Setting the framework conversation in Job

I am testing again the thesis that individual verses of the Bible are unrelated to each other with respect to the music (from Wickes 1881) as noted in an earlier post. "Logically, a verse may be closely connected with the one preceding or following it; but musically and accentually no such connection exists." This a false thesis. Individual verses are clearly "musically and accentually" related over a wide range within the context of stories, books, and sections of the text. Here is another illustration that shows we should read the music of the text from the beginning.

Job is a series of conversations from chapter 3 to 41. Each conversation is introduced by a phrase. The music shows that each conversation is a response to Job. It could have been just a repetition of a standard bit of punctuation - but it is not. And the narrator (using the accents from the 21 books) has ample scope for singing a suitable tone of voice as each of the three friends responds to Job (the conversations themselves being with the poetic accents of the three books).

Have a look. Note too how Job's initial conversation has an elaborate introduction. Yahweh's introduction in chapter 38 is quiet compared to Job's introduction in chapter 3. Then note how the narrator's introduction of Job always goes from tonic to tonic, whereas the introduction to the three friends' response always begins on the third and descends to the tonic. There are no resting points in any of these verses. Also note that Elihu's introductions are exactly equivalent to Job's. Make of it what you will - but this is not an answer beginning on the third, rather it is more like the introduction to an addendum which Job himself might have sung.


All the chapters of Job are here in their musical form.