380 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



Barth ; besides a new and thoroughly revised edition 

 of Professor Delitzsch s well-known Commentary. Dr. 

 Earth s pamphlet comprises an essay on the date of the 

 book, and notes on a series of difficult passages, directed 

 in good measure against notions and conjectures of 

 recent commentators, and for the most part worthy of 

 consideration. It is a plausible suggestion that in xviii. 

 7 rSmn is an inverted form of WDH ; and the proposal 

 to identify DiT^in in xxxix. 3 with the Assyrian habal = son 

 deserves attention in connection with Lagarde s explana 

 tion of xiii. 12 from the Assyrian igabbi = he spake. The 

 change of guttural which Kautzsch (T.L.Z., 1877, 

 Nr. 2) views as conclusive against Dr. Earth s proposal 

 appears from Sayce s Assyrian Grammar, p. 106, to be 

 no real difficulty. In what he says upon the date, our 

 essayist is successful in indicating the precarious character 

 of many arguments that have been adduced ; but he has 

 not always avoided what is equally precarious in discussing 

 the many points of contact between Job and other parts 

 of the Old Testament, though hehas doubtless strengthened 

 the already tolerably convincing proofs that the book is 

 later than the age of Solomon, and indeed than Isaiah. 

 The chief difficulty is with the terminus ad quern, which is 

 assumed without discussion to be given in the use of the 

 book by Jeremiah. But it is not impossible to argue that 

 the author of Job has rather quoted Jeremiah (comp. 

 Wellhausen in T.L.Z., 1877, 4) ; and a fresh examination 

 of this question is the more to be desired, that Earth s 

 essay makes it clear that the date of Job carries with it 

 important consequences for several other parts of the 

 Old Testament, whose age is subject of controversy. 

 He seems, for example, to have proved that Isaiah xxxv., 

 which many critics refer to the time of the Exile, was 

 known to the writer of Job. 



Lie. Budde defends the integrity of the book of Job in 

 two able and interesting essays (i) &quot; Recent Criticism 

 and the idea of the book &quot; ; (2) &quot; The linguistic character 



