every other
book and chapter in the Bible before it and after it, it has all the
circumstantial evidence of being originally a book of the Gentiles.
[The prayer known by the name of Agur's Prayer, in Proverbs
xxx.,--immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel,--and which is the
only sensible, well-conceived, and well-expressed prayer in the Bible,
has much the appearance of being a prayer taken from the Gentiles.
The name of Agur occurs on no other occasion than this; and he is
introduced, together with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same
manner, and nearly in the same words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are
introduced in the chapter that follows. The first verse says, "The words
of Agur, the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy:" here the word prophecy
is used with the same application it has in the following chapter of
Lemuel, unconnected with anything of prediction. The prayer of Agur is
in the 8th and 9th verses, "Remove far from me vanity and lies; give
me neither riches nor poverty, but feed me with food convenient for me;
lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor
and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." This has not any of the
marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when
they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance,
or riches.--Author. (Prov. xxx. 1, and xxxi. 1) the word "prophecy" in
these verses is translated "oracle" or "burden" (marg.) in the revised
version.--The prayer of Agur was quoted by Paine in his plea for the
officers of Excise, 1772.--Editor.]

The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the Bible chronologists,
appear to have been at a loss where to place and how to dispose of
the book of Job; for it contains no one historical circumstance, nor
allusion to any, that might serve to determine its place in the Bible.
But it would not have answered the purpose of these men to have informed
the world of their ignorance; and, therefore, they have affixed it to
the aera of B.C. 1520, which is during the time the Israelites were in
Egypt, and for which they have just as much authority and no more than
I should have for saying it was a thousand years before that period. The
probability however is, that it is older than any book in the Bible; and
it is the only one that can be read without indignation or disgust.

We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is called) was
before the time of the Jews, whose