98 QUAKER ASPECTS OF TRUTH 



and shall we not also receive evil ? ** So again the Satan 

 is foiled and Job's character is fully vindicated* 



And now Job's three friends come to visit him, 

 Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar 

 the Naamathite* These three friends are the repre- 

 sentatives of conventional orthodoxy, and truly they 

 represent it at its very best* 



For seven long days and nights they sit in silence on 

 an ash-heap, with the sufferer* One could not wish 

 for better proof of sincere friendship and sympathy* 



Then commence those wonderful cycles of speeches 

 which form the body of the work* Job is the first speaker* 

 In a passionate outburst of grief he curses the day of his 

 birth, and expresses his longing for the shades of Sheol, 

 ** where the wicked cease from troubhng and the weary 

 are at rest**' ** Why is light given to a man whose way 

 is hid and whom God hath hedged in ? ** Probably 

 the pathos of this first speech of Job has never been 

 equalled in literature* 



To this Elipha2; answers with great tenderness and 

 with arguments which are wonderfully convincing* 

 Indeed, he is quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 

 and we often see and hear him quoted by pious people 

 to-day, notwithstanding the fact that we find at the end 

 of the book that he and his platitutdes are condemned 

 by God ! 



A less great artist would have put up a weak case 

 in order the more effectually to demolish it* He would 

 have made the friends ridiculous* But not so the 

 author of the Book of Job* He is more than fair to 

 conventional piety, and speaks for it far better than it 

 could speak for itself* It is with infinite tact that 

 Eliphaz reminds Job that in the days of his prosperity 

 he had strengthened the weak hands and confirmed the 

 feeble knees ; and now that misfortune has befallen 

 him, it ill becomes him thus to give way* 



