Job

(job.) a patriarch of Uz, the most patient man of whom we have record, and whose life and deeds are recounted in the canonical book of the Old Testament which bears his name. Whether Job was a real or a fictitious personage, has been discu ed with much animation by critics. The belief of many scholars is, that the Book of Job is a great dramatic poem, built on a basis of historical tradition. Some critics make it anterior to Moses; others, among whom are many of the Talmud i cal authorities, regard Moses himself as the author; while others attribute the work to the age of Solomon, when Hebrew poetry was in its full bloom. This book condemns the notion that there is a nece ary connection between sin and suffering, and, without explaining the cause of the latter in the case of a good man, displays the most sublime trust in the wisdom of the Divine Providence. It exhibits a noble spirituality; and in several places, the mysterious contradictions of life seem to awaken in the soul of the writer thoughts of another life beyond the grave, in which God will vindicate the righteousne of His ways. As a work both of genius and art,it occupies well-nigh the first rank in Hebrew literature, and is unsurpa ed in sublimity of imaginative thought by any poem of antiquity. [s. 504]