Will Durant on early Judaism pt 3

the story of civilization vol 1 our oriental heritage part 1 by will Durant continued Cosette Thames I'd won about the year for 44 BC Ezra a learnin priest called the Jews together in solemn assembly and read to them from morn to midday the book of the law of Moses for seven days he and his fellow Levites read from these scrolls at the end the priests and the leaders of the people pledged themselves to accept this body of legislation as their constitution and their conscience and to obey it forever from those troubled times till hours that law has been the central fact in the life of the Jews and their loyalty to it through all wanderings and tribulations has been one of the impressive phenomena of history what was this book of the law of Moses not quite the same as that book of the Covenant which Josiah had read for the latter had admitted of being completely read twice in a day while the other needed a week we can only guess that the larger scroll constituted a substantial part of those first five books of the Old Testament which the Jews called Torah or the law and which others call the Pentateuch Torah is Hebrew for Direction guidance Pentateuch is Greek for five roles how when and where had these books been written this is an innocent question which has caused the writing of 50,000 volumes and must here be left unanswered in a paragraph the consensus of scholarship is that the oldest elements in the Bible are those distinct and yet similar legends of Genesis which are called J and E respectively because one speaks of the Creator as Jehovah yaver while the other speaks of him as Elohim it is believed that the llaves narrative was written in judah the eldest in ephraim and that the two stories fused into one after the fall of samaria a third element known as d and embodying the Deuteronomic code is probably by a distinct author or group of authors a fourth element PE is composed of sections later inserted by the priests this priestly code is probably the substance of the book of the law promulgated by Ezra the for compositions appear to have taken their present form about 300 BC these delightful tales of the creation the temptation and the flood were drawn from a storehouse of Mesopotamian legend as old as 3000 BC we have seen some early forms of them in the course of this history it is possible that the Jews appropriated some of these myths from Babylonian literature during the captivity it is more likely that they had adopted them long before from ancient Semitic and Sumerian sources common to all the Near East the Persian and the Talmudic forms of the creation myth represent God as first making a to sexed being a male and a female joined at the back like Siamese twins and then dividing it as an afterthought we are reminded of a strange sentence in Genesis chapter 5 verse 2 male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam that is our first parent was originally both male and female which seems to have escaped all theologians except Aristophanes The Legend of Paradise appears in almost all folklore in Egypt India Tibet Babylonia Persia Greece Polynesia Mexico etc most of these Eaton's had forbidden trees and were supplied with serpents or dragons that stole immortality from men or otherwise poisoned paradise both the serpent and the fig were probably phallic symbols behind the myth is the thought that sex and knowledge destroy innocence and happiness and are the origin of evil we shall find this same idea at the end of the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes is here at the beginning in most of these stories woman was the lovely evil agent of the serpent or the devil whether as eve or Pandora or the pase of Chinese legend all things says the Shi Jing at first were subject to man but a woman threw us into slavery our misery came not from heaven but from woman she lost the human race ah unhappy Posay thou kindled the fire the consumes us and which is every day increasing the world is lost by silver flows all things even more Universal was the story of the flood hardly an ancient people went without it and hardly a mountain in Asia but had given perch to some water we read Noah or shamash niscitam usually these legends were the popular vehicle or allegory of a philosophical judgment or a moral attitude summarizing long racial experience that sex and knowledge bring more grief than joy and that human life is periodically threatened by floods that is ruinous inundations of the great rivers whose waters made possible the earliest known civilizations to ask whether these stories are true or false whether they really happened would be to put a trivial and superficial question their substance of course is not the tales they tell but the judgments they convey meanwhile it would be unwise not to enjoy their disarming simplicity and the vivid swiftness of their narratives the books which Josiah and Ezra caused to be read to the people formulated that mosaic code on which all later Jewish life was to be built of this legislation the cautious Sartain writes its importance in the history of institutions and of law cannot be overestimated it was the most thorough going attempt in history to use religion as a basis of statesmanship and as a regulator of every detail of life the law became says arenal the tightest garment into which life was ever laced diet medicine personal menstrual and natal hygiene public sanitation sexual inversion and best eality all are made subjects of divine ordinance and guidance again we observe how slowly the doctor was differentiated from the priest to become in time his greatest enemy Leviticus chapters 13 through 15 legislates carefully for the treatment of venereal disease even to the most definite directions for segregation disinfection fumigation and if necessary the complete burning of the house in which the disease has run its course the ancient Hebrews were the founders of prophylaxis but they seemed to have had no surgery beyond circumcision this right common among ancient Egyptians and modern Semites was not only a sacrifice to God and a compulsion to racial loyalty it was a hygienic precaution against sexual uncleanliness perhaps it was this code of cleanliness that helped to preserve the Jews through their long Odyssey of dispersion and suffering for the rest the code centered about those Ten Commandments Exodus chapter 20 verses 1 through 17 which were destined to receive the lip service of half the world the first laid the foundation of the new theocratic community which was to rest not upon any civil law but upon the idea of God he was the invisible king who dictated every law and meted out every penalty and his people were to be called Israel as meaning the defenders of God the Hebrew state was dead but the temple remained the priests of Judea like the Pope's of Rome would try to restore what the Kings had failed to save hence the explicitness and reiteration of the first commandment heresy or blasphemy must be punished with death even if the heretics should be ones closest kin the priestly authors of the code like the pious inquisitors believed that religious unity was an indispensable condition of social organization and solidarity it was this intolerance and their racial pride that embroiled and preserved the Jews the second commandment elevated the national conception of God at the expense of art no graven images were ever to be made of him it assumed a high intellectual level among the Jews for it rejected superstition and anthropomorphism and despite the all-too-human quality of the Pentateuch y'avait tried to conceive of God is beyond every form and image it conscripted Hebrew devotion for religion and left nothing in ancient days for science and art even astronomy was neglected less corrupt diviners should multiply or the Stars be worshipped as divinities in Solomon's Temple there had been an almost heathen abundance of imagery in the new temple there was none the old images had been carried off to Babel and apparently had not been returned along with utensils of silver and gold hence we find no sculpture painting or bow relief after the captivity and very little before it except under the almost alien Solomon architecture and music were the only arts that the priests would allow song and temple rich will redeem the life of the people from gloom an orchestra of several instruments joined as one to make one sound with a great choir of voices to sing the Psalms that glorified the temple and its god David and all the house of Israel prayed before the Lord on harps psalteries timbrels cornets and cymbals the third commandment typify the intense piety of the Jew not only would he not take the name of the Lord God in vain he would never pronounce it even when he came upon the name of Yahweh and his prayers he would substitute for it a Dona Lord only the Hindus would rival this piety the fourth commandment sanctified the weekly day of rest as a Sabbath and passed it down as one of the strongest institutions of mankind the name and perhaps the custom came from Babylon shabbat - who was applied by the Babylonians to taboo days of abstinence and propitiation besides this weekly holy day there were great festivals once Canaanite vegetation rites reminiscent of sowing and harvesting and the cycles of Moon and Sun mats are called Pentecost celebrated the end of the wheat harvest Sukkot commemorated the vintage Pesach or Passover was the Feast of the firstfruits of the flock Rosh Hashanah announced the new year only later were these festivals adapted to commemorate vital events in the history of the Jews and the first day of the Passover a lamb or kid was sacrificed and eaten and its blood was sprinkled upon the doors as the portion of the God later the priests attached this custom to the story of the RV's slaughter of the firstborn of the Egyptians the lamb was once a totem of a Canaanite clan the Passover among the Canaanites was the oblation of a lamb to the local God as we read in Exodus chapter 11 the store the establishment of the Passover right and see the Jews celebrating that same right steadfastly today we feel again the venerable antiquity of their worship and the strength and tenacity of their race the fifth commandment sanctified the family as second only to the temple in the structure of Jewish society the ideals then stamped upon the institution marked it throughout medieval and modern European history until our own disintegrative Industrial Revolution the Hebrew patriarchal family was a vast economic and political organization composed of the oldest married male his wives his unmarried children his married sons with their wives and children and perhaps some slaves the economic basis of the institution was its convenience for cultivating the soil it's political value lay in its providing a system of social orders so strong that it made the state except in war almost superfluous the father's Authority was practically unlimited the land was his and his children could survive only by obedience to him he was the state if he was poor he could sell his daughter before her puberty is a bondservant and though occasionally he condescended to ask her consent he had full right to dispose of her in marriage as he wished boys were supposed to be products of the right testicle girls of the left which was believed to be smaller and weaker than the right at first marriage was mattre local the man had to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife in her clan but this custom gradually died out after the establishment of the monarchy Yahweh's instructions to the wife were thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee though technically subject the woman was often a person of high authority and dignity the history of the Jews shines with such names as Sarah Rachel Miriam and Esther Deborah was one of the judges of Israel and it was the prophetess holder whom Josiah consulted about the book which the priests had found in the temple the mother of many children were certain of security and honor for the little nation longed to increase and multiply feeling as in Palestine today it's dangerous numerical inferiority to the people's surrounding it therefore the exalted motherhood branded celibacy as a sin in the crime made marriage compulsory after 20 even in priests of horde marriage' Bulverde ins and childless women and looked upon abortion infanticide and other means of limiting population as heathen abominations that stank in the nostrils of the Lord and when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob give me children or else I die the perfect wife was one who labored constantly in and about her home and had no thought except in her husband and her children the last chapter of Proverbs states the male ideal of woman completely who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies the heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life she seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands she is like the merchants ships she bringeth her food from afar she Rises also while it is yet night and giveth me to her household and apportioned to her maidens she consider it the field and buyeth it with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard she girded her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms she perceive a--the that her merchandise is good her candle goeth not out by night she lay at her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff she stretches out her hand to the poor yay she reaches for her hands to the needy she maketh herself coverings of tapestry her clothing is silk and purple her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land she maketh fine linen and selleth it and delivereth girdles under the merchants strength and honour are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come she openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness she looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness her children arise up and call her blessed her husband also and he praiseth her give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise in the gates the sixth commandment was a council of perfection nowhere is there so much killing as in the Old Testament its chapters oscillate between slaughter and compensatory reproduction tribal quarrels internal factions and hereditary vendetta's broke the monotony of intermittent peace despite a magnificent verse about plowshares and pruning hooks the prophets were not pacifists and the priests if we may judge from the speeches which they put into the mouth of the Ave were almost as fond of war as of preaching among nineteen kings of Israel eight were assassinated captured cities were usually destroyed the male's put to the sword and the soil deliberately ruined in the fashion of the times perhaps the figures exaggerate the killing it is unbelievable that entirely without modern inventions the children of Israel slew of the Syrians 100,000 footmen in one day belief in themselves as the chosen people intensified the pride natural in a nation conscious of superior abilities it accentuated their disposition to segregate themselves maritally and mentally from other peoples and deprived them of the International perspective that their descendants were to attain but they had in high degree the virtues of their qualities their violence came of unmanageable vitality their separatism came of their piety their quarrelsome nests and quería lessness came of a passionate sensitivity that produced the greatest literature of the Near East their racial pride was the indispensable prop of their courage through centuries of suffering men are what they have had to be the seventh commandment recognized marriage as the basis of the family as the fifth had recognized the family as the basis of society and it offered to marriage all the support of religion it said nothing about sex relations before marriage but other regulations laid upon the bride the obligation under pain of death by stoning to prove her virginity on the day of her marriage nevertheless prostitution was common and pederasty apparently survived the destruction of sodom and gomorrah as the law did not seem to prohibit relations with foreign harlots Syrian Moabite Midianite and other strange women flourished along the highways where they lived in booths and tents and combined the trades of peddler and prostitute Solomon who had no violent prejudices in these matters relaxed the laws that had kept such women out of Jerusalem in time they multiplied so rapidly there that in the days of the Maccabees the temple itself was described by an indignant reformer as full of fornication and harlotry love affairs probably occurred for there was much tenderness between the sexes Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her but love played a very small role in the choice of mates before the exile marriage was completely secular arranged by the parents or by the suitor with the parents of the bride vestiges of capture marriage are found in the Old Testament Yahweh approves of it in war and the elders on the occasion of a shortage of women commanded the children of Benjamin saying go and lie in wait in the vineyards and see and behold if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances then come out of the vineyards and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin but this was exceptional usually the marriage was by purchase Jacob purchased Leah and Rachel by his toil the gentle Ruth was quite simply bought by Boaz and the Prophet Hosea regretted exceedingly that he had given fifty shekels for his wife the word for wife Beulah meant owned the father of the bride reciprocated by giving his daughter a dowry an institution admirably adapted to diminish the socially disruptive gap between the sexual and the economic maturity of children in an urban civilization if the man was well-to-do he might practice polygamy if the wife was barren like Sarah she might encourage her husband to take a concubine the purpose of these Arrangements was prolific reproduction it was taken as a matter of course that after Rachel and Leah had given Jacob all the children they were capable of bearing they should offer him their maids who would also bear him children a woman was not allowed to remain idle in this matter of reproduction if her husband died his brother however many wives he might already have was obliged to marry her or if the husband had no brother the obligation fell upon his nearest surviving male kin since private property was the core of Jewish economy the double standard prevailed the man might have many wives but the woman was confined to one man adultery meant relations with the woman who had been bought and paid for by another man it was a violation of the law of property and was punished with death for both parties fornication was forbidden to women but was looked upon as a venial offence in men divorce was free to the man but extremely difficult for the woman until Talmudic days the husband does not seem to have abused his privileges unduly he's pictured to us all in all as zealously devoted to his wife and his children and their love did not determine marriage had often flowered out of it Isaac took Rebekah and she became his wife and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death probably and no other people outside of the Far East as family life reached so high a level is among the Jews the eighth commandment sanctified private property and bounded up with religion and the family is one of the three bases of Hebrew society property was almost entirely in land until the days of Solomon there was little industry beyond that of the Potter and the Smith even agriculture was not completely developed the bulk of the population devoted itself to rearing sheep and cattle and tending the vine at the olive and the fig they lived in tents rather than houses in order to move more easily to fresh pastures in time their growing economic surplus generated trade and the Jewish merchants by their tenacity and their skill began to flourish in Damascus tyre and sidon and in the precincts of the temple itself there was no coinage till near the time of the captivity but gold and silver weighed in each transaction became a medium of exchange and bankers appeared in great numbers to finance commerce and enterprise it was nothing strange that these moneylenders should use the courts of the temple it was a custom general in the Near East and survives there in many places to this day yah they beamed upon the growing power of the Hebrew financiers thou shalt lend unto many nations he said but thou shalt not borrow a generous philosophy that is great fortunes though it has not seemed in our century to be divinely inspired as in the other countries of the Near East war captives and convicts were used to slaves and hundreds of thousands of them toiled in cutting timber and transporting materials for such public works as Solomon's Temple and Palace but the owner had no power of life and death over his slaves and the slave might acquire property and by his Liberty men could be sold as bond servants for unpaid debts or could sell their children in their place and this continued to the days of Christ these typical institutions of the Near East were mitigated in Judea by generous charity and a vigorous campaign by priests and profit against exploitation the code laid it down hopefully that ye shall not oppress one another it asked that Hebrew bondservants should be released and debts among Jews cancelled every seventh year and when this was found to idealistic for the Masters the law proclaimed the institution of the Jubilee by which every fifty years all slaves and debtors should be freed and he shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof it shall be a jubilee unto you and ye shall return every man unto his possession and he shall return every man unto his family we have no evidence that this fine edict was obeyed but we must give credit to the priests for leaving no lesson in charity untaught if there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren thou shalt open nine hand wide unto him and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need and take thou no usury that is interest of him the Sabbath rest was to be extended to every employee even to animals stray sheaves and fruits were to be left in the fields and orchards for the poor to glean and though these charities were largely for fellow Jews the stranger in the gates was also to be treated with kindness the Sojourner was to be sheltered and fed and dealt with honorably at all times the Jews were bidden to remember that they too had once been homeless even bondservants in a foreign land the ninth commandment by demanding absolute honesty of witnesses put the prop of religion under the whole structure of Jewish law an oath was to be a religious ceremony not merely was a man in swearing to place his hand on the genitals of him to whom he swore as in the old custom he was now to be taking God himself as his witness and his judge false witnesses according to the code were to receive the same punishment that their testimony had sought to bring upon their victims religious law was the sole law of Israel the priests in the temples were the judges in the courts and those who refused to accept the decision of the priests were to be put to death ordeal by the drinking of poisonous water was prescribed in certain cases of doubtful guilt there was no other than religious machinery for enforcing the law it had to be left to personal conscience and public opinion minor crimes might be atoned for by confession and compensation capital punishment was decreed by Yahweh's instructions for murder kidnapping idolatry adultery striking or cursing a parent stealing a slave or lying with the Beast but not for the killing of a servant and thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Yahweh was quite satisfied to have the individual take the law into his own hands in case of murder the revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer when he meet at them he shall slay him certain cities however were to be set apart to which a criminal might flee and in which the Avenger must stay his revenge in general the principle of punishment was the Lex talionis life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burning for burning stripe for stripe we trust that this was a Council of perfection never quite realized the mosaic code though written down at least 1,500 years later shows no advance in criminal legislation upon the Code of Hammurabi in legal organization it shows an archaic retrogression to primitive ecclesiastical control the 10th commandment reveals how clearly woman was conceived under the rubric of property thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife nor his manservant nor his maidservant nor his ox nor his ass nor anything that is thy neighbors nevertheless it was an admirable precept could men follow at half the fever and anxiety of our life would be removed strange to say the greatest of the commandments is not listed among the ten though it is part of the law it occurs in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 lost amid a repetition of sundry laws and reads very simply thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself in general it was a lofty code sharing its defects with its age and rising to virtues characteristically its own we must remember that it was only a law indeed only a priestly utopia rather than a description of Jewish life like other codes it was honored plentifully in the breach and one new praise with every violation but its influence upon the conduct of the people was at least as great as that of most legal or moral codes it gave to the Jews through the two thousand years of wandering which they were soon to begin a portable fatherland as Heine was to call it an intangible and spiritual state it kept them United despite every dispersion proud despite every defeat and brought them across the centuries to our own time a strong and apparently indestructible people seven the literature and philosophy of the Bible history fiction poetry the Psalms the Song of Songs Proverbs job the idea of immortality the pessimism of Ecclesiastes the advent of Alexander the Old Testament is not only law it is history poetry and philosophy of the highest order after making every deduction for primitive legend and pious fraud after admitting that the historical books are not quite as accurate or as ancient as our forefathers supposed we find in them nevertheless not merely some of the oldest historical writing known to us but some of the best the books of Judges Samuel and kings may as some scholars believe have been put together hastily during or shortly after the exile to collect and preserve the national traditions of a scattered and broken people nevertheless the stories of Saul David and Solomon are immeasurably finer in structure and style than the other historical writing of the near East even Genesis if we read it with some understanding of the function of legend is barring its genealogies an admirable story told without frill or ornament with simplicity vividness and force and in a sense we have here not mere history but philosophy of history this is the first recorded effort of man to reduce the multiplicity of past events to a measure of unity by seeking in them some pervading purpose and significance some law of sequence and causation some illumination for the present and the future the conception of history promulgated by the prophets and the priestly authors of the Pentateuch survived a thousand years of Greece and Rome to become the worldview of European thinkers from boëthius to both way midway between the history and the poetry are the fascinating romances of the Bible there is nothing more perfect in the realm of prose than the story of Ruth only less excellent are the tales of Isaac and Rebecca Jacob and Rachel Joseph and Benjamin samson and delilah esther judith and daniel the poetical literature begins with the song of Moses Exodus chapter 15 and the song of Deborah judges chapter 5 and reaches finally to the heights of the Psalms the penitential hymns of the Babylonians had prepared for these and perhaps had given the material as well as form it Natanz ode to the Sun seems to have contributed to Psalm 104 and the majority of the Psalms instead of being the impressively United work of David are probably the compositions of several poets writing long after the captivity probably in the third century before Christ but all this is as irrelevant as the name or sources of Shakespeare what matters is that the Psalms are at the head of the world's lyric poetry they were not meant to be read at a sitting or in a higher critics mood they are at their best as expressing moments of pious ecstasy and stimulating faith they are marred for us by bitter implications tiresome groanings and complaints and endless adulation of a Yahweh who with all his loving-kindness and long-suffering and compassion pours smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth number eight promises that the wicked shall be turned into hell in number nine laps up flattery and threatens to cut off all flattering lips number twelve the Psalms are full of military ardor hardly Christian but very pilgrim some of them however are jewels of tenderness or cameos of humility verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity as for man his days are as grass as a flower of the field so he flourishes for the wind passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more number twenty-nine and number 103 in these songs we feel the antis trophic rhythm of ancient oriental poetry and almost hear the voices of majestic choirs in alternate answering no poetry has ever excelled this in revealing metaphor or living imagery never has religious feeling been more intensely or vividly expressed these poems touch us more deeply than any lyric of love they move even the skeptical soul for they give passionate form to the final longing of the developed mind for some perfection to which it may dedicate it striving here and there in the King James Version our pithy phrases that have become almost words in our language out of the mouths of babes number eight the apple of the eye number seventeen put not your trust in Princes number 146 and everywhere and the original are similes that have never been surpassed the Rising Sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race number nineteen we can only imagine what majesty and beauty must clothe these songs in the Sonoran slang Guevara j'en when beside these Psalms we place in contrast the Song of Solomon we get a glimpse of that sensual and terrestrial element in Jewish life which the Old Testament written almost entirely by prophets and priests as perhaps concealed from us just as Ecclesiastes reveals a skepticism not otherwise discernible and the carefully selected and edited literature of the ancient Jews this strangely amorous composition is an open field for surmise it may be a collection of songs of Babylonian origin celebrating the love of Ishtar and Tammuz it may be since it contains words borrowed from the Greek the work of several Hebrew and a crayons touched by the Hellenistic spirit that entered Judea with Alexander or since the lovers address each other as brother and sister in the Egyptian manner it may be a flower of Alexandrian jewelry plucked by some quite emancipated soul from the banks of the Nile in any case its presence in the Bible is a charming mystery by what winking or hoodwinking of the theologians did these songs of lusty passion find room between Isaiah and the preacher a bundle of myrrh as my well-beloved unto me he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts my beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphor and the vineyards of an Getty behold Thou Art Fair my love behold Thou Art Fair thou hast doves eyes behold Thou Art Fair my beloved yeh pleasant also our bed is green I am The Rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys stay me with flagons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love I charge you O ye daughters of Jerusalem by the Roe's or by the Hinds of the field that he stir not up nor awake my love till he please my beloved is mine and I am his he feedeth among the lilies until the daybreak and the shadows flee away turned my beloved and be thou like a row or a young heart upon the mountains of bether come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us Lodge in the villages let us get up early to the vineyards let us see if the vine flourish whether the tender grape appear and the pomegranates bud forth there will I give thee my loves this is the voice of youth and that of the Proverbs is the voice of old age men look to love and life for everything they receive a little less than that they imagine that they have received nothing these are the three stages of the pessimist sir this legendary Solomon warns youth against the evil woman for she hath cast down many wounded yay many strong men have been slain by whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding there'll be three things which are wonderful to me yay for which i know not the way of an eagle in the air the way of a serpent upon a rock the way of a ship in the midst of the sea and the way of a man with a made he agrees with saint paul that it is better to marry than to burn rejoice with the wife of thy youth let her be as the loving hind and the pleasant row let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox with hatred therewith can these be the words of the husband of seven hundred wives next to unchastity in the way of wisdom is sloth go to the ant thou sluggard how long wilt thou sleepest lug seus thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before kings yet will the philosopher not Brook crass ambition he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them work his wisdom words are near folly in all labour there is profit but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury a fool uttereth all his mind but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise the lesson which the sage never tires of repeating is an almost Socratic identification of virtue and wisdom redolent of those schools of Alexandria in which Hebrew theology was mating with Greek philosophy to form the intellect of Europe understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it but the instruction of fools is folly happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold she is more precious than rubies and all things thou canst desire are not to be compared with her length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Jobe is earlier than proverbs perhaps it was written during the exile and described by allegory the captives of Babylon I call it says the prefer vid Carlyle one of the grandest things ever written with a pen a noble book all men's book it is our first oldest statement of the neverending problem man's destiny and God's ways with him here on this earth there is nothing written I think in the Bible or out of it of equal literary merit the problem arose out of the Hebrew emphasis on this world since there was no heaven in ancient Jewish theology virtue had to be rewarded here or never but often it seemed that only the wicked prospered and that the choicest sufferings are reserved for the good man why as the psalmist complained did the ungodly prosper in the world why did God hide himself instead of punishing the evil and rewarding the good the author of job now asked the same questions more resolutely and offered his hero perhaps as a symbol for his people all Israel had worshipped yave fitfully as Jobe had done Babylon had ignored and blaspheme yaver and yet Babylon flourished and Israel ate the dust and wore the sackcloth of desolation and captivity what could one say of such a God in a prologue in heaven which some clever scribe may have inserted to take the scandal out of the book Satan suggests to Yahweh the job is perfect and upright only because he is fortunate would he retain his piety in adversity Yahweh permits Satan to heap a variety of calamities upon job's head for a time the hero is as patient as job but at last his fortitude breaks he ponders suicide and bitterly reproach as his God for forsaking him so far who has come out to enjoy the sufferings of his friend insists that God is just and will yet reward the good man even on earth but job's shuts him up sharply no doubt but he are the people and wisdom shall die with you but I have understanding as well as you yayyyy who knoweth not these things the Tabernacles of robbers prosper and they that provoke God are secured into whose hand God bringeth abundantly lo mine I have seen all this mine ear has heard and understood it but ye are forgers of lies ye are all physicians of no value oh that he would altogether hold your piece and it should be your wisdom he reflects on the brevity of life and the length of death man that is born of woman is a few days and full of trouble he cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he flee if also as a shadow and continue with not for there is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that the tender branch thereof will not cease but man daya 'then wasteth away yeh man giveth up the ghost and where is he as the waters fall from the sea and the flood decayeth and dry up so man lieth down and rise if not if a man die shall he live again the debate continues vigorously and Jo becomes more and more skeptical of his God until he calls him adversary and wishes that this adversary would destroy himself by writing a book perhaps some lightnin seein theodicy the concluding words of this chapter the words of Jobar ended suggest that this was the original termination of the discourse which like that of ecclesiastes represented a strong heretical minority among the Jews but a fresh philosopher enters at this point Elihu who demonstrates in 165 verses the justice of God's ways with men finally and one of the most majestic passages in the Bible a voice comes down out of the clouds then the Lord answered job out of the whirlwind and said who is this the darkness counsel by words without knowledge gird up now thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me where was thy when I laid the foundations of the earth declare a foul hast understanding who have laid the measures thereof if thou knowest or who hath stretched his line upon it where upon other foundations there are fastened or who laid the cornerstone thereof when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy or who shut up the sea with doors when it break forth as if it had issued out of the womb when I made the cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a swaddling band for it and break up for it my decreed place and set bars and doors and said here there to shout thou come but know and here shall thy proud waves be stayed hast thou commanded the morning since they and caused the Dayspring to know his place hast thou entered into the springs of the sea or hast thou walked in the search of the depth have the gates of death been opened unto thee or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death hast thou perceived the breath of the earth declare how knowest at all hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion knowest thou the ordinances of heaven canst thou set the Dominion thereof in the earth who have put wisdom in the inward parts or who have given understanding to the heart shall he that contended with the almighty instruct him he that reproveth God let him answer it Jobe humbles himself in terror before this apparition Yaga appeased forgives him accepts his sacrifice denounces job's friends for their feeble arguments and gives job fourteen thousand sheep six thousand camels a thousand yoke of oxen a thousand she asses seven sons three daughters and one hundred and forty years it is a lame but happy ending Jobe receives everything but an answer to his questions the problem remained and it was to have profound effects upon later Jewish thought in the days of Daniel circa 167 BC it was to be abandoned as insoluble in terms of this world no answer could be given Daniel and Enoch and Kant would say unless one believed in some other life beyond the grave in which all wrongs would be righted the wicked would be punished and the just would inherit infinite reward this was one of the varying currents of thought that flowed into Christianity and carried it to victory in Ecclesiastes the problem is given a pessimistic reply prosperity and misfortune have nothing to do with virtue and vice this book is continued at this point on the other side of this cassette please reverse or turn the cassette over and

Channel: Carl Tope

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Id: IXK56OvsWF0

Length: 44min 23sec (2663 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 01 2016