rotting with the flux of carnal things; but 'before the sun' means under tribulations, so that 'before' should signify 'under,' as we say 'do it before me.' 'And from its rottenness its shoot shall ascend'—for unless they had been so wicked, the Lord would not have been exalted through suffering, He who was born of them according to the flesh. 'In gatherings of stones it sleeps'—for the elders shall crucify Him. 'And in the midst of pebbles it shall live'—of the humble, of whom were the apostles. 'If it be swallowed up, the place shall lie about it'—if He conceal that He is the Son of God, it shall be said that He is not the Son of God. It is therefore necessary that He Himself reveal Himself; for in this place divine things cannot be known. 'But out of the earth another shall sprout':
either the Lord by rising again, or another kind of the godly, that is, of Christians. 'For the Lord will not approve the innocent'—or will He not reject? Or that: 'He will not approve the wicked as innocent'? 'Nor any gift'—that is, the sacrifices which the Jews had. 'But the mouth of the truthful He will fill with laughter'—of those who confess. 'And the tabernacle of the wicked shall not endure'—either the temple itself or the kingdom. The words of Job. 'Truly I know that it is so'—that is, that according to my iniquities He has restored these things to me; but not as you suppose, but because no one is just in His sight. 'They will not answer Him one of a thousand'—for in all things indeed He will convict them. 'Who brings the mountains to oldness, and they know it not'—that is, to weakness, as it is: 'I have grown old among all my enemies.'
'Who overturns them in His anger'—by being angry He overturns them, that is, so that they find something other than what they had sought, since whoever exalts himself shall be humbled. 'Who shakes the world from its foundations'—through the calling that was made, by which the eminent in the world were shaken. 'And its pillars shall be moved; Who commands the sun, and it does not rise'—so that either wisdom may not be understood, or those who have written, as it is: 'Seal the book.' 'Who alone stretches out the heaven'—the Church, which is properly the seat of God, which He stretches out through the whole world; 'alone' to signify the unity of the Trinity. For indeed all things were made through the Son in the Holy Spirit. 'And He walks upon the sea as upon the earth':
'upon the earth,' that is, firmly establishing the Church in the world, either by subjecting sinners to Himself, in whom He is not submerged, by not yielding to their trials. 'If He pass over me, I shall not see. If He be higher than I, or pass me by with swiftness, I shall not recognize Him'—it is therefore necessary that He both accommodate Himself to my weakness and not forsake me. 'For if He deliver me to death, who shall turn it back?'—for He delivers to death when He either passes over or passes by, so that He is not known. This is the death of the soul, that it not know God. 'For His anger is irreversible'—for the anger of others can be turned away by one more powerful. 'By Him the other things under heaven are subjected':
with the exception of heaven itself, that is, the rational creature; because if it had subjected the other things to itself, it would never be punished through those things which it had subjected to itself; but because God subjected those things to it, it is punished through them, when it has offended Him who subjected them. 'But if I be even just, He will not hear me'—if, asking Him, I presume upon my own justice; for comparing it with those things that are with Him, immutable and perpetual, He will not hear me as unjust. Therefore His mercy is necessary to me. 'I will entreat His judgment'—because I cannot judge myself to be just. Hence it is: 'but neither do I judge myself; He who judges me is the Lord.' 'But if I call and He do not hear, I will not believe that He has heard my voice':
when I entreat His judgment, if He do not hear, I will not believe that He ever heard me; for He heard me by hidden causes, not by the merit of my prayer. Or certainly: I will not believe that I am not heard now; for at some time I have been heard. Or thus: because if He hear what I ask, I shall believe that I too have been heard; for if I do not believe, although what I ask be done, yet I have not been heard, so that the believing of the one asking may be the sign of being heard. 'Lest perchance He crush me in a whirlwind?'—therefore I seek His judgment, lest He crush me in a whirlwind. 'For He has made many of my tribulations without cause'—the cause of which was hidden from me;
or certainly it is the voice of one confessing, confessing that he has not been corrected by the scourges of God, and therefore can be crushed by a whirlwind, as by a greater punishment. 'For He does not let me breathe'—so many are my tribulations. 'And indeed, because He is able, He prevails'—He conquers, so that I do His will, not mine. 'But if I be even just, my mouth will speak wicked things'—if I think myself just. 'Nevertheless my life shall be taken away'—although I know not whether I have acted wickedly, yet my life shall be taken away, so that I suffer what I do not will or do not do what I will. 'It is one thing that I have said: anger destroys the great and powerful'—that is: for this one reason tribulations come upon men, that no one may seem to himself great and powerful, presuming upon his own strength. 'Because wicked men shall be in a great death':
not in a moderate death, in which even the just are, when they are afflicted and derided by them. 'The earth has been delivered into the hands of the wicked'—either the body of the just, not the soul, when they persecute them, or when the wicked is permitted to rule. It can also be taken as the sinful man into the hands of the devil according to his mortality. 'He who executes its judgment, He covers'—either the judgment of the wicked man himself or of the just; for in this time it is covered. Or certainly by this very thing He executes his judgment, that is: by that very thing He punishes him, by which He conceals His providence from him, as it is: 'in the greatness of His anger He will not require.' Or by that very thing He vindicates the just, by which He conceals from his persecutor His judgment, that is His providence, so that he may be more tightly caught in the snares of sins through impunity.
'But if it is not so, who then is it?'—this can be understood of the Lord, who was both derided and whose earth, that is, body, was delivered into the hands of the Jews, and executing whose judgment He concealed His majesty. 'But if it is not He, who then is it,' who does greater things than He Himself did? Or thus: 'but if God does not execute the judgment of the just or of the wicked, who can do it?' 'But my life is swifter than a runner'—he calls men, as it were fugitives, departing from justice, like that younger son who set out into a far country. 'Or like an eagle flying and seeking food'—from the heights, in which the rational souls are by nature blessed, that is, the works of justice, they bent themselves down to earthly pleasures.
'But if I speak, I forget while I speak'—speech: just as it had an affection for outward things, so the soul, while it goes forth to those things that are outside through a desire of enjoying the creature, forgets the inward Creator. 'Bending down upon my face, I shall groan'—for sorrows follow that bending down. 'I am disturbed in all my members'—fear, by which it begins to run back. 'And because I am wicked, why have I not died and toil?'—understand 'I know.' Or he says that he toils because he has not died to wickedness. 'And if I be cleansed with clean hands'—either God's hands or his own, that is: by good works through regeneration. 'Thou hast dipped me enough in filth'—having been brought into this mortality. 'And my garment has held me in abhorrence':
immortality, with which we desire to be clothed over; but because we cannot in this corruption, therefore he says: 'my garment has held me in abhorrence.' 'For Thou art not a man like me, whom I might contradict'—for to a man I could demonstrate my justice; but in Thy judgment I am found unjust. 'Would that there were an arbiter for us!'—he seems to blaspheme, unless he be understood to be wishing for that Mediator of God and men, that through Him he might present his prayers. For in this way that One, placed between both, hears and convicts man: for the Father has given all judgment to the Son. 'And one who might both convict and hear between the two. Let Him turn away His rod from me'—let the fear of the law pass over, that I may be joined to Him by the liberty and charity of adoption. 'For I am not with myself':
because I cleave to those things that are outside. 'I will bring forth words against myself'—these are the words of one confessing. 'And I will say to the Lord: do not teach me to be wicked'—do not tempt me beyond what I can bear, nor suffer those things to befall me by which wickedness might be urged upon me. 'Or is it good to Thee, if I act wickedly?'—but it is not good to Thee if I act wickedly; therefore Thou hast not constituted me thus unjustly. 'Because Thou despisest the work which Thy hands have made?'—if Thou despisest the work of Thy hands. 'Hast Thou regarded the counsel of the wicked?'—but not of that wickedness which appears to men. And: 'Hast Thou regarded the counsel of the wicked?'—not because it pleases Him that they act wickedly. 'Or dost Thou perceive as a man perceives?'—because indeed Thou dost not perceive as a man:
therefore Thou hast regarded the counsel of the wicked; for there is a wickedness which Thou alone seest and which is not seen by men. 'Or is Thy life human?'—that is, brief, so that Thou couldst not judge concerning perpetuity. 'And Thou hast searched out my sins'—for those things could not be hidden from Thee which lie hidden from men. 'For Thou knowest that I have done nothing wickedly'—for as far as concerns men, I have done nothing wickedly. 'But who is there that may rescue from Thy hands?'—from Thee judging. As God Thou judgest, when Thou seest even those wickednesses which man does not see. 'But afterward, having been changed, Thou hast struck me'—he himself, namely, having been changed, not God, because the changed man feels God to be changed, as through the length of darkness changed eyes feel the sun to be changed. 'Remember that Thou hast fashioned me from clay':
therefore I need Thy mercy. 'Thou wilt again turn me into earth'—by death, which is the penalty of sin. 'Hast Thou not milked me like milk?'—because He showed mercy even to mortals, when He formed men from men out of a formless beginning. 'These things therefore being in Thee, I know that Thou canst do all things'—because they are of such great goodness that they fashion even the carnal substance. 'But if I sin, Thou wilt keep me'—either that Thou lose me not, or that my sin be not hidden. 'And if I be just, I cannot breathe'—in the sight of men; for Thou seest the sins that lie hidden from men. 'For I am full of reproach'—in Thy sight. 'And I am caught like a lion for slaughter':
there is the sin of pride which lies hidden from men, since it can creep in even amid praiseworthy deeds. 'But again, having been changed, Thou most savagely torturest me'—after the penalty of sin, by which man was made mortal. He speaks of those tribulations which men suffer in this life, because most tribulations befall suddenly, which disturb the quiet of this mortal life itself, when one is in health or in security of things, however temporal, which he reckoned to the mercy of God. 'Renewing in me my torments'—because mortality itself is already a torment, out of which the other tribulations arise. 'Why then didst Thou bring me out of the womb?'—from obscurity to acquaintance, which alone is the matter of greater misery, when it is overthrown;
this generation he also mentioned above. 'And would that I had been as though I had not been?'—utterly unknown. Hence it is: 'He calls the things that are not as though they were,' that is, according to their lowliness. 'Or is not the time of my life short?'—for it is not because of the length of my life that I have not died, since indeed what I live is short. 'Suffer me, until I rest a little'—after the mercy by which Thou madest me from mire, and having been changed Thou struckest me with mortality, and by that very mortality Thou consoledst me, and then Thou exercisedst me with tribulations. Suffer me, therefore, that I may rest in Thee, before I go into the punishments from which it is not permitted to return; for from those which he mentioned above it is permitted to return, if a man turn himself to God.
But he wishes to rest before he goes into eternal punishments, for this very purpose, namely, that he might not go. Just as if we should say to someone: correct thyself before thou be damned; for when he has corrected himself, he will not be damned. 'Where there is no light, nor is it to see the life of men'—for that is the life of men where there is the true light, which enlightens every man. There is one land of the living, another land of the dying. The words of Zophar the Naamathite. 'Or will the just man seem to be eloquent?'—for he thinks Job to abound in words rather than in works. 'Blessed is the man born of short life'—he repeats to him his own sentence, which he wishes to be understood as spoken loquaciously and emptily. 'Since there is no one who may contradict thee'—because when he spoke, no one contradicted him.
'But how should the Lord speak to thee? Speak rather those things by which God may have mercy on thee.' 'Because it shall be double upon thee'—by correcting and by consoling. 'And then thou shalt know that worthy things have been rendered to thee by the Lord for those things wherein thou hast sinned'—illumination following after correction. 'Or wilt thou find out the trace of the Lord?'—so that thou shouldst wish to reproach God. 'Heaven is high, and what wilt thou do?'—so as to find out the mysteries of heaven; for thou oughtest not to reproach Him whose works thou dost not comprehend. 'Who shall say to Him: what hast Thou done?'—for this also will rightly have been done, if God shall have done it, because He cannot do anything except rightly. 'For He Himself knows the works of unjust men'—it is not of unjust work.
hence he wishes it to be understood that the man, whom he thinks unjust, foolishly reproached God; for thus he supposed him to speak. 'But man wavers otherwise with words'—now God pleases him, now God displeases him, whereas with God there is firmness. 'And a man born of woman shall be like a wild ass in the desert'—through desire of liberty impatient of a ruler and tamer. 'And stretching out thy hands to Him'—that He may accept thy works. 'If there is anything unjust in thy hand'—he repeated those two things, but with the order changed. 'And let not iniquity dwell in thy house'—this he said of the heart. 'For so thy face shall shine like pure water'—conscience. 'Like a wave that does not pass over, and thou shalt not be terrified'—unless it touch all in this life. 'And thy prayer shall be like the morning star':
it shall go before illumination; as though these things too, pertaining to the prophecy of the holy city or to the people of God, are said as heard or revealed, just as they were spoken by his friends above. 'And many shall entreat thy face'—all these things concerning the Church. The words of Job. 'But the just and blameless man came into derision'—it is to be understood of the Lord. The meaning: it is therefore no wonder if I too have come into derision before you. 'And his house, that it might be devastated by the wicked'—the Church by persecutors. 'Nay rather, let no one trust, when he is wicked, that he shall go unpunished'—because judgment is from the house of God. 'As though there were to be no inquisition into them'—let them not trust. 'But yet ask the four-footed beasts, if they answer thee':
therefore he rightly inquires of the wicked, because from the works they were able to recognize the Creator and ought to have worshiped Him; for they ought not to have been taught by the answer of creatures, since they had received reason by which they might know these things. 'Is not in His hand the soul of all the living?'—hence therefore it is known that He Himself created all things, because in His hand is the soul of all the living. 'And the spirit of all the flesh of man'—of all human flesh, that is, of the rational soul. 'For the ear discerns words'—just as sense discerns sensible things, so the spirit discerns spiritual things, which ought to have recognized that the works of the Lord are in the hand of the Lord. 'In long time is wisdom'—not indeed in long time, but with the Lord, from whom it is to be sought.
'If He shall have destroyed, who shall build?'—He destroys for the sake of virtue and shuts up for the sake of wisdom, so that one may not come to it. 'If He shall have held back the water, He will dry up the earth'—wisdom itself, but by 'earth' man. 'But if He shall have sent it forth, He will destroy, overturning the earth'—for when many wise things have been done, sinners shall be troubled. 'Who leads counselors captive'—for He subjugates to Himself those who consult Him. 'And He has cast the judges of the earth into terror'—either the Jews, or Pilate, or those who judge with an earthly mind. 'Who sets kings upon thrones'—that is, the apostles. 'And He has girded their loins with a belt'—that is, continence. 'Who sends priests away captive'—so that they are led off by men; and the Jews are signified. 'Who changes the lips of the faithful':
He changes them for good, so that they presume not upon their own justice, but upon His grace. 'And He has known the understanding of the elders'—whose understanding of the elders pleases Him. Hence it is: 'You have been known by God,' to which the opposite is: 'I have not known you.' And He rightly began from faith and arrived at the gray hairs of understanding. 'Who reveals deep things out of the darkness'—by opening the prophecies. 'And He has brought into the light the shadow of death'—that is, He has caused this life to be recognized, that it is the shadow of death. 'Deceiving the nations and destroying them'—those who think they were harming the Church of God, while they harmed themselves, which is to be understood of the wicked. 'Casting down the nations and leading them in the way'—to humility, like that ass. 'Reconciling the hearts of the princes of the people of the earth':
reconciling to Himself either the Jews or the kings of the earth, who at first persecuted the Church. 'But He led them astray into a way which they had not known'—by undermining the works of the law, so that they might be understood simply; hence He seemed to them a sinner. By which error they were darkened as one drunken. 'And I will reprove in His sight, if He shall be willing'—that he may reprove himself; which is of confession. 'And you are all healers of evils'—for you cannot heal the good by consolation. 'Hear therefore the rebuke of my mouth'—against you. 'And before His sight you bring forth deceit'—when you wish yourselves to seem just, which you are not. 'Or do you withdraw yourselves from becoming judges?'—can you dissemble and not judge, because concerning you I speak the truth?
'For if, doing all things, you shall be added to Him'—that is: even if you keep all the precepts, He will find in you something to reprove; for no one is just in His sight. 'But if even secretly you shall have admired persons'—your own, by justifying yourselves not only before men but even before yourselves. 'But my body is of clay'—that you may at least fear by the consideration of your own frailty. 'Taking my flesh with my teeth'—I will not spare myself, so that I reprove not only you but even myself. 'And I will place my soul in my hand'—to be inspected, that I conceal nothing, or that I reckon up my sins. 'Although He slay me who is mighty, who also has begun'—although He slay my sins. 'Yet will I speak and reprove myself before Him'—I will not justify myself by hiding my sins.
Behold, I draw near to my own judgment: that I may judge concerning myself, as though this were a man's very righteousness, in his confession not to spare himself. Then I shall not be hidden from Thy face: in the way that sinners are hidden. Take Thy hand from me: so that there may be nothing in me to be chastised, and that there may be charity in me. And let not Thy dread terrify me. How many are mine iniquities? From this it can be seen that he said that other thing: I will lay my soul in [my] hand: that is, to reckon it up. Or dost Thou suppose me to be set against Thee? Whereas indeed I am weak, and Thou dost as it were fear this, that if I were justified I should become Thy equal, when I am but a leaf. Therefore there is some hidden cause, since this is not the cause. And Thou hast laid upon me the sins of my youth:
so that this is the cause why he says his sins are hidden from himself, namely because he had grown proud, which is the sin of youth. And Thou hast set my foot in the stocks: in the bond of mortality. And Thou hast contemplated the roots of my feet: my desires. I who grow old like a wineskin: so that I cannot bear new wine, nor be sewn like a garment with new cloth, which has been eaten by moths. For man, born of woman, is of short life and full of wrath: that is, of punishment. And hast Thou made this one come into judgment before Thee? Although he is thus mortal, yet he too has wherewith to render account; for of him is required what he can give, however little he can. For his months are numbered with Thee: for by the very fact that he is temporal, he is convicted of sin;
for Thou hadst made him for eternity. Depart from him; let him rest: this is according to the opinion of the carnal and natural man, for whom this life is his whole good. And therefore he wishes to be spared, that he may enjoy this life. For there is hope for a tree: these words are to be pronounced mockingly. For surely there is rather hope for man: which carnal men are unwilling to believe. But a man, when he is dead, has passed away: and here too ironically. For in due time the sea shall be diminished: for afterwards it is filled again. He speaks of those places where there is ebb and flow, or because all shores are secretly diminished and increased according to the hours of the moon, that is, when the moon rises, it grows for us or for others up to mid-heaven, and from there it diminishes. As long as heaven endures, he shall not be roused: unto the new heaven, that is, to heaven itself.
And would that Thou hadst kept me in the underworld: so great is the hope of resurrection, that I might already be free even from these uncertainties of life. And hadst hidden me, until Thy wrath should rest: hence is that saying: Hide thyself for a little while, until the wrath of the Lord pass over, that is, until this mortality pass and one come to the resurrection. For if a man dies, he shall live: for this present is not life. When the days of his life are completed: then he shall live. Then Thou shalt call and I will answer Thee: obedient to Thee without the hindrance of mortality. Thou hast sealed up my iniquities in a bag: so as to requite them to me. Thou hast noted down if I have erred unwillingly: this too Thou hast noted. But to err unwillingly is the penalty of sin. And indeed a falling mountain crumbles away:
so too man has fallen from his height and his firmness. And a rock grows old in its place: as man does in his kind and condition. And by the washing of frequent floods: as though man too is thus brought to slenderness, when he is worn away by the frequent floods of his desires. But Thou hast destroyed the hope of man: he has made steps from the mountain to the rock, from the rock to stones, from stones to sand, because these carnal men suffer such diminishings. And well did he now say 'Thou hast destroyed.' For Thou hast driven him to the end: to consummation, so that this hope perishes in which carnal men rejoice. Thou hast changed his face, Thou hast dismissed him: when the image of God in him has been blotted out. And though his sons be many, he knows it not: because he dies, although his offspring be propagated.
But his flesh grieved over him: that is, man grieves carnally and mourns according to the natural soul over such a condition of his; for the spiritual man knows that, though the outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, because he feels this happening in himself. The words of Eliphaz the Themanite. And he filled the belly with grief: for the spirit of knowledge by consolation rather heals from griefs: but thou who fillest the belly with grief, answerest not with the spirit of knowledge. Hast thou not also cast off fear? Thou hast not feared God, saying such things against Him. And thou hast chosen the tongue of the wicked: by which men curse. For what? Wert thou born the first man? Because thou art so proud. Or wast thou formed before the hills?
The mountains too are to be understood under the name of hills, that is, before all the powers, the mighty spirits. But there is also among us one aged and decrepit: who knows even what we do not know, he is among us. What did thy heart dare? And what did thine eyes endure? They hoped. For what is man, that he should be without crime? which thou too hast said. If in His saints there is no faith? On account of the uncertainties of the times, in which men are for the most part deceived, so that they say many things and do them not. And the heaven is not clean before Him? for those who dwell in heaven; or surely heaven is put for the saints themselves, because in them God dwells. Which things the wise have said and have not concealed from their fathers: because the apostles preached even to the Jews. To them alone was the land given:
to be inhabited. Nor did any stranger come upon them: neither holy man nor angel, that is: they shall possess it in security. When they shall have thought themselves to be already at peace: he so speaks as though he supposed this to have befallen Job himself. He believes not that he can be turned back from darkness: he believes not that he can be turned from his sins. And he is appointed as food for vultures: of the airy powers, which feed upon the deaths of sinners. He shall fall like a leader in the first line of battle: he is bold and bears not tribulations. Who lifted up his hands against God. Or: because he lifted them up? And he ran against Him insolently: by doing what is contrary to what He commanded. On the thick boss of his shield: presuming on his own protection. Because he covered His face with his fatness:
through fatness, that is, through the exaltation of his pride, he has hidden God from himself. And he has made a halter over his thighs: so that he should be bound by his own lusts, by which bond he should be led to death. For the things which they prepared for him, others shall take away: even the earthly kingdom itself, or whatever temporal hope, which the righteous shall receive together with the whole world. And his substance shall not be enriched, nor shall it endure: namely, the substance of the wicked. He shall not cast a shadow upon the earth: that is, he shall not flourish. But the wind shall dry up his stock: temptation. His untimely cutting shall be corrupted before its hour: before he hopes. Let him fall like the flower of the olive: let him fall from peace, or because better things follow these men, as the fruit follows the flower. For the testimony of the wicked is death: a sign.
And fire shall consume the houses of those who take bribes: for these are the wicked who set temporal gifts before righteousness. He shall conceive groanings in the belly: the things he hopes for turn to his punishment. The words of Job. I have heard many such things: not only what you say. You are all comforters of evils: you can console the wicked, because they imitate you. Not the good. And it is a vocative; for from none of you have I heard anything good. For what? Is there order in the speeches of the spirit? of pride. Or in what will it be troublesome to thee? although thou love not what thou sayest. And I too speak according to you: as you deserve. If your soul were set under in place of mine: if you suffered what I suffer, I would speak in speeches, not in deeds;
so it is nothing to speak what you do not do. For if I should speak, I shall not be relieved by the wound: you show yourselves to be prudent neither in speaking nor in keeping silence. For the wise, even when they speak, grieve together with others in their consolations; or, speaking in their confession, they grieve over their own wound; or when they are silent, they are silent prudently. But now He has wearied me and made me foolish and rotten: so that I may not speak against you, God has broken my pride, that, made foolish, I may become wise. Thou hast laid hold of me, and I am made a witness: Thou hast convicted me of my sins, and I am a witness against myself. And my falsehood has risen up against me: when I seemed righteous to myself. Against my own face I have answered, that is: I will set Thee before thy face. Using wrath He has cast me down: