Commentary on Job 1 part 6/19

'Confirm your love toward him, lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.'

'...lest we be taken advantage of by Satan' — since men are by nature inclined, in extreme circumstances, to lose heart and to do something that pleases the devil.

Thus, as it were in his own person, on behalf of us all, the blessed Job beseeches God to permit trials against us sparingly, lest we be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.

'For I have renounced the works of your hands, but you have paid heed to the counsel of the impious.'

Again he beseeches God, as the maker, not to overlook his own handiwork.

And the saint is quietly assured that he has been handed over to the devil;

for he calls him, and the demons with him, 'impious.'

But the providence on account of which the evil one has risen up against him, he has not yet been able to learn.

He begs to be delivered from his afflictions, and also longs to learn the reason for which he is being punished.

'Do you see as a mortal sees, or will you look as a man looks? Or is your life like a man's, or your years like a man's? For you have sought out my transgressions and traced out my sins.'

'For you know that I have not been impious, but who is there that is delivered out of your hands?' — Does he judge matters in a human way, he asks? Can anything at all escape your exactness, as it can escape men? Are your years but few, and are you ignorant of what happened before your own beginning, so that you need to seek out and examine what has been done, in order to know that I have not been impious in any way? He says these things, at once presenting God as witness of his own righteousness, and also asking to enjoy the goodness of God.

For men seek what is equal, but God, in his goodness, examines only a little out of much.

'But even if I have not been impious,' he says, 'at least so far as my own knowledge goes, I know that it is impossible to escape your counsel' — that is:

'Even though I am not conscious of any wrong in myself, yet let your counsel prevail, which knows our affairs better than we ourselves do.'

All these things the blessed Job utters, teaching us to do nothing else in our trials than to flee for refuge to God and beseech him, as one who is good, to spare his own handiwork.

'Your hands fashioned me and made me.'

You see how he acknowledges God as maker and entreats him to have mercy on his own creation.

'After this, having changed, you struck me.'

'After making me,' he says, 'and establishing me in prosperity, you changed my circumstances into afflictions and scourges.'

'Remember that you fashioned me as clay, and you are turning me back again into earth.'

'I beseech you to remember also the lowliness and brevity of my nature.'

'Have you not milked me out like milk?' — he says this either because of the extreme fineness of the substance from dust, or on account of the seminal principle.

either on account of the compacting together which took place at the beginning of my formation, or also on account of my constitution in the womb

'Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast knit me together with bones and sinews.'

'Thou hast knit together' instead of 'thou hast stitched together.'

'Thou hast granted me life and mercy.'

'and thy visitation has preserved my spirit.'

'And by love for mankind alone,' he says, 'and by mercy, thou hast brought us from non-being into being and into life.'

'and thy providence concerning us preserves our very constitution.'

'Having these things within myself, I know that thou canst do all things, and nothing is impossible for thee.'

'These teachings,' he says, 'I hold firmly fixed within myself: that thou art able to bring things from non-being into being, and that, as one wise and powerful, thou dost fashion the fluid and milk-like substance — that is, the dust from the earth — into the constitution of man; and that thou art merciful and the provider of life, and that thou dost exercise great providence over our affairs. I beseech thee, and I know, that thou art able also to free thy own creature from its present sufferings.'

Do you see how reverently he remembers the Creator, and confesses gratitude for his creation and for the providence exercised concerning us — things which truly belong to a pious man, one deeply thankful, and fitting to the godliness of blessed Job? 'For if I sin, thou dost watch over me, but from iniquity thou hast not made me innocent.'

'It befits thy love for mankind,' he says, 'to grant some measure of pardon to thy own creature, and not, as one who knows all things, to scrutinize with utmost precision all my deeds and transgressions.'

And here again the saint, taking on this persona as his own, entreats God on behalf of all of us.

'For if I act impiously, woe is me;'

'and if I am righteous, I am not able to lift up my head.'

'For if,' he says, 'I should be found impious, this is the worst of all things for me.'

'And even if I should dare to say that I am righteous, there is no benefit to me from this.'

'for I am hunted like a lion for slaughter.'

'One thing I know,' he says, 'that dishonor has been poured out upon me, and, like a lion hunted for slaughter, so am I assailed by punishments from every side.'

He seems to liken himself to a lion because of his former prosperity.

'And again, turning about, thou dost terribly destroy me, renewing thy trial against me.'

'But my terrible sufferings,' he says, 'do not even let go of me; rather the evil increases yet more and is continually renewed' — as if to say:

'I am surrounded by calamities,' and:

'I am like those who, having already been scourged, are again and repeatedly brought to another examination and to other torments.'

'Thou hast dealt with me in great wrath, and hast brought bands of assailants against me.'

By 'wrath' he means the punishment which has been greatly brought upon him, and by 'bands of assailants' the evils that have been marshaled against him like an army.

These words partake of supplication and of godly entreaty, together with fitting lamentation.

'Why then didst thou bring me out of the womb, that I should not die? No eye saw me, and I became as though I had not been. And why was I not taken from the belly to the grave?' These are the very things which Ecclesiastes later said, pronouncing the dead more blessed than the living, and the one who never came to be more blessed than both.

Man has fallen into such a painful life because he did not abide with God, nor keep the divine commandments.

But blessed Job desired death not only because of his pains, but because, as we have said, being short-lived, and with the time being prolonged, he suspected that he had suffered abandonment by God.

'Is not the time of my life short? Let me alone, that I may rest a little, before I go where I shall not return.'

Again he puts forward the shortness of his time as a plea, yet he is not ignorant of the mystery of the resurrection, as we shall show in what follows.

He teaches a most excellent doctrine: that the one who has once departed this life no longer returns to this life, unlike the fantastic tales told by those who prattle of reincarnations.

'Into a land dark and gloomy, into a land of everlasting darkness, where there is no light, nor can the life of mortals be seen.'

He fears lest, if he should die while still amid his torments and trials, he should come to be utterly cast away from the face of God, and be numbered in Hades among the impious, who dwell in eternal darkness, according to the word of the Savior which says:

'They shall bind his feet and hands, and cast him into the outer darkness.'

For since God is by nature light, those who are cast outside the face of God find themselves in darkness.

He therefore asks not to be overtaken while still under God's displeasure, but rather to be shown, as it were, through some relief from his torments, that he has obtained God as gracious to him.

For not yet having been taught the reason for his trials, the righteous man understandably grows faint and is troubled.

And Zophar the Minaean, taking up the discourse, says:

'Shall he that speaks much also be answered? Or does the man full of words think himself to be righteous?' Overview of the Chapter. Since Job has spoken at such length and so freely, Zophar contends against him the more vehemently.

And first he mocks him for his excess of words, then he reproaches him for having said:

'I am pure and blameless' — not having considered from what disposition he wished to be judged before God. 'Would that,' he says, 'it were possible for God to plead his case against you, so that from his wisdom and his power you might know that, in rendering to you what is your due, he has justly punished you.'

Then, having shown the power of God and the lowliness of man, he exhorts Job to turn to prayer and to repent of the sins he had formerly committed:

for thus, having made God gracious toward him, he would be freed from his present sufferings and would recover his former prosperity.

The words: 'Shall he that speaks much also be answered? Or does the man full of words think himself to be righteous?' — Theodotion has rendered more clearly, saying:

'Shall the man of many words be beyond contradiction?' What he means is this:

the nature of the righteous man is not judged by a multitude of words, nor, if someone is well-spoken and eloquent, is he thereby already righteous;

but there is refutation to be found even for clear and glib speech.

'Blessed is he that is born of woman, short-lived...'

Or he says 'blessed' by antiphrasis (that is, ironically), meaning instead:

'near to a curse, and entangled in sin, is the short-lived one born of woman' — as if to say:

'Being a man, do not suppose yourself to be without sin.'

Or he calls him 'short-lived' as one not drawn out into many things, as if to say:

'You, babbling so much, are not blessed, but accursed.'

'For there is no one to contend with you in judgment.'

Since Job had asked that God stand with him in judgment:

'Do not babble in vain,' he says;

'for you will not have God contending with you.'

'I am pure in my deeds, and blameless before him.'

'But oh, that the Lord would speak to you, and open his lips with you! Then he would declare to you the power of wisdom, that it is twice as much as what pertains to you.'

'And then you will know that what has come upon you from the Lord is a fitting recompense for the sins you have committed.'

'Would that,' he says, 'God might converse with you, so that, learning his wisdom and his surpassing righteousness, you might no longer dare to say:'

'I am pure and blameless' — but rather that you might know that God has rendered to you what is your due, bringing punishments proportionate to your sins.

And the statement that 'it is twice as much as what pertains to you' signifies this:

great is the superiority of God over one who, like you, calls himself wise and righteous.

And if he is wiser and more righteous than we are, then it is wisely and justly that he has brought these punishments upon you.

'Will you find the track of the Lord, or have you come to the utmost bounds of what the Almighty has made?' 'The things of God,' he says, 'are beyond your reach, and it is impossible for you to find the ways of his providence, or to attain to the end of his counsels or of his works.'

'The heaven is higher — and what will you do? And things deeper than what is in Hades — what do you know?' 'For how,' he says, 'could you attain to know how great is the height of heaven?' — for this is what 'and what will you do?' signifies, meaning:

'you will be unable to find it out.' 'Or what are the things beneath Hades?' 'Or the measures of the earth are longer, or the breadth of the sea' —

'Do you know,' he says, 'the measure of the earth, how great it is, or the breadth of the sea? And if he should overturn all things, who will say to him:'

What have you done? But if he should wish to overturn all things, who will oppose his nods and such great authority? Then, so that he might not seem to say that:

'He brought these punishments upon you by mere authority and not according to justice' -- lest he seem to say this, he quickly added:

For he himself knows the deeds of the lawless, and having seen lawless deeds he will not overlook them.

As one who is powerful and wise, he says, and just, God did not overlook you when you were acting lawlessly, but punished you.

But man vainly swims about with words, and a mortal born of woman is like a wild ass of the desert.

God, he says, is so great and of such a kind, but man babbles idly and in vain, differing not at all from a donkey in the meanness of his nature, so far as compared with the divine wisdom and transcendence.

He called it a wild ass of the desert because of its unruliness.

In saying this he was hinting at Job, as being both a babbler and unruly toward God.

For if you have made your heart pure and lift up your hands to him, if there is anything lawless in your hands, put it far from you, and let not injustice lodge in your dwelling.

'You lift up your hands to him' -- some copies give this as 'you will spread out your palms to him.'

The tenses here, then, are interchanged, but the sense is this:

'If you will be persuaded by me at all, purify your heart and spread out your hands to God in prayer, and no longer commit injustice or lawlessness, and such and such things will happen to you' -- the things he goes on to say.

And Zophar seems to be exhorting Job, yet he too strikes him, treating him as one being punished for sin.

For thus your face will shine forth like pure water.

For if you repent, he says, your face, extinguished and disfigured as it is by your misfortunes, will shine forth and be radiant like pure water -- meaning that:

You will recover your former prosperity.

And you will strip off filth, and you will not be afraid.

'You have dipped me quite enough in filth, O Zophar!' one might say. Yet what he means is:

And this filth, which is:

adversity -- you will strip off, and you will no longer be afraid, lest something grievous should befall you thereafter.

And you will forget your trouble, like a wave that has passed by, and you will not be terrified.

But not even a trace of your troubles will be left to you, nor any memory of your misfortunes, just as no traces are left behind when a wave has passed by.

And your prayer will be like the morning star.

exceedingly bright, pure -- that is:

And life will rise for you out of midday.

Your life will shine forth like the sun at midday.

Or, since at midday the sun, being directly overhead, casts a shadow neither behind nor in front, he says that:

And you will be confident, because there is hope for you.

And henceforth you will take courage, as one who has his hope in God and is helped by him.

And out of anxiety and care, peace will appear for you.

And the anxieties now besetting you, and your painful cares, a calm and peaceful state will succeed.

For you will be at rest, and there will be no one who makes war against you.

You will enjoy such deep peace that you will live out the remainder of your time free from war.

And when your fortune changes, many will entreat you, but salvation will abandon them;

for their hope will perish.

and the eyes of the impious will waste away.

Those who now disregard you because of your misfortunes and trample upon you will later entreat you, when the salvation that comes from God forsakes them and they have no hope left.

Then indeed, then their eyes too will waste away at your good fortune -- clearly on account of envy.

From these words one can perceive that, in addition to all his other misfortunes, the devil also persuaded certain people to laugh at and trample upon Job's calamities.

for with him are wisdom and power.

Some of the manuscript copies contain this verse as well, but some do not.

In any case, according to those copies in which the saying is found, Zophar concluded his speech with God's wisdom and power, all but saying that:

It is therefore a hard thing to act against the only wise and powerful God.

Now these things, if said to someone else who was being punished for sin, would have been well said.

For the words of Job's friends are not to be rejected outright, provided that the person being admonished is a different one, and provided they are spoken with the proper discernment.

But the righteous man suffers all the more grief, being conscious of no wrong in himself, yet being admonished to repentance as though he were impious.

Then, are you the only men, or will wisdom die with you?

A preliminary survey of the chapter. Since Zophar used rather harsh words and, by appealing to the wisdom and power of God, attempted both to frighten the righteous man and to teach him that he does not suffer unjustly what he suffers, Job -- since the wisdom and power of God are acknowledged by all -- mocks Zophar for wishing to establish through proofs what was already universally agreed upon.

Then he himself also expounds magnificently on the matters concerning the wisdom and power of God, showing that he is more understanding than they are in divine things.

And he blames his friends for not having been able to speak words of healing;

but he himself gladly speaks his own case before the just God, trusting exceedingly in God's righteous judgment.

And he blames his friends for having taken up the defense of God's justice in a manner contrary to what is right, and says that:

Even if you should think ten thousand times that you are speaking on behalf of God, yet if you speak with deceit and contrary to justice, the truth-loving God will not accept you.

But by contrast, he himself hopes to obtain salvation and acceptance, since it is without deceit and purely that he speaks with boldness before God what he thinks;

'I know that I will be shown to be righteous before God' -- speaking what is true and just, together with truth.

Then he turns also to petition before God and entreats to obtain forgiveness, if he has indeed sinned in any way, and he puts forward the weakness of human nature as a plea, saying that no man is pure, even if he has lived but a single day in this life.

And by comparison he shows that man is even feebler than plants.

And as a prophet he also makes mention of both the consummation of the age and the resurrection;

and again he entreats God, as the Maker, to spare his own creation, and he asks not to be brought to strict and exacting scrutiny.

And these things, again, he asks of God in his own person on behalf of all of us;

for the saints, assuming their own personal roles, entreat God on behalf of the common good of humanity out of their own individual circumstances, as one can see in many places, and not least from the divinely inspired and harmonious melody of the Psalms.

Observe again what sort of opinions the blessed Job holds concerning God, and from what kind of love and purity he speaks with boldness.

...none of what was said by his friends escaped his notice, but he responds to everything, and utters sound doctrines, and holds conceptions of God worthy of him, and in a certain manner, not being in the flesh but wholly in the spirit, he thus philosophizes in the very midst of his torments.

The words: 'Then, are you the only men, or will wisdom die with you?' Do you suppose, he says, that you alone happen to be men, and that all wisdom comes to an end in you, as though no one else shared in it? Or it may also be understood thus:

Then, can it be said of you that you are men preserving what is according to the image, or does wisdom remain with you all the way to the end? -- meaning that:

You are not in the perfection of wisdom, but you have turned aside and have almost lost the very fact of being human.

He says these things not out of arrogance toward them, but because he is grieved at the things they say contrary to the truth.

'But I too have a heart just like you.'

'I too,' he says, 'am able to know as much as you know.'

for I, a righteous and blameless man, have become an object of mockery.

For the carnal consider the things of the righteous and the spiritual to be foolishness.

For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him.

For at an appointed time it was prepared for him to fall under others, and for his houses to be plundered by lawless men.

Here those who glorify fate say:

Behold, even Scripture says that it was fated for him to suffer.

But Scripture does not say this — far from it! For our affairs are not under necessity; rather, God, who orders all things concerning us with measure, knows by the principles of his own providence even to what degree it is beneficial for us to suffer, and he brings on trials according to measure.

Job said this in order to grant the judgment to God, as if saying:

Let not the righteous be mocked while they suffer.

For they suffer only to the extent that God wills.

Yet let no one who is wicked be confident that he will be innocent; for as for those who provoke the Lord to anger, will there not also be an examination of them?

And it is evident, he says, that wickedness does not go unpunished, nor do those who provoke God remain unexamined.

But indeed ask the four-footed beasts, and they will tell you, or the birds of heaven, and they will report to you; speak to the earth, and it will declare to you, and the fish of the sea will explain to you.

But if it is not enough, he says, to hear from a man, ask the irrational creatures and the inanimate things.

He says this to the shame of Zophar, because these things are undeniable and every man knows them.

Perhaps he also means this, that even inanimate and irrational things, even though they do not speak, perceive the power of God.

Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord made them? Is not the soul of all living things and the spirit of every man in his hand? Therefore, he says, it is agreed by all that by the creative and active power of God all things came into being, and he himself sustains the life of all.

But if he does not here mean soul and spirit as the same thing, then ‘soul’ is to be understood of the irrational creatures, and ‘spirit’ of man, because of the spiritual gift given to man at his original formation.

For the ear discerns words, and the throat tastes food.

In much time is wisdom, and in a long life, understanding.

For in the same way, he says, that the throat is discerning of tastes — and this we all have in common — so also I have an ear for the hearing of words, and sufficient time for wisdom.

For the prudent man, as he grows old, advances in wisdom.

And I know what I hear, and I have gained time toward understanding.

Aquila, then, has rendered ‘ear’ as ‘little ear’ instead.

But some of the copies have ‘mind’ instead of ‘ear’.

Just as we all have a throat for the discerning of foods, so too we have a mind capable of knowing the things concerning the wisdom and power of God.

With him are wisdom and power; his are counsel and understanding.

If he tears down, who will build up? If he shuts against a man, who will open? If he withholds the water, he dries up the earth; but if he lets it loose, he destroys it, overturning it.

With him are might and strength; his are knowledge and understanding.

He is powerful, and he does all that he wills with ease, and no one is able to overturn what seems good to him.

He leads counselors away captive, and he has driven the judges of the earth out of their senses.

But even those who pride themselves greatly on their counsel he takes as spoil by his own wisdom, and those who seem to be discerning he easily drives out of their own counsel, or even the rulers from their own seat, so that it may be known that they are nothing.

He seats kings upon a throne, and girds their loins with a belt.

But this too is God’s authority, that no one reigns apart from him.

He sends priests away as captives.

And if he should also wish, he says, to examine those who ought to be most pure, he will show them to be spoil in comparison with his own exactness.

And he has overturned the mighty of the earth.

And this too is a proof of the power of God.

Theodotion has rendered it: ‘passing over the lips of those who err not.’

But even the counsels of those who seem most unerring, he says, he changes into the opposite.

And he knew the understanding of the elders.

Symmachus has rendered it: ‘and taking away the knowledge of old men,’ and according to him it seems to mean:

He easily overturns even the seeming understanding of those who have gained something from length of time.

But according to the Seventy, ‘he knew the understanding of the elders’ means instead:

Nothing escapes his notice, and, having known from the beginning the movements of the understanding, he is able to overturn them so that they do not even come to fulfillment.

He pours out dishonor upon rulers, but he has healed the lowly.

These things especially show God to be wondrous — the things that happen to men contrary to expectation.

He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings forth into the light the shadow of death.

As to the literal sense, he says, this refers to him who makes manifest the things unclear to all, and who saves those who are in dangers and near to death.

He calls danger ‘the shadow of death,’ because just as the shadow runs ahead of the body, being nearest to it, so also danger, being close to death, precedes it.

But as to the deeper sense, it seems prophetically to announce beforehand the coming of the Lord, who said to those in bonds:

‘Go forth,’ and to those in darkness:

‘Be revealed,’ and he shone upon those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.

He leads nations astray and destroys them; he lays nations low and guides them.

This he did to the Israelites: he led astray those who came out of Egypt and disobeyed, whose bodies fell in the wilderness, but he guided their sons into the land of promise.

Changing the hearts of the rulers of the earth, he led them astray in a way which they did not know.

May they grope in darkness and not light, and may they wander like a drunken man.

‘Changing’ here again stands for ‘turning aside.’

And ‘may they grope’ and ‘may they wander’ he does not say in the optative sense of a wish, but he is stating what actually happens.

A similar thing is also said in the Psalms:

He sets at naught the reasonings of peoples, and he sets at naught the counsels of rulers.

Behold, my eye has seen these things, and my ear has heard them, and I know as much as you know, and I am not less understanding than you.

These things, he says, I myself have known by experience, and I have also heard others speaking of them, and I am in no way less understanding than you concerning them.

Yet nevertheless, I will speak to the Lord, and I will reprove before him, if he is willing.

But you are unjust physicians, and healers of evils, all of you.

Do you see how he wishes his own case to be examined before the righteous Judge and Physician of souls, trusting in the just judgment of God, since his friends, both erring and, instead of the medicine of healing and words of consolation, rubbing his wounds raw? And as for ‘I will reprove before him, if he is willing’ — he means: if God permits me, he says, while he himself is judging, I will convict you of lying.

Observe words of love and of confidence toward God, in that he makes God at once both his adversary at law and his judge and witness in his own case — not pleading his cause against God himself, but reproving his friends.

May it be given to you to be silent, and it will turn out for you as wisdom.

May such understanding come upon you that you keep silent, and through silence you will be reckoned to be wise.

Give heed to the reproof of my mouth, and attend to the judgment of my lips.

Consider, therefore, what I am about to say for your reproof, and take note whether I speak with sound judgment.

Is it not before the Lord that you speak, and is it not in his presence that you utter deceit? Do you not consider that God hears your words? How then do you dare to speak contrary to the truth in his hearing? Observe also these words of the blameless and true man, how he everywhere condemns falsehood, even if someone thinks he is speaking on God's behalf.

Therefore he himself discusses everything that he thinks with truth and with boldness of speech, for which reason God, who is himself the Truth, accepts him.

For falsehood is of the evil one, as the Savior says.

Or will you show partiality? You cannot be hidden from him by such words as these.

But you yourselves become judges.

It would be good, if he should search you out.

For even if, doing everything, you should take his side, he will nonetheless convict you.

But you judge for yourselves whether I do not speak the truth, namely that:

if God should search out your affairs, even if you think you are speaking on his behalf ten thousand times, he will convict you of lying, holding nothing more precious than the truth.

But if you also secretly show favor to persons, will not his whirlwind confound you? And fear from him shall fall upon you, and your boasting shall turn out equal to ashes, and your body to clay.

In place of 'But if you also secretly show favor to persons,' Symmachus has rendered: 'Will you not be put to shame before his hidden face?'

The sense is as follows:

'But if,' he says, 'while currying favor with the Lord, and as though showing reverence before his face, you speak in secret, holding one thing in your mind but uttering another, will not his combination of pressure and his scrutiny — for this is his whirlwind — overturn you, and terrify and astound you? And your great boasting will be shown to be nothing other than ashes, and that you yourselves are nothing other than clay' — instead of saying:

You boast, though you are ashes and clay, and you speak with concealment as though doing God a favor;

for he will not tolerate you when you lie, but will both frighten and confound you — instead of saying:

Be silent, that I may speak and rest from my anger, taking up my flesh in my teeth.

Listen, therefore, in silence, that I may find rest, consoling my suffering through words.

For this is what 'taking up my flesh in my teeth' signifies.