or Book of JOB, a canonical book of the Old Testament, containing a narrative of a series of misfortunes which happened to a man whose name was Job, as a trial of his virtue and patience; together with the conferences he had with his cruel friends on the subject of his misfortunes, and the manner in which he was restored to ease and happiness. This book is filled with those noble, bold, and figurative expressions, which constitute the very soul of poetry.

Many of the Jewish rabbins pretend that this relation is altogether a fiction; others think it a simple narrative of a matter of fact just as it happened; while a third sort of critics acknowledge, that the groundwork of the story is true, but that it is written in a poetical strain, and decorated with peculiar circumstances, to render the narration more profitable and entertaining.

The time is not set down in which Job lived. Some have thought that he was much ancienier than Moses, because the law is never cited by Job or his friends, and because it is related that Job himself offered sacrifices. Some imagine that this book was written by himself; others say, that Job wrote it originally in Syriac or Arabic, and that Moses translated it into Hebrew: but the rabbins generally pronounce Moses to be the author of it; and many Christian writers are of the same opinion.