this parable leaves us with no room to intrude evil doctrine into the story; the seed is definitely described as being

either `the children of the kingdom' or `the children of the wicked one' and what Job feared, with the example of

Noah before him, was that by the same means the enemy might take an awful advantage of the `feasting' and spread

In Job 1:5, the A.V. reads `cursed God' and the translation of the word barak by `curse' has occasioned

considerable difficulty to translators and commentators. Barak occurs in the Hebrew Old Testament 329 times, of

which over 300 occurrences are translated `bless'. It is not as though the Hebrew language was poorly furnished

with words that definitely mean `to curse'; the writer of the introduction to Job had choice of at least five strong

words with this meaning. Why should he have used the word which is so generally rendered `bless' if he intended

the extreme opposite? The Massoretic note in the margin of the Hebrew Bible draws attention to the fact that here in

Job 1:5,11; 2:5 and 9 occur four of the `eighteen emendations of the Sopherim'. The Sopherim (from saphar to

count, to number) came into evidence in the days of Ezra, and their labours were looked upon as the authorized

version of the sacred text. In eighteen passages where it seemed to them inadvisable that the name of the Lord

should be compromised, the Sopherim altered the offending word as they did in these four passages in the book of

Job. In order that the reader may sense this scruple of the Sopherim we mention the two other emendations found in

the book of Job. In Job 7:20 the words `unto Thee' were amended to read `to myself', and in 32:3, the words

`condemned Job' were substituted for `condemned God'. The law of Moses contains a punishment for any who

`curseth his God' (Lev. 24:15); and once again it is not without some bearing on the subject before us, that this one

occasion of cursing God in the law of Moses should have originated in `the son of an Israelitish woman, whose

father was an Egyptian', who moreover, was found striving with a man of Israel in the camp (Lev. 24:10). In the

unaltered original of Job 1 and 2 the Hebrew word qalal `curse', as found in Job 3:1, would be found where the

reader now finds the emendation `bless'.

The narrative now leaves Job and his sons, to reveal another matter of importance in the unravelling of the

problem of Job's sufferings, and the greater problem of the ages:

`Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also

among them' (Job 1:6).

In Job 38:7 the `sons of God' are most certainly angelic beings and are associated with the `morning stars' and

their rejoicing at the laying of the foundations of the earth. When next we meet the title `The sons of God' it is in

that chapter of Genesis that speaks of the Flood in the days of Noah. We learn from Jude 6, that some angels fell,

and their fall is in some way closely connected with the sin of Sodom (Jude 7), these were spirits in prison in the

days of Christ, `which sometime were disobedient ... in the days of Noah' (1 Pet. 3:19,20). According to Job 1,

among the sons of God who presented themselves before the Lord was Satan. The name Satan comes thirteen times

in the book of Job, a feature that will not pass unheeded by those who are acquainted with numbers in Scripture, the

number 13 being the numerical factor of titles of Satan in both Hebrew and Greek. To give one example: the

Hebrew word Satan equals the number 364 = 13 x 28, while Satan in the Greek = 2197 = 13 x 13 x 13.

The title Satan occurs in but four other places in the Old Testament. Let us examine these passages.

1 Chronicles 21:1. Satan stands up against Israel and provokes David to number Israel. The consequences are

disastrous, as a reading of the chapter will reveal. What is, however, a feature seldom or never connected with this

attack of Satan, is the contextual association of one of the evil seed:

`And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and

twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot: and he also was the son of the giant ... they fell by the hand of

David, and by the hand of his servants. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel'

(1 Chron. 20:6,8; 21:1).

This numbering of Israel is recorded in 2 Samuel 24:1, and if we will read 2 Samuel 21:20-22, we shall see that

the evil seed is still in the background. They are again mentioned in 23:6 as `the sons of Belial'. No mention

however is made in these records of the temptation of Satan, because the books of Samuel and of Kings give the

history from the human standpoint, but the books of Chronicles going over the same ground, give the spiritual