Now it may be said that all this is a strained construction; but what
construction can be substituted that will make sense of these
allusions? How can the stones of the field be in league with man? How
does the ordinary summer rain falling on the earth set up the low and
destroy the wealthy? And what has all this to do with a darkness that
cometh in the day-time in which the wicked grope helplessly?
But the allusions continue
Job cries out, in the next chapter (chap. vi)
"2. Oh that my grief" (my sins whereby I deserved wrath) "were
thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
3. _As the sands of the sea this would appear heavier_, therefore my
words are full of sorrow. (Douay version.)
'14. For the _arrows of the Almighty are within_ me, the poison
whereof drinketh up my spirit; _the terrors of God do set themselves
in array against me_" ("war against me"-Douay ver.).
That is to say, disaster comes down heavier than the sands--the
gravel of the sea; I am wounded; the arrows of God, the darts of
fire, have stricken me. We find in the American legends the
descending _d?bris_ constantly alluded to as "stones, arrows, and
spears"; I am poisoned with the foul exhalations of the comet; the
terrors of God are arrayed against me.
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