JOASH (or JEHOASH, as it is some times written), king of Judah, was the great grandson of Ahab and grandson of the wicked Athaliah who sought to put him out of the way. He was also a direct descendant of David. He was hidden away in a lumber room of the palace by an aunt. When he was seven years old he was placed on the throne by the priestly party under the leadership of Jehoiada. On the whole his reign was a good one. He repaired the Temple and had the people taught from the rediscovered roll of the law. The blot on his reign was the murder of Zechariah, son of his benefactor, Jehoida. Hazuel, the Syrian, invaded his kingdom but was bought off with immense bribes, including the Temple treasures. He was the victim of a painful malady and because of his loathsome condition was finally assassinated by his own servants.
JOB, a legendary character of Hebrew literature whose history is poetically treated in the book of Job. He is said to have been a sheik of the patriarchal age who lived near the Arabian desert on the eastern 'bound ary of Palestine. After repeated disaster and ruin, suddenly stripped of his possession, be reaved of his children, himself smitten with leprosy, and his wife advising him °to curse God and die," he gives way to despair, his friends even giving him but critical, philosophi cal advice. Finally, however, by force of char acter he rises superior to circumstances, and re gains health, wealth and honor. The traditions handed down, according to early custom, in oral form, were committed to MS. about the 5th century B.C. While they have their origin in historical tradition, the events describing the life of Job are not regarded as literal history. Some authorities contend that the book is purely a literary invention, a rabbi as early as the Talmud 'Baba Bathra> (xv, 1), writing °Job was not, and was not created, but is an allegory?) See JOB, BOOK OF.
JOB, Book of. The supreme masterpiece of ancient Hebrew literature, is one of the small group of world poems that live as univer sal expressions of the human spirit. The book
takes its name from its hero, who is pictured as an ancient sheik living to the eastward of Palestine, on the borders of the Arabian Desert. Already in the time of Ezekiel (Ezek. )(iv, 14, 20), the name was famous as that of a right eous man. It was perhaps two and a half cen turies later than Ezekiel's reference that the unnamed author of the book made the ancient, traditional figure the hero of his great poem. The exact date of the author and his work is undetermined, but the relation of the poem to the general development of Jewish literature places it most naturally in the last century of Persian rule or even shortly after Alexander's conquest.
In orderly structure, Job resembles Greek and other Western literary works much more closely than do most examples of ancient Sem itic literature. The poem is framed by a pro logue and epilogue in prose. These, presum ably, give the substance of the ancient tradi tional story as it had come to the author. It may be that their present artistic form is due to his genius, but the explanation of Job's suf ferings given in the prologue is so foreign to the body of the poem, and the restoration of double the material blessings, in the epilogue, is so far below and so inconsistent with the thought of the poem that it seems as though the tradition was already too firmly established for the author greatly to modify its substance. The prose sections, when taken together, give a dramatic account of a series of misfortunes that fell on Job in order to prove to the Satan, °the Adversary,* that disinterested righteous ness does exist in man. Having endured the test with complete devotion to God, Job was re warded with material prosperity twice as great as he had before. The prologue closes with the visit of Job's three friends who come to comfort him, but sit by him in silence for seven days. The great poem, inserted between the two parts of the prose narrative, itself falls into three main divisions: (1) the discourses of Job and his three friends (chaps.