The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur Part 13

IV

Would it had yearned for light but found none, Nor beheld the eye-lids of the morning dawn!

For it closed not the door of my mother's womb, Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

V

Why died I not straight from the womb?

Why, having come out of the belly, did I not expire?

Why did the knees meet me?

And why the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, that I might suck?

VI

For then should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept and now had been at rest, With the kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built desolate places for themselves.

VII

Or with princes, once rich in gold, Who filled their houses with silver, I should be as being not, as an hidden untimely birth, Like infants which never saw the light!

VIII

There the wicked cease from troubling, And there the weary be at rest; There the prisoners repose together, Nor hear the taskmaster's voice.

IX

Why gives he light to the afflicted, And life unto the bitter in soul, Who yearn for death, but it cometh not, And dig for it more than for buried treasures?

X

Hail to the man who hath found a grave!

Then only hath G.o.d "hedged him in."[197]

For sighing is become my bread, And my crying is unto me as water.

XI

For the thing I dreaded cometh upon me, And that I trembled at befalleth me.

I am not in safety, neither have I rest; Nor quiet, but trouble cometh alway.

XII

ELIPHAZ:

Lo, thou hast instructed many, Thy words have upholden him that was stumbling.

Now hath thine own turn come, And thou thyself art worried and troubled.

XIII

Was not the fear of G.o.d thy confidence?

And the uprightness of thy ways thy hope?

Bethink, I pray thee, who ever perished guiltless?

Or where were the righteous cut off?

XIV

I saw them punished that plough iniquity, And them that sow sorrow reap the same; By the blast of G.o.d they perish, And by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.[198]

XV

Now a word was wafted unto me by stealth,[199]

And mine ear received the whisper thereof; In thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon man.

XVI

Fear came upon me and trembling, Which made all my bones to shake.

Then a spectre sped before my face; The hair of my flesh bristled up.

XVII

It stood, but I could not discern its form.

I heard a gentle voice:-- "Shall a mortal be more just than G.o.d?

Shall a man be more pure than his maker?

XVIII

Behold, in his servants he puts no trust,-- Nay, his angels[200] he chargeth with folly;-- How much less in the dwellers in houses of clay, Whose foundations are down in the dust.

XIX

Between dawn and evening they are destroyed: They perish and no man recketh.

Is not their tent-pole torn up?[201]

And bereft of wisdom, they die."

XX

Call now, if so be any will answer thee; And to which of the angels wilt thou turn?

For his own wrath killeth the foolish man, And envy slayeth the silly one.

XXI

His children are far from safety; They are crushed, and there is none to save them.

The hungry eateth up their harvest, And the thirsty swilleth their milk.

XXII

For affliction springeth not out of the dust, Nor doth sorrow sprout up from the ground;-- For man is born unto trouble, Even as the sparks fly upward.

XXIII

But I would seek unto G.o.d, And unto G.o.d would I commit my cause, Who doth great things and unfathomable, Marvellous things without number.