PROVERBS JOB. 



are presented, and there seems to be good reason to believe that 

 this is one of them.* 



19. Every reader who is duly sensible of the sublime poetry of 

 certain parts of the Hebrew Scriptures will be familiar with the 

 following splendid description of the war-horse in the Book of 

 Job, xxxix. 19 : ' 



19. Hast thou given the horse strength ? hast them clothed liis neck 

 with thunder ? 



20. Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper ? the glory of his 

 nostrils is terrible. 



21. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength : he goetb 

 on to meet the armed men. 



22. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted ; neither tumeth he back 

 from the sword. 



23. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the 

 shield. 



24. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage ; neither 

 believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. 



52. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha ; and he smelleth the battle 

 afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. 



20. In reading these verses, one is so dazzled with their splen- 

 dour that it is difficult to submit them to the cold test of physical 

 truth. Nevertheless, it has always appeared to us, that the 

 second member of the first verse above quoted is, as translated, 

 destitute of all meaning. To clothe an object with thunder would 

 be to clothe it with a sound, which obviously is destitute of all 

 meaning either literal or metaphorical. It might seem as thougli 

 the allusion intended in the original of the passage might have been 

 to lightning and not to thunder. One can conceive the waving 

 and flashing of the mane of the war-horse fairly enough imaged 

 by lightning, especially when considered in connection with the 

 roar of the battle-field and "the thunder of the captains," so 

 finely described in a succeeding verse. If the original Hebrew 

 term which has been translated by the word thunder could bear 

 the signification of lightning, the objection here advanced would 

 be removed. 



To say that a thing is clothed with a sound reminds one of an 

 anecdote to which we have alluded on a former occasion. A 

 blind man being asked what idea he had of the colour scarlet, 

 replied that he believed he had a very clear notion of it, for that 

 it was just like the sound of a trumpet. 



21. Thinking it highly probable that the blemish which I have 



* Trans. Ent. Soc., London. Vol. ii. p. 211. 



207 



