THE FIRST PART.
THE PREFACE,
Wherein he in few words goes through the particulars, which are to be
laid open in the course of the entire work.
1. It is often a question with many persons, who should be
held for the writer of the Book of the Blessed Job ; and
some indeed conjecture that Moses was the author of this
work, others, some one of the Prophets. For because it is
Gen.36, related in the Book of Genesis that Jobab sprung from the
33
, ^ , Stock of Esau, and that he succeeded ^Bale the son of Beor
E. V. upon the throne, they have inferred that this Blessed Job
lived longbefore the times ofMoses, evidently from ignorance
ofthe manner ofHoly Writ, which in the earlier parts is wont
to touch slightly upon events that are not to follow till long
afterwards, when the object is to proceed without delay to par-
ticularize other events with greater exactness. Whence it
happens, that in that case likewise it is mentioned of Jobab,
that he was before there arose kings in Israel. Therefore we
clearly see that He never could have lived before the Law,
who is marked out as having lived during the time of the
Judges of Israel; which being little attended to by some,
they suppose that Moses was the writer of his acts, as placing
»ut vide-him long before, ^so that in effectthe self-same person who was
able^ to deliver the precepts of the Law for our instruction,
should be supposed also to have commended to us examples
of virtue derived from the life of a man that was a Gentile.
But some, as has been said, suppose some one of the
Prophets to have been the Author of this work, maintaining
that no man could have knowledge of those words of God,
which have such deep mystery, save he whose mind was
raised to things above by the spirit ofProphecy.
* Potuit. It is difficult to see giving an example from among the
whether in this word and videlicet he Gentiles a farther step, taken after
means to imply an unfitness that it the Law had been rejected. Stick a
should be so. §. 4, might lead one to view is not derogatory to the book of
think that he does, as he makes the Job.