The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

The Book of JOB. (Book Job)

IN these times when it went thus sadly with Israel in Egypt; there shone forth the glorious piety and patience of Job in the land of Uz: and here in order of time doth his book and story come in. It is not possible to fix the time of his great trial and affliction to its proper date; but there are two or three considerations which do argue that it was about these bitter times of Israels sinfulness and misery.

As 1. to consider how suitable it is to the providence of God, and agree∣able to his dispensation at other times, [as in the matter of Elias and the widow of Sarepta, for one instance] that when Religion was utterly lost and gone in the Church of Israel, where it should have been; to find it in the family of Job, in a place where it might have been little supposed to have been found. 2. How Job is preferred for his piety before any man alive, and that before his patience had given it such a lustre. 3. If Eliphaz be called a Temanite, as being the immediate son of Teman, it helpeth to scant∣ling the time exceeding much; for then was he the fourth from Esau, as Am∣ram was from Jacob, and so their times might very well be coincident.

The Book of Job seemeth to have been penned by Elihu one of the speak∣ers in it, as may appear by these two things. 1. Because in Chap. 2. when Jobs friends that came to lament with him, and to comfort him, are reckoned and mentioned by name, Elihu is not named in the number; arguing, as it may well be conceived, these two things, 1. That he came not to Job from a place far distant, as the other three did, but neighboured upon him. And 2. that he himself was the Historian and Pen-man that made the relation; and therefore he named not himself when he named others. 2. Because in Chap. 32. he speaketh of himself as of the Historian, ver. 15, 16, 17. They were amazed, they answer no more, they left off speaking. When I had waited, for they spake not, but stood still and answered no more; I said I will answer also, I also will shew my opinion.

Job was a son of Nahor, Abrahams brother, descended from him by his son Uz, Gen. 22. 21. and so Elihu and he came to live so near together; the one being of Uz the eldest son of Nahor, and the other of Bus the second.

The order of the Book is facile and direct; the Penman in the two first Chapters sheweth how Job fell into his misery, who before was one of the richest and most prosperous men in those parts. On a Sabbath day when the sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, that is, when the professors of the true Religion were met together in the publike assembly; Satan was invisibly there among them, but the Lord seeth him, and upon some con∣ference about Job, the Lord letteth Satan loose upon him, in reference to his estate; and another Sabbath upon the like occasion and conference, he letteth him loose upon him in reference to his body: so Satan destroyeth all that he hath, and all his children. [Read ver. 5. of Chap. 1. not, when the days of their feasting were gone about; but, as the days of their feasting went about: ••

and smiteth him with an intolerable itch, that his nails will not serve his turn to scratch, but he is glad to get a potsheard to scrub himself. Then come his three friends to him from a far distance, and Elihu his cousen that lived near to him, and these in several speeches to him do but aggravate his misery, and prove miserable comforters.

The dialogues or disputation between him and his three friends do hold this course; that he answereth, and they reply upon him in the course of their age and seniority. Their greatest drift is to prove him extraordinary sinful, because he was extraordinarily punished; which incharitable errour when he cannot convince them of, because of their prejudice, he stoppeth all their mouths by a confident imprecation or execration upon himself, if he be so faulty as they would make him, Chap. 31. Then Elihu the Pen-man undertakes to moderate, but inclining to the same misprision with the others; the Lord himself convinceth them all of the uprightness of Job, which no arguments of Job could do; and this not only by an oracle from Heaven, but also by Jobs revived prosperity, wherein every thing that he had lost was re∣stored double to him, but only his children; which though they died yet were not lost. His years were doubled, for he lived an hundred and forty years after his trouble, and so was seventy years old when his trouble came and died two hundred and ten years old: the longest liver born since Terah.