invoked in the name of Baal) they called or in Baal, in opposition to him, Baal, (Yikreau be Shem ha voked, not upon the name, for the words are not to be so translated, but by, or in the name of Baal. If Syphis was the builder of the largest Egyptian pyramid; which, according to the accounts we have of it, is so large at the bottom as to cover above eleven acres of ground, and five hundred feet high, and Manetho expressly says that he built it; he must have been a' prince of great figure iu the age he lived in; and no wonder if his own and the neighbouring nations embraced his religious institutions. If About the time of this Syphis, or rather something later, lived Job the Arabian. The LXX in their translation say that he lived in all two hundred and forty, or two hundred and forty-eight years. he really lived so long, we ought to suppose him earlier than Syphis; nay, much earlier than Abraham, for the lives of mankind wére so much shortened before the days of Abraham, that though he lived but one hundred and seventy-five years, yet he is said to have died in a good old age, an old man and full of years.' Peleg, who was five generations before Abraham, lived two hundred and thirty-nine years." Reu the son of Peleg lived as many," Serug the son of Reu lived two hundred and thirty; but the lives of their descendants were not so long. Euseb. Chron. ver. 16. Nahor the grand See cap ult. lib. Job. vers. LXX * Gen. xxv. 7. 1 Ver. 8. ■ Ver. 20, 21. • Ver. 22, 23. T P father of Abraham lived but one hundred and fortyeight years. Terah, Abraham's father, lived two hundred and five. Abraham lived one hundred and seventy-five, Isaac lived one hundred and eighty, and the lives of their children were shorter. If therefore Job lived two hundred and forty or two hundred and forty-eight years, he must have been contemporary with Peleg, Reu or Serug; for men's lives were not extended to so great a length after their days. The LXX have some remarkable additions to the book of Job, which are not found in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac or Arabic copies; and this account of the length of Job's life is one of them; but this is in no wise reconcileable with what follows, and is said to Jave been translated from the Syriac version, namely, that Job's original name was Jobab, that his father's name was Zare of the children of Esau; that he was the fifth in descent from Abraham that he was the second king of Edom, next after Bela the son of Beor. This account will place Job even later than Moses; for Bela the first king of Edom was Moses' contemporary; and if we place him thus late, he could not live two hundred and forty years. Men lived in Moses' time about one hundred and thirty: but this account is not consistent with itself; for if Job was the fifth in descent from Abraham, he must be prior to Moses, Moses being seven descents later than Abraham. These additions which we now find in the last chapter of the 4. Ver. 32 r Gen. xi. 24, 25. Chap. xxxv. 28. "Moses was in the third generation from Levi. 1 Chron. vi. 1, 2, 3. Levi was son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. t LXX version of the book of Job, will therefore so ill bear a strict examination, that I cannot think the translators themselves did at first put them there; but rather that they were the work of some later hand; added by some transcriber, who thought Jobab (mentioned Gen. xxxvi. 33.) and Job to be the same person. There are some circumstances in the history of Job, which may lead us to guess pretty well at the time when he lived. 1. He lived above one hundred and eighty years, for he lived one hundred and forty years. after his afflictions, and he must be more than forty at the beginning of them; for he had seven sons and three daughters, and all his children seem to have been grown up before the beginning of his misfortunes; he must therefore have lived to be near two hundred years old. 2. The idolatry practised in the countries where he lived, in his days, was the worship of the host of heaven. 3. The presents usual in Job's days were ear-rings of gold, and pieces of money called keshitah." Now from these circumstances it seems most probable, 1. That he could not be much later than the time of Isaac; for if he had, his life would not have been so long, as it appears to have been. 2. He must have been something younger than Syphis, for Syphis first▪ instituted the worship of the host of heaven in Egypt; which idolatry spread thence into, and began to flourish in Arabia in Job's time. 3. Ear-rings of gold were in Abraham's days, and they were part of the d women's dress in the days of Jacob; but the picce of money called keshitah seems not to have been in use until after Abraham. When Abraham bought the field of Ephron, he paid the price in silver, not by number of pieces but by weight; but when Jacob bought a parcel of a field of the children of Hamor, he paid for it not by weight, but gave a hundred keshitahs, or pieces of money for it; so that the keshitah or piece of money which Job's friends gave him, was not in use in Abraham's time, but in Jacob's; therefore Job was not so ancient as Abraham, though the length of his life will not permit us to suppose him altogether so young as Jacob. Job's friends who visited him were Eliphaz ha-Temani, perhaps the son of Tema; now Tema was the son of Ishmael; and Bildad ha-Shuachi, i. e. the son of Shuach; now Shuach was the son of Abraham by Keturah ; and Zophar ha-Naamathi ; and Elihu the son of Barachel ha-Buzi conversed with them. Now Buz was the son of Nahor Abraham's brother; h Barachel might be his son or grandson, and Elihu his son be contemporary with Isaac; for Nahor being born when his father Terah was little more than 70, must have been above 50 years older than Abraham, and agreeably hereto Abraham's son Isaac married Nahor's grand-daughter.' Thus all the persons conversant with Job may reasonably be supposed to have lived about Isaac's time, and b Gen. xxxv. 4. A Gen. xxii. 21. с с Chap. xxiii. 16. Chap. xxv. 15. g Job xxxii. 2. therefore we need not upon account of their names. place Job later. Some learned writers are very positive that Job lived about the time of Moses; Grotius was of this opinion; others place him a generation later than Esau, supposing that Eliphaz the Temanite, who was one of his friends, had been Eliphaz the son of Esau and father of Teman; but I think that the length of Job's life is an unanswerable objection against sup posing him to be thus late. Job lived in the land of Uz; which country, according to the prophet Jeremiah, was adjacent to the land of Edom. The Sabeans robbed Job," and the Sabeans lived at the entrance of Arabia Felix." The Chaldeans also formed three bands, and fell upon his camels and carried them away." The Chaldeans were at first a wandering people, inhabitants of the wilderness, until Ashur built them a city; then they lived at Ur in Mesopotamia, for they expelled Abraham their land; but it is most probable, that, like the ancient Scythians, they wandered often from their country in bands for the sake of robbing, many generations after their first settlement; this being no unusual practice in the early times, and three companies of them might make an expedition and fall upon Job's cattle, so that we need not suppose that Job lived very near to Ur of the Chaldees, tho' he was robbed by these men. If we suppose that his land was adja cent to Edom, as Jeremiah hints; he was nigh enough k Job i. 1. Job i. 15. Job i. 17. Judith y. 8. १ 1 Lam. iv. 21. " See vol. i. b. 3. P Isaiah xxiii. 13. |