The Divine Names in the Book of Job.

By Prof. H. M. Harman, D.D., LL.D.

 

It is worthy of note that the name Jehovah is used (occurring thirteen times) in the prologue (chapters i., ii.), and also in chapters xxxviii.-xlii., wherever the remarks of the author of the book occur. In this last section, the name Jehovah is found twelve times ; but nowhere do the speakers, in their discussions, ever use this sacred name by which God revealed himself to Moses.

In the last part of the book, where God expostulates with Job and refers him to the wonders of the Creation, the Deity is called El, Eloah, Elohim, and Shadday. In the first part of the book God speaks of himself as Elohim in his remarks to Satan. This is also the term which Satan uses. Job uses the name Elohim once, and Elihu and Eliphaz do the same.

The divine names which Job and his friends use besides these few instances of Elohim, are El, which occurs fifty-four times ; Eloah, forty-one times; Shadday, thirty-one times. The divines names seem to be varied to give a pleasing variety to the diction, and are expressed differently in parallel sentences.

We never find in the book of Job the names El Shadday combined,as in several places in the first part of the Pentateuch. It would have been incongruous for the author of the book to have represented the patriarch and his friends living outside of the pale of Israel, as using the name Jehovah, by which the Deity was known to Israel only. For a reason somewhat similar, the author of the book does not allow Satan to use the name Jehovah, for Satan has no part in Israel.