Message #160151

[Azrael]

Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
Consider her ways, and be wise.

And, on the other:

"I wisdom have made subtilty my dwelling,
And find out knowledge and discretion. . . .
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way,
Before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning,
Or ever the earth was.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth;
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills was I brought forth:
While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields,
Nor the beginning of the dust of the world."

Wisdom literature in its loftiest form is found in the Book of Job. Building upon the framework of an old pre-Deuteronomic folk tale, the unknown fourth-century author constructed a dramatic poem which took up again more poignantly that problem of evil which had embarrassed Habakkuk and Jeremiah—the question of how to reconcile God's justice with the suffering of the innocent. Though he probed deeply, he found no answer other than

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