The most complete statement of the reasons in support of the opinion that the book of Job was written after the age of Moses may be found in Richter's essay, De /Elate 'obi definienda, re printed in Rosenmfiller's edition of Lowth's Prce lectiones De Poesi Sacra Hebrcrorum; in which he maintains that it was written in the age of Solomon. Most of these reasons, indeed, are either not conclusive at all, or not quite cogent. Thus it is an arbitrary assumption, proved by modern- researches to be erroneous, that the art of writing was unknown previous to the age of Moses. The assertion, too, that the marks of cultivation and refinement observable in our book belonged to a later age, rests on no historical ground. Further, it cannot be said that for such an early time the language is too smooth and neat, since in no Semitic dialect is it possible to trace a progressive improvement. The evident cor respondence also between our book and the Prov erbs and Psalms is not a point proving with re sistless force that they were all written at the same time. It is, indeed, sometimes of such a kind, that the authors of the Proverbs and Psalms cannot be exactly said to have copied our book ; but it may be accounted for by their all belonging to the same class of writings, by the very great uniformity and accordance of religious conceptions and sentiments expressed in the Old Testament, and by the stability of its religious character.
Summing up the whole of our investigations. we take it to be a settled point that the book of Job does not belong to the time of the Baby lonian exile; and it is nearly equally certain that it was not composed prior to the time of Moses. Could it then have been written in some age preceding Samuel and David? It is only with them that a new period of sacred literature began; and our boolc is related to products of that period, or enlarges on them. But it cannot have
been composed later than Isaiah, who alludes to it. Thus we come to this general determination of the age of our book, that it was written, not before Samuel and David, 'but not later than the era of Isaiah. With this result we must rest sat isfied, unless we would go beyond the indications presented. The intermediate period offers no ground on which we can safely fix the composi tion of the book of Job. There remains then un certainty, but it does not concern an important point of religion.
5. Literature. E. W. H. Fry's New Transla !IOU and Exposition, 1827; Lange, Das Buch Hiob, 183t •, Knobel, De Carminis Jobi, 1835 : Ewald, Das Buch Hiob erklar1,1836; Fackens, Comment. de Jobeide, 1836; Lee's Book of Job, 1837; Wemyss, Job and his Times, 1839. Jennings' Epic of the Inner Life is one of the latest and best ex positions of this ancient poem; Vaihinger, Erlau ter., 1842. Noyes, Notes, Boston, 18,52, i854 Hengstenberg, Mob, 1856, 187o; Cheyne, Job and Solomon, 1887 ; Bradley, Lectures on Job, 1887; R. A. Watson in Expositor's Bible, 1892; also Rawlinson in Public Commentary, 1891. The section on the book of Job found in each of the chief Introductions to the O. T. should, of course. be consulted. The following may be mentioneci as representative: Bleck (6th ed. by Wellhausen, 1893), Riehm (ed. Brandt, 1889), Driver (6th ed. 1897) and Cornill (3d and 4th ed. 1896) ; Wag ner, S'ermons; Davidson, Commentary, vol. i; The Drama of Job, Rev. Chas. H. Dickinson, Bib. Sac., Jan., two, p. 68, sq.
There is, perhaps, no book of Scripture of which so many versions and commentaries have been published as Job, or respecting which a greater number of treatises and dissertations have been written. The above arc only notable examples.
E. W. H.