Books: Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel

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And in the evil-one, captured and chained and sealed by Solomon, we
seem to have the same thing prefigured in Revelation, xx, 2:

"2. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the
devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

"3. And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set
a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations."

{p. 276}

CHAPTER XII.

THE BOOK OF JOB.

WE are told in the Bible (Job, i, 16)--

"While he [Job] was yet speaking, there came also another, and said,
_The fire of God is fallen from heaven_ and hath burned up the sheep,
and the servants, and _consumed them_, and I only am escaped alone to
tell thee."

And in verse 18 we are told--

"While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy
sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house:

"19. And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and
smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men,
and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

We have here the record of a great convulsion. Fire fell from heaven;
the fire of God. It was not lightning, for it killed the seven
thousand sheep, (see chap. i, 3,) belonging to Job, and all his
shepherds; and not only killed but consumed them--burned them up. A
fire falling from heaven great enough to kill seven thousand sheep
must have been an extensive conflagration, extending over a large
area of country. And it seems to have been accompanied by a great
wind--a cyclone--which killed all Job's sons and daughters.

Has the book of Job anything to do with that great event which we
have been discussing? Did it originate out of it? Let us see.

In the first place it is, I believe, conceded by the foremost

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scholars that the book of Job is not a Hebrew work; it was not
written by Moses; it far antedates even the time of Abraham.

That very high orthodox authority, George Smith, F. S. A., in his
work shows that--

"Everything relating to this patriarch has been violently
controverted. His country; the age in which he lived; the author of
the book that bears his name; have all been fruitful themes of
discord, and, as if to confound confusion, these disputants are
interrupted by others, who would maintain that no such person ever
existed; that the whole tale is a poetic fiction, an allegory!"[1]

Job lived to be two hundred years old, or, according to the
Septuagint, four hundred. This great age relegates him to the era of
the antediluvians, or their immediate descendants, among whom such
extreme ages were said to have been common.

C. S. Bryant says:

"Job is in the purest Hebrew. The author uses only the word _Elohim_
for the name of God. The compiler or reviser of the work, Moses, or
whoever he was, employed at the heads of chapters and in the
introductory and concluding portions the name of _Jehovah_; but all
the verses where _Jehovah_ occurs, in Job, are later interpolations
in a very old poem, written at a time when the Semitic race had no
other name for God but _Elohim_; before Moses obtained the elements
of the new name from Egypt."[2]

Hale says:

"The cardinal constellations of spring and autumn, in Job's time,
were _Chima_ and _Chesil_, or Taurus and Scorpio, of which the
principal stars are Aldebaran, the Bull's Eye, and Antare, the
Scorpion's Heart. Knowing, therefore, the longitudes of these stars
at present, the interval

[1. "The Patriarchal Age," vol. i, p. 351.

2. MS. letter to the author, from C. S. Bryant, St. Paul, Minnesota.]

{p. 278}

of time from thence to the assumed date of Job's trial will give the
difference of these longitudes, and ascertain their positions then
with respect to the vernal and equinoctial points of intersection of
the equinoctial and ecliptic; according to the usual rate of the
precession of the equinoxes, one degree in seventy-one years and a
half."[1]

A careful calculation, based on these principles, has proved that
this period was 2338 B. C. According to the Septuagint, in the
opinion of George Smith, Job lived, or the book of Job was written,
from 2650 B. C. to 2250 B. C. Or the events described may have
occurred 25,740 years before that date.

It appears, therefore, that the book of Job was written, even
according to the calculations of the orthodox, long before the time
of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, and hence could not
have been the work of Moses or any other Hebrew. Mr. Smith thinks
that it was produced _soon after the Flood_, by an Arabian. He finds
in it many proofs of great antiquity. He sees in it (xxxi, 26, 28)
proof that in Job's time idolatry was an offense under the laws, and
punishable as such; and he is satisfied that all the parties to the
great dialogue were free from the taint of idolatry. Mr. Smith says:

"The Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Canaanites, Midianites,
Ethiopians of Abyssinia, Syrians, and other contemporary nations, had
sunk into gross idolatry long before the time of Moses."

The Arabians were an important branch of the great Atlantean stock;
they derived their descent from the people of Add.

"And to this day the Arabians declare that _the father of Job was the
founder of the great Arabian people_."[2]

[1. Hale's "Chronology," vol. ii, p. 55.

2. Smith's "Sacred Annals," vol. i, p. 360.]

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Again, the same author says:

"Job acted as high-priest in his own family; and, minute as are the
descriptions of the different classes and usages of society in this
book, we have not the slightest allusion to the existence of any
priests or specially appointed ministers of religion, _a fact which
shows the extreme antiquity of the period_, as priests were, in all
probability, first appointed about the time of Abraham, and became
general soon after."[1]

He might have added that priests were known among the Egyptians and
Babylonians and Phœnicians from the very beginning of their
history.

Dr. Magee says:

"If, in short, there be on the whole, that genuine air of the antique
which those distinguished scholars, Schultens, Lowth, and Michaelis,
affirm in every respect to pervade the work, we can scarcely hesitate
to pronounce, with Lowth and Sherlock, that _the book of Job is the
oldest in the world now extant_."[2]

Moreover, it is evident that this ancient hero, although he probably
lived before Babylon and Assyria, before Troy was known, before
Greece had a name, nevertheless dwelt in the midst of a high
civilization.

"The various arts, the most recondite sciences, the most remarkable
productions of earth, in respect of animals, vegetables, and
minerals, the classified arrangement of the stars of heaven, are all
noticed."

Not only did Job's people possess an alphabet, but books were
written, characters were engraved; and some have even gone so far as
to claim that the art of printing was known, because Job says, "Would
that my words were printed in a book!"

[1. Smith's "Sacred Annals," p. 364.

2. Magee "On the Atonement," vol. ii, p. 84.]

{p. 280}

The literary excellence of the work is of the highest order. Lowth
says:

"The antiquary, or the critic, who has been at the pains to trace the
history of the Grecian drama from its first weak and imperfect
efforts, and has carefully observed its tardy progress to perfection,
will scarcely, I think, without astonishment, contemplate a poem
produced so many ages before, so elegant in its design, so regular in
its structure, so animated, so affecting, so near to the true
dramatic model; while, on the contrary, the united wisdom of Greece,
after ages of study, was not able to produce anything approaching to
perfection in this walk of poetry before the time of Æschylus."[1]

Smith says:

"The debate rises high above earthly things; the way and will and
providential dealings of God are investigated. All this is done with
the greatest propriety, with the most consummate skill; and,
notwithstanding the expression of some erroneous opinions, all is
under the influence of a devout and sanctified temper of mind."[2]

Has this most ancient, wonderful, and lofty work, breathing the
spirit of primeval times, its origin lost in the night of ages,
testifying to a high civilization and a higher moral development, has
it anything to do with that event which lay far beyond the Flood?

If it is a drama of Atlantean times, it must have passed through many
hands, through many ages, through many tongues, before it reached the
Israelites. We may expect its original meaning, therefore, to appear
through it only like the light through clouds; we may expect that
later generations would modify it with local names and allusions; we
may expect that they would even strike out parts whose meaning they
failed to understand, and

[1. "Hebrew Poetry," lecture xxxiii.

2. "Sacred Annals," vol. i, p. 365.]

{p. 281}

interpolate others. It is believed that the opening and closing parts
are additions made in a subsequent age. If they could not comprehend
how the fire from heaven and the whirlwind could have so utterly
destroyed Job's sheep, servants, property, and family, they would
bring in those desert accessories, Sabæan and Chaldean robbers, to
carry away the camels and the oxen.

What is the meaning of the whole poem?

God gives over the government of the world for a time to Satan, to
work his devilish will upon Job. Did not God do this very thing when
he permitted the comet to strike the earth? Satan in Arabic means a
serpent. "Going to and fro" means in the Arabic in "the heat of haste
"; Umbreit translates it, "from _a flight over the earth_."

Job may mean a man, a tribe, or a whole nation.

From a condition of great prosperity Job is stricken down, in an
instant, to the utmost depths of poverty and distress; and the chief
agency is "fire from heaven" and great wind-storms.

Does this typify the fate of the world when the great catastrophe
occurred? Does the debate between Job and his three visitors
represent the discussion which took place in the hearts of the
miserable remnants of mankind, as they lay hid in caverns, touching
God, his power, his goodness, his justice; and whether or not this
world-appalling calamity was the result of the sins of the people or
otherwise?

Let us see what glimpses of these things we can find in the text of
the book.

When Job's afflictions fall upon him he curses his day--the day, as
commonly understood, wherein he was born. But how can one curse a
past period of time and ask the darkness to cover it?

{p. 282}

The original text is probably a reference to the events that were
_then_ transpiring:

"Let that day _be turned into darkness_; let not God regard it from
above; and _let not the light shine upon it_. Let darkness and the
_shadow of death cover it;_ let a mist overspread it, and let it be
wrapped up in bitterness. _Let a darksome whirlwind_ seize upon that
night. . . . Let them curse it who curse the clay, who are _ready to
raise up a leviathan_."[1]

De Dieu says it should read, "And thou, leviathan, rouse up." "Let a
mist overspread it"; literally, "let a gathered mass of dark clouds
cover it."

"The Fathers generally understand the devil to be meant by the
leviathan."

We shall see that it means the fiery dragon, the comet:

"Let the stars be darkened _with the mist thereof;_ let it _expect
light and not see it, nor the rising of the dawning of the day_."[2]

In other words, Job is not imprecating future evils on a past
time--an impossibility, an absurdity: he is describing the events
then transpiring--the whirlwind, the darkness, the mist, the day that
does not come, and the leviathan, the demon, the comet.

Job seems to regret that he has escaped with his life:

"For now," he says, "_should I have lain still and been quiet_," (if
I had not fled) "I should have slept: then had I been at rest, with
kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for
themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses
with silver."[3]

Job looks out over the whole world, swept bare of its inhabitants,
and regrets that he did not stay and bide the

[1. Douay version, chapter iii, verses 4-8.

2. Ibid., verse 9.

3. King James's version, chapter iii, verses 18-15.]

{p. 283}

pelting of the pitiless storm, as, if he had done so, he would be now
lying dead with kings and counselors, who built places for
themselves, now made desolate, and with princes who, despite their
gold and silver, have perished. Kings and counselors do not build
"desolate places" for themselves; they build in the heart of great
communities; in the midst of populations: the places may become
desolate afterward.

Eliphaz the Temanite seems to think that the sufferings of men are
due to their sins. He says:

Even _as I have seen_, they that plough wickedness and sow
wickedness, reap the same. _By the blast of God they perish, and by
the breath of his nostrils are they consumed_. The roaring of the
lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young
lions are broken. _The old lion perisheth for lack of prey_, and the
stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad."

Certainly, this seems to be a picture of a great event. Here again
the fire of God, that consumed Job's sheep and servants, is at work;
even the fiercest of the wild beasts are suffering: the old lion dies
for want of prey, and its young ones are scattered abroad.

Eliphaz continues:

"In thoughts, from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth
on me, _fear came upon me_, and trembling, which made all my bones to
shake. Then a spirit _passed before my face_, the hair of my flesh
stood up."

A voice spake:

"Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure
than his Maker? Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his
angels he charged with folly: How much less them that dwell in houses
of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before
the moth. _They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish
forever without any regarding it_."

{p. 284}

The moth can crush nothing, therefore Maurer thinks it should read,
"crushed like the moth." "They are destroyed," etc.; literally, "they
are _broken to pieces in the space of a day_."[1]

All through the text of Job we have allusions to the catastrophe
which had fallen on the earth (chap. v, 3):

"I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I," (God,) "cursed
his habitation."

"4. His children are far from safety," (far from any place of
refuge?) "and they are _crushed in the gate_, neither is there any to
deliver them.

"5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the
thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance."

That is to say, in the general confusion and terror the harvests are
devoured, and there is no respect for the rights of property.

"6. Although affliction _cometh not forth of the dust_, neither doth
trouble _spring out of the ground_."

In the Douay version it reads:

"Nothing on earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring
out of the ground" (v, 6).

I take this to mean that the affliction which has fallen upon men
comes not out of the ground, but from above.

"7. Yet man is born unto trouble, _as the sparks fly upward_."

In the Hebrew we read for sparks, "sons of _flame_ or burning coal."
Maurer and Gesenius say, "As the sons of lightning fly high"; or,
"troubles are many and fiery as sparks."

[1. Faussett's "Commentary," iii, 40.]

{p. 285}

"8. I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause;

"9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things
without number:

10. Who _giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the
fields_."

Rain here signifies the great floods which cover the earth.

"11. To set up _on high_ those that be low; that those which mourn
may be _exalted to safety_."

That is to say, the poor escape to the high places--to safety--while
the great and crafty perish.

"12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands
can not perform their enterprise.

"13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness," (that is, in the
very midst of their planning,) "and the counsel of the froward is
_carried headlong_," (that is, it is instantly overwhelmed).

"14. They MEET WITH DARKNESS IN THE DAY-TIME, and _grope in the
noonday as in the night_." (Chap. v.)

Surely all this is extraordinary--the troubles of mankind come from
above, not from the earth; the children of the wicked are crushed in
the gate, far from places of refuge; the houses of the wicked are
"crushed before the moth," those that plow wickedness perish," by the
"blast of God's nostrils they are consumed"; the old lion perishes
for want of prey, and its whelps are scattered abroad. Eliphaz sees a
vision, (the comet,) which "makes his bones to shake, and the hair of
his flesh to stand up"; the people "are destroyed from morning to
evening"; the cunning find their craft of no avail, but are taken;
the counsel of the froward is carried headlong; the poor find safety
in high places; and darkness comes in midday, so that the people
grope their way;

{p. 286}

and Job's children, servants, and animals are destroyed by a fire
from heaven, and by a great wind.

Eliphaz, like the priests in the Aztec legend, thinks he sees in all
this the chastening hand of God:

"17. Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise
not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

"18. For he _maketh sore_, and bindeth up: he _woundeth_, and his
hands make whole." (Chap. v.)

We are reminded of the Aztec prayer, where allusion is made to the
wounded and sick in the cave "whose mouths were full of _earth_ and
scurf." Doubtless, thousands were crushed, and cut, and wounded by
the falling stones, or burned by the fire, and some of them were
carried by relatives and friends, or found their own way, to the
shelter of the caverns.

"20. In _famine_ he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the
power of the sword.

"21. _Thou shalt be hid_ from the scourge of the tongue: neither
shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh." (Chap. v.)

"The scourge of the tongue" has no meaning in this context. There has
probably been a mistranslation at some stage of the history of the
poem. The idea is, probably, "You are hid in safety from the scourge
of the comet, from the tongues of flame; you need not be afraid of
the destruction that is raging without."

"22. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh neither shalt thou be
afraid of the beasts of the earth.

"23. For thou shalt be in league with THE STONES OF THE FIELD: and
the beasts of the field shall _be at peace with thee_." (Chap. v.)

That is to say, as in the Aztec legend, the stones of the field have
killed some of the beasts if the earth, "the lions have perished,"
and their whelps have been scattered;

{p. 287}

the stones have thus been your friends; and other beasts have fled
with you into these caverns, as in the Navajo tradition, where you
may be able, living upon them, to defy famine.

Now it may be said that all this is a strained construction; but what
construction can be substituted that will make sense of these
allusions? How can the stones of the field be in league with man? How
does the ordinary summer rain falling on the earth set up the low and
destroy the wealthy? And what has all this to do with a darkness that
cometh in the day-time in which the wicked grope helplessly?

But the allusions continue

Job cries out, in the next chapter (chap. vi)

"2. Oh that my grief" (my sins whereby I deserved wrath) "were
thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

3. _As the sands of the sea this would appear heavier_, therefore my
words are full of sorrow. (Douay version.)

'14. For the _arrows of the Almighty are within_ me, the poison
whereof drinketh up my spirit; _the terrors of God do set themselves
in array against me_" ("war against me"-Douay ver.).

That is to say, disaster comes down heavier than the sands--the
gravel of the sea; I am wounded; the arrows of God, the darts of
fire, have stricken me. We find in the American legends the
descending _débris_ constantly alluded to as "stones, arrows, and
spears"; I am poisoned with the foul exhalations of the comet; the
terrors of God are arrayed against me. All this is comprehensible as
a description of a great disaster of nature, but it is extravagant
language to apply to a mere case of boils.

"9. Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let
loose his hand and cut me off."

{p. 288}

The commentators say that "to destroy me" means literally "to grind
or crush me." (Chap. vi.)

Job despairs of final escape:

"11. What is my strength that I can hold out? And what is I end that
I should keep patience?" (Douay.)

"12 . Is my strength the _strength of stones?_ Or is my flesh of
brass? "

That is to say, how can I ever bold out? How can I ever survive this
great tempest? How can my strength stand the crushing of these
stones? Is my flesh brass, that it will not burn up? Can I live in a
world where such things are to continue?

And here follow allusions which are remarkable as occurring in an
Arabian composition, in a land of torrid beats:

"15. My brethren" (my fellow-men) "have dealt deceitfully" (have
sinned) "as a brook, and as the stream of brooks _they pass away_.

16. Which are blackish _by reason of the ice_, and wherein _the snow
is hid_.

"17. What time they wax _warm_, they vanish: when it is hot, they
_are consumed out of their place_.

18. The paths of their way are turned aside; they _go to nothing and
perish_."

The Douay version has it:

"16. They" (the people) "that fear the hoary frost, _the snow shall
fall upon them_.

"17. At the time _when they shall be scattered they shall perish;_
and after it _groweth hot they shall be melted out of their place_.

"18. The paths of their steps are entangled; _they shall walk in vain
and shall perish_."

There is a great deal of perishing here--some by frost and snow, some
by heat; the people are scattered, they lose their way, they perish.

{p. 289}

Job's servants and sheep were also consumed in their place; _they_
came to naught, _they_ perished.

Job begins to think, like the Aztec priest, that possibly the human
race has reached its limit and is doomed to annihilation (chap. vii):

"1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his
days also like the days of an hireling?"

Is it not time to discharge the race from its labors?

"4. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, _and the night be
gone?_ and I am full of tossings to and fro unto _the dawning of the
day_."

He draws a picture of his hopeless condition, shut up in the cavern,
never to see the light of day again. (Douay ver., chap. vii):

"12: Am I sea or a whale, _that thou hast inclosed me in a prison?_"

"7. My eyes _shall not return to see good things_.

"8. Nor shall the sight of man behold me; thy eyes are upon me, and I
shall be no more"; (or, as one translates it, thy mercy shall come
too late when I shall be no more.)

"9. As a cloud is consumed and passeth away, so he that shall go down
to hell" (or the grave, the cavern) shall not come up.

"10. Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his
place know him any more."

How strikingly does this remind one of the Druid legend, given on
page 135, _ante_:

"The profligacy of mankind had provoked the Great Supreme to send a
pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure poison descended, every
blast was death. At this time the patriarch, _distinguished for his
integrity_, was _shut up, together with his select company_, in the
inclosure with the strong door. Here the just ones were safe from
injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose," etc.

{p. 290}

Who can doubt that these widely separated legends refer to the same
event and the same patriarch?

Job meditates suicide, just as we have seen in the American legends
that hundreds slew themselves under the terror of the time:

"21. For now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the
morning, but I shall not be."

The Chaldaic version gives us the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of
chapter viii as follows:

"The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat but it withereth the
grass, and the flower thereof faileth, and the grace of the fashion
of it perisheth, so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways."

And then Job refers to the power of God, seeming to paint the
cataclysm (chap. ix):

"5. Which _removeth the mountains_, and they know not which
_overturneth them in his anger_.

"6. Which _shaketh the earth out of her place_, and the _pillars
thereof_ tremble.

"7. Which commandeth the sun, _and it riseth not; and sealeth up the
stars_.

"8. Which alone spreadeth out the heavens and _treadeth upon the
waves of the sea_."

All this is most remarkable: here is the delineation of a great
catastrophe--the mountains are removed and leveled; the earth shakes
to its foundations; the sun _fails to appear_, and the stars are
sealed up. How? In the dense masses of clouds?

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