And in chapter xxxvi, (verses 15, 16, Douay,) we see that Job was shut up in something like a cavern:
“15. He shall deliver the poor out of his distress, and shall open his ear in affliction.
“16. Therefore he shall set thee at large out of the narrow mouth, and which hath no foundation under it; and the rest of thy table shall be full of fatness.”
That is to say, in the day when he delivers the poor out of their misery, he will bring thee forth from the place where thou hast been “hiding,” (see chap. xiii, 20,) from that narrow-mouthed, bottomless cavern; and instead of starving, as you have been, your table, during the rest of your life, “shall be full of fatness.”
“27. He” (God) “lifteth up the drops of rain and poureth out showers like floods.
“28. Which flow from the clouds which cover all from above.”
The commentators tell us that this expression, “which cover all from above,” means literally, “the bottom of the sea is laid bare”; and they confess their inability to understand it. But is it not the same story told by Ovid of the bottom of the Mediterranean having been rendered
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a bed of dry sand by Phaëton’s conflagration; and does it not remind us of the Central American legend of the starving people migrating in search of the sun, through rocky places where the sea had been separated to allow them to pass?
And the King James version continues
“32. With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt.
“33. The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapor.”
This last line shows how greatly the original text has been garbled; what have the cattle to do with it? Unless, indeed, here, as in the other myths, the cows signify the clouds. The meaning of the rest is plain: God draws up the water, sends it down as rain, which covers all things; the clouds gather before the sun and hide its light; and the vapor restores the cows, the clouds; and all this is accompanied by great disturbances and noise.
And the next chapter (xxxvii) continues the description:
“2. Hear ye attentively the terror of his” (the comet’s) “voice, and the sound that cometh out of his mouth.
“3. He beholdeth under all the heavens,” (he is seen under all the heavens?) “and his light is upon the ends of the earth.
“4. After it a NOISE SHALL ROAR, he shall thunder with the voice of his majesty, and shall not be found out when his voice shall be heard.”
The King James version says, “And he will not stay them when his voice is heard.”
“5. God shall thunder wonderfully with his voice, he that doth great and unsearchable things.”
Here, probably, are more allusions to the awful noises made by the comet as it entered our atmosphere, referred to by Hesiod, the Russian legends, etc.