THE BOOK OF JOB 95 



that is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the 

 judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother ' Raca/ 

 shall be in danger of the Council, and whosoever shall 

 say ' Thou heretic/ shall be in danger of the hell of fire/' 



Let us then study the subject of Faith, as taught by 

 another of the world's greatest heretics, the writer of 

 the " Book of Job/' 



The solution which Habakkuk found to the problem 

 of suffering, was to him a national solution, and a national 

 solution only* It was the nation that was to live by 

 its faithfulness* With a patriotism that was truly 

 magnificent, the prophets cared nothing what became 

 of themselves* It was sufficient for them that to 

 their nation a glorious immortality was assured* Even 

 the solution which we find in the Suffering Servant 

 Poems had probably for their author a purely national 

 significance* But when Jeremiah taught that God 

 cared for the individual, the problem of suffering 

 assumed a new form which demanded a new solution* 

 If God cared for the individual, then the Justice of God 

 in His dealings with the individual must be vindicated, 

 and that was a far more difficult task then than now* 

 In the eighth century B*c*, there was no thought whatever 

 of a life beyond the grave, and even in the fifth century, 

 although there was some idea of a future life, it was not 

 a place of rewards and punishments* Sheol, the abode 

 of the dead, was the underworld ; a place to which good 

 and bad alike went, and endured a shadowy existence 

 quite oblivious of what went on in the world above 

 them. If the Justice of God was to be vindicated, it 

 had to be done there and then* In this life the debit 

 and credit sides of the ledger must exactly balance ; 

 a man's prosperity must exactly correspond to his merits 

 and his sufferings must exactly correspond to his sins* 

 This was the obvious solution that presented itself, 

 and it was seized upon with avidity by the pious and 



