DISEASES OF JOB, HEROD, HEZEKIAH, JEROBOAM, AND THE SHUNAMMITE WOMAN'S SON.

I. Job's Disease. — This is described in Job ii. 4 et seq.: 'And Satan answered the Lord and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.'

The terms here employed to describe Job's sore affliction are evidently not such as to admit of our forming any very confident opinion as to what the nature of his disease was. But they are sufficient, along with the subsequent history, to show that it entailed great suffering and demands on his constancy of endurance and submission. But whilst his physical condition was such as to grievously impair his bodily health, his mental powers were retained. A very general belief has obtained that his disease was the true leprosy, the elephantiasis Grœcorum. This opinion dates as far back as Origen, when it was said that Job was afflicted ἀγρίῳ ἐλέφαυτς, τῷ οὕτω καλουμένῳ νοσήματι.¹ The Hebrew שְׁחִין, which the LXX translate ἕλκος, admits of being rendered 'sore' or 'burning sore,' the radical meaning only implying burning or inflammation, the hot sense of pain which accompanies various forms of cutaneous disease.

The same Hebrew word occurs in Deut. xxviii. 35, and in various other places in the Old Testament, and is always rendered by the LXX by the same Greek word; but our translators use the term 'botch' in Deut. xxviii, 'The Lord shall smite thee in the knees and in the legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.' Johnson describes 'botch' as 'a swelling or eruptive discoloration of the skin. It can scarcely be said to be a medical term, and when used by IMilton seems to be synonymous with patch, 'botches and blains must all his flesh emboss.' As derived from the Italian bozza, it would imply either a swelling or a rough unfinished piece of sculpture or painting. If this is what our translators meant when using the word, it might be held as an appropriate description of some of the cutaneous signs of elephantiasis. They do not, however, thus translate the same Greek word ἕλκος when speaking of Job's disease, but render ἕλκει πονηρῷ 'sore boils.' Their reason for this is not apparent, but whatever may be meant by the Hebrew שְׁחִין here, or by the words ' from the sole of his foot unto his crown,' it seems almost impossible to believe that the eruption on the skin was either what we should call ulcers or boils, when it is said that Job sat down among the ashes and used a potsherd to scrape himself with. A potsherd might be used to remove incrustations of dried matter, or to relieve the intolerable irritation and itching of various inflamed or scaly eruptions. For the latter purpose the natives of the South Sea Islands are known to use, in the present day, a bivalve shell. But there are other features of Job's lamentable state deserving of notice, such as the emaciation (xvi. 8), nights sleepless, and scared with frightful dreams (vii. 14), 'Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions.' These are characteristic symptoms in true leprosy, and so also is the loathing of life: ' So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway.' The words too of Satan demand special notice, 'Put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh,' as indicating the deep-seated nature of the disease. So also we read that on the approach of his friends, ' When they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.' This leads us to infer that his disfigurement was such as to make him not only unrecognisable by his friends, but also to appal them, which, as we have seen when speaking of elephantiasis, is a not unfrequent effect of that terrible disease.

There is considerable difference of opinion both as to the age of the Book of Job and his residence. If, however, he lived after the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, we should certainly have expected his disease to have been differently described, had it been the so-called Levitical leprosy, and thus are afforded an additional argument against that disease being elephantiasis, if such was Job's disease. There are, however, other views that have been taken of Job's malady. Burns, in his account of Bokhara, where the guinea-worm disease exists, says that it is there spoken of by the inhabitants as 'the disease of Job.' Of that very remarkable and grave parasitic disease we propose to speak under the head of Fiery Serpents. But we must own that we cannot see any analogy between it and the patriarch's disease. It has also been suggested that his malady may have been that peculiar Oriental sore known as the 'Aleppo or Bagdad evil.'

That Job's disease was indeed a sore and loathsome one is evident, and we are perhaps justified in assuming that it was altogether of an exceptional character. We are told nothing of its removal, and its invasion is related in connexion with difficult and mysterious subjects, into which it is not our duty to enter. The antiquity and purport of the book, on which there is so much difference of opinion, and the metaphorical character of much of the writing, all render it extremely difficult to speak with confidence on the precise nature of the disease, which constituted so much of the patriarch's suffering and trial.

II. The Disease of Herod Agrippa I. — This able but unprincipled man, history informs us, had led a licentious and extravagant life, and it was on the occasion of a great festival, when surrounded by his grandees, that the occurrences described in Acts xii. 21-23 took place. 'Upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying. It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.' Josephus,² in recording the same event, does not mention worms as the cause of death, but says what helps us materially in deciding the nature of the disease, for he states that the king was suddenly seized, and, after suffering severe and tormenting pains in the bowels, in five days died. The two accounts considered together leave scarcely any room for doubt that the cause of death was perforation of the bowels by intestinal worms, inducing ulceration and acute peritonitis. Medical records contain such cases, and the condition of the stomach and bowels after indulgence at a feast would favour the occurrence of the fatal termination at such a time. Any abnormal distension of the bowels, especially if associated with bodily exertion, would be sufficient to account for rupture of the intestines at spots previously eroded and thinned by ulcerative disease. And there is scarcely any suffering more severe than that which attends peritoneal inflammation thus induced. The term used by Luke the physician to describe the disease leaves no doubt, I think, that it was occasioned by worms (σκωληκόβρωτος), and that there is no foundation for the notion that it was what the Greeks call phthiriasis, morbus pedicularis. In other parts of Scripture σκώληξ is the word used to denote worms, as in Exod. xvi. 20, their manna bred worms and stank; in Deut. xxviii. 39, of the grapes, 'the worms shall eat them;' Job vii. 5, ' My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust.' Herodotus³ speaks of the mother of Arcesilaus being destroyed alive by worms, possibly in the same way as Herod was; but he uses another word, εὖλή, which, however, also means worm or maggot, such as are bred in decaying flesh, and not the word whence the Greek term for morbus pedicularis is derived, which means 'louse.'

The account which Josephus gives of this most impressive narrative, as quoted by Bengel, is so graphic that we venture to give it in full. 'Clad in a garment which was all woven of silver, by marvellous workmanship, and which, struck by the rays of the rising sun, and emitting a kind of divine splendour, was inspiring the spectators with veneration, accompanied with awe; and presently, after baneful flatterers raising acclamations, each from a different quarter, were hailing him as a god, begging him that he would be favourably propitious; for that heretofore having revered him as a man, they now perceive and acknowledge that there is in him something more excellent than mortal nature; this impious adulation he did not correct or repel. There ensued torturing pains in the belly, which were violent from the very first. Having therefore turned his eyes towards his friends, "Behold!" said he, " I, the god as you called me, am commanded to leave life, the fatal necessity of death confuting your lie; and I, whom you hailed as immortal, am hurried away by a mortal stroke." Then, worn out by the torture, which did not at all abate for five days continuously, he ended life.'⁴ He had been struck by the angel of the Lord. Was it the same angel that had released from prison the victim of his cruelty, the apostle whom he had imprisoned to please his flatterers?

III. Hezekiah's Disease. — But little can be said of the nature and cure of the disease with which King Hezekiah was afflicted. In all three references to his case he is said to have been sick unto death.⁵ And it is therefore clear from such repeated statements, as well as from his own words in his song of praise on recovering his health, that his life had been in danger, and that it was no trifling ailment from which he had suffered. But the

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only distinct statement as to its nature is that given us by the prophet Isaiah, who said, ' Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.'⁶ When the prophet first came to him he addressed him in words clearly indicating the gravity of the disease. 'Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.' We cannot therefore think that it was an ordinary simple boil with which the king was afflicted. Nor have we any ground for supposing, as some have suggested, that the disease was bubo-plague, which does not occur as an isolated case, and we have no evidence to lead us to think that any epidemic of such a disease prevailed. But it might have been, and probably was, a carbuncle, which is often a most severe and painful thing, endangering and often terminating the life of the sufferer. For this a poultice of figs would be an appropriate local remedy, as in the present day are cataplasms of various kinds. But doubtless the recovery of the king was through Divine interposition, by which the danger to life was averted, and of which Isaiah's prescription was but a symbol. The sign that was given to the king, by the going back of the shadow 'on the sundial of Ahaz,' has hitherto not been found capable of interpretation except as a miracle. The answer to his prayer, accompanied by the promise that on the third day he should go up to the house of the Lord, is sufficient evidence that the cure of a disease by which he had been brought to death's door was not brought about by natural means.

IV. Jeroboam's Disease. — This, generally viewed as paralysis, may possibly have arisen from what is called 'embolism,' i.e. the blocking of an artery by a clot occurring suddenly and thus occasioning paralysis. 'And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying. Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before.'⁷ The king's manifest mental excitement and terror at the time would lend support to this view. It is, however, said not only that he could not 'pull in again' his arm, but also that it was 'dried up.' This is unlike anything that immediately ensues on simple embolism, but might result from muscular wasting following on embolism.

V. Disease of the Shunammite Woman's Son. — 'And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out.'⁸ This case has usually been considered as one of sunstroke or insolation, and this is probably the correct view. But if the child's exclamation. ' My head, my head,' is to be understood as intimating sudden severe pain of the head, it is possible that it may have been an instance of sudden meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of the brain) supervening in a delicate child. There are several varieties of sun-stroke, all of them endangering life, though many cases recover. In the severer form, or sun-stroke proper, the brain and nerve-centres are overwhelmed, the respiration and circulation are arrested, and death may ensue rapidly. The patient becomes unconscious, the pulse fails, and the skin is cold. Such cases, if not immediately fatal, often prove so in the course of a few hours. If eventually they recover, it is after a period of reaction accompanied by symptoms of severe injury to the nervous system. That death had actually occurred in this instance there can be no reasonable doubt. A period of ten or twelve hours at least must have elapsed before the arrival of the prophet. And it was not till after having kept the child on her knee till noon, and then seeing that he was dead, that the mother hastened to fetch Elisha. During her absence the child was laid on the bed of the prophet, and the door shut upon him; no remedies therefore were used, nor any attention given to the child. Gehazi, who arrived first at the house, on laying the prophet's staff on the face of the child, found there was 'neither voice nor hearing.' 'And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed.' The body was then cold, and it was not till after Elisha's prayer and stretching himself on the child, that ' the flesh of the child waxed warm,' and that subsequently he opened his eyes, after sneezing seven times. There are here no natural means, the use of which could explain the recovery.

1) Contra Celsum, book vi. chap. 43.

2) Antiq. Jud. xix. c. viii. sec. 2.

3) Hist. iv. 205.

4) Bengel's Gnomon., Eng. Trans., vol. ii. p. 6r6.

5) 2 Kings xx. 1; 2 Chron. xxxii. 24; Isaiah xxxviii. 1.

6) Isaiah xxxviii. 21.

7) 1 Kings xiii. 4-6.

8) 2 Kings iv. 18-37.