
tress; if I have appropriated any fruits of my own labor with-
out adding these values to those which were my material, or
have caused any ebb of life here, then let my whole life and
effort show up as a monstrous, anti-natural course : Let thistles
grow instead of wheat and cockle instead of barley. The
former grain is the symbol for substance suitable to a folk
that has been refined through religious and artistic training;
the latter for substance needed by man in elemental conditions.
Thistles indicate resentment; cockles, a prickly coarseness.
Such would be the effect upon the two classes of a mistaken,
anti-human form of guidance. The words of Job end here.

Chapter 30

JOB XXXII AND XXXIII

three Friends ceased to answer Job because he was
so immovably righteous in his own eyes. The original
Hebrew, as reported, would seem rather to mean that the God-
concept and standpoint was condemned in its three exponents
while the standpoint of Job, up to this point, stood up as the
nearer approach to the truths of type, or righteousness. How-
ever this may be, the Friends have had their quietus.

The six chapters given to Elihu are generally considered
by scholars a late addition to the drama. To them the episode
seems like a break in an otherwise consecutive and well-
constructed narrative. But in the case of the ancient religious
writers one must remember that not only were they artists,
but that they were chiefly bent on offering to their readers
complete and penetrating transcriptions of life, with a view to
true interpretation of the past and to right direction for the
future. The moment of writing, consequently, becomes a mat-
ter of vast importance. It is what gives its proportions to the
narrative or the drama. I think therefore that Elihu would
not have been thrust upon the stage during any period com-
paratively near to the time of the writing of the Book of Job,
because irrelevant matter would not have been tolerable to an
understanding generation ; nor the marring of the beauty of a
perfect form. And we know that if Elihu was interpolated at
all it must have been at an early date relative to the writing of
the book itself. The whole matter, I believe, is clarified by ac-
cepting Elihu as a representative of the new type of leadership
which will follow the return of the Jews from captivity. And
if we wish to know what the characteristics of this new type
will be, we may find them in the Elihu family names. Again
recapitulating, the family is Ram and this at once gives us

104

INTERPRETATION 105

Elihu's derivation from the folk class. He is of the rema form
of language; of the folk utterance; probably consisting largely
of the phrase but, in any event, not systematically reduced to
elementary sounds and built up into a highly developed and
inflected language. The latter was the intellectual work of
Priest and Prophet together, no doubt, as the basis is phonetic
and the natural spontaneous sounds could have been gathered
only from the utterances of simple folk. It is worthy of note
that the language of the Vedas, while more highly inflected
and more subtle than the later forms, still adheres more closely
to phonetic principles. Ram, therefore, and Rama refer to
the spontaneous folk tongues. Aram, I think, may sometimes
emphasise this distinction from the language of culture and
sometimes indicate a state in which there was no utterance by
which a people or a circumstance could be interpreted. But
if the latter use occurs with a derivative and not intensive
it is comparatively rare. The main thing is to distinguish the
rema forms of speech from the phemi expressed chiefly in
eph as Ephraim, Ephrath, etc.

So Ram was the family and the immediate ancestor was
Barachel the Buzite. He fits into the place very well. For
Barachel comes most easily from words which mean to cleave,
make a cleft cheloo and bara, a pit; therefore, the pit of
Duality: man in the state of nature. To accomplish the
analysis of primitive expression, so that what was mental
therein might be distinguished from the temperamental, was
the office of the teacher, who was the Priest. The ideal of the
Priest differed somewhat from that of the Prophet. The
latter wished to conduct the people to a higher plane of in-
telligence by awakening their creative powers and directing
the use of these to definite constructive ends. The Priest
wished to train his people by leading them to serve the higher
purpose even though this might be beyond their comprehen-
sion. In symbolic language, he wished to transform the bulls
into oxen. So Buz is the bous which regularly stands for the
class which has been formed and subordinated to a ruling re-
ligious concept by the Priest. It is evident that the element
for which Elihu stands has been kept in a state of subordina-
tion, for its vocalism now is erratic and comparatively super-

106 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

ficial, while not wanting in elements of sincerity and of
sensitiveness to the great facts of life and nature. The re-
straints of the past show also in Elihu's wrath ; for the term
means, pent up rages. Its kindling is emphasised. It was there
in the first place and was against everything in sight. It must
also be noted that Buz is of the line of Nahor, priest-brother of
Abram. Both, consequently, go back to Shem, head of the
priestly line. We find the functions constantly intermingled,
as they are in the life of all societies.

Elihu's presence in the company has not been reported but
he has been there all the time, waiting to speak to Job if his
elders do not produce something convincing. Did the new
Judaic movement thus wait for some clear and direct affirma-
tion from the ancient Hebrew source? Almost every new age
emerging into prominence waits upon the age from which it
has sprung for a certain time, only definitely taking up new
standards and marking out new courses when the old are
proved effete. But this does not certify that the new will be
better than the old was at its best. Indeed the new cannot be
strong and have a prompting from true impulses unless it links
up with the high expression of the past. Elihu instinctively
felt this, for his wrath was kindled when none of the older men
gave him a real cue to the heart of the ancient faith. He has
thought that Days would speak out and that the multiplied
effects of the Years would teach wisdom but he has to decide
that the Great by reason of their position are not neces-
sarily wise nor the Aged endowed with understanding. He
must turn to something fresh. In man just as man, without
regard to place or function there is a spirit which he feels to
be of God and an understanding by which he instinctively
recognises Omnipotence. Therefore he will ask his elders to
hearken to his opinion. It is Elihu's word alone and suggests
something untried, unexperienced. He is not drawing from
deep wells of consciousness nor has he any vision in which the
outlines of the future may be seen. He is quite confident how-
ever that the ability to answer Job conclusively resides in
him. The Friends need not say that only God can produce
something more convincing than their own wisdom for he has
not yet been heard. How evident the fumbling and incoher-

INTERPRETATION 107

ence of the untrained thinker and speaker are right here.
There is almost a suggestion of bluster. / also will! I also
will! I am full of words; my belly is as wine which has no
vent; like new bottles, ready to burst. I will speak that I may
be refreshed. ^And don't think for a moment that I am over-
awed by your importance, you older men. I shall not give you
any flattering titles, for if I should recognise any superiority on
your part in such a way, what makes me now what I am would
ebb away. But Job, I will talk with you. My tongue is in
motion and I am going to try to make it utter only what is in my
heart. (Verse 4 cannot be accepted in this connection.)

Elihu is quite confident that his argument is going to be
more compact and convincing than that of Job, so he would
have Job bring out his again. He promises not to press upon
him with undue heaviness for, after all, they two go back to
the same beginnings : / am toward God as thou art. I also am
formed out of clay. Both result from that first intention of
the God-conscious men to mould humanity into a vessel fine
and expressive. But Elihu feels that he has remained closer
to this early reverence than Job has. The latter claims in-
nocence and brings against God an accusation of injustice.
But this is injustice in Job himself. For God is greater than
man. He need not give an account of any of His matters.
The priest element in Elihu came out almost automatically.
God speaks, though man regards it not. He visits man in
visions of the night, as He did Eliphaz. He enlightens and
instructs men that He may withdraw them from the elemental
purposes and hide such urges under better motivated conduct.
By this guarding He keeps back man's soul from the pit of the
animal tendencies and rescues his life from the sword of nat-
ural retribution. Trouble also is an instrument which God
employs to turn man from his natural inclinations. And if he
may have access to an interpreter an angel one who has
developed through the mental process in a threefold manner
10 x 10 x 10 and such a one is gracious to him and shows
him a way of atonement (at-one-ment; unity; singleness of
purpose) , then the sufferer may slough off all decay that clings
to him and return to the days of his youth with flesh as fresh
as a child's. He is restored to joy and to righteousness and

io8 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

sings his redemption before men : He hath redeemed my soul
and my life shall behold the light. At least the new Priest-
hood which was going to lead Prophetism out of Babylon and
rebuild the temple had the vital spark of longing for purity.
Perhaps the whole world may be grateful for that today. At
this point Job may speak if he has anything to say, for Elihu,
as a close kinsman, desires to justify him. But if he cannot
add something to this doctrine, Elihu will put forth some real
wisdom.

Chapter 31

JOB XXXIV

ASKS for close attention, so that all together they
may choose what is right and decide among them-
selves what is good. He rehearses Job's words and defines
in his own way the position he has taken; not at all show-
ing any desire to justify this. It is the illogicality of the
uncoordinated mind. What man ever has been as bad as Job
is? So extreme? He has said that it profits a man nothing
that he should delight himself with God. The old arguments
then are brought out which we have heard from the mouths
of the Friends. God cannot commit iniquity and if a man
suffers it is only punishment due him. Whatever God decrees
is right, for He has charge over this earth and the whole
world. If He wants to extinguish man, it is His right to do
so. Then man shall turn again to dust. But man's security
is, that One who governs with omnipotence could not hate
the right. Therefore how can man condemn anything that
God does, whether it looks evil to his limited comprehension
or not? Subjects do not revile kings. How much less should
they revile One who respects the prince no more than the
poor? All are the work of His hands and He may wipe out
any at any moment, for nothing is hid from His sight and He
visits the evildoers with punishment. He striketh them as
wicked men in the open sight of others, because they would
not have regard to any of His ways. Who can condemn His
course, whether it be done unto a nation or unto a man, so that
the godless man reign not and there be none to ensnare the
people? For hath any meaning Job promised to offend no
more? Or have, on the contrary, the offenders refused the rec-
ompense that has been meted out to them? Do they expect to

decide for themselves what this should be? Job must choose

109

no THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

between his own way and God's; not Elihu. Let him
speak all that he knows, but men of understanding will say
that his words are without wisdom. There is nothing for it;
Job must be tried to the bitter end. Elihu would add some-
thing to what he conceives God has heaped up. For to his
other sins Job now adds rebellion. He clapped his hands
among us and multiplied his words against God. Two of-
fences of equal weight it would seem. Elihu has taken Job's
rebellion to himself.

Chapter 32
JOB xxxv-xxxvn

has received more suggestion from the previous
speakers than he realises. They have asked Job what dif-
ference it can make to God whether a man is righteous or
sinful. Elihu repeats the question and answers it even for
those who raised it. His mind floats off to the immensity of
the heavens and he cannot conceive that a man, however right-
eous, has anything to give to God. Men cry to Him when they
are oppressed and want relief but do not turn to Him for joy.
None saith, Where is God, my Maker, who giveth songs in
the night. Job has told Zophar that the beasts and the birds
reveal something of God's nature but Elihu thinks that man
is too wise to turn to such sources. There is but one source
and men will not reach out to it because of their pride. But
God will not regard this vain thing. Still less will He regard
one who declares that He is not to be found at all. All this
proves that Job opens his mouth in vanity and multiplies
words without knowledge.

God, by this reasoning, has been sufficiently exonerated;
acquitted of any injustice or tyrannical intention. But Elihu
has yet something more to say on His behalf. He will take a
longer flight for his knowledge and ascribe not only freedom
of will but righteousness to his Maker. His words cannot be
false, for he is sure of the perfection of the knowledge which
he has. It is so qualified a man as that who now is speaking.
The old points are rehearsed : God watches man ; rewards the
good and punishes the evil. He is willing to lead out of dis-
tress if any will turn to Him. Job might have taken this way
to a broad place and his table might have been full of fatness.
But the variety of judgment that is in his mind is that of the
wicked : the man trying to understand and use Duality. The

ii2 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

count against him is now a heavy one but he should not let the
greatness of the ransom turn him aside from penitence. Noth-
ing but God's mercy will compensate for the mistake Job has
been making. Does he think that riches will do it? All such
things are cut off. But God acts loftily above all such chance
and uncertainty: Remember that thou magnify His work,
whereof men have sung. All men have looked thereon; man
beholdeth it afar off. God is great. We know Him not. The
number of His foes is unsearchable. Can any understand the
spreading of His clouds ; how He spreadeth light around Him ;
how He covers the bottom of the sea? But out of power like
this He judgeth the people.

The electrical energy has stirred Elihu more deeply than
any other exhibition of force which he cannot comprehend :
At this also my heart trembles and is moved out of its place.
Harken unto the noise of His voice. He sen Jet h it forth under
the whole heaven. His lightning goes unto the ends of the
earth, and after it He thundereth with the voice of His majesty.
God thundereth marvellously with His voice. Out of the
chamber of the south cometh the storm and cold out of the
north. By the breath of God ice is given. Forces are turned
round about by His guidance that they may do whatsoever God
commandeth them, whether it is for correction or for mercy.
Hearken unto all this O Job. Stand still and consider the
wondrous works of God. Can you explain any of these things?
Do you even know how your own garments are warm? What
can man do but pray? Teach us what we shall say unto Him,
for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness. Touch-
ing the Almighty, we cannot find Him out; He is excellent in
power. Men do therefore fear Him. This they would better
do, for He regardeth not any that are wise of heart.

Chapter 33

JOB XXXVIII TO XLII

rHERE are almost as many opinions about the proven-
ance, the quality and the arrangements of the parts of
this section as there are translators or interpreters. I find psy-
chological reasons for accepting everything but a few verses
obviously transposed from earlier chapters. I would, how-
ever, give but one answer each to the Lord and to Job. Then,
with the consummative rehabilitation of Job, the epic ends.

Seemingly all but the earliest English scholars abandon
the whirlwind out of which the Lord speaks for a storm a
suggestion doubtless of the violent nature of Job's experience.
I first interpreted the agitation as the whirlwind of creation;
of the creative forces ; then long debated whether the storm of
conflicting forces which accompanied the combats of the na-
tions at the time of the Captivity might not be intended. But
further light upon the subtle suggestions in the questions of
Yahveh has brought conviction of the Tightness of the first
view. It is the whirlwind of creation which catches up Job in
its tremendous sweep. The long arguments stirring the deep-
est desires conscious and submerged of all the great leaders
of mankind throughout the cultural history of the race had had
a cumulative effect so that, even through the growing irritation
which an insuperable misunderstanding had produced, there
came to all something like a seizure of exultation which lifted
them out of the misery of the shattered moment and turned
platitudes into paeans. Each has come appreciably nearer to
a feeling of creative energies of which he can know nothing
but only Job consciously so. Probably the Friends could not
distinguish this near sense of energetic processes from that
misty consciousness in their souls of a Power remote but over-
ruling. Only the mind that had found divinity in the phe-

ii 4 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

nomenal life of earth and in the experiences of man in his
earth relations; which had followed design in the simplest
forms and in man's affairs as well as in the constellations;
which had realised "the Lord Himself taking form" would
be sensitive to still deeper and deeper implications of this law
of divine plasticity and capable of moving completely out of
a state of assurance into one of overpowering amazement.
But the roots of great experiences always go deep and in the
case of Job, beside his sincerity as a religious seeker and his
intensity as a lover of his fellow men, there stands the primal
fact of the swing of higher man's consciousness from percep-
tions attuned to the cosmos, to awareness of earth as that central
fact of processes which can have any interest for man, and as
the mother of the energies which, in ever more directed and
etherealised forms, must move him until his body return to
dust and his spirit to the God who gave it. It must also be
recalled that the Prophet dates back to that time of seership
when there was great astronomical knowledge, and the whirl-
wind doubtless is suggested by the spiral nebula and its poten-
tial forms.

We have spoken of the great Titanic upheaval which
brought down to ruins the cosmic structure of the Seer class,
but how great a moment must that have been when, with vision
purified and rendered penetrating; with a new born tenderness
for the earth mother and her travail, they through the powers
of creative imagination, and brought again together by the
influences of the group spirit followed these processes from
the gathering of the waters to the release of the luminous pow-
ers of the sun. It must be noted however that this creation is
the reverse of that of the first story of Genesis. That one is
in the archetypal world. The newly awakened mind trained
for ages that will forever be innumerable by us in the processes
of mind amplified its scope to take in earth and worked out
from there as a center, but along purely ideal lines. The ac-
tion was unitive because of the ideal plane. The stars, in con-
sequence, are created later than the sun and the moon, and their
addition to the cosmic system is more cursorily noted than the
creation of even the creeping things. But when the under-
standing which to the ancients is most closely associated with

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cy e,s arc upon

cohLSVA'rtk *

INTERPRETATION 115

the heart identifies itself with the birth struggles on earth,
following these from the fiercest antagonisms of the Dual
through evolutionary processes that culminate in man's con-
sciousness of his place in the planetary system, and through
processes of interaction between his sensorium and the activi-
ties of the outward world then, still from that higher stand-
point of an achieved unity, but now, like the Christ, identified
with every impulse of aspiration (the stars of a new morning
shining upon a new heaven and a new earth) the sons of God,
seeing in vision the triumphant end of the long struggle, shout
for joy. Their cosmic sense has not been destroyed but they
are reunited to humanity through a rebirth. The Dual must
be reborn into the Unitary. Equally must the Unitary be con-
tinuously reborn, through understanding, into the travail of
the Dual ; lest we forget.

There runs, therefore, through the words of Yahweh that
divinity active in the life that goes on under man's eyes a
parallelism between the outward process and man's spiritual
relation to it; the reaction upon his soul which it creates. Or,
if we say, as we must in the final analysis, that man's spirit
itself is the creative energy and that everything in the external
world is but a reflection of the activities which go on within
it, nevertheless the mind never can know either the beginning
or the end of this spiritual life ; the augmentations of it through
self probing and through brotherhood which transform the
outward scene; that impoverishment, through the falling of
consciousness to belief in hostility of the component dual ex-
pressions, which returns historic man at the end of periods to
an almost elemental existence and reduces his own cosmos
for him to a piece of mechanism; then, the swing back to il-
lumination and awareness of a universe in which the heavens
declare the glory of a single omniscient God and the firma-
ment all that a producing mind and heart have built up
shows the scope of the creative powers latent in earth : God's
handiwork. But, strange to say, just in the degree to which
man realises that he never can comprehend Being is he sensi-
tive to the action and the meaning of process. And it is through
the following of process and in this way alone- that the men-
tal, cognitive power is sharpened. In a scientific age it is

n6 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

sharpened for changes apprehensible by the senses. In a time
when the spiritual forces are at work it touches the creative
energy itself at work within personality and man becomes
creative. The universe expands, not through the refinements
of instruments, but through man's susceptibility to the more
remote and the subtle influences. Stirred by these and ap-
praising them, pushed on by his increasing understanding
nearer and nearer to the essential relationships those of type
he becomes at a luminous moment master of his transforma-
tions and reads the mystery of the soul creating the gods. But
the god of his own creation is still dominant over him; just as
love or friendship accepted though recognised as a thing
which springs from the self becomes a power and a new com-
mand in the daily life; something emanating from the individ-
uals concerned but bearing an existence separate from the
individual because it cannot exist where reconcilement and
reciprocity are not.

Doubt always has attended the identity of the person to
whom the Lord referred when He declared to Job that design
had been darkened by words without knowledge. Was it Job,
the Friends, or Elihu who had so obscured the meanings of
the universe? It seems to me only reasonable to believe that
all the speakers were included in the indictment and that the
question should read impersonally, What is this obscuring of
design by words without knowledge? The command to gird
up the loins however is addressed directly to Job because his
is the character which is undergoing the tests, and only by
meeting these in their utmost severity can he prove that he was
sincere when, by the use of the potsherd, he indicated his
willingness to be scraped down to the bare bones of his per-
sonality, his function, and his faith. He has been talking
temperamentally before his audience in spite of that stern re-
solve. Now, if he is essentially of the stuff of which heroes
are made, if he has the principle of endurance within him he
will prove it, not only by manifesting power to meet face to
face the most sweeping generalisations regarding the creative
energies at play in the world, but by willingness and an ability
to relate himself and his ideal to these great expressions. Has
he not been asking that God would come into judgment with

INTERPRETATION 117

him? Well, here He does so in the person of Job's very own
divinity Yahweh. Ahura-Mazda, Jehovah-God the same
concept of union between matter and spirit, between earth and
heaven ; only the Hebrew maintains the order of evolution in
consciousness and names the immanent, the indwelling deity,
the personal presence, before the power which is revealed only
to the illuminated perceivers as they stand face to face with the
cosmos. The sense of individuality and the consciousness of
universality are twin births an experience for the few; but
the law within the members declares itself to every man of
good will and unfolds for him the true value of life.

If the text of the Lord's address be slightly rearranged, just
so as to bring together passages which develop similar themes,
and if the thought be kept in mind of the identity of man's
inner and outer worlds, we shall find in this presentation of
the cosmos to one appointed to be henceforth its interpreter,
some governing concepts, or affirmations, regarding a con-
trolling law which had been given in vision to the Seers. In
his early days Job had been among these and now revives
within him welling up out of that submerged part of his
being which over activity has reduced to quiescence memory
of those great ancient insights to which were manifested ener-
gies taking form through penetration to the essential, endur-
ing and inviolable relationships. The series, indeed, begins
with the final, most intellectual perception that of relation.
It then passes down through stages in which the intellectual is
as though by a definite ratio modified more and more by
the emotional until, at the last, are reached elemental energies,
in expression so stark that these assume even grotesque forms.
The seven processes were a surprise but the number is as it
should be.

Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of
thee and declare thou unto Me is the peroration of the Lord's
address to Job. We see at once that involved in the idea of
relation is the principle of measure. According to the meas-
ure of perception, of understanding, of energy will be the pro-
portions of the outward world and the degree of harmony in
the inward world. Stress throughout, until the last point is
reached, is laid upon the visible universe. The center of this,

ii8 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

for man, is the earth and his clearest apprehensions would be
here. Let Job then first determine what he knows about that
relativity which establishes fixed measures and proportions
so that earth is as much a work of creation as the temple which
man himself builds and then declare this knowledge. Man
has had the revelation of this wondrous harmony in his own
realm and all the Sons of God shouted for joy when it was
given, but have the source and the reason and the command
ever been laid bare? After V. 4, V. 18 should be inserted.
This adds to the clearness of the passage and brings together
the three demands for a declaration from Job.

The second concept is that of those great pulsations of
energy to which the cycles are due. From the lowest to the
highest expression each is subservient to rhythm. The per-
sonal, human thought is concerned with emotion. In measure,
proportion, harmony, relation, mind is in the ascendant and
lays its own laws upon energy. Yet behind pulsation is emo-
tion. The Greeks symbolise this insight into nature's laws by
Poseidon who is not, except in a secondary and illustrative
sense, the ocean but the urge of the dual nature to be resolved
into unity. The name comes, I am convinced, from eidon
image and posos the lawful mate, the true complement. It
is this eternal quest of the soul, even of the elemental nature,
which is the very source of the surges of life.

It would be more fitting to begin this passage with V. 16:
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou
walked in the recesses of the deep? Then, omitting who
from V. 8: Or (hast thou) shut up the sea with doors when
it brake forth and issued out of the womb? Observe how
the emotional and the elemental urges are suggested by
the figure of the womb. It is the only use of the word
in the entire passage. How well the feeling of im-
pulse is conveyed: breaking forth and issuing from the
wombl Then, more conspicuously than in the undiscover-
ability of the cause of impulse, the Lord appears in that which
conceals its violence and natural crudeness the garment
which clouds what would be devastating in a stark, undraped
and unrestrained manifestation. The elemental energies are
adumbrated for man in form. Only through form is it pos-

answered! Job out of the Whirlwind

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.' /, 1,1, -I, /* '/- /' ' ' 'T A<f ."/U ( A?*'J ', *''^'

INTERPRETATION 119

sible for him to arrive at any understanding of their nature.
The thick cloud is a swaddling band and the primal energy
was checked in interior circles doors and bars when the
Lord brake up for it His own boundaries (V. 10) ; that is,
when the concept of the cycle, obtained from the heavens, was
laid upon these primal pulsations because their time and
efficiency limits had become apparent. So that, although man
could not know source nor cause, he might know limit, and
say with assurance to the forces lower than the energy of
mind, Here shall thy proud waves be stayed.

The third movement again seems to be in the realm of
man's life. It is very strange, just as one was looking for some-
thing that belonged more to outward nature. Is it that here,
in the parallelism of the verses, there is determination to let
Dualism dominate the expression? The passage begins : Hast
thou commanded the morning since thy days and caused the
day spring to know its place, that it might take hold of the
wings of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it? The
reference clearly is to the era; the period in man's historic
course which tests all his thoughts and activities, at the end
making clear what has followed law and shaking out of the
fabric what has been done adversely to law. With this con-
summation earth is changed as clay under a seal and stands
forth becomes evident to man's sight as something of funda-
mental structure which man, through insight into the laws of
structure, may clothe with his own idealisations. But these
meanings are withholden from the wicked and the arbitrary
courses which they have followed have come to nought; their
high arm their arrogant assertion is broken. This is death,
but have the gates of it the conditions beyond ever been re-
vealed to man? Has he discerned that death essentially is only
a shadow? No, although he himself is the maker of the era
of the pulsations of time he cannot with clear understanding
call the era into being nor can he know what really becomes of
that which passes out of visible existence. Where is the way
to the dwelling of light and, as for the darkness, where is the
place thereof that man should follow it to its bound and discern
the paths to its house? Thou, Job, knowest, for thou wast born
at the time when man's perceptions embraced the era, and the

120 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

number of thy own days or eras since then has been great
Yet it is quite clear that you have forgotten, or you would not
be so dismayed by the closing of the era in which you now are
or by the falling of the house which you erected ; that house
smitten at its corners by a wind from outside. And, after all,
even if you had remembered this law of the era, you would
not know why it exists. For in all your days you have not been
able to evoke a dawn at your command.

Again we move into the external world and down to a
plane upon which the urges are still less directed by under-
standing than those already dealt with have been. The passage
is within verses 22 to 30. The thought is that of the conserva-
tion of that energy which to man's eye has been destroyed. His
own structures fell and the life he had produced seemed to go
out in death. In his own realm continuity has been lost, except
in those few manifestations of conduct which follow the inner
law. But, how can he be sure that there is actual loss; that
the universe does not conserve the forces that augment over a
given time, as they come together even in processes which have
no relation to a structural idea? The treasuries of the hail
have been reserved against the day of trouble. Chaos is just a
little farther away than it would have been without the willed
use of energy. Against the next day of battle and war the
next struggle that man will undertake a little more power is
in reserve. But this conserving power is one which man's
mind cannot follow. He can realise it only as the energy
breaks out anew and cleaves channels for itself by force of
what, without his consciousness, had been laid up in less or-
ganic forms than those toward which he strives. The symbol
of the hail gives us the clue, which might have been missed if
it had not first been found in the Apocalypse of St. John. The
hail reduces to inertness the water needed to moisten the earth
for vegetation. It is the last process in that moisture cycle
upon which earth's fruitfulness depends; therefore the first
process in an ensuing period. The hail melts and streams flow
in various directions to cause the tend.er grass to spring forth.
But was there any, is there any, real beginning of this cycle?
Has the rain a father? And even in regard to earth's produc-
tivity, consider the wilderness where no man works, yet where

INTERPRETATION 121

vegetation springs. Moreover, who has learned how that
mist first evidence of moisture went through the stages of
compacting until it was hail (V. 24, mist for light) ? Or who
knows how was gendered that heavy frost of heaven which
makes water as stone and the face of the deep a frozen surface?
All this is My reserve to counteract the mistakes of man's lim-
ited intelligence and to carry on evolution of life with which
he cannot interfere, though he may prevent its manifestation
in his own world. The scholars are right, I believe, in think-
ing V. 28 an interpolation, and in V. 24 for east wind should
be read water.

Chapter 34

JOB XXXVIII-XLII (Con/.)

fifth question directs Job's attention to a correspond-
jf ence between emotional phases tides in man's life and
changes in the heavenly bodies which was, in ancient times,
an article of faith or knowledge or both. But, with the excep-
tion of the moon, I have found nothing in the old writings to
indicate that a connection between movements in the skies and
physical and emotional states in man could be directly traced ;
so it is probable that the heavenly bodies here named are used
figuratively. Their movements with reference to one another
and their positions had given them certain familiar symbolic
significance and it is this which, for Job, points the question
now asked. This however is a favorable place to show how
the seven phases we are studying may be allocated to seven
zodiacal signs. Indeed, the thought that this should be pos-
sible even more, should be expected did not come until the
last phase was reached. The seven must always stand for
progress through stages of incubation, and wherever the Zodi-
acal system is in the background, as it is in Job, these stages
must coincide with a certain sequence in the signs. The ques-
tion that first presents itself is, will the order be precessional
or diurnal? If precessional, will the seven stages begin in
Pisces, in Capricornus, or in Sagittarius? The answer will be
dependent in the first place upon the kind of process under
consideration. If it is spontaneous, spiritual, intellectual, cre-
ative, the order will be precessional. If it is logical or ration-
alistic, it will be diurnal. If creative, whether it will start in
Pisces, Capricornus, or Sagittarius depends upon whether the
impulse is elemental, mental, or intellectually intuitive. When
the right starting point has been found, each of the seven or
other parts fits into its own sign with entire appropriateness.

122

INTERPRETATION 123

This is the scheme as it almost always appears in the sym-
bolic writings, but in the case of the seven parts of the new
disciplinary process through which Job is made to pass it
proved not to be applicable. Then, with the thought that the
discipline is not an initiatory one, that all that first work has
been done and that Job may now start from any intellectual
peak which he has reached, the sequence became clear. Be-
ginning with the highest conception ; the most essential and,
at the same time, far reaching consciousness that of rela-
tion we first find ourselves in the sign of vision, Aries. The
order necessarily is precessional and the pulsation motive falls
exactly where it belongs, in Pisces. Aquarius always holds in
her cup the essential principle, or motive, in any process and
it was, as we have seen, the bringing of earth into the cosmic
scheme, and awakening to the fact that she has evolutionary
periods of her own, which furnished the keynote of the new
human experiment and started the Prophet upon his career.
Jehovah says to Job, Thou knowest for then wast thou born.

Capricornus is the goat sign. The temperamental here
may either yield up a mental principle or go off into wildness
as the scapegoat. Or there may be division between the two
as with Jacob and Esau with the temperamental more or
less high in the emotional order. In the fourth question of the
Lord we see that the division occurred and that the energy
apparently lost came back in new forms. Just as Esau and his
descendants kept coming out of the wilderness to meet the
continuous Hebrew line.

The sign in which we now stand is Sagittarius, sign of the
Prophet. What conformity shall we find here? The very
question lifts Job out of his peculiar sphere. For he it is who
is following the shaping influence with the forms of earth;
tracing and following the emerging design. He is its inter-
preter. But he had lost sight of the limits of his ability to
search influences and movements back to their sources and here
is confronted with that limitation in its most undeniable form.
He is to interpret earth because earth is the central fact of
that very consciousness which gives man a cosmos. Yes, but
there are return effects from that great order, the cause and
the meaning and the influence of which no man on earth ever

124 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

may know. Verse 31 should read, the scholars say, Dost thou
bind the chain of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?
Dost thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season or dost
thou guide the Bear with her train? Only a partial and super-
ficial explanation of this is possible. But the terms used
are very significant. The Pleiades to the Greek were daugh-
ters of Atlas and Pleione. Atlas stood at the western horizon
like a pillar between earth and sky. His name comes from
tlao to bear. He bore on his shoulders the weight of the
heavens. He was the enduring principle of any culture which
was about to give place to a new era. The level of the new
era would depend upon his powers of endurance; upon the
persistence of the spiritual motives in the era that was passing.
The name of the mother of the Pleiades comes easily from
pleios full and ne (neeo) to spin, to bind. When the
chain of events was complete, then the new sevenfold birth
process would begin; the Pleiades would appear. They, as
daughters, are emotions and the new phase will be predomi-
nantly of that nature. As Sagittarius, more frequently than
not, stands for the principle of understanding which checks
and controls the emotional sequence, this fifth question comes
fittingly into his sign. But the power of Job is something less
than the ideal power of understanding. So is his ability to
alter the large outlines of even his own prophetic movement
less than he had suspected. For Orion is close to orios
bounds, boundary and clearly stands for the horizon. The
Mazzaroth must rightly be interpreted as the signs of the Zo-
diac, for the name can be derived from men, men moon and
some such radical as reo, rut indicating a course or stream.
The moon's path is the original basis of the Zodiac. The in-
fluence of the sun in the several seasons would be intended.
The Bear and her train or sons in the Hebrew are difficult
to interpret. Perhaps the sense will most nearly be arrived at
by taking the four questions in a sequence: Do you bind into
that necessary embryonic chain the emotions which so matured
will lead man into a new age? Do you loose the bands, or break
through the boundary, of the horizon which has enclosed him?
Do you lead forth does man consciously march before those
accumulated forces which produce the Zodiacal ages? Do

INTERPRETATION 125

you direct the great maternal urge and solicitude and the men-
tal consequences the sons of this which is essentially the root
principle of all births?

The questioning then goes on. Does Job know the laws
which make the heavenly order and give the skies as the
former questions have pointed to you dominion in the earth?
(V. 34 is out of place.) Is it you who strike the great sparks
which arise from the impact of the dual elements in life so
that these declare to you their meaning, saying, "Here we are?
Certainly there is wisdom in man's inward parts, understand-
ing in his mind; but did you put it there? And does this in-
tuitive wisdom enable man to estimate the obscurities that
hang over his vision number the clouds or to cause to lie
down and give up their contents those amorphous bodies, when
earth has become so arid that its very dryness draws their fluids
to itself? What part, in short, does man play center and
source of emotion as he is in the changing periods and cyclic
transformations that govern his life? Has not impulse here
far outstripped intelligence?"

The next paragraph, the sixth, unquestionably should be-
gin with V. 1 of the next chapter, XXXIX. The last three
verses of XXXVIII will then follow after V. 8. Again we
are in a world external to man's life and now the forces are
those of elemental forms of expression. The first question
could hardly be more suitable to Scorpio sign of generation :
Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring
forth; or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst
thou number the months that they fulfil? They bow them-
selves and cast forth their sorrows. But their young ones grown
go forth and return not again. Here is the elemental in man,
the primitive life. In it there is no advance, no evolution,
nothing cumulative. Yet this is an essential side of life and
one to be admired, for it is self moving, so far as man is con-
cerned: Who hath sent out the wild ass free; whose house I
have made the wilderness and the salt land his dwelling place?
Behold and admire, for this rage for freedom answers to some-
thing in man himself that you, Job, as interpreter, must un-
derstand. Man, too, would do well to scorn the tumult of the
cities and the shoutings of his drivers and seek the mountains

126 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

of new viewpoints as his pasture and, for vital living, search
after every green thing. But man, perhaps, has lost this love
of freedom, of independence, of daring, to too great an extent.
Will he hunt the prey for the lioness, or satisfy the appetite of
the young lions 'where they wait in covert only until their pride
is full grown? No, man will not make much effort to under-
stand, satisfy, and direct this imperial quality in his nature
which the lion exemplifies for him. Yet it is given of God.
For who else provides for the lion (not raven) his food when
his young ones cry and wander for lack of meat?

The wild ox of the next few verses is a puzzle to the trans-
lators; and no wonder, the name is a contradiction in terms.
For an ox is an ox just because he has lost the spirit of wildness.
The bull is gone and the obedient servant of man has taken his
place. How then may an ox be wild? All through ancient
literature the ox is the symbol of man rendered serviceable and
obedient, through instruction, to some cause or to some leader,
conceived as higher than himself. But in such a time as that
upon which Job has fallen it must become apparent that the
impetuous spirit in man is not so tameable as in other ages it
has appeared to be. The subservience of man even when the
ideals of the leaders are high is not something upon which
to build a social order designed for continuous f ruitf ulness and
for permanency. Something in even the most docile man for-
bids results that can be so foreseen : His strength is great, wilt
thou trust him or leave him to perform thy labor the labor
which mind alone can perform? Will you confide in him that,
left to his own guidance, he will bring you a harvest from the
seed you have sown ? Here, Job, is an example of an unquench-
able something that must be understood as needing constant
reinterpretation and direction by thy mind.

At this point, XXXIX, 12, we should pass to the figure of
the horse, V. 19. The "mettle of the pasture," which had not
been destroyed even in the ox, he illustrates in its most vivid
and most intelligent expression. He quivers in response to any
call upon his energies; he paws in the valley through impa-
tience to use his strength; he is keen for battle and fearless to
enter it; he does not retreat from danger; his spirit rises to
fierceness and rage ; he is instantly ready at the call : As oft as

INTERPRETATION 127

the trumpet soundeth, he saith, Aha! He lives in the imagina-
tion of war a superb instance of courage, and pride. Does
it not go beyond man's apprehension of its cause? Is it thou,
Job, who hast given the horse his might? Or is this might,
which is so useful to man in battle and so great an adjunct to
man's own spirit when he knows how to direct it in reality the
urge to generate? For consider the ostrich ; she rejoices in the
wing as the horse rejoices in his form of speed ; does she, any
more than he, exert her energy only to reproduce in kind ; are
her pinions and her feathers kindly? No, she does follow the
reproductive urge so far as to lay her eggs but she leaves them
exposed on the earth, forgetting how easily they may be crushed
by the foot of man or beast. Her rage exceeds the limits of
functioning as a mother and she is hardened against her young
ones as if they were not hers, because God has deprived her of
wisdom and has not imparted to her understanding. Spurred
by the same urge as the horse, unlike him she scorns guidance
from intelligence directed to definite ends and lifts up herself
on high only to give an example of futility. Neither instinct
nor deference has governed her impulsive strength.

The hawk, V. 26, is the very antithesis of the ostrich, stand-
ing for sureness of instinct and fidelity to its promptings; also
for keenness of vision and definiteness of aim where the os-
trich failed in all these. The hawk in oriental literature is a
symbol for mental alertness. Oh, the hawks on the gables that
see the things, said the old Egyptians. Her nest is on high;
the rock is her stronghold and from thence she spies out the
prey. Her eyes behold it afar off. Where the slain are, there
is she, and her young ones go with her that they too may suck
up blood. The hawk's pinions and feathers are kindly. There
are myriad kinds of instinct and innumerable degrees of
blending instinct with intelligence. Over those which exist
outside the world of humanity man has no control. But he
must have some understanding of them, for the same elements
are in himself and, undirected and unidealised, they may fol-
low the courses along which they propel the subhuman types.
There is but one vital energy that in the type and creative
impulse, whether on the physical or the spiritual plane, will
determine what its courses and its activities will be.

Chapter 35

JOB XXXVIII-XLII (Cont.)

text from here on within the limits of the Lord's
J_ address is quite confused. Part of the first portion of
Chapter XL, verses 2 and 8 to 14, evidently belongs at the end
of this entire section. The paragraphs relating to Behemoth
and Leviathan I would most emphatically retain. Neverthe-
less there is a certain break in the line of intention and it seems
probable that the first verse of Chapter XL is in the right place.
The reading then would be, Moreover the Lord answered Job
and said, Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee.
There is no break here in the sequence of seven, but there is a
break in the line of this analysis of life which Job must make
if he is to be reborn, with a complete knowledge of the nature
of the Prophet's social task. For with Behemoth and Levia-
than we leave behind anything that man may apprehend or
control through growth in wisdom ; anything that stands apart
from him as nature, or that is identified with him as in some way
interlocked with his own evolution ; anything of either an emo-
tional or an intellectual nature, and pass into the world of
indestructible, inexplicable, elemental phenomena. But as
a connecting link with Job's problem the forms are considered
with reference to their place and their appearance in man's
social life. Behemoth is the rude, elemental, imperishable
nature of man in the primitive estate. Leviathan is that in-
eradicable, inviolable consciousness of the power of mind
considered with reference to an unspiritualised consciousness,
therefore manifesting as arrogance and pride. The first word
may be derived from bema stride, pace and mothon helot;
the second from lophia crest a and than, that is, the undying
pride, the indestructible crest of which man wears. We shall
see how well the descriptive figures carry out these ideas.

128

INTERPRETATION 129

The question might be asked whether, in enumerating the
parts of the sequence, Behemoth and Leviathan should be taken
separately or together. The reasons for the latter course are
two. First, on the basis of the interpretations we have made,
the two mammoths stand respectively for the essential com-
ponents of the Dual : on the feeling side, primitive impulse ; on
the mental side, a definite constructive trend of mass psychol-
ogy, uncontrollable by the individual, inexplicable and inde-
pendent of leadership from the intellectual class. This leads
us directly to the second reason for considering the divided
passage as one: the concept is in the sign of Libra, of that
balance in which the dual components are tried. Only correct
interpretation of the figurative language can show us what
the result of the balancing is intended to be. We shall recall
however that Job's first request was for a weighing of his
function and its attendant calamity with the sand of the seas.
Does this not look very like a suggestion on Job's part that the
effects of his age-long labors as Prophet had been wiped out
and that life again was moving on the elemental plane? The
thought comes at the moment and we shall be anxious to see
whether Leviathan suggests something more progressive than
is consistent with Behemoth.

In the figurative language of all literature I believe that
it would be impossible to find a passage more vitally and more
subtly descriptive than this which presents primitive mass man
as the great fabulous beast, Behemoth. He eats grass as an ox.
Is there any discrimination in his tastes? His strength is in his
loins rather than in heart or mind and his force in the mus-
cles of his belly. According to his physical endurance is he
rated and does he rate himself. He moveth his tail like a cedar.
The tree is the symbol of folk growth. The cedars of Lebanon
stand for the masses swayed by the winds of mass emotion.
The tail, probably in the lack of mane or sensitive nerves, is
the only part of the anatomy sufficiently unbound to move re-
sponsively. The sinews of the thighs are knit together. The
two currents of feeling and of thought should run parallel
until they unite in some significant intention or form. In this
undeveloped stage there is no consciousness of difference. The
bones are as tubes of brass. Structurally the class is enduring

i 3 o THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

but there is no marrow or spiritual essence. The limbs are like
bars of iron. This collective man is inflexible in his social pro-
portions ; alike, under all superimposed forms. How uncouth,
how hopeless this mass creature seems. Yet, in reality, he is
the first (not chief] of the ways of God. If the race is to be
directed toward God-consciousness, toward obedience more or
less intelligent, to that highest ideal ; if evolution on a universal
scale is to be attempted, this man shows what way to realisa-
tion must first be taken. So the ancient Seers perceived, as we
know from the records of their experiment.

Moreover, He that made him can make His sword ap-
proach him; can make an impression upon him, in due time,
by the impact of the mental powers. The sword is the weapon
of the Priest in his role as educator, for, unlike the Prophet,
who reads the spontaneous expressions of man, he rests his
method upon an analytical psychology. In time this method
yields results upon the masses. The cumulative effects of
civilisation are figuratively suggested in the remaining verses,
20-24. Mountains should be read rivers. The cultural
streams, all without any wish or intention on Behemoth's own
part, bring forth to him some food that is different from the
grass, for the higher life is not altogether an alien thing to him,
Even in cultured man the beasts of the field have their repre-
sentative instincts. There is, therefore, a point of contact. The
first perception of this resemblance caused the ancient seers tc
send Adam and Eve out of Eden clothed in skins. However
he personally primitive man is supine under these cultural
influences, or, preferably, the effects upon him of civilisation
for it is that for which the lotus stands. He is only a passive
part of this order concealed as to the true facts of his ele-
mental nature by a certain valuable class responsiveness th<
reed. He remains in the shadow of a contemporary civilisa
tion, compassed about with its growths, a part unintegrated anc
almost ignored by those who are within the system ; yet innately
though unconsciously, so confident that if the river (socia
stream) , which seemingly is sustaining him, breaks bounds anc
threatens destruction to life on its shores he has no tremor o
fear. He is confident though Jordan swell even to his mouth
Everything else may lose out, may go down to ruin, but hi:

BekoJdnow Behemoth, wkick 1 made \\itk tlx^e

INTERPRETATION 131

type will endure. He has, he is, the fundamental strain of
endurance in human life. Jordan is the boundary line of the
Hebrew experiment up to the moment of the rise of the idea
of nationality. The word means the end, or bounds, of the
planning of the first leaders ior and denea. The cumulative
effect of even this great inclusive spiritual planning will not
wipe Behemoth out. Always his type will have representation
in the world. Can any man circumvent this law? The Sep-
tuagint omits V. 24 and it seems well. The Jordan is a more
appropriate ending.

Chapter 36

JOB XXXVIII-XLII (Cont.)

T)ERHAPS the fishhook of XLI, 1, more than any other
J[ supposed hint, has led to the identification of Leviathan
with the crocodile of the Nile. The meaning is that this high
spirit in man, this innate pride in himself as a type, is some-
thing too elemental, too aside from any results of culture, to be
brought organically into the social order. It is as unsusceptible
of such affiliation as are the primitive urges. The fish is the
symbol of the organism in its simplest form. Leviathan is not
in himself inorganic, but he belongs in a chaotic medium if
his true nature is to be known. Attached to something already
ordered he would disrupt it. Can his tongue be pressed down
with a cord; bound by the traditions? Can a rope be put in his
nose; will you try to make him a docile follower in some move-
ment? Will you control his expression by fastening him to
some interest the hook in the jaw? Is he going to beg you to
give him his slogans and opinions or conciliate you in any way?
This would be to agree that he should be your servant forever.
That this spirit which should be, and is, if held in respect, un-
conquerable by the force of any organised power and impervi-
ous to the lure of any rewards which would emasculate it,
extinguished as a factor in man's evolutionary process. No
man of wisdom could treat this mighty power capable of sus-
taining its life in the midst of chaos as he would play with
less hardy things; experimenting with them in a different me-
dium as with a bird. Nor would he think that it may be
held within the bounds of any simple conception of unity; any
untried virginity bound for the maidens. Can this power be
safely used for self interest traffic among merchants? On the
other hand, are there any sophisticated means for making this
power more trenchant than it is? Canst thou fill his skin with

133

^\' v ' ,,/fiiou kst (iiHilleil the Judgment of tb Wiclc

\ * ll/i. . i r i .1 kf I I . .1 I _. f .t ... c linl

INTERPRETATION 133

barbed irons or his head with fish spears? Make a trial of this
and watch the result. Lay thine hand upon him; remember
what you have stirred up (the words were written without
reference to V. 10) and do so no more. None is so fierce,
through any acquired energy, that he dare stir him up. Who
or what then can stand before him? Supposing that his
strength were fully raised? But what donor has first given
this strength, that 1 the Lord should repay him? Whatso-
ever is under the whole heaven is mine, and if the power which
goes with this pride could be shown to be other than a divine
endowment, I, the Lord, so honor it that I should have to make
recompence for it. But I am, in truth, the source of this power,
the creator of this Leviathan, and I will conceal nothing re-
garding his beauty, his danger and his magnificence. His
strength is mighty, his proportions comely almost to the point
of terror. Who can strip off his outer garment? His origins
are terrifically dualistic the double bridle. Who shall
understand that mighty control before mind becomes a trium-
phant force? Who can know what forces of expression pre-
ceded this most powerful one opening the doors of the face?
They must have been of fearful nature. All these antecedent
processes have been closely fitted one to another; have been
severely logical, according to the laws of being. That is why
mind in civilized man can be so confident, so keen, so enlight-
ening. It is why language can consume all excrescences and
let the fire of essential meaning flame forth. The effect of
this terrific, impersonal, devastating attack of the logic of
events, of man's inner, undiscovered intelligence upon the body
of error which has grown up and obscured natural and true
order under the arbitrary and mistaken order of a corrupt
civilisation, is to conjure up before the imagination the image
of a ruthless, invincible, superhuman lifeform before which
no existent form can stand. Smoke that obscures outlines seems
to issue from his nostrils; flame that kindles elemental fires
to come forth from his mouth ; the strength of his neck creates
terror in the beholder. How could this supernormal strength
ever be subdued to the purposes of man? For the logic of his
existence is unassailable ; it came about through laws to which
instinct and intelligence respond and which make the emo-

134 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

tional responses of men inevitable, so that the heart of the
fabulous being is as the nether millstone. Of him, when per-
ceived, the mighty ones are afraid; beside themselves with
consternation (as our own generation) before the spectres of
the ruthless working out and destructive effects of laws which
it has ignored. It is unconscious mind, with its logic, dominat-
ing lawlessness and matter under apparently refined forms.
Yet this seemingly impersonal monster is the very product of
men's own lives and minds. The spectre could not have been
among the tribes of North America before the discovery of
the continent what it is in the civilised, integrated world of to-
day. What avails against this great spectrous exponent of law?
The spear, the dart, the pointed shaft? He counteth them as
straw; brass is to him as rotten wood, and the arrow cannot
make him flee. What form of attack is to be chosen against
this invulnerable and elusive power that is shattering man's
hard won order? Slingstones and clubs or their moral equiv-
alents he counts as stubble; the rushing against him of the
javelin is matter for ridicule. The elemental part of him
performs a drastic operation upon non-essentials in man's life
the potsherds; on the other hand, it threshes some values out
of what had seemed mire. The food of new vegetation is
there. Under his influence men reach down into the depths
of themselves and new energies boil up. The sea, which had
seemed only chaos, appears something that may heal the
wounds of the broken social body, for the strength of new
organisms is in it. So a new path seems to shine before men's
eyes after the meaning of Leviathan really has been com-
prehended. What is past even the deepest experiences
seem age worn, hoary. Nothing ever has been nor is in the
present on earth that is his like. For, essentially, after the
smoke which has issued from his nostrils has blown away, he
is the new vision of man's clarified intellect, made without fear.
He is mind, unconscious but victorious over the obscuring and
terrifying temperamental, beholding everything; and only
that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride; the organ-
ising principle over all the intellectual concepts which have
sprung from man's pride in himself as the central and dominat-
ing type of earth. But he is the Race-mind ; not a power trace-

INTERPRETATION 135

able to the individual. In the balances of Libra he outweighs
the powers of the elemental and Job may be comforted by
this judgment. Libra is everywhere in symbolic literature the
sign of judgment and Job has been granted the request he so
urged upon his Creator.

Chapter 37

JOB XXXVIII-XLII (Cont.)

how does Job feel about this matter of a man
coming to judgment on equal terms with God?
Now that Yahweh has disclosed the inner meaning of man's
life, both in nature and in the world of his own idealisations,
does Job not see that Omniscience and Omnipotence, though
receivable through impressions and through reason, lie be-
yond his powers of demonstration and of understanding?
Shall he that cavilleth contend with the Almighty? He that
argueth with God will be able to answer nothing but his own
argument (XL, 2, 8-14). Wilt thou disannul even My judg-
ment? (less than God's). Wilt thou condemn Me that thou
mayst be justified? Or could it be that thou hast an arm
like God's you, even a precursor of Yahweh and can thun-
der with a voice like His? But put this to the test, if you
have so imagined, calling upon God to come to judgment with
you. Deck thyself with excellency and dignity, and array thy-
self with honor and majesty. Pour forth the overflowings of
thine anger; look upon everyone that is proud and above you,
estimating all things as subordinate to your ideal. Look on
everyone that is proud and tread down the wicked where they
stand. Hide them in the dust together; bind their faces in the
hidden place (cover up all aspects of life except that which
you have represented) and when you have succeeded in regi-
menting life in this way even under your own glorious and
humane ideal then will I also confess of thee that thine own
right hand can save thee.

Then Job answered the Lord and said (XL, 3*-5), Behold,
I am of small account; what shall I answer Thee? I lay mine
hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken and I did (will)
not answer. Yea, twice; but I will proceed no further. I

136

- J ^v S?v * ^'

I have lnMrd the vilk tki liranit^ ol tlic Ear hut nowmy tvc 5eetatKc

* / v Q ^ ^ _^

Lrn,' ../'.i/.W.^.f*

INTERPRETATION 137

know that Thou canst do all things and that no purpose of
Thine can be restrained. Therefore it is now clear that 7
have uttered that which I understood not; things too wonder-
ful for me, which I knew not. I had heard of Thee by the
hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore
I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.

The prose conclusion of this great epic poem is thought by
most translators to be inherently at variance with the poetic
parts. The truth is exactly the opposite of this opinion, for
the rehabilitation of Job and the reestablishment of the relation
between him and his Friends are a climax on the plane of
reality strictly in accord with the climax in the ideal world.
There are also the historical connotations which give point
and intensity to the whole drama. The Hebrew movement is
passing into the Judaic phase; Prophetism is looking out
toward a wider field ; the religious life of the age is turning to
more intellectual expression. Without notice of these immi-
nent changes the story of Job would have been incomplete.

So it was that after the Lord had spoken these words unto
Job, after there had been a complete appraisal of this inner
strain of faith and life which is not so much a distinct move-
ment as the energising principle of every order of a fundamen-
tal nature, He turns to Eliphaz, the Priest, as the most
important of instituted means for leading mankind to truth
and, including the other two leaders in His condemnation,
asserts that they have not been right in their philosophy of
life as he who stands for service of the immanent God has been
right. They may be reinstated in their true relation to the
Prophet and his task only by experiencing a new creative flame
and dedicating this to the cause common to them all in the
spirit of service. The flame will be generated by the accept-
ance of a new vision and a new form of expression the seven
rams (Aries) and seven bullocks (Taurus). Reconciliation
shall come through the Prophet's effort. Only this will be
efficient to save the Priesthood, the national idea and the
philosophy which has reigned during the Hebraic period from
the results of the fallacious course they have pursued. The
Servant principle is emphasised by four repetitions. Also,
the contrast between this and the departure from effort to

138 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

understand man as a type the right again is emphasised.
So the Prophet and all he stood for an immanent divinity in
all vital forms; essential purity and potential unity in the
duality of earth man; the identity of the aspirational and the
creative impulses; power to learn the divine will were re-
affirmed as the basic and the highest activity of human life.
Yet there is an interdependence among the agencies of evolu-
tion which makes institutional and disciplinary effort a neces-
sary adjunct to the interpretive and stimulative work of the
Prophet, for Job's captivity was turned only when he prayed
for his Friends. That is, the Prophet himself had been cap-
tured by that national idea which overtook the original con-
cept of a theocracy and the Prophet was released from this
error only when an essentially true relation with his co-workers
had been restored. Then, with this clearer consciousness came
double power; the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had
before. There is augmentation also of the natural relation-
ships; a greater significance is discovered in them when the
Dual has been reaffirmed as an integral principle of life. For,
with the new understanding, the natural ties become spiritual-
ised and there is communion inspired by consciousness of the
new sentiment which, in the coming era, is to motivate the
idealist and limit, while it intensifies, his devotion to the cause
of humanity. For this thing newly come into the world is
the feeling of Pity. Man is envisaged as the Sufferer, as one
actually consigned to evil when he was found representative
of a divine principle. The Lord it was, Yahweh, who brought
him into the struggle that so often ends in defeat. So the
brethren and the sisters and the acquaintances bemoaned Job
and comforted him with something from their own store of
acquired treasure. Every man gave him a piece of money and
every one a ring of gold. William Blake represents the donors
as men and women of a more refined civilisation than that of
the Hebrew, and the hint may be taken as an admission on the
part of the creator of Job that the Jews gained in intellectual
strength and in refinement of manners by their contact with
other peoples. The result of this was that the latter end of
Job was better directed had a clearer aim than at the be-
ginning, when the Hebrew form of prophecy was conceived

INTERPRETATION 139

under the inspiration of the Priest (Shem and Uz). The
power of every endowment, every inheritance, every habit,
every instinct to serve is doubled because where, originally,
these were emotionally directed, now through complete under-
standing they are intellectually inspired too.

Again there are seven sons and three daughters mental
concepts crowning the emotional phases where creative im-
pulse has worked and an elemental life become affiliated to
the intellectual. But in this new line the elemental is on the
plane from which there may be direct passage to the plane of
higher perceptions and greater intellectual power. For the
names of the daughters are Jemina, Keziah, and Keren-
happuch; ge and memiena Earth initiated into the myster-
ies; kisso-ivy and ia the joy creative: the Dionysian impulse
spiritualised (the great desire of the early Greeks) ; kero and
erios the gentle horn ; that is, penetrating into the future by
methods more mild than those of the earlier Hebrew prophets.
The translators generally attach the horn to something which
they call eye paint, as though it were a box. (Dr. Peake)
But the figure is not greatly removed from the meaning we
have given. In all the land were no women found so fair as
the daughters of Job. Nowhere else were the manifestations
of a nation's emotional life of such beauty. They were on a
parity with the intellectual life: Job gave his daughters in-
heritance among their brethren. The renewal and transforma-
tion of the Prophetic movement were complete, for after the
trial and the rehabilitation in the actual life of the people it
went on through the four initiatory stages to a new realisation
in the Prophet's own sign, Sagittarius. Job lived an hundred
and forty years and saw his sons and their (his) sons' sons
four generations: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricornus, and Sagit-
tarius. Then he died, being old and full of days. The period
of the Prophet and his activities closed. The next interpreter
of the divine in man is the Messiah. He is the climax of the
suffering motive; a still closer identification of the redeemed
and enlightened soul with the inarticulate soul of the un-
shepherded masses of men. The emergence of the suffering-
and-pity motive must be identified with the beginnings of
Buddhism and we may judge that in the Babylonian melting

i 4 o THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

pot the spiritual Jews, in their own suffering, were sus-
ceptible chiefly to the influence of this new, or newly con-
tacted, humanitarian ideal. It is, however, one of a nature
that calls for a second coming in clouds of glory. For we
need not believe that, in the original divine intention, man
was made to mourn.

"For this is joy, that the will to nature is delivered and
freed from the dark anguish; for else there would be no
knowledge of what joy is, if there were not a painful

source."

And my -Servant Job shall pray lor you

olrhc rapMvjly ol Jrk^lunlir pi^reil lor HIS Friends

Tart II

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS

PREFACE

expositions of Blake's designs for the Book of
JL Job were made in connection with an earlier study of
the Biblical drama than the one here presented to the reader.

Although this second interpretation rests upon deeper and
more thorough research than the earlier one, all the main is-
sues proved to be identical with those of the more limited
inquiry. The latter are clearly suggested in the descriptions
of the designs, for in almost every instance Blake's interpreta-
tions if the designs are read truly corroborate those ar-
rived at through independent analysis of the Biblical story.

This proof of the control over results possessed by the
psychology of the interpretive method employed, has been of
so great interest to the writer that the evidence of it in an
unchanged version of the designs has been left for the interest
of the reader also. When it is considered that three years
elapsed between the completion of the study of the designs
and return to them, after the more intensive study of Scrip-
tural records had been made an interval in which much
detail inevitably was forgotten it will be realised how sig-
nificant is the fact of the entire adaptability of this study of
the designs to the subsequent study of their subject matter.
There is really only one point upon which the new text is
definitely clearer than the interpretations of the illustrations.
This is the probing of the meaning of Behemoth and Levia-
than. But I have left the original inadequate demonstration
of their meaning to show how close a true psychological
method may come to right meanings even when etymological
clues are obscure.

It was a surprise in returning to the designs to find that
the picturage of the margin (appropriate to the helot the
peasant; and the crest of Leviathan a component part of the

143

144 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

monster's name, as the later study had shown) strictly conforms
to the interpretations given. 1 The canny instinct of Blake in
these occult psychic matters is one of the most amazing
phenomena of modern literature.

1 The earlier prints are without margins.

V^imkuyounj onrar ctjr unto GodL

^ - -_^~- ^

very one also gave Kim apiece ofNoixcy

Chapter I

TITLE PAGE

F THE title page of Blake's Job Mr. Wicksteed, in his
Blake's Vision of the Book of Job, says:

THE Hebrew words at the head of this page D"VN ISO
(Book of Job) are possibly significant of the fact that these
illustrations do not represent the literal story so much as the
spiritual meaning of the Book of Job.

This seems to be probable but, in addition, one would
judge that the use of the Hebrew letters proves that Blake
considered the Book of Job to be a Hebrew document illus-
trating an essentially Hebrew movement.

The decorations of the title page, besides the beautiful
lettering, are seven angelic forms. A creative, a regenerative,
or a generative process is indicated. Which of the three will be
shown by the direction of the main movement and by marks
on the figures bearing characteristic psychological meanings.
Motion is from East to West through the South or, if con-
tinued, West to East through the North. Therefore the
processes to be described are conscious and reasoned ones, not
being physical, which is likewise West to East. This motion
begins in Aries and ends in Libra. An old order has come
to the Day period, era of Judgment supreme function of
the conscious mind because those powers of the subconscious
realm of personality which have attained active and recog-
nisable expression under the stimulus and the direction of a
governing concept are discernible and interpretable at the end
of a cycle. Libra is the Sign of Judgment.

All wings are in a parallel direction and each pair con-
verges to a point. Duality is foreshadowed as coming to
concentration in Unity in a single eye: a unified aspect. Mr.
Damon is right in finding in these forms the Seven Eyes of
God.

145

146 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Another distinguishing mark is the perpendicular direc-
tion taken by the wings at the source and at the culmination
of the movement of the drama, for an oblique direction de-
notes something less than the right angle quadrant of the
four dimensional man. At both the inspirational moment
and the moment of perfect discernment an eternal principle is
the motivating force. During the periods in which evolution
in the phenomenal world must be effected starting with
actuality, of whatever sort that may be an alloy of brass is
fused with the essential gold of complete concentration. But
between two movements bliss becomes ripe.

Still another significant detail is locks of hair drawn to a
point. This would seem to indicate mind, or the psychic
powers, become analytical. And Blake, I find, suggests by
this shape the function of the priest. This word I had already
derived from prio, to saw asunder, cut in twain, for the psy-
chological warrant is the fact that the prophetic function was
divided with that of the priest and it was to the latter that an
educative plan, built upon analysis, was left, while the
prophet continued to perform his function spontaneously and
intuitively.

These pointed locks are most conspicuous in the second
and sixth figures Taurus and Virgo the signs in which
respectively a new order takes shape and a stream of tendency
is defined.

In the first four figures it is notable that the arms are not
shown. In the third figure Gemini there is a suggestion
that they are bound. The ruling concept has not found ex-
pression in art. In Cancer the basic angel of the semi-circle
refinement of the magnetic current (softness, relief from
nervous tension) is shown by the curled lock of hair. After
this the right arm appears the mental powers begin to ex-
press themselves in written records. Libra has a scroll across
the region of the subconscious and holds a pen plume in her
right hand. In Virgo, the left hand holds a spiral tool. The
emotional life will now spire out into all those forms which
derive from the spiral. This lifts movement from the hidden,
instinctive realm to manifestation in visible forms. The
tendency of subterranean impulse has been declared. The

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 147

hand is the instrument chiefly of the subterranean nature but
cannot be efficient until the mind has had some development.
In the last figure, on the left, the emotional and the
intellectual energies find a complete balance, but the level
attained is a little short of that realized, or desired, at concep-
tion. The whole history of Prophetism theme par excel-
lence of the Hebrew Scriptures is the devolution of a
spontaneous living art movement through the phases of priest-
hood and kingship. It is the interaction of the Prophet and
the agents of the Prophet with which the Book of Job is
chiefly concerned. The whole question is one of generating,
by reasoned plans, new art forms in which the aspirational
life of the race may declare itself, heal the rift of Dualism,
and prove to the nations the essential Brotherhood of the
human race. Because it is reasoned generation which forms
the background of the Book of Job the Zodiacal order in this
introductory design is the diurnal one the motion of the
hour-measuring clock. The creative and the regenerative
processes, requiring, as they do, the eternal structural princi-
ples of design, are in the precessional order.

Chapter II

DESIGN 1

angelic septenary of the title-page moved in the
J[ diurnal order of generation. In Illustration I we find
Job and his family sitting under "the eternal oak" symbol
of that principle of physical generation which binds the ages
into a great continuance and of that dualism in the earth-life
which is the inherent motive of the birth struggle. Many
Greek roots having the sound of the English word relate to
child-bearing, habitation, establishment, etc. Ochos is a
chariot symbol of duality in its most magnificent expressions
(as the phenomena of a daring civilization) because it was
drawn by high spirited yoked steeds. The naturalistic reason
for taking the oak as an emblem of the dual life probably was
the fact that, among all the trees, it most attracts the lightning
and is cleft by the electric stroke. The oak also in Greece
as well as in Israel is closely associated with oracular say-
ings.

But while the oak is the general symbol of family genera-
tion, the reference in this illustration of Blake to the patri-
archal system is clear. This has been pointed out by Mr.
Wicksteed in his very sensitive and suggestive study of Blake's
Job and our own study of the Hebrew book has indicated how
Blake arrived at the idea of finding in the personality of Job
the representative of a decadent social form.

The patriarchal form of social life unquestionably was
looked upon by the Hebrew writers as something more than
a fixed order which evolved from and superseded an original
nomadic condition. Like the Prophet himself it was an ap-
pointed instrument for the prosecution of that new task of
lifting the people to a spiritual plane, undertaken by the

spiritual class after the elemental had manifested its subver-

148

were not lomid Women lair to llu- Dau^

all the Land 6c tlieir Father gave tKcia I iilveritancr

^ amon^ th ei r Brethreri

/ ^ :J"

If 1 ascerai up inloHeavatthoiL art tkere
id in Hell
art iktre

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 149

sive power. This elemental, it seemed, is also a continuum,
but the only form it achieves with which the spirit may contact
is the family relationship. This endures and evolves and in
it alone, among the forms which emerge from nature, aspira-
tion becomes conscious. The Father, therefore, is the appro-
priate and efficient archetype or fundamental expression of
an indwelling, plastic and divine principle to which all crea-
tive activity is due. The spiritual men received this revela-
tion and accepted the patriarchate as the norm of human
relationships no matter what political forms might be super-
imposed upon it and also as a figure under which could be
represented the essential and vital nearness of God to man.
As Blake exclaims; "Thou art not a God afar off, but a
Brother and a Friend."

It was this inspired, though conscious, adoption of the
patriarchal order for the ends of universality and super-
humanity that may be considered to have been in Job's mind
when he complains that God had taken him as clay, molding
him with the hand of an artist into a definite and useful form,
and now seems to be looking upon him as mere dust. If we
look closely at the first two illustrations of Blake those
which are intended to express the psychological content and
intent of the patriarchal order we shall detect a clear sug-
gestion of pottery in the contours of the picture in Illustration
II and in the lines of the figures in both drawings. This is
true of no other of the designs except the last two. The in-
scription at the head of Illustration I also shows how con-
scious Blake was of the archetypal significance of the order
upon which the office of the Prophet rested: Our Father
which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

This illustration gives us exactly the condition of the
patriarchal order and the prophetic mission at the moment
the drama opens. The second represents these at the peak
of their achievement, showing at the same time how decline
sets in as the result of the static quality which the whole move-
ment had acquired. In both designs indeed there is a blend-
ing of the old and the new, of the passing and the coming era.
For in that evening of the day of patriarchal motivation, while
still to outward seeming it was the greatest of all the Sons of

i 5 o THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the East, a Gothic church symbol of that new expression of
spiritual life in which a man says, He that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and
sister and my mother faces the setting sun. The insight of
Mr. Damon has detected the secret of decadence: "The musi-
cal instruments hang silent upon the great overshadowing oak
under which sit Job and his wife, while in their hands remain
only the books of records and decrees." Life has ceased to be
an art, illustrating a harmony achieved within. It has become
too much a matter of conformity. The central female figure
stands in Aquarius, marking the essence of the organism.
Observe how meagre and misshapen it is and note the pro-
nounced separateness of the two strands of hair, showing
duality not overcome. There had been progressive genera-
tion of fine forms thus did Job continually but all under
one ruling concept. The idea itself has not given birth to new
and more comprehensive ideas. An emotional movement is
brooding which will in time bring a new concept, but all the
faces at this moment are averted from its symbol, the Gothic
church.

A moment's attention now must be given to the family
group, the background of the picture and the foreground.
Following out the suggestion already made that the psychol-
ogy of Blake's designs in this book rests upon the Zodiacal
order, we find the circle around Job moving from west to
east against the current of creation and the first male fig-
ure, at the right of the mother, standing in Gemini sign of
Levi, the priest. The last figure then stands in Sagittarius,
locus of the prophet. In this patriarchal movement the
prophet and the priest have been in close collaboration, as
we know from Hebrew history, and this Blake indicates by
making the two end figures resemble each other. But the
rise of that priesthood and the form of culture assigned to
it was in Egypt, and this the design indicates by placing the
ram and the bull Aries and Taurus at the corners of the
tent-like outline which holds the whole design. Among the
figures men and women four hold the hands in the attitude
of prayer. These are Job's wife, the emotional element in
the organism, the daughter who stands in Pisces, and the sons

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 151

who represent Cancer and Sagittarius. That is, the will, the
sentiment of humanity, and the prophetic efforts all consciously
depend upon the religious ideal which the priest enforces.
The prophet, in addition, holds an instrument resembling a
rather crude lyre. He is still the interpreter, to some extent,
of that art impulse in the people which the priest turns into
ritual.

In the background of the picture, behind what is now
existent, in addition to the portents of the sky and the Gothic
church which faces them, are tents temporal and tentative
habitations of Job in his eternal quest and flocks many
values infolded as the spiritual movement ran its course.

In the foreground lie the seven values which are apparent
because consciously sought, and among these sheep, lying
directly in line with the deformed figure of Essence, is a dog,
so like a sheep that except for Mr. Wicksteed the difference
probably would not have been detected. But here is the weak
point in the whole system. Instinct has not been refined and
spiritualized until it may be called intuition. The priest has
grown to look upon man, not as the fount of spiritual energy,
but as an elemental being whose energy must be restrained.
Job is perfect and upright in his intention, one who fears God
and eschews evil: the doctrine that there is an inimical agent
in the universe. He has applied his faith his concept
most fully to the affairs of man through his seven sons and
three daughters. Yet he is not quite at ease. He fears a fear
and trouble comes.

Chapter 111

DESIGN 2

/ILLUSTRATION 2 is so devoted to portraying Job's
own conception of that successful moment when the
duality which it was his mission to overcome was all but
fused into a unity that the advent of Satan upon the happy
scene is noted only in small script at the base of the picture.
The other inscriptions record Job's belief that he had touched
the principle of eternity: / beheld the Ancient of Days the
eternal existence which gives meaning to time: The Angel of
the Divine Presence Jehovah, the essential unity in a pure
duality. We shall awake up in Thy likeness there will be
perfect illumination in the event, if one faithfully pursues the
appointed way. The entitling inscription is, When the Al-
mighty was yet with me, when my children were about me.
That is, when life seemed orbic as Whitman demands.

Jehovah is enhaloed. The Sons of God of the past uni-
tary experience antedating Albion bow to him and cast
their fully written books at his feet. Job and his wife are
almost clear of the tree of generation. Job identifies his book
with that of Jehovah, and two angels at the right hand of his
wife hold the scrolls which will register Job's experiences as
a sensitive plate registers forms. The heavenly throne is
hedged in by pillars of cloud. Behind Job on his left his
temperamental nature are his children. Behind his wife,
seated at Job's right so close is the emotional to the intellec-
tual life are resources of subconscious power the flocks.
What is there in this state upon which Job looks back with so
much satisfaction which marks an opening for the forces of
degeneracy? Satan, of course, is the central figure of opposi-
tion, but he could not have taken this conspicuous place unless
some insidious influences within this apparently perfect

152

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 153

system had worked an opening for him. We note four of
them. 1. Pointed locks appear in the hair not only of
Jehovah but of some of the angels. These, I feel sure, indi-
cate perversion of the priestly office to the assumption of
tyrannous power. We shall see more of this later. 2. Job's
intelligence is not an exponent of his emotional life. He has
lifted his concepts to a metaphysical plane. This is shown by
the visibility of Job's left foot and of Jehovah's right foot. 3.
The youngest son of Job, at his left, holds a book instead of a
scroll. 4. The union of the eldest son and his wife rests upon
instinct: the dog lies under the platform upon which they
sit. There has been some result of this union the wife's arm
is around a child, and the touching of the left foot of the son
and the right foot of his wife shows a parallelism of thought
and feeling in the purpose for which the child stands.
Nevertheless, it is the life of instinct which confers energy
upon man's effort, rather than spiritual need. Thus we see
certain vulnerable places in this hedged-in order which lay it
open to the attack of the Adversary.

He is the center of the design, directly above the head of
Job. The one continuous line of his body is from the tip of
the left hand to the end of his left foot. The Adversary has
an unequivocal urge behind all his actions. He is in a swirl
of energy which works in the non-creative direction and ter-
minates in cruel forms that turn back upon their source. His
arms are lifted in the exact compass of Jehovah's figure as
though to measure the extent of His power. His head is
turned so that he looks away from all that surrounds him.
Behind him are anaemic duplicates of Job and his wife.
They are his conceptions of Job's estate, in contradistinction
to the faith of Jehovah in Job, notwithstanding the fact that
Jehovah himself needs a reaffirmation. Flanking Satan are
figures with scrolls that we judge to be the agents entrusted
with the destinies of men under Satan's temporary rule.

Chapter IV

DESIGNS 3, 4

CT~HE third and fourth illustrations must be taken together
jf as descriptive of the annihilation of that whole gen-
erated order, the motives of which had been to provide ve-
hicles for truths discerned by the Prophet. The order in
which Blake has chosen to use the text shows us clearly how
he interpreted this narrative of destruction. The order of
the Bible is as follows: 1. Destruction of the oxen and the
asses by the Sabaeans, and the servants slain by the sword. 2.
Consuming of the flocks by the fire from heaven. 3. Attack
by the three bands of Chaldeans upon the camels, and slaying
of the servants by the sword. 4. Falling of the house of the
eldest son when its four corners were struck by a wind from
the wilderness, and death of the young men.

In the first design Blake notes the falling from heaven of
the fire of God and the blowing in of the wind from the
wilderness. In the second he selects the destruction of the
oxen and then of the flocks, the first of which was attended
by the slaying of the attending servants, the second not. As
we analyze each picture the principles of selection will be-
come apparent. Fire and wind are the destroying agents in
Illustration 4. Of the first the flocks are the victims, of the
second all of Job's sons. The flocks, we have seen, stand for
powers in man which have been infolded into his nature,
especially the subconscious realm, by the influence which all
educative processes have exerted. These however do not con-
stitute intellectual life and consciousness, therefore can not
secure against an outburst of the elemental passions. The
hungry flowers which rise from the ground to meet the sharp-
toothed lightning, which darts from a jagged orb above, show
us why the sinister figure that surmounts the turmoil is ex-

154

So die Lord blcfsecJ tlie latter end of Job
more tKaii the beginning

even four Generations
So Job died
being oU

<kfull of days

J t uhlil,r''tu*tf'f.1ct itirrrt*J*fnir

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 155

pressive, in the bloated and misshapen body and the batlike
wings, of thwarted desire; also in the sardonic smile of resent-
ment and revenge that have been breeding in the spirit under
the oppression of a too rigid ideal the heaved up concept,
or heaven. The freedom-loving attributes of man have hur-
ried from restraint toward the wilderness and the onset of
such undefined energies has destroyed the proportions of the
time-honored scheme. The four corners of the house fall. 1

In this fall they overwhelm the young men. We know the
symbol. The young man is the new intellectual life forming
in a given order. He is something to be conserved as most
precious. Lamech had to be compensated for seventy times
seven when a young man was slain in his bruising; i.e. when
in the crushing out of his spontaneous emotional life an
emerging intellectual consciousness also was destroyed. Thus
the limitations to which Prophetism had submitted finally
resulted in invalidating the reassured life which had de-
veloped within their confines. It was time for a transvalua-
tion of values.

The malevolent bat-winged figure rests his weight upon
one of the pillars of the house and all four fall under it. But
these are finding replacement by a cloud formation which may
in time become a pillar of leading across another wilderness
than that of the early Hebrews. Before this cloud, spanning
with the lower limbs three out of the four stages of destruc-
tion, stands the eldest son. The continuous line in his body
is from the toes of the right foot to the elbow of the left arm.
The fore arm bends to hold a fearfully misshapen child, who
clutches the father's hair. The body is worm-like, the head
morbidly elongated, the hair runs into pointed locks. These
give us our clue. Born of the eldest son and the wife who
lies dead at his feet, with feet on a tambourine and hand on
a zither silent instruments both he is disfigured because
he stands at the end of a long rationalistic process. However,
he rests upon the shoulder of a father who has undertaken the
burden of guiding men toward spiritual goals, and three of

1 In the text I have interpreted the marginal reading from aside; comparative
study having shown that it was alien influences rather than inward states or really
the two together which must have been intended by the author. Blake is interpreting
the wilderness.

156 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the sons on one side, with their wives on the other side, stretch
desperate and imploring hands toward him as toward their
only hope for survival. These six figures are exactly within
the compass of the cloud, except that the hand of one of the
brothers clings to the foot of one of the two sons who have
fallen headlong into the elemental abyss. The hair of two
of the living women has the priestly insignia and still more
the hair of the woman who lies dead. The remaining son in
the center of the right hand group is the only one whose hands
are turned to show the palms. These are open, not toward
the eldest brother but as though to the heavens. This son may
symbolize the element of wisdom in the order. At the ex-
treme left of the picture, what would seem to be the three
sisters, lie reposing almost calmly in the flames. It is not re-
ported that they died with the brothers. They are anxious,
but not desperate like the wives. What was primary to the
doomed order will pass over to a new manifestation.

In the second design of the pair which deals with the
devastations of the Adversary, he himself is seen in the mar-
gin above the picture, a warrior figure with a sword in the left
hand, a shield in the right and wearing, almost as though they
sprang from the breasts, two ribbed and spiked wings which
stand up vertically and parallel to each other. This is he who
goes to and fro in the Earth and walks up and down in it.
It is he who slays the young men who attend the oxen when
the Sabaeans come down upon them. The sword is the
weapon of Dualism. The intellectual life which would have
resulted from an earth prepared for a higher stage by the
preparatory work done with a people docile to spiritual
leadership has been extinguished by the new philosophy of
evil. In the margin below the picture the burning of the
flocks and the young men again is noted. A false philosophy
and an outburst of repressed rage that results from the clash
of opposites are the agencies of destruction that are stressed.

As the state of Job is conditional upon the news brought
by the Messengers, it is the speeding figures to which we now
must turn those only powers which escaped alone (all-one)
out of the cataclysmic ruin. What do they tell of that inner
meaning of the words of their reports which Job caught?

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 157

The position of the limbs has prime significance. Those of
the messenger in the foreground show the line of continuity
running across the body through the right leg and the left
arm. The continuing principle will be a mental one, though
the left foot on the ground is assurance that its impulse will
start from the actualities. The hair of this messenger shows
that the deformed child of the last design is still an earnest
of idealism carried into the future, however this may have
fallen into perverted expression in the past. The left palm
turned toward heaven proves that the search for wisdom will
be continued.

In the body of the second messenger is no continuous line
and the legs bend into the form of that Hebrew letter which
is the main constituent of the word Jehovah; the arms too are
suggestive of the same. Jehovah is the symbol of the Father-
God principle which dwells within the energies of the uni-
verse to shape them into intelligible and self-revealing forms.
This too will pass over and become a vital force to shape a
new world. The messenger is in front of a Gothic church
to Blake the purest expression of the Christian spirit mani-
fested in the general life. The advance motions of the two
messengers also must be considered. The first is from west
to east generative as befits the institution. The second is in
the new creative current which passes out from the limb above
the head of Job into the columnar cloud high above the
Gothic church. Both regeneration and creation this move-
ment possesses. Christianity in its inception stood for both.

What now is the attitude of the recipient of these mes-
sages? One of humility. Both heart and mind are compliant.
Hands and eyes are directed upward in calm and trusting
expectancy. Only the temperamental department of life is
disturbed and clasps its hands in despair over an anxious
countenance. Yet even in this the impulse will be akin to the
new impulse which mind and spirit will govern as the two
left feet protruding from under the garments declare. Also,
the pendulous breasts are ready to nourish with human kind-
ness the needs of the new era coming to birth. Moreover, this
new movement in human affairs not only lies within a current
of regeneration but is flanked about by the essential attributes

158 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

of human nature, evolved into the ability to accept the guid-
ance of mind and spirit the two sheep by a firmly com-
pacted morality which will maintain the level reached as man
has fought his way toward perfection and uprightness, and a
newly emerging intellectual concept, which takes from the
earth elements to be transmuted into spiritual vision the
ram at Job's left hand. A little nucleus of peace and of rec-
onciliation to the great human experiment has been shut off
from the turmoil and the undirected energies of a fallen
world.

Chapter V

DESIGNS 5, 6

/ILLUSTRATIONS 5 and 6 record the complete devasta-
tion of Job, all but his life having been given by the
Lord into Satan's hand, as an inscription above the design
announces. A condition recalled by Job at a later day is por-
trayed as a counterpart on Earth of the scene in Heaven when
Satan, after receiving his grant, went forth from the presence
of the Lord. Job is bestowing alms upon a blind beggar.
Pity has invaded consciousness, causing man to look upon his
fellow man as an object of commiseration. What will be-
come what has become of that ecstasy of the ancients when
they contemplated the mystery of the soul creating the gods?
In Blake's prophetic poems when Enitharmon brings forth
a poor starveling babe the Eternals gaze upon it in consterna-
tion, call it Pity and flee. Under such motivation, with grief
at his heart (and it grieved him at his heart] , how shall man
gain or retain the sense of eternity, exaltation through aware-
ness of his own powers, and joy in creation? The angels
that is, ethereal representatives of the twelve major depart-
ments of human personality like the Eternals, look down
upon the fateful scene in terror from the region of Jehovah's
throne. Jehovah himself has become a grief-stricken figure,
the head weakly falling onto the right shoulder, the left leg
ineffectually almost flowing down to a level two steps below the
level of the right foot, the right foreleg in that oblique position
which denotes a specific angle upon an estate which is in reality
four square, an orb behind each hand to show that both emo-
tionally and rationalistically the Pity concept will complete a
cycle that it is a major impulse and concept in unison. In the
lower margin, in small script is the text: Who maketh his
Angels spirits and his Ministers a Flaming Fire. The aura, or

159

160 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

halo, around Jehovah has lost the power to give out radiations,
through invasion of the surrounding darkness.

The angels who all but encircle the throne stand out from
a background of mingled cloud and flame drawn, one would
judge, from the chaotic flames and clouds of Illustration 3
and fashioned into an Aquarian urn. Certainly the essence
of the situation is expressed in the disconsolate Jehovah on his
throne. Of this structure of inflated clouds Satan is the master
and he turns upon Job even as the latter is relieving the
needs of the poor that two-forked flame which has destroyed
the unity of the world. Dualism is expressed also in the two
anaemic angels who standing, one on the right the other on
the left of Job, replace the beautiful, energized figures which,
when the Almighty was yet with him (Illustration 2), stood
together at his right hand. Job himself is downcast and his
wife has shrunk in stature until her head meets only Job's
upper arm, which she helplessly clasps. The emotional life
is impoverished. Job's right foot extends out farther than
his wife's left foot. Grief and pity can only be reasoned
about. Creative activities depend upon joy. Also, judging
and moralizing attend an impoverished spiritual state: a
Druidic Structure stands in the background.

Then went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord
and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to
the crown of his head (Illustration 6). The redeeming
principle is expressed above Naked came I out of my
mother's womb & naked shall I return thither. The Lord
gave & the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord.

Job is now prostrate while "his wife, like the symbolic
seer, sinks into black deeps at his feet." 3 Satan stands upon his
body, pouring out of the vials of clouds the venom of re-
pressed powers. From the other extremity of the cloud, at
Satan's right hand, barbs of envy are directed toward the
earth. Satan's face is the picture of malevolence and his line
of continuity passes across the shoulders through the out-
stretched arms. He foreshadows that Cross upon which the
new movement toward enlightenment and reunion of man's

1 Blake's Vision of the Book of Job: Joseph Wicksteed.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 161

spirit with the spirit of God shall perish. The scene is one
of utmost desolation ; the sun's rays are quickly darkened ; the
sea into which the sun sinks is black; the ground is rugged and
bare of vegetation; the habitations belonging to the order
now behind Job are a ruin ; Job's head has fallen back out of
what light there is. Yet a primitive habitation of man stands
almost in the center of the desolate scene, and in the back-
ground near the shore of the black sea remain three small
structures which are intact and one which is only partly bro-
ken down. The foundations cannot be destroyed. "Consider
the durability of the human race. It is from everlasting to
everlasting."

The margin of the preceding design is wound with the
"duplicity snake." The margin here shows symbols of the
morbid subconscious toads, grasshoppers, spiders, etc. and
in the center stands that broken pitcher from which Job took
the potsherd wherewith to scrape off from his body the ex-
crescenses sent out by the passions within. A broken shep-
herd's crook lies at the left. The priest has become more the
lawgiver than the guardian of his flock. The S of the crook
has, of course, some significance but I have not its clue.

Chapter VI

DESIGNS 7, 8

next two illustrations, 7 and 8, describe respectively
jf the effect of Job in his diminished estate upon the
Friends and the effect of their attitude upon Job. Job is sub-
missive What, shall we receive Good at the hands of God
& shall we not also receive Evil but this impoverishment of
his form smites upon the eyes of the Friends with the sense
of his being far off, very alien to the Job they had known, and
they weep over the change. Evidently Job stood for some-
thing vital in their own lives. They must have known that
his exhaustion meant their own for they rent every man his
garment & sprinkled dust upon their heads toward Heaven.
Evidently the time had come to wear new social and religious
fabrics and to shape the elementary facts of life under a new
concept or ideal. The palms of all three are open as registers
for a rewriting.

The cruciform shape which the pillars behind Job have
taken shows that this adverse duality will be recognized as a
condition of consciousness which must be accepted as basic
to a new effort for the redemption of mankind. The Seer is
rising to proclaim the new era and the Dual structures stand
as ruins. In the margin are sleeping forms at each corner,
but at the lower right a ewe and a ram lie at the feet of a
shepherd who holds a staff, while at the lower left a dog looks
up in devotion into the face of a shepherdess. Instinct is
going to be more human in quality when those sleepers awake.
It will be the priest who will lead the new movement, the
attribute of shepherd having been regained.

Prophecy, however, is concerned not with man as an ob-
ject of pity but with a divinity in man's soul whose office it is

to unfold great powers. It is a tragic moment in the history

162

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 163

of the race when consciousness of this power has ebbed so low
that the order which it established as an instrument of its
power has sunk into an unclean degeneracy. During the life
of the sons, progress had seemed evident. If this could but
have gone on until a new form nourished within the old had
arisen 1 But from such degeneracy there can be no issue. The
end being this, there should have been no beginning. Let the
Day perish wherein I was Born, cries Job; Lo, let that night
be solitary & let no joyful voice come therein. Joy is the
condition of spiritual creation, but the promise has proved a
deception. It never should have been made. All are affected
by this great disillusionment; the Friends and the wife bow
in despair while Job lifts his imprecatory hands to heaven.
None spake a word unto Job for seven days and seven nights,
for they saw that his grief was very great. "In the beginning
was the word." In this case the word was one of argument,
of seeking causes by analysis and rationalization. Before the
force could accumulate for this revaluation of the past the
subconscious processes must be complete the seven days and
seven nights. It is all a temporal process, however, within
duality, as the mushrooms in the lower margin and the spiked
serpentine bow show. The double cloud-pillar back of Job
is illuminated at the rear by a rising sun which is discernible
through an arch. Does this mean that Dualism will purify
itself of the idea of evil, as it was purified for Noah after
the deluge, and take its place as an archetypal entity? It is
a ray of hope, and Blake has left no scene destitute of an in-
timation of salvation. Mr. Wicksteed has well said that "the
design represents the soul's descent into depths of corporeal
despair." The heads of the wife and of the Friends are so
bound that the hair in each case falls to the ground in a cas-
cade. Lacking the essential energies it seeks touch with earth.

Chapter Vll

DESIGN 9

rHE next era also will be one of generation, or earthborn.
It comes to birth in Illustration 9, the birth number,
which alone among the first eleven designs stands by itself.
The halo around the head of the Spirit which passed before
the face of Eliphaz is but part of a dark cocoon-like oval
which radiates energy into space. New forces are concen-
trating for diffusion. The figures of God and of Eliphaz in
dream are held within a frame of linked clouds. That the
forms enchained are to be under the direction of a newly or-
dained priesthood is evidenced by the episcopal mitre into
which Eliphaz' locks rise as he gazes upon the Spirit before
him and lifts his left hand to receive the impress of its words:
Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be
more Pure than his Maker? Behold he putteth no trust in
his Saints & his Angels he chargeth 'with folly. The stately
form which the Spirit assumes, though exceedingly noble, is
full of restraint. It is "not the God of love nor the God of
life and action for his brow is stern and his arms are bound
around him. Before him no creature can be justified. 'Be-
hold, he putteth no trust in his Saints,' as the text says, 'and
his Angels he chargeth with folly.' A fierce light that is half
darkness flashes from his feet and form and breaks through
the cloud belt upon Job's wife." 1

In the group below, only Job and his wife look up at the
heavenly vision; she with an expression of serene trust, he in
an attitude of awe and receptiveness, his body as though bro-
ken, the right hand, with fingers spread, denoting a state of
receptivity to the ethereal currents. Of the three Friends,
Bildad and Zophar look away from the vision, Eliphaz looks

1 Wickersteed.

164

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 165

straight before him. His left hand is lifted on high in a fine
gesture of exposition. The side from the ground to the elbow
is in the form of a bi-rooted trunk clear proof that the sym-
bol of" earthly generation found in the last design was not
misinterpreted. Bildad's side, equally dark, has the form of
a single table of law. It will be legalism which will strive
toward a unitary concept in this era fear-born. Such was
the condition Christ found at His coming. The margin shows
trees split to their roots, a suggestion that the form into which
the linked clouds have been drawn may be intended for an
axe. The old generation has been completely cut down ; the
new starts in Eliphaz' tree-like side. Opposed to the rational-
istic nature of the new dogmas, Job's left foot is extended be-
yond his robe. He will be renewed by revival of his Emo-
tional intensity.

Chapter VIII

DESIGN 10

difference in direction of gaze between Job and the
Friends is worked out to a fuller psychological statement
in Illustration 10 which, however, pairs with 11, the last of
the first group within the series of designs. Job is still looking
upward while the other three have the level oblique look past
him and averted from the region of vision, as in the preceding
scenes. Job's expression however continues to be greatly
troubled in spite of the upward gaze. This is a marvellous
dramatization of a spiritual, psychological, and historic truth.
The Divine Imagination, the Poetic genius, the fire of Proph-
ecy define the essential creative principle as we may de-
mands a vehicle and an instrument through which it may
work upon the material of the world. At this juncture the
only possible instrument was a priesthood reconsecrated to
the service of the Hebrew nation and to the task of conserving
the flame of Prophetism. Conceived in fear, its work will be
limited by moralism and rationalism, and the spirit in man
which longs for freedom and joy grieves at this. Neverthe-
less, the aim of the Priest is essentially a spiritual one and
the prophetic intuition so discerns and accepts it. The
Prophet's eyes, however, remain upon the vision, while the
eyes of the compromisers look toward distant objectives on
the earth. Tears flow from Job's eyes as he makes his sub-
mission. He knows that it is because he himself has been
but as a man born of a woman an idea conceived in emotion-
alism rather than wrought out in the discipline of will and
of intellect that he is unable to read God's meaning in full.
The days of such a man indubitably will be full of trouble.
He will come up like a flower and be cut down. He will
flee like a shadow and continue not. Does the All-Mighty

166

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 167

open His eyes upon such a one and bring such a one into
judgment with Himself? Evidently He does and it is an
agonizing contest. Have pity upon me! Have pity upon me,
O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me. The
Friends are impervious to pity it is only the prophetic intui-
tion which seizes upon this new human bond as a motive
and the Just Upright Man is laughed to scorn. Both his con-
sciousness of essential integrity and his aim beyond concrete
realization are looked upon by the masters of the Mills as
having no bearing upon the problems which the age is facing.
The Prophet none the less through the very compulsion of
the type knows that his feet are upon the eternal way, that
his confidence rests upon the unassailable data of Being itself:
Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him. He knoweth
the way I take. When He hath tried me I shall come forth
like gold. Job's wife looks up with anxious fear at one whose
stature again has grown so far beyond her own intellectual
perception beyond emotional harmony and expression yet
behind her a solid Druid pillar is beginning to assimilate to
the form of the Cross. Black hills stand back of Job and the
Friends but a rising sun irradiates the sky beyond them.
Promise inheres in the situation and eventually mind and
heart thought and emotion will come into a perfect union
as the hands and the feet of Job's wife disclose. No one of
the three Friends will of himself intellectualize his mission,
for only the left foot of each shows. That there are in this
whole situation the factors always introduced by repressive
and unilluminated dogmatic controls the vixenish hen, the
owl, the bat wings, the chains, and the ponderous human
figures of the margin apprise us. They exemplify a sub-
consciousness into which Job has not heretofore delved but
that now it rests upon him to explore. Perhaps the little
flower that springs up under the hand of Zophar exponent
of the wisdom tradition denotes that the exploration will
not be made in vain.

The projection of a fetid subconscious could hardly be
more terribly conceived than Illustration 1 1 shows Blake to
have conceived it: with dreams upon my bed Thou scarest
me & affrightest me with Visions. The elemental, reaching

i68 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

up out of ravenous flames, grasps Job around the foreleg and
the thighs and lifts a chain toward his head. The deity of
moralism himself, wound in the coils of a hideous scaled
serpent, his foot cloven, beard and hair running together into
pointed locks, head side by side with the head of the serpent,
body parallel with the prostrate body of Job, right hand point-
ing backwards toward two tables of law around which jagged
lightning plays, left hand pointing threateningly down into
the elemental abyss this deity, when seen as he is and in
his effects, makes Job lift his hands in horror. The awaken-
ing to the actual state of the human soul is too terrible, just
as such an experience would be today if we dead could
awake: My bones are pierced in me in the night season &
my sinews take no rest, my skin is black upon me & my bones
are burned with heat. Yet the Prophet comes back as he
always will come back. That most obdurate of all mental
attitudes, positive science, is today beginning to assert an in-
dwelling God and the creative energy of man. The triumph
of the wicked is short, the joy of the hypocrite is but for a
moment. . . . Satan himself is transformed into an Angel
of Light and his Ministers into Ministers of Righteousness.
. . . Why, Oh my Friends, do you persecute me as God &
are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were
printed in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen
& lead in the rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer
liveth & that He shall stand in the latter days upon the Earth
& after my skin destroy thou this body yet in my flesh shall
I see God, whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall
behold & not another tho consumed be my wrought Image.
The Great Conversation of Job and the Friends ends
here. Scroll-like flames in the margin all move upward.

Chapter IX

DESIGNS 11, 12

y^LTHOUGH Illustration 11 closes one series of the
(LXx designs and Illustration 12 opens a second series in
which the designs are unpaired, there is a close sequence be-
tween the two. This will be found by observing first the
marginal motives. The main one of 12 is in the lower right-
hand corner. It is the figure of Job again on his couch and
this time asleep. It is a figure purified and calm. The mor-
bid subconscious has been cleansed and has no longer obscene
expression. The cloudy part of personality is not now a
clogged and poisoned past but the future, still undefined,
yet the goal of aspiration: Look upon the heavens and be-
hold the clouds which are higher than thou. The inscription
covers the region of the loins, instinctive center of the body.
How this has been cleansed is shown by two figures which
are passing out from the top of Job's head. The mind has
searched the darkness which enshrouded it and reached the
truth that it is perverted instinct which shuts out the light
and not any law of the universe: // thou sinnest what dost
thou against Him, or if thou be righteous what givest thou
unto Him? All impulses now have the spiritual quality and
float up toward a new heaven. The elemental ones, in the
left margin, are directed by two angels who point upward.
Mind and spirit now give direction to the elemental urges of
the nature. These forms on the left are all female; on the
right, with one or two exceptions, they are male. The two
lines converge toward a unity. On the left, in the upper part
of the design, three stars stand as the emblems of the elemental
nature brought to a harmony in stasis in each of its parts.
Seven stars on the right, opposite the three, prove that the
emotional process moves toward new creations. In the apex,

I6Q

170 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

between the currents of the upward floating forms, four stand
on the left, five on the right, and two above where the lines
almost converge. They total eleven, in counterpart of the
eleven luminous stars in the left-hand portion of the central
design. The significance of this parallel will be considered
later. The inscriptions in the upper margin are words of
Elihu. In the center : For His eyes are upon the ways of man
& He observeth all his going. Divided between the left-hand
and the right-hand corners: For God speaketh once, yea
twice. Man perceiveth it not. ... In a dream, in a Vision
of the Night, in deep slumbering upon the bed. Then he
openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction. . . .
That he may draw man from his purpose & hide Pride from
Man. If there be with him an Interpreter, one among a
Thousand, then he is gracious unto him & saith, Deliver him
from going down to the Pit. I have found a Ransom.

The key to the cleansing process is given, I believe, in the
words Pride and Ransom. The former, according to true
psychology, would come as does priest from some part of the
verb prio, to saw, and ransom would be ren, lamb and soma,
body. The processes of God deliver man from the necessity
of examining, in its separateness, every part of life and of
nature; for the inclusive statement of a great religious or
philosophic leader an Initiate who has brought up to con-
sciousness in some tragic or exalted moment all the stages of
life may be accepted by another man out of the impulses and
needs of the heart and put on as a garment of innocence. If
ransom be interpreted as atonement, as in the authorized
version, the meaning is the same unity and harmony
achieved through intuitive perception. The Interpreter, of
course, is the Prophet. The shepherd's staff, ending in a
scroll rather than a crook, tells us that it will be a Priest
who will carry on the prophetic energies to the new age.
Job's left hand rests upon that large, closely wound scroll
upon which are written those vital phenomena of the past
from which new impulses will flow.

In the design itself Elihu is the prominent figure. He is
the spokesman for the new age for Judaism. His features
however are cast in the Greek mould to suggest the influence

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 171

of classic thought upon that ancient tradition which flowed
down from antiquity through Hebraism. His right hand is
raised against the three Friends who sit en bloc at the right
of the scene. The forefinger of his right hand points to a
heaven which is revolving out of sight. Its eleven stars are
setting. A twelfth star rises in the East, where the young
child is to lie. The mountains under the eleven stars rise to
a peak and decline abruptly toward a plain, at a point where
stands a temple-like structure built on Doric lines and having
Roman towers. Toward the front, in line with the temple,
Job's wife sits with head bowed upon hands clasped between
the knees. The head is like an inverted Aquarian bowl; the
clasped hands, turned a little sidewise, strongly suggest a large
calyx full of seeds. Clasping of the hands between the knees
would represent reconciliation (cili, palms) achieved and
the imposing of this harmony upon the elemental life. Be-
hind the Friends stands a structure of the older type, but its
columns are becoming slightly oblique and cruciform, and
through a square arch shines the evening star. Its rays can
fall upon Eliphaz alone, and alone of the Friends his form
is not entirely enwrapped in the garments of the past, for his
left arm is bare and the hand rests upon the knee. He will
be emotionally touched by this young prophet who is trying
to lead the spiritual stream into a channel cut out for the
needs of a changed world. The reciprocal effect on Elihu
is shown by the points into which his locks stream. Eliphaz'
eyes rest upon Elihu in thoughtful appraisal, while the eyes
of the other two Friends gaze heedlessly past him, and those
of Job are sunk in absent-minded reminiscence, even while
the hands crossed over the body show an acceptance of the
fact that his own era has closed. I am Young & ye are very
Old, says Elihu, wherefore I was afraid. . . . Lo all these
things worketh God aforetime with man to bring back his
Soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the
living. But Job needs a greater enlightening than Elihu can
bring, and Bildad and Zophar will not accept the new mes-
sage at all. The wisdom tradition Zophar continues on
the old lines, and the national idea Bildad comes out of
the captivity stronger than ever. If any doubt has existed

i?2 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

that Blake interpreted Bildad as we do, the distinctly Jewish
cast of his features plainest in this picture should remove
it. An additional touch is the discarded potsherd lying near
the feet of Elihu. Its work of removing poisonous ex-
crescences has been done.

In Mr. Wicksteed's very suggestive study of this design
from the subjective point of view he raises the question of
the symbolic meaning of the stars. The explanation of Mr.
Damon, quoted by him, I think, points us to the answer,
namely, "that the stars represent for Elihu the glorious mechan-
ism of the universe, the ordered Reason which rules all
things."

But, in accordance with our psychology, we must start
our inquiry with man and the starry universe will then be
the counterpart of that basic nature in him from which he
cannot try as he will definitively depart. It is, Blake tells
us, the golden chain which binds the Body of Man to heaven,
from falling into the abyss. A single star, therefore, is the
converged light of men's souls when in them is felt the unity
of the entire human family.

A concept is uttered to express this harmony. This con-
cept rules man for a period. Twelve periods governed
successively from man's twelve psychic centers would con-
stitute a cycle of consciousness and fix a definite ratio of human
relationships. So much of man's nature is lifted above chaos.
It is a holy generation. The explanation may seem over
mystical, but there are cases on record of groups of people
seeing a new star when stirred to an exultant group conscious-
ness by an appeal to their deepest human sympathies. Indi-
viduals leaving the group have lost the star, then seen it again,
after rejoining the company and regaining access to the waves
of feeling that surged through it. Blake's use of the stars, in
this illustration, is unquestionably allied to the study he has
shown us of a purified and reconstructed subconscious life.
Mr. Wicksteed has most aptly introduced into his study the
couplet from the Four Zoas just mentioned :

Thus were the stars of heaven created like a golden chain

To bind the Body of Man to heaven from falling into the abyss.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 173

The discerning eye of Mrs. Jay Hambridge has noted the
mathematical principles of symmetry in the second of the two
designs we are studying; whereas the first of them is a de-
signed chaos without underlying proportions. Certainly
Blake's psychology was a deep one which no modern plummet
has yet sounded.

Chapter X

DESIGNS 13, 14

rHERE is little to be said about Illustration 13 and it is
so beautiful that one is glad not to be forced to analyze.
It is the whirlwind out of which the Lord speaks after Elihu
has concluded his address : Who is this that darkeneth counsel
by words without knowledge? or design, according to the
latest rendering. The tremendous swirl of energy around
Jehovah is the creative current from east to west through
the north. It starts at the Lord's feet, encircles Him, but
divides, after passing Him, to surround Job and his wife.
The three Friends prostrate before Job receive barely its
last darts. Only Eliphaz is not completely overwhelmed.
His hands are lifted above his head in a prayer for mediation.
The hands of Job and his wife are clasped in humble adora-
tion while the arms of Jehovah, stretched out as a cross, en-
compass the entire group and bring the right hand over the
head of Job in blessing. The inscriptions below are: Who
maketh the clouds his chariot & walketh on the wings of the
Wind. . . . Hath the rain a father & who hath begotten the
Drops of the Dew? In the beautiful double arch that sur-
mounts this design, under the words, Who is this that darkeneth
counsel etc., the counter current of generation bears along the
variously conceived and interpreted Jehovah in five forms,
which make a span of the design below. At the foot of the
page lies a prostrate trunk. The axe of Illustration 9, which
noted the birth of priestly guidance, now has been laid to the
foot of the tree. The Prophet entered into the Priest. The
Priest now adds his powers to those of the Prophet. The hair
of Job flows out in the familiar pointed locks. The faces of
Job and his wife, who now is at Job's left hand, are full of
wonder, love, and consecrated devotion.

174

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 175

The katharsis of this whirlwind is portrayed in the greatest
picture of man lifted to superhumanity ever conceived or
produced Illustration 14. Such consummation came When
all the morning Stars sang together & all the Sons of God
shouted for joy. When, in terms of process, comprehension of
the creative energies, pure from their sources, and of the cul-
mination of each of these at the end of a cycle, in beautiful
and concentrated form, opens the universe to the inner eye of
man, in all its beauty, as the counterpart of his own genius.
Yet the laws are structural and fixed. Man may arouse and
direct his powers, but he may neither see any limits to be placed
upon them now nor, on the other hand, step outside of limits
already fixed: Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the
Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion? The Pleiades, in the
Greek mythology, are daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Atlas
I interpret psychologically as that spiritual force in the world,
at any given moment of time, which prevents culture from
falling back into the abyss. He holds all of men's idealisms
up above their earth impulses. Pleione and Pleiad will derive
from pleio, to fill full to be satisfied. The potentialities of
all the forces at work during a cycle of time have been realized
to the full. The influences of such completeness, such har-
mony, are sweet. It is the summit of life. Orion, at the other
extreme, stands for bonds which forbid expansion ; orios, pre-
siding over boundaries. The elemental constituents of man's
nature are inextricably bound together. They are the very
substance of life itself. Within them man's soul resides.
Above them he looks up to heavens which he continually
leaves for new heavens. But when all the heavens he has
realized stand before his illuminated perceptions as sources
of new displays of energy which will create new forms of
beauty, there comes intellectual ecstasy. All the Sons of God
sing together. The entire movement is from the world latent
and bound in man's subconscious mind to complete clarification
of this content. For the All is always in each ; the universe in
the atom. But between this uninterpreted subconscious and
the fully declared, lies that earth-phase of existence in which
alone process can be traced. And this process is stimulated
and directed by man's genius ; in total by the genius of the race.

176 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

These three departments of life and of nature the undeclared,
the self-declaring and the declared are marked off from one
another by boundaries of cloud-bands. That band which
roofs the cavern, in which sit Job and his wife and Friends, is
the heavier and the more opaque. The band under the feet of
the Sons of God convex where the other was concave is
more attenuated and receives more light. In the lower cave
all look up to the scenes above. For the first time, the gaze of
the Friends is the same as that of Job. Bildad now is a trifle
taller than his companions, his head on a level with that of
Job. It is the national spirit which will first respond to the
new vision. Job's left knee and foreleg alone are unswathed.
Emotions must be greatly aroused, aspirations deeply stirred
anew. The figure of his wife resembles a piece of choice
pottery. But that which is directly above the heads of the
encaverned group is not that upon which their eyes are fixed.
All look up to the highest heaven where the Sons of God lift
their hands toward still greater heights. They are four in
number representing the four dominant creative periods.
Their arms cross at their elbows, the right of each crossing
the left of the seraph by his side, and vice versa. The wings
seem to spring out of the whole trunk rather than from the
shoulders and ascend in parallel lines and touching, so that a
pair rises between each two figures. Over the head of each
seraph stands a star. Fourteen other stars are in the spaces
among the figures. Fourteen stands for the double creative
process, as in the creation story of Genesis ; seven in the unitary,
or conceptual realm, seven in the realm of duality of nature.

This realm of duality, in the design, lies between the cave
of Job's subconscious and the heaven of his cosmic vision. Its
presiding genius is still Jehovah Father-God but his arms
are no longer bound around by his garments. They extend on
each side, to cover on the right the sun and on the left the moon.
The sun drives four steeds in the direction of the creative
movement. They are unreined, for the arms of the joyous
youth who rides them are extended free. So great is the unison
between driver and steeds that direction is spontaneously taken.
Nature is "its own divine control."

The winged Diana under the left arm reins her coursers,

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 177

for they are two serpents, strictly parallel each to each and
each erecting two folds. Their eyes are mild, for these are
serpents of wisdom like the serpent of Zarathustra. His
eagle also is suggested in the wing-like clouds behind Je-
hovah's arms. The sun stands back of Phoebus' head ; a cres-
cent moon rests on the head of Diana. Her motion is that of
generation, from west to east. The right knee and foreleg of
Jehovah are a counterpart of Job's left. Thought and emotion
balance in a universal and clearly conceived process.

The motive of balance is beautifully carried out in the
margins. The serpent-bound pole of Moses lies at the base of
the picture, and this we have elsewhere interpreted as a symbol
of dark motives brought out into the light of day. Above the
pole the seed vessel held by Job's wife in the Elihu scene has
reshaped itself into a long barque with winged sails, ready to
ride the seas toward new lands. The Creation days divide
between heaven and earth. On the left but on Job's right
under the seven stars, or the birth process are the intellectual
archetypes of the visible world. In the right-hand margin
are the expressions of these in physical nature. The archetypes
are Light, the Firmament, the Waters gathered into one place.
Opposite Light are its earthly manifestations, the Sun and the
Moon. As counterpart of the Firmament, the Waters are
agitated by life-forms. They bring forth abundantly. To
counterpart the unified waters and the dry land which rises
out of them, the earth brings forth prolifically cattle and
creeping thing and beast. All surround the Genius of Hu-
manity, seated at the center of the cosmic scene and fusing into
a great unity the phenomena and the forces which, to Job's
cavern-bound perceptions, appear to be dual in their nature.
Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day
and night, shall not cease while the earth remaineth.

Chapter XI

DESIGN 15

/LLUSTRATION IS shows us the universe under the
terms of Dualism wholly interpreted by intellect. Not
quite the Orphean head, which was detached even from the
shoulders, that of Jehovah rests only upon shoulders and arms
instruments of mind "flown free of temperament" because the
instinctive nature now stands fully revealed. Job and his
group remain in the cavity beneath the cloud on which Jehovah
leans, but this is now lighted by the ten stars of the gamut of
mind. Above Jehovah, in the spacious firmament, are the six
stars of creations yet to come. The sun and moon which were
Jehovah's agents of creation in the last design have been re-
placed by angels of a pure and complementary duality. They
are not, however, jubilant angels; rather they look upon the
figures below with an expression of sadness. Evidently the
purity and the unity for which they stand have been won
through titanic struggles. Job, like his creator in the design,
has fought "not unlike a champion."

The register of the struggle lies below within the "wheel
of Recurrence" Behemoth and Leviathan. The former is a
heavy footed, heavy headed, heavy bodied beast. Two tusks
protrude from his mouth, two fierce but stupid eyes are fixed
upon Leviathan below. The tail would seem to be an exten-
sion of the hair which is laced across the back and falls to the
ground as a fifth and cloven foot. The body is crossed by a
network of cords. Who is he, what is he, this Behemoth?
Etymology gives us the clue, the first part of the word coming
from a part of baino, to proceed, sometimes to brood, and
moitros, battle, noise, struggle. Behemoth is that struggle
with the elemental nature through which man gains possession
of his soul. Job now looks back upon that tragic movement

178

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 179

and down. But Behemoth is Chief of the ways of God. Why
then is he so ponderous, so ugly? "Difficult is beauty to the
hero," said Zarathustra. Creation of the beautiful comes
through joy. 1

Leviathan is one horrible coil of a large scaly serpent
passing quickly into a head which is chiefly mouth. There
are four tusks, the jaws are saw-toothed, the crest is doubly
spiked, the eye is a mere slit. 2 Spines project from the coil on
the outer and the inner surfaces. What is Leviathan?

In an earlier study I have interpreted him as the white
death of rationalistic formations non-creative movements.
The saw teeth indicate that the phenomena and the events of
life have been rationalized by the priest. Leviathan is King
over all the Children of Pride. Such has been man's spiritual
world as the flame of prophecy has burned low. Now Job
understands : Can any understand the spreading of the Clouds,
the noise of his Tabernacle? Yes, if he put off holiness the
conventional requirements of a religion and put on intellect.
It is the poor conscious mind that spreads the clouds the con-
fusion of unsublimated instincts that create noises instead of
harmonies within that skin-covered chaos of the elemental
nature. The margins have been well interpreted by Mr.
Wicksteed and Mr. Damon: "The margin shows again the
abysmal deep and the spiral shells that express in another form
the coil of revolving and evolving life." Mr. Damon is quoted
for an interpretation of the figures at the lower corners: "The
inverted eagles also suggest that they are the Divine Genius
working in the abyss." The bearded men at the upper corners
are, I believe, rightly interpreted as humanized forms of
Behemoth and Leviathan, the one on the left holding a pickaxe
as token for the task of constantly stirring the soil ; 3 the one on
the right making records on a tablet after the manner of

1 It was not until I had interpreted Behemoth as in Part I that I understood the
significance of the farm-tools in the margin of this picture. They prove that, whether
or not Blake regarded Behemoth as explained above, he associated this elemental strug-
gle with primitive man.

2 Cf. with interpretation of Leviathan in the text: made without reference to this
design, strictly on the etymological and psychological basis.

8 Cf. with interpretation of Behemoth in the text as the elemental nature in the
helot class. This marginal figure would seem to indicate that after all Blake in-
terpreted etymologically as we have done. I leave the slight discrepancy as an illus-
tration of the almost unerring course which psychological interpretation will take in
a classic writing.

180 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Urizen. For the left-hand inscription Blake has chosen : Also
by watering he wearieth the thick cloud. He scattereth the
bright cloud, also it is turned about by his counsels. The thick
cloud lies between the Lord and Job, as exhalations from a
poisoned earth. Is it rendered less opaque by the tears of
man, weary of being denied his heritage? Is the bright cloud
that still intercepting medium, illuminated by intellect and
turned about by the judgments counsels which man sees to
have been pronounced upon himself and his deeds? In this
design, the bright cloud which in the last picture was a floor
for the seraphs has been turned about to make an amphora
within which all the contents of the design are held, the angels
being the handles. Amphora analyzed means, bringing to-
gether sand f in this case, the assembling of all the sands of life,
as life runs through the hour glass. The study has been one of
generation as the title-page angels announced.

Chapter XII

DESIGN 16

/OB'S mind having been cleansed by a true reading of the
subterranean portion of man's nature, the cloud which
has stood between his vision and the Spirit that animates the
universe divides and rolls back to flank on each side the energies
at work in his world, Illustration 16. These are now subdued
to the angelic part of his nature which is reason dealing
luminously and out of the spirit's impulse with the actualities
of the earth life. Thou hast fullfilled the judgment of the
wicked is Blake's title inscription and I believe that wicked,
in its original sense, signified what grew out of the dual nature.
This nature now is under judgment, because Job has attained
to the unitary vision. The opening of the clouds gives clear
passage upward to the elemental flames, until they can touch
that etheric fire from above which comes down from heaven
to penetrate the elemental flames as oxygen penetrates to the
mineral properties of wood and turn fire to light tempera-
mental impulse to spiritual and intellectual fervor. In a
flame so enkindled, everything not of the eternal nature will
be consumed. So perish Satan lord of the world of Duality
and the cast-off bodies of Job and his wife. Sitting beside
the three-pointed elemental flame, on a great hearth (heart)
stone, Job and his wife gaze upward at the new incarnation of
the Divine which has replaced the one that ruled their more
limited state. The figure is beneficent and composed. His
halo descends to the knees and within it are six cherubic
forms images of any impulses emanating from the elemental
nature which have retained their original innocence, the
seraph being a figure rising out of spiritual impulse. Three
cherubs are at Jehovah's right hand, denoting impulse con-
trolled by reason. One is at the left hand, incarnating a cor-

181

182 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

related emotion, the spiritual intuition of the prophet. Two
weeping cherubs above the others, each side of the head of
Jehovah, must be the emotions of that Man of Sorrows whose
advent is decreed by the very nature of the things of the
moment. He will arise out of that "sad self-knowledge"
which the prophets of the Hebraic period have acquired.
Hell is naked before him and Destruction has no covering.
To the questions, Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst
thou find out the Almighty to perfection? his answer would be
in the affirmative, for to him the essential divinity of the human
has been shown: The Accuser of our Brethren is cast down,
which accused them before God night and day. To the as-
sertion that there is something in the universe beyond the
range of man's own idealizations heaven and hell (// is
higher than Heaven, what canst thou do? It is deeper than
Hell, what canst thou know?) the answer is, The Prince of
this world shall be cast out. "There are more worlds yet."
The great new outlook Job and his wife behold with wonder-
ing awe. She sits on Job's left in this design to show the
double strength of his emotional nature at this moment of the
return of Wonder to man's world. The Friends, on the other
hand, separated from Job by the abysmal flame, look up into
the new realm in unenlightened terror. Zophar and Bildad
gaze backward. Eliphaz is turned sidewise and his body has
assumed almost a dolphin shape one of the symbols of
duality. The priest of the old regime will not see the new
function before him until touched anew by the prophetic fire.
But prophetic intuition has foreseen his next embodiment, as
the locks of the angels disclose. The margin is given over to
ascending elemental flames, and prophetic figures suspended
from the upper corners of the main design seem to foreshadow
the crucifixion. In the lower margin of the picture we find the
first texts taken from the New Testament: Even the Devils
are subject to us thro thy name. Jesus said unto them f I saw
Satan as lightning fall from Heaven. . . . God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things that are mighty. It is the Saviour spirit and the Saviour
intelligence which have entered man's world for his redemp-

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 183

tion. I believe that the design conceals a cryptogram. There
is no doubt about the great swirl of the S, as the central
flame curls suavely toward the angel on the left, above whose
head the cloud makes a counter curve. Looking intently at
the scene the other letters of the word Saviour seem to stand
out : a, above the heads of Job and his wife ; v, below Jehovah's
feet; i, in the central column ; o, in the halo ; u, enclosed by the
clouds; r, in the upper right-hand side of the design. The
revelation came through an unconscious process ; therefore is
felt to be the more trustworthy.

Chapter XIII

DESIGN 17

/N THE next design 17 Job is no longer overpowered
by his emotions. Divinity is close by him in blessing; the
cycle of his life consciousness and attainment the plan and
scope of Hebrew prophetism stands completed, rounded out
behind him, and he gazes even beyond the benignant power
who blesses him into a greater future. The wife, emotionally
humble before the great beneficence of life when it can be
seen whole, looks up reverently to the Lord. He is the same
whom Eliphaz saw in vision, but now without the binding gar-
ments and with stretched out arms. The whole is in the region
of the seer, and the Friends, though present, must turn their
backs upon the radiance, grovelling behind Job and his wife.
Eliphaz is overpowered by the new form that his God has as-
sumed. Zophar's eyes are closed against it. Only Bildad turns
back one eye in startled interest to see what all this new rela-
tion between God and man may mean. The Jewish nation
will still carry on the work begun by the patriarchs. The
events and constructions of Time will again eat into the eter-
nal substance as is shown by the fanged duplicity Snake which
approaches the aura of the sun from the right of the spectator.
That this work of generation will fall into the hands of the
nationalist and the priest we see from the merging of the lines
of the garments of Bildad and Eliphaz into the stream-like
swathing of Job's lower body. For, though I cannot agree
with Mr. Wicksteed's ideas about a general movement in this
design, it is to his suggestive study of the subject here that I
owe the discovery of the lines of force in this part of the pic-
ture the one from west to east, the generative order, as
befits the functions of the priest and the state builder. The
swathing within which Job sits is much in the form of an in-

184

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 185

fant's cradle. More than in most of the designs the margins
give a complete exposition of the drawings : He bringeth down
to the grave & bringeth up . . . We know that when He shall
appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as He Is . . .
When I behold the Heavens, the work of thy hands, the Moon
& Stars which thou hast ordained, then I say, What is man
that thou art mindful of him & the Son of Man that thou
visit est him.

Below, the descriptive text is: / have heard thee with the
hearing of the Ear but now my Eye seeth thee. This line
breaks the radiations of a new cycle after the word Ear, and
the part circle of radiations surrounds a winged female figure
who is about to write upon a clean scroll. Her left hand
touches an open New Testament, upon the pages of which are
written, He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, etc.
and opposite: And the Father shall give you Another Com-
forter that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of
Truth, whom the World cannot receive that world whose
Prince has been cast out. Another testament is at the left-hand
corner of the lower margin, and between the two books lies a
scroll written with the words, At that day ye shall know that I
am in my Father & you in me & I in you. If ye loved me ye
would rejoice because I go unto the Father.

Chapter XIV

DESIGN 18

inscriptions of Illustration 18 are only three in num-
J[ ber; at the top, Also the Lord accepted Job; the title
inscription, And my servant Job shall pray for you; below this,
And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for
his Friends. An altar of twelve hewn stones is in the center
of the design. A pyramidal flame based upon it rises in its
point through the corona up into the body of a segment of the
sun. A concave band of cloud lies back of this flame. Job,
in augmented stature and with garments falling in free lines
that end in spirals, stands before the altar with upturned face
and outstretched arms. Behind the altar are dark hills and,
behind these, hills touched with sunlight. On the right stand
trees entirely in the shadow. On the left light breaks through
between the trees. Job's wife kneels at his left side a figure
not showing the increase that has come to Job. The Friends
kneel reverently at the right of Job. The forelegs of all the
kneeling figures suggest solid bases. Job's garments fall away
from the right foreleg and foot. The essential nature of the
future movement and the purpose basic to it are clear. Men
understand their next aim. Under the words And the Lord
turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his Friends lie
from left to right a New Testament, open at the words, / say
unto you Love your enemies^ etc. . . . That you may be the
children of your Father which is in Heaven for he maketh his
sun to shine on the Evil & the Good & sendeth rain on the
just and the unjust. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father in heaven is perfect; an unrolled scroll; a palette with
brushes and above them graving tools; a scroll which is un-
rolling. Above each corner stands a sheaf of wheat. What is
Blake's meaning? That the written word will be the motive

186

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 187

of an experience (the closed scroll) , from which a new art will
spring and that out of this art life, or moved by it, men shall
unfold the resources of their being (the opening scroll) ? That
from this vital movement a harvest shall be gathered?

A bow above the design is supported on each side by three
angelic forms lightly sketched. They show that impulse and
aspiration have become subject to a directive intelligence.
The lower angel on the right-hand side of the page carries a
lyre symbol of harmony in the spiritual life. The angel in
the corresponding position on the left-hand side has in each
hand a flute symbol of a rhythmic condition of the tempera-
mental nature. The whole design speaks of perfect consecra-
tion and attunement. Whether Blake intended it or not, I
suspect in the text a play upon the word Captivity, as though
the effects of the Captivity upon the Hebrew spirit were re-
versed when the Prophet ceased to condemn the associates who
had defeated his aim, where they had been chosen for the pur-
pose of advancing it, and had extended to these Friends that
charity which enters the heart when the causes behind the
repressions of life stand revealed and the great inter-relation-
ships are perceived.

Chapter XV

DESIGN 19

/TGAIN we find, as in Illustration 2, Job and his wife
(J>^f sitting under a branch that grows out in the direction
of generation Illustration 19. This time the tree is not the
eternal oak, but a fig tree laden with fruit. The fig is the
symbol of prolific bearing. Their background is the two
tables of the law, one of which is slightly fractured. In spite
of the evils which followed repressive legislation, the morality
built up by the ancestors will stand : 1 am not come to destroy
the Law but to fulfill. Also there is now no destruction going
on behind the wall of law. On the contrary, the substance of
earth stands back of the law as a solid and principal cause of
its being. A compact row of heavily laden cornstalks runs as
a line from the donors of money to the tables of the law. The
abstractions of thought, which had appeared under the guise
of human relationships, have given place to a bond forged by
the actual experiences of life. Blake gives us the same thought
in the Song of Los.

The money bestowed upon Job must be a symbol. For
what does it stand ? Money is the medium of exchange. After
the Captivity, Prophetism was no longer a movement of a
strictly Hebraic character, but one that from contact with
other cultures and philosophies had taken unto itself new in-
tellectual elements. The man and the three women who give
Job gifts are of a higher type than Job and his wife, though
their faces are of the Semitic cast. Currents of thought more
exclusively intellectual than the Hebraic have flowed into the
intensely emotional stream. The man however has been won
by this emotion and is giving Job his heart. His companion
has perhaps been mentally touched, therefore presents the
jewel of an emotional nature cleansed by understanding. Of

188

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 189

the two younger women probably daughters in the rear,
one has the priestly locks, seven in number, four on the head,
three below the neck, and carries a vase, or bottle. The Priest
is to be the central figure of the Judaic world. On the head of
the other young woman are two locks rolled into curls. Dual-
ism is accepted but to a comprehending mind it has become a
harmonious motive of creation.

Toward the gifts which a more refined philosophy has to
bestow, the attitude of Job is one of humility. Every one also
gave him a piece of money; and he says of the Guiding Provi-
dence of his life, Who remembered us in our low estate, For his
Mercy endureth forever. (Ps. cvi, 23.)

From the two corners of the lower margin spring two pine
trees symbol of unification. At the top of the left-hand tree
lie roses flowers of the elemental flame. At the base of the
right-hand tree are lilies the first expression of spiritual
passion. Two angelic forms float in the lower margin, five on
each side of the upper edges of the design; two float upward
from the head above the design. The meanings should be ob-
vious. Fourteen, it will be remembered, stands for the double
creative process seven archetypal, seven in the actual dual
world. The inscriptions above stress the idea of regeneration.
In the corners : The Lord maketh Poor & maketh Rich. . . .
He bringeth Low & Lifteth Up. Between the upward floating
angels: Who provideth for the Raven his Food when his
young ones cry unto God. The raven lives in an ancient and
generally an ancestral nest. The renewal of the race would
mark stages in a great continuum.

Chapter XVI

DESIGN 20

the Potter is at work to mould the human clay
and we see a beautiful piece of his handiwork in the
design showing Job and his daughters after the great regenera-
tion Illustration 20. The daughter who sits under Job's
outstretched right arm is of light complexion, as though to sug-
gest an intellectual influence from Greece. The daughter un-
der the left arm is dark and Jewish. The one in the Aquarian
position, in the midst, and between Job's feet is smaller in
stature than the other two. Yet she is not misshapen as in the
first picture. Only the left arm is of excessive girth to indi-
cate that the new faith will find an emotional expression. The
feet make a base for the body as in Illustration 18, when the
Lord accepted Job. The gaze of this daughter is not outward,
as that of the others, but is directed thoughtfully toward the
ground as though she were listening for the mass harmonies.
A hair ornament almost opposite the left ear suggests that the
world of which she is the essential nature is an "auricular uni-
verse." The Prophet again will be led by the inner voice.
Of the three it was said, There were not found women fair as
the Daughters of Job in all the Land & their Father gave them
Inheritance among their Brethren. The inscription is sur-
rounded by Gothic traceries and musical instruments. The
impulsive life of man has become beautiful and rhythmic.
Therefore it may have a close alliance with his mental facul-
ties the Brethren and be passed on as an inheritance which
will not becloud the mind and do violence to the soul. The
reason for this great refinement is that in the cosmic vision
spirit is seen to pervade the universe: // I ascend up into
Heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Hell, behold
Thou art there. The caption above the design and surrounded

190

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 191

by the delicate leafy scrolls of Gothic art is, How precious are
thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them.
The experiences from which these thoughts have been
gathered are depicted in three panels behind Job's seat. The
whirlwind central event of all is directly back of his head
in a square panel. A circular panel showing a great conflict
is behind Job's right hand. Another circle, enclosing a
ploughman setting his plough deeply into the soil, and an al-
most parallel figure sowing seed out of a flower of electric
flame, is back of the left hand. We will recall how the fire
which Prometheus brought from heaven was to him a bright
flower. Both the struggle and its outcome in a renewed power
of prophecy are phenomena within the cycle. Only the whirl-
wind of creative energy goes on until man has become four
square. The whole design is the segment of a circle, and the
tesselated floor is inlaid with interlacing circles. As the last
design gave us a great continuum, this shows us a beautiful and
comprehensive culmination. Mr. Wicksteed gives us the
thought in quoting lines from Blake's Jerusalem:

All things acted on Earth are seen in the bright Sculptures of
Los's Hall & every Age renews its powers from these works.

Chapter XVII

DESIGN 21

the last Illustration one can hardly do better than
to introduce it with Mr. Wicksteed's opening para-
graph :

And here the story ends. Job is seen once more with
his family beneath the patriarchal oak as in the first Illustra-
tion; but, as that was evening, this is dawn. The long night
is over, and the symphony of praise raised to heaven by Job's
family mingles with the song of the morning stars, while the
rising sun engulfs their light.

The trunk of the oak is more columnar than in the first illustra-
tion and no branches are shown, only a waved line of leaves.
The moon, at the left of the picture Job's right is a cup-like
crescent balanced by a star on either side. The full content
of this concept, based originally upon a pure dualism, is known
and the intellectual conquest registers as two new worlds
emotion organized by thought; thought rendered creative by
new tides of emotion. The rim of the sun appears above the
hills while the sun itself sends a glow across the horizon. Job
and each member of his family, with the exception of his wife
and one daughter, holds in the hand a musical instrument.
Job's is a harp, as Jesus is to be of the line of David king and
harpist, organizer and interpreter of the art life of the people.
Of the four women three are of the same height. The one who
stands head above them turns her eyes upward toward a new
vision while her fingers pluck the strings of a lute. Perhaps
she is Enitharmon waiting for a new incarnation of Los. Her
vision and Job's uplifted left hand are in the same direction,
though the visions of these two leaders, of the great choral,
cross.

Then sweet the lute of Enitharmon liquid on the wind.

The lute is the symbol of the aspirational nature turning to

conscious need and expression. The lyre is beyond this transi-

192

DESCRIPTION OF THE DESIGNS 193

tion, but taking a less prominent part than the lute. This term
must come from luo, to loosen, set free. Impulses under re-
straint by moral codes, conventions, inhibitions, are safely and
aspiringly set free in art. In the hands of the wife and of the
daughter who is without a musical instrument, are scrolls.
There are no books sealed or to be sealed. Life will write its
lessons upon the soul in fluid measures. The youngest son who
in the first representation of Job's spiritual world, Illustra-
tion 2 carried a book, now has a horn and, alone among the
company, turns to face the moon. Through him, perhaps, the
new age will renew at the fount of experience in the past.

In the foreground lie the same animals that occupied the
same place in the first design. This time the dog lies low, look-
ing into the eyes of the lamb instead of resting his head upon
the shoulder of a sheep. Instinct will now follow the line of
innocent impulse, rather than impart to this some alien quality.
In this group another change is a break into four and three.
The meaning is obvious. Generation was the key word of the
old order. Regeneration and creation are the joy of the new.
The paean of praise is at the head of the design :

Great & Marvellous are thy

Works, Lord God Almighty,
Just & True are thy Ways,

O thou King of Saints.

Could a faith and a philosophy consummate itself more com-
pletely? The uplift how great it has been! The altar now
upon which this pure three-fold elemental flame glows bears
the inscription, In burnt offerings for Sin thou hast had no
Pleasure. The final beneficence is that the renewed Job com-
pleted his cycle without falling into the degeneracy which
overtook the earlier man :

After this Job lived an hundred

& forty years & saw his
Sons & his Sons' Sons,

even four Generations.
So Job died, being old

and full of days.

So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the be-
ginning.

Part III

COMMENTARY

Chapter I *

Time of Writing. In connection with the confusion of Job
it will be well to remember the way in which Babylon in both
testaments is used symbolically. Always, from Jonah to Reve-
lation, it stands for an unorganised, heterogeneous mass. The
historians tell us that Babylon continued the order of Sumeria,
which clearly was a conglomerate civilisation; its very name
expressing a mingling of types sum and merias, thigh that
place in the zodiacal physiology where the type is established.
Because of this confused state, language itself did not develop
the Babylonians continuing the Sumerian ideography while
the other Semites achieved an alphabet.

1 Chapters correspond with chapters of Part I.

197

Chapter II

Initiation. "Ancient initiation rested upon a conception of
man at once grander and healthier than ours. We have sepa-
rated the education of the body from that of the mind and of
the spirit. Our physical and natural sciences, though ad-
vanced in themselves, do not deal with the principle of the soul
and its diffusion through the universe; our religion does not
satisfy the needs of the intelligence; our medicine will know
absolutely nothing of either soul or spirit. The men of the
present day look for pleasure without happiness, happiness
without science, and science without wisdom. The ancients
would not allow the possibility of separating such things; in
every domain of life they took into account the triple nature of
man." (Hence Hermes Trismegistus) "Initiation was a grad-
ual training of the whole human being to the lofty heights of
the spirit whence the life could be dominated." Scheure.

Personality. "The world is limited to what consciousness
can realise." "Art is the one connecting link between individ-
uals and races," says John G. Neihardt in Poetic Values?

The importance attached by the ancients to man's uncon-
scious mind where all things of the past and all relationships
exist truly recorded, the great Midgard cannot be over
emphasised. The following passage from the Avesta throws
light upon this antique psychology and also helps to elucidate
the final catastrophe in the family of Job. The symbols
pasture, kine, cows, heifer, etc. must be read with reference
to the facts of continuous and stored nourishment, rumination,
etc., which they imply.

We sacrifice unto Mithra, the lord of wide pastures
sleepless and ever awake. Who upholds the columns of the
lofty house and makes its pillars solid; who gives herds of
oxen and male children to the house in which he has been
satisfied. He breaks to pieces those in which he has been
offended.

The oxen and the male children express a sequence between
devoted instinct and dawning mental perceptions.

^Poetic Values, by John G. Neihardt. By permission of the publishers, The
Macmillan Company, New York.

198

Chapter III

Relations. "All the world that we know or can know is to
be known through our consciousness of relations." Poetic
Values: John G. Neihardt.

Leadership. Polytheism. "There is no evidence whatever
of a polytheistic people when left to themselves working their
way up to a monotheistic religion." Max Muller.

In like manner the folk groups, undirected as groups,
would fail of realisation of their instinctive aspirations. See-
ing such realisation in a higher, favored class, the element
capable of understanding its own frustration would have the
terrific outburst of resentment. In the Egyptian mythology,
Horus of the Horizon may be assumed to express the with-
drawal of consciousness to the solar limits. Previously On
the Minor Prophecies of William Blake I had identified
Horus' father, Osiris, with the full Sothic cycle O Sirius
Sothis and Sirius being the same star. Only after coming to
this conclusion did I learn that Pliny assigns the birth of
Osiris and of Isis to Sirius.

199

Chapter IF

Agni. In the beginning the attitude before that all com-
prehensive movement of the universe, so largely unknown and
so inherently unknowable, had been one of wonder, reverence,
awe. This begets the synthetic, intuitive process of the artist,
the creator. It is one which makes possible great achievement,
because the individual yields himself to the urge of forces
which harmonise by inherent power and an inner law. Just
as a patriot accomplishes greater things when he succeeds in
forming a group soul than he can perform by the wisest self-
conceived legislation.

The psychology of Agni, I believe, gives us more real
clues to the creation and the nature of the group soul than any
modern analyst has supplied. Some of our psychologists as
Dr. William McDougall believe that the group conscious-
ness exists before the consciousness of individuality. Even if
this be true, nothing in our historical records takes us back as
far as that. Mr. George Russell, penetrating to the psychic
process, thinks that the belief in an all embracing genius-
mind, common among ancient peoples, may have had each
its rise in action upon the imagination of the lives of famous
heroes the influence extending until it created a germ of a
kindred nature.

This comes very close to the psychology of correspond-
ence between the human sensorium and the outward world, but
I believe that a more subtle reasoning is required by existence
of an oversoul consciousness. Indeed, the author of Our Na-
tional Being has himself suggested this in passages which trace
the development of a group spirit. The human psychology
inscribed in the ancient scriptures especially the earliest
Aryan and Iranian practically proves a power in the group
mind its over soul to react upon the mind of an individual
member as a living entity: an ethereal Being possessed of

200

COMMENTARY 201

personality in an even greater degree than is earth man. It is
union between the deity and the human soul which becomes a
source of irresistible power. Chiefly Ahura Mazda illus-
trates this process of the human spirit. The Dance x of A. M.
Sullivan penetrates to that group instinct for rhythm to which
the ancient masters of men gave so basic a place in their
educational systems. We can give only the first and the last
of the six verses of the poem.

Bagpipe, dulcimer and drum

Whence do all the dancers come?
What pale vision crowds the mind

Of men who tramp the dusty path
To music they have heard in Gath?

Bagpipe, dulcimer and drum

Some have danced for long, and some
Feel the virgin rapture surge

Through bright visions 'til a gust
Blinds them with the dead man's dust,

And slows the anthem to a dirge ;
Bagpipe, dulcimer and drum

Lead the dance to Kingdom Come.

Group Creations. "The precious element in religious life
is that the hearts of people burst into flame and unite together
when pressed by a common interest. Where two or three
people are drawn together in the name of Jesus there springs
up a different feeling. If even two or three Christians come
together, they will possess some power of fermentation."

This passage is from The Religion of Jesus, by Kagawa.
While it offers support to the interpretation which we have
given to the Agni flame, it is easy to imagine how much more
intense and creative was the mingling of spirits under the
exaltation of "opened senses" in the days when great seers
shed their influence upon the groups which they led.

Ether. "The chanters of hymns go about enveloped in mist
and unsatisfied with idle talk." Veda 10.

Om. In the Golden Age there was but one Veda : Om, the

1 Elbows of the Wind, by A. M. Sullivan. Used by permission of the author.

202 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

essence of all speech. Phe is part of phema word; da may
here, as in other Hindu words, stand for the dual. The Vedas
then would be the dual nature in creative expression, and in
the beginning would have been the Word.

Ahura Mazda. "Ahura Mazda is the creator of the earthly
and the spiritual life ; the Lord of the whole universe, in whose
hands were all creatures."

Musical Instruments. As the ancients laid so great stress
upon the cultural efficacy of music and musical instruments,
the form of the latter, the manner of their use, the correspond-
ence between their music and the dynamic power of the
musician, and as music in its various forms played so important
a part in the disciplines particularly those of the folk it is
important that the student come as near as possible to an un-
derstanding of the use of each instrument and of the psycho-
logical effect which each was supposed to produce. For, by
following these instruments in their cultural functioning, one
may learn the nature and the degree of development of many
an ancient racial group.

The fable of Marsyas is well known. What can it mean ex-
cept that a community still primitive in its tastes and of slightly
developed powers essayed too early to become or to pose as an
intellectual people? For the flute is the instrument of folk
music, while the lyre, instrument of Apollo, is fitted to show
forth harmonies composed in the more highly evolved soul.
The name of the flutist confirms this, as one knew it must; for
maz is the radical of the word barley and this grain is con-
sistently a symbol of the less refined elements of society wheat
standing for the more developed.

The harp was associated primarily with the bard. It is this
type of musician who is both elemental and intellectual. He
sounds the notes of primal impulse but renders them in highly
evolved, intellectually composed harmonies mediating be-
tween the folk and the spiritual class. King David was a
harpist, just because, springing from the people, he was yet
so far above them in comprehension that he could interpret
their aspirations under the higher forms of art and by such
characterisation and such direction govern them as a king.
David's reign marks Israel's high point as an organic group.

COMMENTARY

203

Christ is traced back to him rather than to the son under whom
a prevalent wisdom was achieved. It is impossible to ex-
aggerate the emphasis laid upon art in the ancient cultures.

Again we turn to a modern poet for demonstration of a
human psychology which was then as it is now; is now as it
was then. This beautiful poem of Edna Castleman Bailey
The Harp explains both the elemental and the intellectual
principles of harp music. 2

She is a harp

That, standing in the breeze,

Waits for the master wind

To stir strong notes

Only then floats

The music God blent

For this instrument.

Larks

Do not sing from trees

Or soar on wings

More surely

Than these golden strings

Could give forth beauty

If the touch were sure.

Great master wind, conjure

To life these muted strings

Of melody,

And blow and blow,

That her true tones

May flow

Exalted and supreme!

For long, too long she stood

Silent, in a leafless wood.

2 By permission of the author.

Chapter V

Pig. The pig is one of the signs of the Chinese zodiac. As
the animal which most clearly illustrates the possessive instinct
it appropriately stands for that competitive urge of the dual
nature.

Camels are the primitive, or instinctive, elements subdued
to patient burden bearing. The soul on its way to purity and
freedom, says Nietzsche's Zarathustra, must in the first stage
become a camel.

Every Concept that has played a governing role in the life
of mankind must have had its source in some flood tide of
emotional experience. The concept then would pass on to the
institution and in time the vehicle would cease to convey the
pure energy of its creative idea. If an insight, dulled by the
conventions and the narrow aims of an ancient institution,
might be cleansed by immersion in the waters of its source-
experience, a great spiritual revival would inevitably be the
result.

Noah, Daniel, and Job. Ezekiel XIV, 14: Though these
three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they should de-
liver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord
God.

Verse 20: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I
live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor
daughter; they shall deliver but their own souls by their
righteousness.

The Priest. Among the dateless and the dominant institu-
tions of civilised humanity none has been so important as that
of the priesthood. Consequently none, through decadence, has
so vitiated man's spiritual life. It would be of the utmost
importance for our intellectual life if it were possible to re-
capture the spiritual mood from which the concept of priest
and priestly functions arose. I have spoken in the text of the
frequency with which symbols relating to the priest and his
social labors incorporate the radicals of words relating to the

204

COMMENTARY 205

sword and its uses, the knife and its dividing office. Evidently
it is the trenchant work of intellect, even of a logic almost piti-
less in its conceptural play, which is intended. But so far does
such passionate logic seem to be from modern habits of thought
that the task of elucidating it would have appeared all but
hopeless if I were not permitted to call attention to the follow-
ing sonnet of Anna Hempstead Branch : Number XX, in her
Sonnets from a Lock Box. 1

Now I perceive that I no more belong

To this wan world of passionate pale things.
For my sharp sense has heard a wilder song

The silent music Holy Logic sings.
Earth was not proud enough for me, but now

Here is a golden splendor, here is pride.
Here is the silent shining of the brow

Of the Great Lover whereto I am bride.
Now through my reason and my sense break through

The fearful magnetisms of the Lord
And He is not like gently falling dew

Who has the fierceness of the sharp edged sword.
Now through my mind breaks forth new sky new earth

Here is fresh splendor . . . and a virgin birth.

1 Sonnets from a Lock Box, by Anna Hempstead Branch. Houghton, Mifflin
& Company, New York. Used by permission of the author.

Chapter VI

Setting. The setting of the drama must be carefully
studied. Goethe tries to modernise it for our better under-
standing, going far astray in his sophistications from any
timely meaning it may hold. Let us safeguard ourselves by
presupposing that the author of this book whether its origi-
nal composer or an assembler of documents inspired by one
idea was an artist and, as such, drew no line and used no word
without giving each significance in its relation to the whole.

With this in mind we shall note, even more specifically
than anything else, the use of the term God Almighty in con-
tradistinction to Lord Jehovah, or the Eternal. One stands
for the archetypal unified and unifying condition, presuppos-
ing a spiritually illuminated class and the discipline through
which such illumination is reached ; while the other stands for
that new conscious perhaps surprised acceptance of Dual-
ity as the fundamental fact of the earthly existence and that
plastic principle of design which was an essential urge behind
the Dual's desire for Unity.

Reassertion of Dualism, in spite of the baneful effects of
perversion of the idea, was specifically made after the Deluge,
when Noah had the illumination that the great cyclic pairs
seedtime and harvest, day and night, cold and heat, summer
and winter shall be continuing manifestations of the univer-
sal energy and cannot be annihilated while the earth re-
maineth. Only, that archetypal unit in which earth touches
the heavens will come about through the tense sevenfold pro-
cess of the bow. Seemingly the process is immediate to the
artist and the seer, but analysed by the psychologist and the
instructor of the masses it is a matter of evolution and temporal

stages. In the Hellenic world the latter personage is accepted

206

COMMENTARY 207

under Ulysses. The immediate process as essentially the
vital one is saved in Prometheus.

God Himself, however, does not appear on the heavenly
stage. His sons gather around Yahweh. Who are these sons
of God? The term son is the symbol for a spiritual intellectual
perception born of the perfect union of thought and emotion.
It is by this nature also the evolutionary principle. Thought
and emotion, objectified as father and mother, man and woman,
are the ultimate division of the primal energy, as knowable by
man in his human estate.

Feasts. This unity was celebrated by periodic feasts or
festivals, each son offering his own house on his own day. That
is, each plan of development passed fully but consciously over
into the next without loss or submersion of values. The festi-
val in Egyptian symbolism, I became convinced, marked the
end of an age. The thought here is that the movement was con-
sistently progressive. It was all the more so, or chiefly so, be-
cause at the close of each period there was a "transvaluation of
values," Job sanctifying his sons after each feast, so that only
what was of worth to the whole should be passed on. What
could not pass this test was sacrificed at the birth of a new era.
Job rose up in the morning and offered burnt offerings. Thus
did Job for all the days: for each period of activity.

The first invasion of this system came when the earliest
evolved concept of prophetism was receiving reaffirmation.
All were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother's house.
The first derivative idea at the moment was especially nourish-
ing and stimulating. What was this? Undoubtedly the
thought of a priestly organisation in which the prophetic prin-
ciple should rule distinctly the Hebraic movement. The
thought is borne out by the fact that the oxen and the asses were
the first victims of the attack of the Adversary the masses en-
trusted to the guardianship of the priest. But what specifically
disturbed the integrity of the attitude of the people to the
priest? The Sabaeans were star worshippers. Naturalism
and magic crept in and the spiritual bond was broken.

The sheep were burned up by a great fire that fell from
heaven. The flame of life became only an elemental energy
dropping from the ideal plane and all the effects secured by

208 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

educational processes were destroyed. Was this a turning of
the people to orgiastic rites? We know how they came to
prevail in the end.

Hedge. Isaiah V. 5 : And now, go to ! I will tell you what
I will do with my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof
and it shall be eaten up ; and break down the wall thereof and
it shall be for a treading. (Margin.)

Speaking of the False Prophets or the priests and proph-
ets of the idols who expose the earth to destruction, Zarathus-
tra prays : Do not, O Righteous, grant him a field to fence it in.

Chapter VII

Sole to Head. Isai. I, 6: From the sole of the foot even
unto the head there is no soundness ; but wounds and bruises
and putrifying sores.

Friends by Appointment. The first appointment Seth,
from tithemi to establish was the origin of institutional
means for conducting mass man along evolutionary lines.
These organised bodies were subsumed under the heads
Prophet, Priest, King. Japheth, Shem, and Ham were de-
scendants of Seth ; each has a genealogical line suitable to his
function; in numbers, the creative seven for Japhet; the men 1 *
tal five for Shem, as priest; four for Ham, who as king reigns
over the elemental masses.

The second appointment, noted in Job, included the wisdom
class obscured since the earliest times but now emerging be-
cause the masses have become sufficiently intelligent to have a
wisdom of their own. This revival began with Solomon when
three thousand proverbs folk aphorisms were collected.
Zophar, however, stands for the ancient higher wisdom
which will have a tentative revival in the synthetic Alex-
andrian schools.

Natural to Spiritual. Great attention should be given to
the mythical account of the entrance of Cadmus into Thebes,
for, undoubtedly, it supplies the link between the cosmopolitan
culture which developed in Greece and the sources of this cul-
ture in the Orient. Cadmus, as we have seen, comes close in
name to the noun Kadmon relation by marriage and Adam,
the first man, in the East was Adam Kadmon. Adam must
come from damao to unite, to marry with the intensive a
suggesting that spiritual unity in the individual had been
reached. It was the supreme aim of the Wisdom class. To
this class Cadmus must belong for in the Bacchae in particu-

209

210 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

lar, with the exception of the Prometheus Bound that most
culturally significant of the Greek dramas he is notably an
ancient. The relation between the Wisdom school and the
Prophet is also brought out in this drama. Commenting upon
this, in an interpretation of the Bacchae, I have said : "Cad-
mus naturally will be sympathetic toward the Dionysian mo-
tive for he himself was a culture bearer. Tiresias obviously
must be in accord for he is a seer and a prophet, possessed of
the only sense which it is the aim of the Dionysian discipline
to evoke. It is interesting to note the priority which Tiresias
accords to Cadmus, for it furnishes certain proof that the in-
tellectual intention of stressing the spiritual relationships
among men came earlier than the thought of interpreting,
through the Prophet, man's hidden aspirational life."

In the complete text Dionysus admonishes the Thebans that
their doom would have been averted if they only had known
to be pious. This for a time sounded like an anticlimax of
cheap Euripidean moralism. Discovery that pios means rela-
tion by marriage, or the spiritual succeeding the natural, holds
the argument sustained on the psychological plane and most
aptly fits the concept of Cadmus, whose name has the same
meaning. Why could not the Thebans have brought their
community life into this new spiritual and intellectual light?
Oh, why? 1

After Friends' Appearance. There was, at the time the
Book of Job was written, courage to confront the chaos of
man's spiritual world ; intellectual energy and idealism enough
to inaugurate a new spiritual movement. How much courage,
energy, and idealism are demonstrated by the birth of Chris-
tianity a few centuries later! The world at large was too inert
and too brutal to have any understanding of what had been
done, and the purity of the conception was lost in separatist
adaptations. It remains for our time to face even a greater
chaos than that of the breakdown of antiquity and to recover
the purity of the only faith and concept that can make earth
a habitable place for mankind. We have the advantage of a
general level of intelligence higher than has existed before in
historic times; also of a widespread ferment of desire for the

1 1 never will grant that The Bacchae was written by Euripides. It is a psycholog-
ical impossibility.

COMMENTARY 211

liberation of man's spirit from the bonds of physical help-
lessness and intellectual dogmatism from any source whatso-
ever church, state, or science. Trust in this spirit is the one
thing needed. Spirit is always safe in its workings. Let the
goal be superhumanity and all institutions will reshape them-
selves around vital and universal principles and ideals.

The necessity of leadership never must be overlooked.
This is privilege with all that privilege, rightly considered,
costs. Well if what Mazzini thought be true; the strongest
appeal that can be made to man is, "Come and suffer." That
the suffering which comes from the immersion of the individ-
ual in the life history of the race is not to be evaded by the
leaders is primarily true; but that suffering which is due to
the sacrifice of the higher powers to the claims of a class of
beings who have no conscious need of the enlightenment gained
through the use of such powers is sacrifice which might be
eliminated by group leadership and acceptance of varying
grades of responsibility. Leadership from below is largely
destructive over long periods of time. One man leadership,
even from above, as just has been said, is devastating to the
leader himself and, in addition, his message is soon distorted
among the masses. It was class leadership that laid the
foundations of long enduring civilisations.

Chapter Fill

Iniquity. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,
when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
Psalms XLIX, 5.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that
her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned;
for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her
sins. Isaiah XL, 2.

Iniquity. Concerning iniquity in the heels, we know that
the feet belong to Pisces and that the two fishes are back to
back: will and desire at cross purposes. Eliphaz, as a repre-
sentative of the priesthood, declares that the condition is not
a fundamental principle in nature but that nevertheless it is
man's function where the disparate elements exist to labor
for the bringing of them into unity. This he may do only
through his aspirational nature and in humble recognition of
the truth that God's ways are beyond searching or measuring.
Man in his right place fulfilling his prescribed duties and
playing his minor role has the same permanent relation to
the whole as the stones of the earth and the beasts of the field,
and may have the same sense of security. The point to be
noted here is that the Priest denies to man any creative part
in the scheme of the universe. The human is not a dominant
type in the comprehension of which all other types may be
understood ; man is not endowed with a power of understand-
ing which qualifies him to lead in an evolutionary struggle;
the might of God is not dependent upon his contributory will.

It is important for the student to note this fundamental
difference between the deteriorated priest and the deteriorated
prophet: the agent who has lost the fundamental principle
and the agent for whom it has only been obscured. For the
very crux of the problem of the religious life of antiquity lies

212

COMMENTARY 213

right here. The basis of all effort, all philosophy, all religion,
was the psychology of man.

Elihu's Emphasis. Elihu's emphasis upon the intellectual
principle of opinion so stressed by Plato 1 makes one ques-
tion whether a Greek influence is not coming into the new
cultural world with Elihu. Blake seemed to think so, if one
may judge by the Grecian contours of the younger prophet's
features in the design given him.

Iniquity. A late discovery comes nearer than any other
passage to establishing the identity of iniquity and inequity:
Mai. II, 6, 7.

The law of truth was in his mouth and iniquity was not
found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and equity;
and did turn away from iniquity.

It is the Lord of Hosts speaking to the priests of his covenant
with Levi. The exhortation continues:

For the priests' lips should keep knowledge and they should
seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the
Lord of Hosts. V. 7.

A passage in the Psalms where iniquity in the heels is noted
offers confirmation of the interpretation: iniquity means
inequity; inequity between the dual principles. This Psalm
(XLIX) indeed is one of striking parallelisms an arrange-
ment no doubt expressive of the dual consciousness:

Hear this, all ye people ;

Give ear, all inhabitants of the world
Both low and high,

Rich and poor together.

My mouth shall speak of wisdom

And the meditation of my heart of understanding.

I will incline mine ear to a parable;

I will open my dark saying upon the harp.

1 Hermes and Plato, by Edouard Scheur. William Rider & Son, Limited,
London.

214 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil,

When the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?

The remainder of this Psalm is much in the strain of Job
XXIV a line of reflection that we shall give to Bildad.

Eliphaz' Vision. Now is disclosed the very reason for the
existence of the Priest as mediator between man and God : a
lowered conception of the office. It came about through fear.
God comes to the mind, not as the perfection of the workings
of a divine, indwelling power, but as a vague, unknowable
form a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood
up. This is something which man cannot meet with any part
of his endowment as a human being. What weight can his
judgments have? Shall mortal man be just before God?
Shall a man be pure before his Maker?

Stones. As the vitality at the heart of the ancient classics
sinks into one, it becomes more and more apparent that the
creative artists to whom we owe these works spoke in their
imaginative way not for themselves alone but for a sensitive
community almost a race of men more consciously united
in their inner being to the outer world and the phenomena of
nature than was that mediaeval world in which phantasy ruled,
or than is this modern world of ours upon which positive
science has laid its palsying hand. Some correspondence
there was between the outward and the inward which in mo-
ments of realisation caused the material object to glow. It
was this kind of illumination, I believe, that was essential to
the concept of glory.

The object most impervious to that human emotion which
would find reflection in the outer world would seem to be the
stone. And stones, we know, play a most important part in
the ancient symbology. In their heaviest, most static condi-
tion they are f oundational ; as concealers of inner plastic prin-
ciples they are material for art; as substance once inert but
in the event become luminous through processes akin to some
that man may trace in himself they are gems. For gems, as
we know, stood in each variety for a spiritual estate into
which man might enter. As this reasoning until the ancient
consciousness has become a familiar companion is very alien
to modern thought, I am exceedingly grateful to have at hand

COMMENTARY 215

a poem on stones, by a living writer, which illustrates this
opening of the natural world of which we have been speak-
ing to the quickened apprehension of a poetic soul. The
Monk in the Kitchen, by Anna Hempstead Branch, is another
fine example of the higher perceptive powers of man. The
poem on stones is by Mary Siegrist and reads as follows :

SONG OF THE STONES

What is the song that your lips would cry?
Speak to me, sister stones, I said;
They are so far, the rapt reaches of sky
By such alien leagues they blossom o'erhead.

I have so yearned to your mysteries, stones;
Sing, frozen mouths, your once fecund song;
What blind words lie stretched on your silences?
What fantasies light on the air would throng?

Deep-locked you lie in impregnable peace
Through the monstrous aeons. What word, I said,
To those who have carried your weight in the heart?
What bitter manna do you give for bread?

And the moveless stones turned star-faces each one
Out of his gravecloth of silence rose up :
"We were the first blood-brothers of grief;
We drank from a frozen cup.

"Back in the garden of gods we lay,
And we drained all grief since its roots began;
We heard the heart-cry of all that rides
Broken on the night-wind from man to man.

"At martyrs' bodies our masks have been hurled,
But ourselves have bled with their tears instead;
For every Joseph we have nourished the dream
That watered his heart and pillowed his head."

But what is the songs that your lips would cry?

Blossom to me, sister stones, I said;

But even as I spoke the air was song

And wings like blown flakes were over my head!

2i6 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Spittle. At an early date, it is said, the priesthood of Egypt
taught that Re, father of gods and men, was born as a naked
babe from the lotus. Another myth made him self created.
These two and, indeed, others relating to Re's nativity are
not incompatible. For the lotus evidently was the symbol of
the sudden and unexpected flowering of a faith or a culture of
which the sub-surface growth had escaped men's apprehension
and, in such circumstances, the apparition would appear to be
spontaneous, or self created. This can refer, as I see the prob-
lem, to nothing else than that stream of folk culture which had
widened and deepened through the ages without attracting any
concentrated attention from the intellectual class. It was the
same as the appearance of Huoma to Zarathustra. Gods and
men were born of it because the individual began to stand out
from the mass and because human qualities were revealed as
essentially godlike especially the psychic, visionary effects
of group amalgamation. Re would be much the same as Rhea
each coming from reo to flow but would indicate an in-
tellectual appearance rather than an emotional spring. And
Egypt, we know, had the culture most strongly dominated by
mind, eventually narrowing down to the merely rational and
abstract as the phenomena of actual life were ignored. The
prominence of the syllable Amm in the Egyptian theocracy
also proves the point of the elevation of a people as a whole,
being, as it is, consistently a mass-symbol.

Again, the mental nature of Re is indicated by the figure
of his spittle as a creative agency. Of it were born Show and
Tefnut. The names prove a training of the folk in the higher
arts, after the fact of an evolution in their crafts has been dis-
cerned. For Show easily comes from zuo to polish and
the other deity from roots for amassing. Spittle proves ac-
tivity in the gland centers especially under mental control.
Job asks to be let alone so that he may retain his mental
strength. In eliminating this seemingly crude expression, Dr.
Moffatt destroys a most significant clue to the philosophy of
the age in which Job was written. There are other like in-
stances.

Chapter XI

Lion. The word of the Lord, by Hosea, to Ephraim, fallen
into whoredom, and to Israel, defiled : V. 14. For I 'will be
unto Ephraim as a lion and as a young lion to the house of
Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away and
none shall rescue him.

Like as a lion greedy of his prey, and as it were a young
lion sitting (margin) in secret places. Ps. XVII, 12.

217

Chapter XIII

Major Complaint. Job drops back into the major com-
plaint: that this condition of degeneracy renders his life the
whole concept and movement of Prophetism a futile thing,
whereas a complete cutting off, a period of recuperation, or
a benevolent and forgiving attitude toward its errors would
have fixed some of its values. The movement being previously
one intellectually conceived, though prompted by impulse and
emotion, is likened to a man born of a woman and it is con-
ceded that such an origin means a termed existence. Why
then must this transitory thing be measured by the standards
of permanence and condemned for not having grown great
enough to fill a large role: Dost Thou open Thine eyes upon
such an one and bring him into judgment with Thee? JVho
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. But see-
ing that the days of this ephemeral creature are appointed;
that the number of his months is with Thee; that Thou hast
appointed his bounds that he cannot pass turn from him that
he may cease when, as a hireling, he shall have accomplished
his day. For there is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it may
sprout again, that through the smell of water even the old stock
may bud. But // a MAN die shall he live again? Ah, if it
might be so ! All the days of my appointed time will I wait till
my change come. Thou shall call me and I will answer Thee.
Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thy hands. This must
be true, yet all appearance is against such transmutation and
reaffirmation. There is no apparent outlet into the new age.
The transgression of the old is viewed, not as a lapse but as an
impasse sewed up in a bag. And truly the most solid things
decay rocks and mountains. Why not the hope of man?
This is reasonable, and man may not see even the destruction
of his hope. Yet, knowing that it is to come, his flesh upon
him shall have pain and his soul shall mourn.

Frustration of the effort of a life time a man or a race.
What deeper tragedy than to be forced to conclude, in the
words of Blake's Thel: Without a use this shining woman
lived!

218

Chapter XVI

Eliphaz II. On this point Eliphaz cannot refrain from
essaying a word, but the irrelevancy of Zophar is as nothing
to his. He reproves no thought or contention of Job but sim-
ply reasserts, this time with a resentful emphasis, that the
branches of the wicked are unfailingly lopped off and as Job
has just finished proving that the branches of the good likewise
are lopped off has condemned the counter argument as super-
ficial and insincere Eliphaz' words are to Job nothing but
wind. If conditions were reversed and it were a friend who
was in trouble, Job would honestly endeavor to get at the
cause of the trouble so that he might offer real comfort. The
sense is better brought out here by transposing verses 6 and 7.
/ would strengthen you 'with my mouth and the moving of my
lips should assuage your grief. But now He hath made me
weary, thou hast made desolate all my company. Though I
speak, my grief is not assuaged, and though I forbear, what
am I eased? You meaning the Friends have filled me with
wrinkles as a witness of my degeneracy and my leanness
rising up in me beareth witness to my face. He teareth me in
his mouth who hateth me. . . . God hath delivered me to
the ungodly. . . . Further transpositions in Chapters XVI
and XVII will give a consecutive line of thought: / was at
ease but He hath broken me asunder. C. XVI, v. 14. He
breaketh me with breach upon breach. He runneth upon me
like a giant.

CHAPTER VERSE

XVII, 7 : Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow

and all my members are as a shadow.
6 : He hath made me also a byword of the peo-
ple and aforetime I was as a tabret.

XVI, 18: My face is foul with weeping and in my
eyelids is the shadow of death.
219

220 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

CHAPTER VERSE

XVII, 1 : My flesh is corrupt, my days are extinct, the

graves are ready for me.
1 1-15 : My days are past, my purposes are broken

off, even the thoughts of my heart.
They change the night into day, the light is

short because of darkness.
If I wait the grave in mine house, I have

made my bed in the darkness.
I have said to corruption, thou art my
father; to the worm thou art my mother
and my sister.
And where is now my hope? As for my

hope, who shall see it?
XVI, 22 : When a few years are come, then I shall go

the way whence I shall not return.
17 : But not for any injustice in my hands. Also
my prayer is pure. O, earth cover not
thou my blood (to let my cry have no
place). Also now behold my witness in
heaven and my record on high.
21 : Oh, that one might plead for a man with

God as a man pleadeth for his friend.
20 : My friends scorn me, but mine eye poureth

out tears unto God.

XVII, 3 : Lay down now, put me in a surety with Thee.

Who is he that will strike hands with me ?

4 : ( No one?) Thou hast hid their heart from

understanding. Therefore shalt thou

not exalt them.

5: He that speaketh flattery to friends (as
these men to God) even the eyes of his
children shall fail. ( The power of per-
ceiving will die out in that line.}
8: Upright men shall be astonied at this and
the innocent shall stir up himself against
the hypocrite.

9 : The righteous also shall hold on his way and
he that hath clean hands shall be stronger
and stronger.

10: But as for you all, do ye return now, for I
cannot find one wise man among you.

Chapter XVII

Cosmic Hand. In the ancient symbology the cosmic Hand
is inscribed with the records of a cycle, and when this is com-
plete the Hand appears to him who may read, rising out of
the waters of the confusion of a fallen civilisation or a dying
age. The Hindus, among others, have the symbol; also the
Mayas. The same thing is intended in the legend of the Holy
Grail.

I believe that verses 28 and 29 should follow verse 22. The
passage then would read : Why do ye persecute me as God and
are not satisfied with my flesh? Ye should say, why persecute
we him and what substantial root is found (even) in me? Be
ye afraid of the sword divider between flesh and spirit
threatens Job. For wrath bringeth the punishment of the
sword, that ye may know there is a judgment. Then comes
the affirmation and the reaffirmation of the Hebrew confidence
that the supreme power of the universe is not only an indwell-
ing God but a God who may be approached in the same man-
ner as a person is approached. That the relationship between
the guiding mind and man is essentially the same as the typi-
cally human relationship. That the mind is not a God afar
off but a brother and a friend. Oh, exclaims Job, that my
words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a
book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in
the rock forever! But I know that my Redeemer liveth and
afterwards He shall arise upon the dust and after my skin
(this) is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God. Whom
I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold and not as a
stranger. My reins are consumed with desire for this great
consummation. For verses 25-27, except the parenthesis, I
have used the translation of Dr. O. B. Davidson, the most pene-
trating student of this great drama.

The moment here recorded is a great one. It is the union
of Jehovah with God of Yahweh with Elohim. The indwell-
ing deity and the cosmic controller of design have become one.
And all is intensely human. The psychic quality of Ahura
Mazda has been surpassed in an all fusing spirituality.

221

Chapter XFHI

Zophar II. In Zophar's second speech, insert verses 7-1 1
deleted from chapter XV, but reverse 7 and 8.

What confronts Job is so vast as to be entirely beyond any
measure he possesses. Let the Friends grasp this and be silent
before the inexplicable lay the hand upon the mouth. Even
in remembering, Job is afraid and trembling takes hold on his
flesh. What is this deep enigma? It is the apparent per-
sistence of that vast duality; is present in flesh as an eternal
element where mind and soul and spirit can find their true
being only in unity. Now what has been striving toward unity
has been overthrown, and only this duality which makes for
the eternal recurrence of nature remains untouched. It is
incomprehensible. Wherefore do the 'wicked live? A clear,
consistent inquiry is brought out by a slight change in the
wording and the order of the text slighter, by the way, than
the modern translators make, striving also to follow psycho-
logical clues.

Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are
mighty in power? Their seat is established in
their sight with them and their offspring before
their eyes.

Their homes are safe from fear, neither is the rod
of God upon them. Their bull gendereth and
f aileth not, their cow calveth and casteth not her
calf.

They send forth their little ones like a flock and
their children dance. They take the timbrel and
harp and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

They spend their days in mirth and in a moment go

down to the grave.

V. 16: The method of the wicked is beyond my compre-
hension. Lo, their God (their sense of God) is
not in their hand. (Does not come into their
practical and emotional interests).

Therefore they say unto God: "Depart from us,
for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
What is the Almighty that we should serve Him,

222

COMMENTARY 223

and what profit should we have if we should pray
unto Him?"

Yet (on the other hand) how oft the candle of the
wicked is put out? and how oft destruction com-
eth upon them?

V. 22 : Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing He judgeth
those that are high? He distributeth sorrows
in his anger. The wicked then are (become)
as stubble before the wind and as chaff that the
storm stealeth away.

God layeth up the iniquity (of the wicked) for his
children. He thus requites him and he shall be
aware of it. His eyes shall see his destruction
and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

For what pleasure hath he in his house when the

number of his months is cut off in the midst?
(Is it not in truth one stupendous enigma ?)

One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease
and quiet. His breasts are full of milk and his
bones are nourished with marrow.

Another dieth in the bitterness of his soul and
never eateth with pleasure. These shall lie
down alike in the dust and the worms shall cover
them.
(But, my Friends,)

Behold, I know your thoughts and the devices
which ye wrongfully imagine against me. For
ye say: "Where is the house of the prince? and
where are the dwelling places of the wicked?
Hast thou not asked them that go by the way
and do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked
is reserved to the day of destruction and that
they shall be brought forth to the day of
wrath?

"Who shall declare his way to his face and who
shall repay him what he hath done?

"He shall yet be brought to the grave and shall
watch in the heap (never emerge from that mass
element which is recurrently flowed under.)

"The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him
and every man shall draw after him, as others
were innumerable before him."
(But with such an argument)

How then (asks Job) comfort ye me in vain,
seeing in your answers there remaineth trans-
gression ?

Chapter XIX

Bildad III. In the attribution of chapter XXIV to Bildad
the context must have special consideration. In replying to
Eliphaz' promise to Job that if he return to the Almighty he
shall be built up, have wealth, find defence, decree a thing and
find it established, have light upon the way, Job has objected
that his need is an instant one: Even today is my complaint
bitter; that he would order his course before God if only op-
portunity were given to do so ; that he cannot find God's ways,
although God knows his; that this confusion causes him to be
troubled at the presence of God; that he cannot understand
why he was not cut off before this darkness descended. For
Job to go on from here complaining of man's inhumanity to
man, finally asserting that God will punish this by wiping out
the evil doers, is entirely out of line not only with the pre-
ceding complaint but with Job's whole argument. There are
only two points upon which Job is perfectly clear which have
not been clouded by the darkness that has fallen upon him.
One is that his own sense of justice is a spark of true life within
him and must in some way be satisfied. The other is that God,
though He may seem to treat men in an arbitrary way, will
not accept nor reward anything from them which is not forth-
right, sincere, and elementally true. The Friends assert that
the wicked always are punished in this life. Job has seen the
contrary with his own eyes and will not accept any specious
argument for the sake of vindicating a doctrine. Therefore
he could not be guilty of the reasoning of chapter XXIV. It
is, however, quite suitable to Bildad. Why, he asks, seeing
that the Almighty does not hide times sequences in genera-
tions, ages, etc. do they that know this ; not learn about God's
ways. But they do not. They violently remove landmarks.
They practise every form of inhumanity that brings degener-

224

COMMENTARY 225

acy into the human stock. They rebel against the light, know-
ing not the ways thereof. The first eighteen verses, I believe,
are consecutive, except that I would place v. 21 after v. 9,
substituting plural pronouns and verbs for the singular of the
text.

Verse 19 would continue the argument, giving the counter
truth of God's justice. Omit v. 21 and place v. 22 after v. 24.

Chapter XXI

Landmarks. Remove not the ancient landmarks (bound,
margin] which thy fathers have set. Proverbs XXII, 28.

The landmark is evidently a figure for an ideal projected
into the future toward which the social life of a community
should move. Remove not the old landmark (bound, mar-
gin] ; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless; for their
redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.
Proverbs XXIII, 10-11.

The similarity of verse 10 to verse 28 of chapter XXII,
which unmistakably refers to practices of the founders of the
Hebrew culture, is clear proof that Dr. Moffatt's rendering
obscures the true meaning of these passages and confuses is-
sues. For he goes on: Remove not a widow's landmark, en-
croach not on the orphan's estate; for they have a mighty
champion who will take their part against you. The meaning
is not so obvious. The preacher of wisdom is warning against
letting down the bars between variant cultures before each
has reached the superstate of intellectual perception. Not
only must Israel live according to its own aims fathered as
it is by a personal God but it must not invade the field of
another people whose deity is not so highly conceived. For
any aim pursued with sincerity and idealism will redeem
from confusion and materialism.

226

Chapter XXII
Verse 8 is evidently an interpolation.

227

Chapters XXIll-XXV

Parable. It would be a drop from the high passion of
this passage to give chapter XXIV to Job. The level is main-
tained however by passing on to chapter XXVI after Bildad
has expatiated upon the evidences of God's power, shown in
His overwhelming of the wicked after allowing them a loose
rein for a season. Again may be found a perfect sequence
of thought by drawing together psychologically allied pas-
sages out of a chaotic text. In this reply to Bildad's ultima-
tum Job asks how this Friend, in thus exalting God's power,
has helped the sufferer who is without power; how he has
counselled one who is supposed to be without wisdom ; how
he has saved the arm that has no strength. How is Bildad
qualified to declare so plentifully the thing as it is? What
kind of a mediator has he been? To whom has he uttered
words, and these derived from whose spirit? It is all spe-
cious and Job will have none of it.

XXVII, 5: As God liveth who has taken away my judg-
ment, and the Almighty who hath made my soul bitter, all
the while my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my
nostrils, my lips shall not speak wickedness nor my tongue
utter deceit. God forbid that I should justify you. Till I
die I shall not remove mine integrity from me. My right-
eousness I hold fast and will not let it go. My heart shall
not reproach me as long as I live. Let mine enemy be as the
wicked and he that rises up against me as the unrighteous.
For what is the hope of the hypocrite that he hath gained
when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry
when trouble cometh upon him? Will he delight himself
in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God? Behold
all ye, yourselves, have seen it (this deflation of the hypo-
crite). Why then are ye thus altogether vain? I will teach

228

COMMENTARY 229

you in the hand of God, that which is with the Almighty will
I not conceal.

It is at this point, one judges, that Job launches his "para-
ble." There is no concealment. Hell is naked before God
and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the
north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon noth-
ing. He bindeth up the waters in His thick clouds and the
cloud is not rent under them. He holdeth back the face of
His throne and spreadeth His cloud upon it. He hath com-
passed the waters with bounds until the day and night come
to an end. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished
at this reproof. He divideth the sea with His power and by
His understanding He smiteth the dragon. By His spirit
He hath garnished the heavens yet His hand hath formed the
crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of His ways, but how
little a portion is heard of Him? The thunder of His power
who can understand?

Zophar has taken up the thesis, giving it a characteristic
twist and closing on the same old note, chapter XXV, 2-6
and XXVII, 13-23. Paying no attention, however, to this
interruption, Job added to take up his parable and we start
again at XXVIII, 1.

Parable. That the parable was the vehicle of recondite
truths is explained in Psalms LXXVIII, 1-8:

Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the

words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings

of old,
Which we have heard and known and our fathers have told

us.
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the

generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His

strength, and the wonderful works that He hath done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a

law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that

they should make them known to their children.

Paean. All those great processes which awaken the paean
mood in Job and his friends are ascribed to the Lord
Yahweh the immanent plastic power in the world. These

230 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

seers carry the processes back to their supernal source. Never-
theless it is not to be gainsaid that these were forms and moods
of consciousness in the men themselves and we are brought
nearer to such experience when we find something akin to it
in poets of our own time. Ruth Barnes, author of the follow-
ing lines, has had, as other verses of hers prove, a sensitive
consciousness, and she also has had that awareness of the
release of the inner perceptive powers which is so informing
with regard to the nature of the soul. I am permitted to
quote these few lines from a longer unpublished poem :

Quietude

that does not strive

nor seek

nor ask
Large brooding hush

becalming Heart and Thought. . . .
I slip content into the great release
Oh, hush of bounteous peace . . .

of bounteous peace . . .

Splendor flares with sudden light

Through budding earth to heaven's height

Suffusing all with burning gold !

A fount of crystal joy up-gushes!

Light unquenchable inrushes I

Concentric everywhere, my forms unfold I

I behold!

I see myself in all my works ! Compelling
Through fiery orbs my forging might;
Unceasingly attracting and repelling,
I mount once more from Word to Light !

The whirling atoms my urge proclaim:
My power exults through stars of flame.
I am, through all, one life propelling
From Light to Word, from Word to Light 1

Through multitudinous forms and Space's measure
Utterance I seek. Through trees I grow;
Through birds I carol my song of pleasure ;
Forging at length a mind to know.

COMMENTARY 231

Oh, joy of feeling, hearing, seeing
Through opened senses of a human being!
Oh, still unuttered joy to know!

Hand on Mouth. If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up
thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy
mouth. Prov. XXX, 32.

Chapters XXVII-XXVIII

Heap. Referring to the note on the heap and the pillar,
we shall realize how utterly aware were the leaders at the
time of writing of the Book of Job of the cataclysmic nature
of the social downfall. Over a transition time essentially
like our own, they could see nothing pillar-like in the cultural
work with the waste of the preceding ages. It was only a
ruined heap.

Portion. Remember the days of old. Consider the years
of many generations; ask thy father and he will show thee;
thy elders and they will tell thee.

When the Most High divided to the nations their inherit-
ance, when He separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds
of the people according to the number of the children of
Israel.

For the Lord's portion is this people; Jacob is the lot of
his inheritance. Deuteronomy XXXII, 7-9.

232

Chapters XXIX-XXX1

The Young Prophet. Upon the failure of each of the
three traditions to meet the belief in itself which prophetism,
even in its fallen estate, has maintained, Elihu decides that
dependence upon tradition is but leaning upon a broken reed
and that the new soul of the time must look for a directly
inspired message. For there is always a spirit in man the
breath of the Almighty which can give man understanding.
The new voice can speak the more readily because the words
of the older Prophet have not been directed against this new
manifestation but only against the fossilised forms of the
ancient ideas. There need not be fear on either side, for
Elihu is of the same utterance according to Job's mouth
before God. He is cut out of the very same clay. The Judaic
movement continues the Hebraic movement, though with a
changed form for a changed world.

Elihu's tone is entirely the argumentative one of the
younger generation, checking up the merits and demerits of a
traditional system of thought which has not gone unscathed
through the test of some cataclysmic experience; just as the
younger men and women of our own post-war period have
turned their critical attention to the old beliefs and forms that
do not articulate with the new theories which the more en-
lightened reason of modern man has evolved. And like their
reasoning from impressions and given data, rather than enter-
ing into the inmost life of a spiritual, or even a natural,
phenomenon to learn its process and its meaning through
identification.

Pit. Reference is clearly to the abyss of sensuality into
which the initiate at the mystery of the earliest mystery
schools might fall if he were not of the heroic strain. As
Jacob Boehme reminds us, there was the byss and the abyss :

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234 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

possibly the pit of sensuality and the lower depths of utter
mental chaos the mental overcome by the elemental. The
first condition would be typified by the strange woman of
Proverbs XXII, 14, and XXIII, 27: The mouth of strange
women is a deep pit; he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall
therein. . . . For a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange
woman is a narrow pit.

The main part of verse 26, it would seem, should follow
verse 24, making the passage read : Then He is gracious unto
him and saith f Deliver him from going down into the pit, I
have found an atonement. He shall then pray unto God and
He will be favorable unto him and he shall see His face with
joy. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; he shall return
to the days of his youth. For God will render unto him his
righteousness recognise and reward it when it truly exists.

The pit undoubtedly is a symbol reminiscent of the ancient
mystery disciplines. Jonah II, 6, makes this quite clear as all
the imagery of this verse recalls the initial trial of the candi-
date for enlightenment: / went down to the bottoms (cuttings
off, margin) of the mountains; the earth with her bars was
about me forever; yet hast Thou brought up my life from
corruption, (the pit, margin) Lord, my God.

If the initiate was overcome by the horrors of the ele-
mental, he fell even lower than natural man. Blake's Thel
fled from these to an illusory romanticism.

Noise. It is the spreading of the clouds and the spreading
of the lights upon the tabernacle by which God judges the
people, Elihu thought, and the noise thereof showed concern-
ing it and the cattle concerning that which goeth up.

Noise would be the inarticulate, unrecorded evidence of
power in the world ; proving a divine ruling; the subconscious
life. It is all the tremendous energies of nature which cause
Elihu's heart to tremble and move out of its place, almost as
it had been with the priests at the moment when degeneracy
of the institutions set in. It is fear that holds this new
Prophet's thought on the transcendental plane and prevents
him from coming into living touch with the divine spirit that
works in the world.

Chapter XXXII

Whirlwind. Although the far distant spiral of the nebula
has been suggested as that form in nature which aroused in
consciousness the sense of whirling creative processes for,
obviously, it could not be the actual whirlwind, only destruc-
tive in its effects, that could offer the form I seriously ques-
tion whether the incitement may not first have come from
something not so much responsive to an outer stimulus as
close to an inner process itself. A phenomenon which some-
times attends concentration upon things whose roots go deep
down into the racial memories; things which in their origins
come into being through commitment of the genius of an
individual or a group mind to the cosmic laws, is what can
only be described as a musical, beautifully cadenced swirl,
audible to the inner ear. It would seem as though what the
Pythagoreans supposed to be a music of the spheres must be
greatly similar to these silvery waves of sound, but I never
have heard whether those ancient mystics told, or knew, of a
process in themselves by which the power of hearing the
celestial music might be induced. In regard to that internal
music however which accompanies certain forms of creative
effort there is no doubt as to the stimulating cause, and the
effect evidently is the great submerged normally as we say
unconscious mind, roused to a wave-like action which catches
up the motions of the conscious mind. For the rhythm is that
of a long wave meeting the interference of a short wave, or of
a long wave striking upon a not highly resistant shore. The
phenomenon is one of unquestioned authenticity as an appear-
ance definitely conditioned, but I know of no one who has felt
it in its creative and cosmic implications as did the fourteenth
century Mohammedan mystic, Kabir. How beautiful are his
words and how closely akin is the mood induced in him by

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236 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

the thought of an immanent deity creating man's world to the
mood of Job :

"Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious
has the mind made a swing. Thereon hang all beings and
all worlds and that swing never ceases its sway. Millions
of beings are there. The sun and the moon in their courses
are there. Millions of ages pass and the swing goes on.
All swing I the earth and the air and the sky and the water-
and the Lord himself taking form. And the sight of this
has made Kabir a servant 1"

This I ask Thee, O Ahura, tell me aright: Who by gener-
ation was the father of this Righteous Order? Who gave the
recurring sun and stars their way? Who established that
whereby the moon waxes and whereby she wanes, save Thee?
These things, O Great Creator, must I know and others like-
wise still.

This I ask Thee, O Ahura, tell me aright. Who from
beneath hath sustained the earth and the clouds above that
they do not fall? Who made the waters and the plants? Who
to the wind has yoked on the storm-clouds the swift and fleet-
est two? Who, O Great Creator, is the inspirer of the good
thoughts? . . . Who as a skilful artisan hath made the lights
and the darkness? Who, as thus skilful, hath made sleep and
the zest (obtained from it)? Who spread the auroras, the
noontides and midnight monitors to the discerning; duty's
true guides? Zend Avesta.

Whirlwind Wisdom. Regarding the wisdom which pre-
dates man's consciousness, though not man himself, as the last
verse of the quoted passage proves, some of the Proverbs are
as eloquent as the author of Job :

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, be-
fore His works of old.

When there were no depths I was brought forth; when
there were no fountains abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I
brought forth.

While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields,
nor the chief (margin) part of the dust of the world.

COMMENTARY 237

When He prepared the heavens, I was there ; when He set
a compass upon the face of the depth ;

When He established the clouds above; when He strength-
ened the fountains of the deep ;

When He gave to the sea His decree that the waters should
not pass His commandment; when He appointed the founda-
tions of the earth ;

Then was I by Him as one brought up with Him and I
was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him;

Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my de-
lights were with the sons of men. Proverbs VIII, 22-31.

But I think thus in my heart: Should the evil thoughts of
the earthly man be a hundred times worse, they would not
rise so high as the good thoughts of the heavenly Mithra.

Should the heavenly wisdom in the earthly man be a hun-
dred times greater, it would not rise as high as the heavenly
wisdom in the heavenly Mithra. Zend Avesta.

Taking this passage in connection with those in which
Mithra moves as an earth force we learn the scope which the
ancient seers gave to the super-rational mind; its activities are
creative in the realms of both the subconscious and that of the
creative imagination.

By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us,
O God of our salvation ; who art the confidence of all the ends
of the earth and of them that are afar off upon the sea :

Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains, being
girded with power.

Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their
waves, and the tumult of the people.

They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid of
Thy tokens; Thou makest the outgoings of the morning to
sing (margin). Ps. LXV.

Chapter XXXIII

Poseidon. Too much importance cannot be attached to the
concept and the principle of design. It is integral to the
consciousness of relations. It is the interior vitality which
the French call la forme, a term for which the late artist and
art interpreter, Vernon Blake, said there is no English or
other equivalent. Form design is the antithesis of chaos,
and chaos is the unendurable condition among all imaginable
states of the mind and the emotions. It is the Typhon of the
Greeks.

So urgent is this need of form that the mind searches for
it even in the most tumultuous play of either the elements or
the passions. The sea, for the ancients, was the symbol of the
chaotic condition, yet even to that was given, from the physi-
cal viewpoint, power to produce and to nourish organisms
within itself and to carve the land into adaptable shapes;
metaphorically to remove material useless through deteri-
oration for the evolutionary purpose, in order that some more
comprehensive and significant form may take the place of the
old. This surge, animated by an inherent motive which is an
unseizable and imperishable principle of life, was figured by
the Greeks under the personality of Poseidon, as we have said
in the text. It is the mighty tide that sweeps around the earth.
Prometheus, scorning Jove's messenger as he threatens con-
sequences in Time of the Titan's rebellion, reminds Hermes
that he is talking only about the wave. But what has the wave
to do with ocean's depths? He overlooks the fact that it is
the depth's urge to design thrown up by the restlessness of
chaos which gives life to the wave. It is expression as against
Being; the continuous urge to form as against the inertia of
conscious power Aphrodite was born of the etheric elements

of the wave; an extract of eternity manifesting in time; a

238

COMMENTARY 239

manifestation of the ethereal hidden in the subterranean; a
restful beauty riding on a movement of unrest. The connect-
ing link is the wave fleeting form between formlessness and
plastic perfection.

Such is the Greek's reaction to the necessity in mind and
in nature of moving along with the principle of design. It is
in comparison of the different racial approaches to universal
principles and compulsions that native genius is best dis-
cerned. And, as the modern soul has an approach of its own,
it is both stimulating and interesting to note any new form of
expression of the age long needs. A few lines from a poem
called The Wave, by a poet who has published too little,
Maurice E. Peloubet, suggests the nostalgic need for eternity
which the Christian culture has introduced into the processes
of time :

The water behind me is past, that before

Is to come. Both will be there for ages and eons

When I am no more.

Through storm growing stronger, through calm growing

weak,
With crest foaming high above blue sparkling valleys, I

seek.

A roaring, a pounding, all striving to reach
A strip of white sand, I and my brothers rush up on the

beach.

Can this be the end? Can we be content
To tear at the sand in quick fury; then
Be done and be spent?

A voice spoke, calm and low and grave:
Why be troubled, gleaming wave?
Child of wind and child of storm,
Yours is still a perfect form,
Will forever perfect be,
On either side eternity.

Somewhere, in some other sea,
Your form rolls on eternally.

Leviathan. That Leviathan cannot be naturalistically in-
terpreted in anyway; still less identified with the crocodile, is

240 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

clearly indicated by such passages as the following: Thou
breakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him
to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Ps.
LXXIV, 14.

The incongruity of an ocean monster affording food to a
wilderness population is so evident that Dr. Moffatt translates
this verse and the one preceding: Thou didst divide the ocean
by Thy power, shattering the dragon s heads upon the waves,
crushing the heads of Leviathan, leaving him a prey to jack-
als. (The versification of the translation is ignored.)

Leviathan is always associated with the confusion and the
deviousness of the undirected dual mind, as when it is said
by the prophet: For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His
place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth also shall disclose her bloods (margin) and shall no
more cover her slain.

In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and strong
sword, shall punish Leviathan, the sea serpent, crossing like
a bar (margin) ; and He shall slay the dragon that is in the
sea. Isaiah XXVI, 21, and XXVII, 1.

Is there any instance of the Lord threatening with destruc-
tion the lion or the tiger?

Chapter XXXIF

Captivity. When the Lord turned again the captivity of
Zion, we were like them that dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue
with singing; then said they among the heathen, the Lord
hath done great things for them.

The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are
glad.

Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the
south.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing the
sheaves with him. Ps. CXXVI.

Dr. Moffatt has well brought out the ancient belief
in the power of the unconscious in his rendering of
Ps. CXXVII, 1,2:

Unless the Eternal builds the house, workmen build in vain;
Unless the Eternal guards the town, sentries are on guard in vain.
Vain is it to rise early for your work and keep at work so late,
Gaining your bread with anxious toil!
God's gifts come to His loved ones as they sleep.

Servant. The emphasis upon God's acceptance of Job as
a servant, after his rehabilitation, has been noted by scholars
and association made with the Servant chapters of the so-
called Deutero-Isaiah XL ff. But emphasis upon a word, as
used in the ancient classics, must serve as due notice that it
may not be interpreted in its relational sense with that facility
with which we define words of common use. Nothing can
be more enlightening in regard to several phases of the prob-

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242 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

lem of Job than to discover the precise significance of the
word servant, as this may be gathered from the various pas-
sages of the O. T. in which it is to be found. I have followed
three lines of inquiry and these I believe, in general, serve as
a fruitful approach to the meaning of any stressed terms.

The first question to be answered is in regard to synonyms
of the word we are studying; the second relates to its first
use or uses; the third to the place which it holds in the de-
scription of any event, or any experience particularly
vision which suggests the culmination of an effort or a line
of thought.

In respect to the first question, the version of Dr. Moffatt
gives us inestimable help in that no term is used loosely but
that an exact equivalent of the original Hebrew, or Greek,
is sought. There are a few exceptions to this exactitude
where a not too literal, and possibly a seemingly not too
crude, rendering is supposed to convey the true sense of the
original, while really it obscures the subtler implications. But
where the rendering is that of word for word, with no thought
of clarifying the meaning of a passage by some change of
construction, or by the use of terms which convey more to the
modern ear than a nearly obsolete one would do, I have felt
that complete confidence should be placed in Dr. Moffatt's
version. A scholar, of course could give a verdict of greater
value.

To turn then to some of the synonyms which Dr. Moffatt
has found for the word servant as used in earlier books than
that of Job. It would have been very disconcerting, at the
outset, if Ham had been condemned to be a servant to his
brothers, Shem and Japhet, after he had called attention to
the nakedness of his father, for the relation, evidently, is to be
that of a menial. Dr. Moffatt gives us the terms, slave and
thrall. Similarly Abimilech's servants become slaves and the
servants who accompanied Abram when he went to rescue
Lot are retainers. In the Book of Job itself there is no use of
the word servant except in its application to the peculiar re-
lation to God of Job himself. In III, 19, it is the slave who
is freed from the master, and in VII, 2, the slave who pants
for the evening shadow. By these differentiations we conse-

COMMENTARY 243

quently are led to uses of the word which must be regarded
as particularly significant. We come then to the second ques-
tion: in what connection, under what circumstances, was the
word first used? It will not be necessary to distinguish be-
tween the verb and the noun, between serve and servant.
Abraham is the first servant, Gen. XVII, 3. It is when the
Lord appears to him as three men before the door of his tent
in Mamre. They have come to announce that his significant
mission to mankind will be carried out along the lines of his
direct heritage and legitimate descent: Sarah shall bear
a son.

But what is the essential character of this lineage this
clear tradition? It is, I am confident, the clear intellectual
perception of the organic principle in life and the application
of this to all means of leadership. Fundamentally it stands
for instituted means as opposed to random direction of popu-
lar forces.

The larger, more general, sense is that of a specific func-
tioning in a universe conceived as organic, and it is this to
which the later prophets, especially Isaiah, lift the concep-
tion. But at the outset of Israel's history the idea, undoubt-
edly, is more that of a so clearly perceived and specific
definition of deity as to amount to reliance upon the institu-
tion. This clear definition of nature and task must be what
is intended by circumcision, a rite to which both Abraham
and Ishmael had submitted just prior to the appearance of
the three men at the tent.

The next servant is Lot no slave, as we are made to
realise, but one to whom has been assigned a specific function.
Only two servants in this early narrative are unnamed. They
accompany Abraham on the way to his proposed sacrifice of
Isaac. This story can be comprehended only as chapters 21
and 22 are read together with a view to finding a continuous
psychological clue running through their events. Here it can
be said only that everything points to a critical question re-
garding the Priest of what type should he be, a man of the
people simply set aside for service, or a man above the people
understanding the higher communal forms and uses and bend-
ing the people to these projected ends? The two servants,

244 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

therefore, are legitimately such, for evidently the priests of
the times were deeply concerned to learn whether the intel-
lectual principle in Isaac or the folk tendencies of the race
should be the object chosen for sacrifice.

The greatest emphasis upon serving, however, is that laid
upon Jacob's attendance upon Laban for the winning of
Rachel. Here the Priest stands out clearly. Laban is of the
line of Nahor, AbrarrTs priest brother naos, sanctuary and
this line is introduced immediately after Isaac has been saved
and the promise given to Abraham that in his seed all the
nations of the earth shall be blessed. The means is at once
pointed out. Laban must be found in labe, lambano to seize
with the mind and Rachel comes from rachis spinal bone
the priesthood conceived as the backbone of a people.
Leah was of the order of intuition the gazelle. Jacob's
own name clearly points to the institution iakizo to devise
and he was the supplanter, the sub-planter.

But in thus specifying the lines which the Hebrew effort
followed, one must not be led astray from the archetypal
principle of function. We come back to this most vitally in
studying the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah, chiefly
40-53. For while the stressed expressions covenant (better
than Dr. Moffatt's compact, I believe), chosen, called, servant
take us back to the earliest days of the Hebraic movement,
the ideal of this has become so exalted in the later vision that
the organic principle seems to have risen above any associa-
tions with concrete means. Humanity itself, holding its
unique and essential place in the cosmos, is the great fact and
Israel now must stand out in the light of this vision and
independently of national preoccupations draw the ends of
the earth toward this great unity.

The creators of Job, I feel, do not so completely emancipate
their idealism from earth conditions. The three Friends are
there to be reckoned with. They will go on as means to a
spiritualisation of all life on earth and Job supremely the
interpreter of the inner laws of being must stand in the ac-
tual affairs of the generations to come for that idea of organic
oneness and the principle of specific functioning which goes
with it. It is possible that this may be, in a measure, an in-

COMMENTARY 245

tellectual stand which the higher minds of the Jewish nation
took against the syncretising along abstract lines of the Alex-
andrian schools; also that it may suggest that the Prophet,
until the new age should come to birth, must function largely
within the priesthood, which, one knows, was the event. I fancy
that Blake had in mind the Alexandrian influence when he
gave to Elihu, as he points toward the new revelation, some-
thing of the Hellenic cast of form and feature. We have
seen, at all events, in our study of the Friends how each had
run off upon dogmatic and metaphysical lines.

For the direct personal relation between a master of man's
life and the individual soul the word servant is employed; as
in Psalms, CXVI, 16; CXIX, 125; CXLIII, 12.

Hosea XII, 12: And Jacob fled into the country of Syria,
and Israel served for a wife and for a wife he kept sheep.
Which we interpret: that the first Hebrew priesthood left
behind the naturalistic folk manners of kindred groups, went
where something in the nature of a cosmopolitan life existed,
tested out there the method of creating an emotional life
favorable to the pursuit of an intellectual ideal by a careful
adaptation of the ideal disciplines to the intuitions and the
intelligence of the people and thus infolded into the subcon-
scious popular life a responsiveness to definite organic princi-
ples. It was the most intellectual form of training given to
any popular element even that of Greece. The word servant
has been used two or three times before this, always with
reference to definite relationships and functions. This is the
first use of the verb and the first appearance of a higher class
entirely subordinated to the needs of a popular majority.
There had been priests from the beginning but, as a class, they
had, we must judge, adapted their ministrations chiefly to the
needs of the most enlightened groups of worshippers. Jacob's
destination in Syria was Padan-aram. The second part of the
name fixes the folk sources of the culture he found ; the first
comes best from paideuma the training of growing beings.
Laban from lambano, which, in symbolism, most fitly means
to grasp with the mind, indicates the quality of the popular
life. It is strange that this great narrative of Jacob can be
read without attention to the great emphasis placed upon the

246 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

sheep. In fact almost every symbolic narrative stresses the
point or the theme it is intended to bring out in a noticeable
manner. This, indeed, was Prophetic business: / have also
spoken by the prophets and I have multiplied visions and
used similitudes by the hand (margin) of the prophets.
Hosea XII, 10.

Continuous progress along unitive lines unbroken by the
resurgence of the dual strife was a movement earnestly
sought by the ancient leaders. This is stated metaphysically
in the Iranian myth of the merging lives of father and son
under the influence of Yima iema, to send forth, to utter
spontaneous art activity: "During the reign of Yima, the son,
there was neither cold nor heat, decay, death, nor malice pro-
duced by the demon. Father and son walked forth, each
fifteen years old in appearance." Fifteen indicates the com-
plete round of twelve, in the evolution of mind, with the
additional three elemental properties of personality, no longer
chaotic, but subdued to the intellectual control.

Chapter XXXVI

Group versus Demos. It might be said of the Indra phi-
losophy that it lives on today in the Darwinian conception of
evolution. The struggle for existence, the survival of the
fittest, express that interior dual strife which, rising and fall-
ing, falling and rising, goes on through the centuries, asking
nothing of man's vision for its guidance or of any deepening
sense of organic race unity for its enlargement. And perhaps
with equal truth it might be said that restatement of man in
his place as creator of the world which he inhabits can come
about only through the Agni group activities and through an
intensification of group consciousness which, deepening the
sense of relation and augmenting the power to interpret the
sense, will expand man's being and exalt his powers.

But over and above all these will be needed the individuals
banded together who, as sons and daughters, shall proph-
esy; interpreting the inner meanings of events; as young men
shall see visions of a humanity emancipated, not from struggle
but from wrath; as old men shall dream into expression a
past reduced to its essential principles and relationships.

Such a class would be the Job of the present age, and it
seems to one person at least doubtful whether anything less
than the appearance in time of a few souls so heavily burdened
by responsibility for the solution of the human problem, and
so endowed with the power of intellectual penetration into
the meaning of historic and current forces as was the spiritual
Jew of the last centuries before the opening of our era, will
be able to lift the world out of the morass into which it now is
sinking and set the foot of man again upon the highway of life.
Is there any hope of the appearance of such a class? Who can
say? It may be forming and receiving initiation in the hearts
and the minds of men and women of creative imagination in

various parts of the world. But certain it is that no stronger

247

248 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

tie for binding such beings together, no impetus more power-
ful to project them toward a common ideal could be found
than an immersion, a baptism, in that stream of the interior,
spiritual life of the race that has flowed down from the days
of antiquity to our own time.

Those minds which have been least deflected from this
true cultural life by the pragmatic and rationalistic trends of
the last half century, at least will be the ones most susceptible
to the forces at play within and behind phenomena and the
only ones which will be able to project human desire forward
with the force of creative impulse. For the strength of a tree
is derived from its roots, and the power of its terminal bud
to draw up the sap needed for the sustenance and expansion
of the new branch, it seems, must be an equal balance between
the vigor below and quickening from the sun above. The past
has become nature; the future is an order of relationships
made more bountiful and comprehensive by the addition of a
new form to the total organic design.

I do not know the author of the following lines, unless it
be the T. Segar who, over twenty years ago, published in
pamphlet form a poem called Pain-Struggle; but they surely
suggest that even in the halcyonic pre-war period when men
so optimistically trusted modern science and the new con-
science there were perceivers who understood that even the
best forces at play were not to be identified with the eternal
principles of life, and that effort centering in the external
world never can long divert from their wilful way the abiding
tendencies toward warfare and hedonism. It is significant
that the author of the lines is a Jew, a representative of that
people which at an undated time assumed the task of bringing
unity, an organic consciousness, and faith in an immanent God
to the whole earth. A few verses from a rather disjointed
poetic statement of the writer's reading of life will show how
quick within him is the age-long prophetic fervor of his race,
and how in the highest representatives of this race is still
maintained that severity of attitude toward life which made
the Jew eventually unassailable by that seductiveness of the
natural which in the long run defeated the genius of every
other people.

COMMENTARY 249

Come, my people, cornel

I shall not hiss like a strangely fallen star,

Like an extinguishing star in a sea of indifference.

Not like a sleeping village shall you be

Nor I like a howling dog on its outskirts.

Come up, like a mighty people,

For the period of your inhibition is o'er

And your winter is done.

Come, your young men dream dreams

And your old men see visions.

For a famine has come upon the land,

Not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water,

But a hunger for the word of the Lord.

Aye, and for a deed of the Lord

For the heart of man has become like a burnt city,

And his hope like a fallen tree.

Ten thousand years have you been a rock,

A wall justifying God to man.

Now shall you clinch the matter I

You shall show the efficacy of your great longing

And of all human longing 1

You shall prove the immortality of your struggle

And of all human struggle !

And an exulting faith shall stream thro the world I

O mine own people !

What can you bring in the face of boodshed?

Is it not a greater struggle?

And what will you teach in the presence of death?

Shall it not be faith?

And what can you show before the eye of despair?

Is it not fulfilment?

Rise up, oh my people !

For the Lord has not forgotten His troth I

He has not said to the patent nostrum,

Go bring faith,

Nor to the new machine,

Be my chosen!

But now, more than ever and even before,

He looks about for his valiant People,

His voice peals for his Appointed I

250 THE BOOK OF JOB, INTERPRETED

Lo, the young races now look around for new knowledge;

The water you gave, it was good;

But lo 1 it has dried up, 'tis vanished now.

They furtively crawl to the pestilent marsh,

Unto the old ruling, vile gods

Which you tumbled down.

Get you upon your high mountain, my people I

The time which was coming has come I

(Give up, O North! and keep not back O South)

The live red coal has been pressed to your lips;

Now ye know pain ; prophesy now,

Get ye up again I

* * * * *

Up I oh my people I roll this in the dust I

For the kismet ridden East waits for a champion,

And the restless West for a new Saviour 1

Therefore, let the word go forth for deliverance, my people,

And the cry for accomplishment ring out !

I am fulfillment ! saith the Lord God.

OUTLINE
OF THE ARGUMENT

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

Repudiation of the concept of Prophecy. It should have been
a still birth; or a recognisable non-continuum; like civilisations.
Oblivion is better than attempt and defeat

252

THE ARGUMENT

ELIPHAZ i :

Concedes the consolations of Prophetism and recognises it as a
sincere movement. This integrity is ground for assurance.

Per contra the Dual way (inequity) brings only a harvest
of trouble. It is arrogant and therefore is punished by the
Omnipotent.

The secret meaning of this confusion is that man cannot know
anything of God's nature. God is eternal; man evanescent. Hu-
mility is the only safe attitude. Who has won through to an
equality with God that will prompt him to justify Job's independ-
ent spirit? The passion that would expect such support is self
destroying. Duality is not in the substance of things but man him-
self begets trouble and its accompaniment out of the flame of his
elemental nature.

Conclusion: that the whole situation should be left in God's
hands without search into His ways which are unsearchable
and with trust that He will give protection to the humble and the
sincere. This course will place man on an indestructible foundation
(stones of the field) and harmonise his instincts (beasts). It will
make his effort in Time (tent) one of a constructive peace. It will
yield up the full treasures of the subconscious (memory; the fold;
and insure increase. This is not an esoteric, mystical process but
an acceptance of nature as a tool in the hands of God, with man
as the aspirant in Nature who helps along the evolutionary process
through submission.

253

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

The condition defined by Eliphaz is an anti-natural one ; there-
fore loathsome to the spirit of man. God's aims (arrows) are so
diverse from man's sense of justice that this aspect of the universe
works as poison in the spirit. A complete cutting-off would be a
fairer penalty than a fall into degeneracy. There is no strength
in the case as it is to wait for recovery, if it might come.

Associated movements have failed and the outlook into the
future is correspondingly dark.

Nothing is wanted of the friends but a new inspiration. Instead
of this, unjust condemnation is given. But injustice could not
speak if decision were given on the original causes of Prophetism.
It is the mental workings that are limited to a time of service and,
become inadequate, cause man to feel like a mere hireling. A great
agony involving man's identification of himself with the elemen-
tal; an illusory use of the cyclic sense (dreams) ; disgust with life;
a sense of cruelty in the universe : all these attend man's conscious-
ness of inability to cope with and evaluate a new cycle.

254

THE ARGUMENT

BILDAD I :

How long is this discussion on the absence of justice in God's
universe to last? This sweeping away of established things? Such
a condition, if granted, is the same as to say that God permits
injustice; turning man's idea and practice of justice upside down.
Calamity is proof of man's sin, not of God's unfairness or of
false standards. If Prophetism were still true to type, it would
continue to increase. It has failed because it has lost touch with
the original spiritual enlightenment ; attempting to sever thought and
activities from this root-intention it has become a merely ephemeral
movement. Memory of it will be lost. But a perfect man an
example of thinking and effort true to the laws of life cannot be
cut off. His functioning must be creative; a travail going on to the
joys of birth and fulfilment. In the final event, everything set in
opposition to such effort will become extinct.

255

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

There is acknowledgment that man must have the wisdom of
the Ancients before he can understand spiritual methods. But even
with this he cannot justify himself, because God has power in
Nature which man never will be able to comprehend. Even those
who ally themselves with the powers of Nature (Rahab) bend
before Him. How much less shall one who is trying to transmute
this nature be secure?

Here is an unsolvable mystery; an impassable gulf: God
manifesting in an enduring Nature; man living and working to
transmute this Nature. God is an adversary. It is inconceivable
that He should hearken to man and his self-justification. Yet Job
will assert the reality of his type. But he will give up the struggle,
because God does not discriminate as he, himself, must do be-
tween the unitary and the dual; the sincere and the crafty. There
is no possible adjustment (days man). But if terror at this condi-
tion might be removed, unshakable confidence in the human type
would give man courage to face even God. For it was God Him-
self the belief in and consciousness of a supreme Unitary Power
that was the very inspiration of the prophetic movement. How
should this fall into degeneracy while the Prophet still longs for
communion with a Universal God? If there is to be a continual
conflict here, why was the Prophet ever allowed to come into
being?

256

THE ARGUMENT

ZOPHAR I :

Words crowded together; a mere temperamental, emotional
outburst; such is Job's speech. But perhaps these words should
be answered. These boastings regarding the eminence of man
should not make one afraid to speak. Some one should evince a
feeling of shame for such babbling. Prophecy is declared to be a
true doctrine. If Job might get into that greater emotional sweep
of faith in the Almighty and know the secret of the way in which
the Wisdom philosophy works among dual things, he would know
that God the unitary God causes his irregularity his form of
Duality to be covered with oblivion. What can a man who
holds fast to earth as a reality a divine expression do? What
can he find out? Every dimension is greater than man's power.
So immeasurable a being as God may call into judgment anyone He
likes to call. For to Him man as such natural man is vain. But
an attitude of genuine humility foregoing the earth man will
change this condition. Such an attitude it is that establishes a true
relation between God and man and permits man to get illumination
which will carry him on to culmination of his effort and beyond.
The progress is a movement which cannot be interfered with.

257

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

Knowledge is with the Wisdom School and may die with them.
But that understanding which is of the heart, Job has as well as
the Friends. It is the artist's way, of identification. Job speaks
for the beasts and the fowls. This is all an expression of that pure
Dualism which Job would interpret, while the men of Wisdom
repudiate it as evil. Job puts abstractions to the test of actuality.
God who includes Nature has wisdom, not the Ancients. All
that men build artificially carries the seed of destruction. Job, as
well as the Friends, is seeking the Almighty, but he insists on
looking upon Nature as an integral part of His being. The Friends
evade issues. They exclude a part of God in order to fit Him to
their own ideal. God Himself will not tolerate this. Here Job
will maintain his "integral heart" and in the event it will be his
salvation; for God will not let a godless man a man who makes
God less than his own idealism would demand come before Him.
Job is sure of his cause. Only there is the terror, the fear of this
earth phase of existence la terre. If there, in truth, be not opposi-
tion, then man can confess his shortcomings. But if evanescent, he
is even less considered than objects of nature born but to die.

258

THE ARGUMENT

ELIPHAZ II :

Job has said that he would speak to the Almighty and reason
with God; thereby identifying himself with the cult of Wisdom.
But this reaction is out of ineffective knowledge and bitter emotions ;
therefore unprofitable. The attitude is not one of fear, as an
animal looks to man for interpretation and redemption. It is
arguing out of the sense of Duality. But there are other con-
cepts and emotions than these v. 7. The Wisdom cult did not
admit this Dualism. It is all one scheme: master and servant; the
command and obedience. Added to these God's mercy; his con-
solations. Man has no spirit of his own that he should set up
against the acts of God. How can he of impulsive birth be
clean before the Supreme Intelligence of the Universe? Even
man's archetypal consciousness is not the ultimate word and, as
dual, he is superficial and decadent. There is simply one line of
truthful reasoning here : I will show thee. The Wise Men had it
and the fathers protagonists along different lines of effort have
not had it; and they, the Wise Men, had the entire shaping of
man's spiritual destiny in their hands in the ancient time. There
was no rival movement. The Dualist the wicked travails with-
out bringing anything to birth. His time is strictly limited; he
lives in fear of the universe and has no consciousness of an eternal
nature. It is the natural result of looking upon Nature and man
as something in themselves apart from God. This engenders
arrogance; builds up unstable civilisations; brings no increase;
brings forth other forms of Dualism; and causes misleading im-
pulses to grow strong.

259

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

Though I speak, though I forbear, what easement is there?
Compare with this the words of the Hellenic representative of the
Prophet, Prometheus, the Pre-Contriver.

Order of verses: XVI 6, 10, 11, 7b, 12a, 7a, 12b; XVII
1, 2, 6,7, 8,3,4, 10, 11, 16.

The Wisdom Doctrine has become a formal thing, Job declares.
Prophetism might be similarly glib but would bring to the seeker
no comfort, relieve no pain. The Prophet is committed to reality.

Through the decline into formalism Job is deprived of all
companioning aids and influences and his consequent degeneracy
seems to warrant the judgments and the criticisms of the Friends.
The breakdown has been brought about with utmost violence, al-
though there was no violence, no arbitrary method, in Job's con-
duct of life, and his purpose was pure. Let this effort of the
Prophet become a part of earth's history, a marked stage in her
evolution.

Witness in Heaven: again insistance that Prophetism is an
archetypal expression; the ultimate and eternal form of a
definite type the right of a man with God and in the scheme of
human relationships ; even though the movement may have existence
only in Time. Nothing contemporary will witness to this; only
God Himself. Job begs for this assurance, as his earthly frame
has disintegrated and is going back to the chaos of the elemental.

260

THE ARGUMENT

BILDAD II :

How long before Job's words will come to an end? He should
consider that his Friends may want to speak. Job has charged a
breakdown of all other spiritual lines of belief and effort. This is
as much as to say that man has fallen to the animal level except as
supported by the Prophet. Shall all the fundamental proposi-
tions perceptions in which a definite relation between earth and
heaven was established be given up just to meet Job's pleasure?
Just because he is rent with suppressed fury from want of under-
standing of God's dealings? But nothing else could have happened
to a movement of which the source was in a Dual creed; a light of
the wicked. The total working of such a philosophy of life is a
falling into snares; always an impasse. Fear is induced and de-
generacy sets in : degeneracy, the first born of Death. Abnormal
cravings shall prompt effort, (v. 15. Lilith, alternate reading;
XiXaT BUST to crave; a vampire, a night demon}. Hot impulses
shall be part of the habits ; nothing real nor more lasting ; no shaping
to any new form; no personality (name) achieved along the way of
life; complete extinction; no family.

Those existing before the career of such a group or body
looked with fear upon so material a phenomenon. Those who
look back will consider it with astonishment.

Note: v. 5. Yea, I reaffirm: when a light is put out it is proof
that man has been following the Dual (wicked) way.

261

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

More words from the Friends ten times ; a carefully reasoned
argument; strong, hard, convincing. But Job's error should be
judged from his own premises. The other position is magnified
and conditions seem to justify this, but it is God whom Job sees in
opposition not his associates. The order of the universe is dif-
ferent than he had believed, in his hedged about days. Prophetism
is now held in contempt by every order of society (Lamentations
IV, 1114). Why should other humans in a time of such catastro-
phe not be sympathetic? Why apply the same ruthless analysis of
the Supreme and The Everlasting God? Why not simply strip
away the envelope that has become tainted? For under it is
true structure : a divine Duality which may be inscribed upon the
eternal map with an iron pen; a fundamental principle of design
that eventually shall have attestation. It will be seen by him who
has realised it and shaped his life in accordance. Longing for this
reaffirmation of the holiness of the natural is a consuming desire
in the whole being of the individual as he sums up the past and the
race. Persecution of a thing founded upon a basic principle will
bring judgment against the persecutor.

262

THE ARGUMENT

ZOPHAR II :

Job had said that the root of the matter was in his own faith,
as against the philosophy of the Friends, and that in the final
judgment they must come up hard against the realities which they
deny. Zophar cannot wait to reply to a reproof which throws
contempt upon his learning and understanding. Also, doubtless,
he recalls the "I shall not find a wise man among you" (R. V.).
The reply is a long reiterated argument against Dualism; its
wrongness, futility, ultimate degradation and extinction. This is
Ancient Wisdom. In all this time has Job not learned it and
understood its application? The Dualist quickly becomes the
Wicked and his ways are those of destruction. He has violently
taken away an established faith a living concept and shall not
build another. A flame not blown into spiritual activity shall con-
sume him. It is the appointment of an outraged God.

263

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

At this point the whole discussion except the part of Eliphaz
becomes more impersonal: an inquiry into the workings of the
universe, marked more by anxiety than by desire to enforce a
particular creed. After all, is Job's complaint the complaint of
any seeker to man? The great question is, how shall God's
way be discovered when one sees that the wicked and the righteous
are dealt with in precisely the same way? The fact is terrifying.
(That so much stress is laid upon the external course of events
indicates that in the age of Job and the Friends the gift of illumina-
tion had been lost) . An opinion that God is not in His world and a
belief that He is with corresponding inattention to universal law
on the one side and passionate effort to find God on the other
seem to leave men equally remote from the Supreme Power ; equally
outside of a cosmos.

264

THE ARGUMENT

ELIPHAZ III :

But why should man expect God to meet his ideals of justice
when man cannot in any way contribute anything to God? Is it
imagined that Job is being punished for the attitude toward God
that he takes, or that God would argue out this question of justice
with a man? What a debased Dualism is this enormous and
without a limit I It is a kind of spiritual leadership that has taken
pledges and failed to redeem them; taken comfort from those who
were without a religious faith, sent away the spiritually hungry
unsatisfied, etc. It is this ineffectual working; this proof of futility
that causes Job's confusion and its attendant fear. Wilt thou keep
to this old way (V. 12-20 to end)? Take the law from this
transcendent Deity. Let this go, which you have thought holds
such treasure in the earth; not trying to transmute it and find
all your values above. Such a delight I And because you have
the attitude of humility, God will favor both you and your projects.
For by Him even the offenders may be forgiven.

265

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

The idea that man may approach High God is accepted, but
the bitter complaint is in regard to man's ignorance of the way so
to do. The meeting, however, would be a conference, an argument,
and God would not overpower man if man could make himself
understood. Then the upright in intention the true in type
would have passed out of judgment.

But God hides Himself, even while following man. In the
end, after full trial, man, true to his inner nature, shall appear as
of essential value. God's scope, however, as compared with man's
most sincere effort to learn the Divine will, is a disconcerting factor
in the situation. It evidently involves Job's degeneracy before his
culmination and extinction. This is the great problem: why the
most passionate effort toward the spiritualisation of earth-man ever
made by any portion of the race should be made to appear an anemic
and anti-normal thing.

266

THE ARGUMENT

BILDAD III :

Job has complained that the cycles of God far outrun man's
understanding and seem to include the decline and extinction of
things which man believes to have the eternal quality. Bildad
replies Chapter XXIV asking why the Almighty, as such,
should not have set times in accordance with His own will. And
why is it that men do not discover these periods? It is because they
themselves remove the landmarks (so clear to the heart of a
nation-builder). They do not permit the normal development of
the basic social forms family, clan, state but, through greed,
disrupt institutions, bring distress to individuals of all sorts, who
might otherwise be servants of God's idea. Yet God seems to take
no heed (V. 12.). The wrongdoers count on this immunity, re-
belling against the light. Therefore the cycle closes upon them
suddenly: u He is swept upon the face of the waters."

After V. 7., V. 23; 18a; 24b, c; 18b, c to V. 20, to end.

267

THE ARGUMENT

JOB:

XXVI, 1-4; XXV, 2, 6-11; XXVI, 5-14; XXVII, 2-12;
XXVI, 14b & c. What does all this doctrine of God exalting man
amount to if man has not in himself the capacity to be strong and
wise? Job will not speak words so contrary to what lies within the
actual and the typical. He will hold fast to the belief in Prophetism
as founded upon what is true to life and spirit. For, if man shall
admit that he has no divine spark is godless what hope? Could
God hear an alien cry? Could man delight in God? (Order: V.
7,26,5,14.)

The true facts of rejection are these: There is fear in that
condition of undeified nature because the lowest depths are open
to God. He measures the emptiest space the north. All these
phenomena that lie even outside of man are plumbed, measured,
bounded, commanded and controlled by the Almighty. And you
have been arguing that man is something quite alien in nature.

XXVIII. The inner laws of nature work of themselves
or by God's direction toward definite ends. Yet man has no such
principle in him 1 ! 1 God settleth an end, etc. ( V. 3 ) .

Surely there is a source for silver and a place for gold. The
flood breaketh out. All these directed movements of nature due
to God are seen by man. Yet not here is a glimpse of the way to
wisdom. All nature repudiates the idea that she can show it in
spite of its surpassing value. God alone knows the place thereof;
for in His movement through all creation He establishes its place in
determining the cosmic proportions. It is in the conscious aspira-
tion of man to turn all Dual nature to unity that the way of the
Lord and understanding may be found.

268

THE ARGUMENT

ZOPHAR III:

Yes, truly, we grant, Job, God is everywhere in nature in spite
of its duality. Dominion and fear both the lordly and the
servant qualities go to make His being. On the height of it
He brings all these elements into a harmony. But without Him
the moon has no brightness; the stars no essential nature. How
much less may man have that which is his own unique who is
but a worm I And man's ideals which partake of his own corrupt
nature (distinction between the instinctive animal and man who
is corrupted in this part of his being) !

XXVII, 13. This, I assure you, is man's portion the Dualist
who now exists; the oppressors who force together opposites.
Any apparent increase is only for an ultimate destruction. What-
ever he builds shall be for others. He shall harvest no values.
Wild confusion shall be the end of his way.

269

NOTES ON JOB'S LAST SPEECH

Job had declared his original faith and philosophy and now
becomes reminiscent regarding the time when these were undimmed.
In contrast he describes the existing state of the movement and the
faith. No attention is paid to Zophar's last speech. Job had had
the secret of God. This had dominated all social phases: the
rabble on the right hand, etc.

Months: measuring by intensity and direction the emotional
life.

Days: active periods motivated by God-consciousness; and so
in V. 3.

Days of Autumn: fruition from effort.

Secret of God: the hidden subconscious process which led to the
dawn of intellectual understanding versus the dream or memory, or
uncoordinated instinctive activity.

Butter and oil: everything made easy by the essence. The
Prophet the predominant social influence. Direct denial of charges
of Eliphaz. Assertion that Prophetism did meet all of men's needs
(V. 2-25 after V. 10, V. 11, omit For) .

Die in the nest: complete my cycle and like the phoenix rise
out of my own ashes.

The root principle original concept kept flexible to current
influences; what has grown out of the original movement remains
applicable to life.

XXX, 2. Order has gone out of the social body; the classes
have become effete; the rabble rule and threaten the greatest con-
structive principles with their ways of destruction uncreative.
They spoil my methods, or courses ; hasten my ruin ; they have no
restraint.

Job's soul is poured out his essence disintegrated. He has
fallen upon days of affliction retrogression, declension. In the
night which follows the inactive period the skeleton is too
sharply defined to be persuasive. It disfigures the garments of art,
religion, etc. making them narrow and arid by having become
too strident a doctrine. Regret and despair for this are a gnawing
sense. God has done all this.

270

NOTES ON JOB'S LAST SPEECH

The moral and social presuppositions of Prophetism; first and
foremost, sexual control and mastery of self. (Begin with V. 6.)
Next, to achieve pure Dualism through an even balance between
good and evil. (Job seems here to have lost sight of the funda-
mental duals thought and feeling, showing the infection of the
debased philosophy). Next, no arrogance; for all men have the
primary human rights. Beneficence is man's duty. (Omit V. 23.)

There has been a fall into worship of nature. That is a
breach of balanced Dualism and so to be found, by the judges ap-
pointed to detect lack of balance. It is a denial of God as the High
Power. (But Job seems to have forgotten the Sabaeans).

Not like Adam: who glossed over the loss of his integrity
humanity as a concept of completeness, above sex by stirring up
the emotional nature as something in itself. (Hiding inequity in
his bosom.) Urged to this by the fact that the great majority
want the life of natural man in families, etc. (The Wisdom
School adopted the Patriarchal system as a social unit. Job broke
away in Nahors' line).

Went out of doors: beyond the natural affinities. Lo, there is
my mark and signature of graduation. The Almighty would
recognise it. V. 38-40 after 34, then 35a & c, 36, 37. Then Lo,
here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me.

The words of Job are ended I

271

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