Commentary on Job 1 part 3/12

for this too is a work of God's providence, that he goes about each day, so that both his judgment may become the greater, and we may be the more watchful.

For this reason he is called the world-ruler of the darkness of this age, of wickedness.

Tell me, devil, what have you done? 'Having gone about the earth,' he says, 'and walked through it, I am present.' What have you accomplished? Nothing useful, nothing good.

He dares to say nothing, except that he went about.

And the Lord said to Satan:

'Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him among the men upon the earth, blameless, righteous, true, God-fearing, abstaining from every evil thing?'

Again He challenges him to a second bout of wrestling.

'And still,' He says, 'he holds fast to his innocence.'

'But you said that I should destroy his possessions in vain.'

Would you not, O shameless one, believe God as God? After the trial, ought you not thereafter to be persuaded?

Did He not tell you that he was blameless? Did you not see it through the trial? How do you come forward again? What do we learn from this? That even if he falls ten thousand times, the devil never gives up, but stands his ground shamelessly.

'But you said,' He says, 'that his possessions should be destroyed in vain.'

All that befell him came upon him for no idle or empty reason, but truly not in vain—rather, unto some useful end.

But you said that I should destroy him without cause.

He did not say, 'He was destroyed without cause,' but rather:

You said that I should destroy him without cause.

For he himself received no ordinary reward from that destruction.

For do not raise this question, that I in turn restore all to him again; rather note that you slandered the man vainly and idly. And even so the vile one was neither ashamed nor abashed, but seeks a second trial, that, as in the Olympic games, he might be thrown down a second time.

For it says, 'By the mouth of two and three witnesses shall every word be established.'

But behold his great folly.

He said that he still holds fast to his innocence.

What did you expect? 'Smite the body,' he says.

He who took him untrained and heaped upon him so great an addition of evils, and yet prevailed nothing, but rather found him the stronger—not even so did he desist.

Behold with how great gentleness God answers the devil.

Teaching us not to trample upon others in our prosperity.

For gentleness is a great thing, even when we have the upper hand.

What then does the devil, that insatiable one who never makes an end of his evils against us? 'And the devil answered and said to the Lord:'

'And all that a man has will he give for his own life.'

'Even if he must give another body, he will not refuse.' That is to say:

'Even if he gave up his children, this is customary among men.'

Nothing is more precious to a man than his own self.

He does not yet lay hold of the necessities. And yet you were saying that:

'If I take these things away, he will blaspheme you.' But why did he not ask for this from the beginning? He reasoned thus: that if it should come to pass that he be defeated, 'It is better,' he says, 'to carry off the victory from the lesser things.'

'And if I do not prevail through his goods, I shall prevail through his body.'

'And his defeat will be shameful to him, if he blaspheme on account of goods;'

'But if he does not blaspheme, it still remains to proceed to other things.' For this reason he kept it in reserve.

'And all,' he says, 'that a man has will he give for his own life.'

'For did he himself give them? You yourself took them from him.'

'For was it set before him either to be destroyed himself or to lose his goods, and did he choose this?' How did he not blaspheme, O vile one? What he means is this: that a man is more indispensable to himself than all else, and all other things are secondary.

Behold again how he is caught by his own answers.

For that he might no longer leave himself any pretext or plea, as though he had not touched the very necessities, as though he had not taken the greatest hold of all, God, forestalling him, declares that all things are secondary to a man himself, and that he will readily give up all in order to preserve and keep himself, but that he himself is the most necessary of all to himself.

'Here, then, is where I wish to take my hold.' 'Goods are of no great account to men,' he says. Let us listen, beloved, even to the devil, and be ashamed that all things must be given up for the soul's sake, and that this is according to nature for men, so that we are deprived of all excuse when we blaspheme on account of goods.

'Goods are nothing great,' he says.

'For men give all things for the salvation of their own soul.' Again he makes his demand of him:

'Yet nevertheless,' he says, 'stretch forth your hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and surely he will bless you to your face.'

He did not say simply 'his flesh,' but also 'his bones,' so that the evil might be bred from within.

What then does God say again? 'And the Lord said to the devil:'

'Behold, I deliver him to you; only preserve his life.'

'Do not take him away'—so that it is permitted to him, should he receive the concession—'if you take him away, no longer is the theatre prepared for us.' So then he can indeed slay a man, but he cannot do him harm.

Do you see? From this we learn that the devil envies the good, and that even in his envy he does not set upon them before God permits it.

But God often permits not all things, but sometimes concerning goods, sometimes concerning bodies.

For his receiving the authority a second time hints at this.

From this we learn that whatever he can do, he does by permission, and that even if he be defeated he does not desist, but ever attempts the greater things.

But it belongs to God whether to yield or not to yield.

'Only touch not his life,' but rather:

'Only preserve his life'? He set him in great fear.

'Do not say to me, I did not touch him, but slew him by other means; I require of you the safety of his life.' 'Preserve' is more than 'touch not.'

Here he strikes fear into the enemy, so that from great abundance of caution he should not touch his life.

For since it was likely that he would cast upon him such a disease as to kill the body, and might have said, 'I did not touch his life,' therefore he says:

'I say not this alone, that you touch not, but also preserve, lest he suffer anything—I speak with reference to the principle of his life.' And the devil went forth from the Lord and smote Job with a grievous sore from the feet to the head.

Again he goes forth from God, whenever, having received authority, he does his own work.

And behold, he does not delay, but straightway sets upon him.

From this we learn that whatever God permits to the devil comes about by permission, seeing that he himself asks and rushes to the temptations, not being commanded, but desiring it and begging God.

Do you see that God tempts no one? Rather, when that one leaps upon a man, God permits some things and not others.

But if anyone should ask, concerning those who fall, for what reason he permits it:

It is so that they may often be exposed who feign and play the hypocrite, as in the case of Judas.

He permitted him to leap upon him, that he might expose his wickedness;

But in the case of Simon, no longer so, but he came to his aid.

So then he both permits and does not permit.

He permits, that one may fall and be exposed; and again he permits, that one may be proved; and he does not permit, that one may not utterly fall.

Wherefore also we are commanded to pray:

'Bring us not into a temptation which we are unable to bear.'

Observe when the troubles of disease and sickness befell him: when he was stripped of those who might tend him.

For poverty is hard even in health; but when sickness is added as well—and a sickness needing many to tend it—the calamity becomes still more unbearable.

He spared no part; he corrupted his very flesh.

O noble athlete and hero, wrestling in the body against the wicked demon, as though one, stripped of all his weapons, were compelled with bare hand to strike his adversary's head, or, being smitten, to conquer by that alone!

He binds his hands, being about to let loose his opponent.

'Behold,' he says, 'I deliver him into your hand.' He did not say:

'Fight him face to face,' but rather:

'Having bound him, I deliver him, and not even so will you prevail.' Behold how great is the power of God's servants, and how great the weakness of the devil.

Not even when the righteous are held fast does he get the better of them.

Perhaps the affliction does not seem to you to be grievous, since you heard 'a sore'; but hear the aggravation of it:

And Job took a potsherd, that he might scrape away his gore.

How could anyone reach in words the measure of that calamity? What am I saying? Not even sight could set it forth; only by experience can one rightly know it.

Why did he himself do the scraping? He was desolate, bereft of any who might tend him;

for this too was part of the devil's working, to render him loathsome and hateful to all.

For those who were most likely to hold fast to him in his affliction the devil had already carried off beforehand; and the one consolation that remained—I mean his wife—he not only did not leave to him, but even armed her against him.

And why did he not scrape with his hands or fingers? So that the very tending should not become a greater occasion of loathing.

And he who could not endure to tend himself, how could he have obtained the tending of others? He was his own executioner, not digging into his sides, but cutting away the festering corruption that welled up.

For even if he had had those to tend him, would not this itself be pitiable? But as it was, he tended himself.

A common spectacle was set before all who beheld him.

The athlete stripped himself and wrestled.

Of what would we be worthy, who cannot even bear to hear these things? Are they not harder than any punishment? Let each one take up the matter by experience, and not merely attend to the narrative of the words.

Little by little he saw himself being consumed shamefully and loathsomely;

for how did he bear to see his very self? He had been driven out of the city—how great the reproach—and sat upon the dunghill.

For 'he himself,' Scripture says, 'sat upon the dunghill outside the city.'

For what reason? The citizens could not endure to look upon a dreadful and pitiable sight, some monstrous and unheard-of prodigy.

Have you seen the utmost calamity? Have you seen the man of adamant? Have you seen the man of iron? Why did he not shut himself up in some little cottage, but was out under the open sky, set before the eyes of all? It seems to me it was so that he might become the more pitiable.

In the degree that the outer man is being destroyed, in that same degree the inner man is being renewed.

Let all who think highly of the bloom of the body consider his nature.

He was gore, and food and table for worms.

If any sink into despair over foulness of smell or maiming, let them reckon up this hero.

What is more foul-smelling than this? What more repulsive? What more loathsome? Yet nothing was more fragrant than his soul.

The nature of his body was rotting, but his soul remained incorrupt.

Why did he sit upon the dunghill? So that he might cover over with the heap what fell away from him.

And why in the open air? So that there might be some consolation for him;

for if he had shut himself up in some little cottage, he would have corrupted even the very air of the house, being scanty, and would have suffocated himself with the stench.

He therefore judged it better to bear the hardship that came from the open air than, sheltered by a roof, to endure the hardships that came from the corrupted air.

But otherwise it seems to me that he suffered nothing merely human, such as one would suffer who knew the matter to be a discipline of God;

he was not ashamed, nor did he blush, but displayed himself openly to all.

And when much time had passed, his wife said to Job:

'How long will you persevere, saying:

Behold, I wait yet a little while, looking for the hope of my salvation'? The devil brings on last the device stronger than all that went before.

'Would that you too had been taken, would that you had been buried together with the children!'

But some say that these are not even the wife's words, but that he, taking on her likeness, uttered these things against her.

For it was not likely that Job's wife should be such a woman—unless one should say that, being overthrown by the calamity, she had become such.

'And when,' it says, 'much time had passed.'

See how she plays the orator, having many persuasive points to prevail—time along with all the rest.

For it was not one and two and three days, but many months went by.

'How long,' she says, 'will you persevere, saying...'

The very things which he ought to have heard from others, these she did not cease urging upon him.

For from these words it is likely that this was not the first such counsel, but that he often heard many things from his wife harder than these.

'This,' she says, 'brought down the first man; this shall be able to prevail over him too.' But, O wretched and foolish woman, having found that first man weaker than his belly, she sowed her own venom into him;

but this man you see playing the philosopher and prevailing over nature itself.

Neither the loss of goods bent him, nor the untimely death of his children, nor the inconsolable torment of his body, nor so great a length of time.

And him whom deeds could not capture, do you expect to subdue with words? 'Yes,' she says; for many have often stood firm against the trial of deeds, but were overcome by words—and especially when the things said come from a woman.' It cannot be said that she speaks these things out of envy or malice;

she reasons with you from the deeds themselves.

The counsel is above suspicion; she is a helper, given to the man for this very purpose.

'Yes, but the former one also was of this kind.'

'But I do not permit a woman to teach,' he says, 'nor to have authority over the man.' This Job did not allow to come to pass.

When much time had passed, then she made her assault;

for then above all is hope put to the proof, then above all does strength grow faint.

The weakness was twofold: both that the one who bore it became weaker through the length of time, and that hope was the more given up in despair.

Do you see that before this she did not even have such boldness of speech? Thus did Job train her.

Her face was that of one sympathizing, but her words were savage and inhuman; her purpose and disposition were those of one sharing the grief, yet her counsel was that of one wishing to carry him over the precipice.

Let us not look at this—with what aim she says these things—but at what she wishes to bring about.

For not even if someone were handing me a sword and a deadly poison would I scrutinize the intention, when the harm is manifest.

Let us not therefore look at this, that she is a woman, but at what she counsels.—And this I also urge upon the men of today: not to look at the rank of the persons, but at the character of the counsel.—She is a woman, that she may help, not that she may trip up.

'How long,' she says, 'will you persevere, saying...?' Why do you unnerve the athlete? Why do you let his hands drop, when you ought rather to say, according to the Apostle:

'Yet a little while?' These things Job perhaps said, defending God against those who accused Him, and knowing that the torments have an end.

And he looked for a change, which was a mark of great faith and of noble hope;

he knew the loving-kindness of God.

She takes away from him his consolation, as one who by such words walls off from him all counsel.

For since he saw others grieving more than he who suffered, he himself consoled their weakness.

'For behold,' she says, 'your memorial has vanished from the earth—your sons and daughters, the pangs and travails of my womb, for whom I toiled in vain with hardships.'

See the wicked and crafty little woman.

She does not mention the goods, nor bring forward the loss of the flocks, but that which was most able to lay hold of him, this she puts first.

She knew that he was magnanimous and reckoned the loss of those things as nothing.

So then, that the calamity might not make the passion weaker, but might rather stir up the tragedy, she sets down that which was most unbearable of all, and over which he grieved most, and which stung him most.

And see how full of pathos, how pitifully she speaks;

'For behold,' she says, 'your memorial has vanished,' all but showing the calamity over again and renewing in memory the things that had been given over to forgetfulness.

She does not speak of the present things only, but of the past as well, so as to work great confusion in his reasoning.

With the very same scheme by which the devil approached him, with this same scheme she too brings her counsel to bear, having troubled him by the remembrance of his children, and having expected by this means to overturn his reasoning.

Then she thus raises the crowning point of the evils, saying:

'They have perished'—which is the common name for the calamity of all men; yet she did not use the customary designation, but what does she say? 'Your memorial has vanished from the earth.'

It seems to me that she said these things because she wished also to set forth the cruelty of the calamity.

What she means is something like this:

'What sort of change do you expect will come to you? Is it still possible for the departed to return, or for those who have vanished to be brought back to life? For children are especially longed for on this very account, that they leave behind for us an undying memory; and this above all is what all men desire—to leave behind a memorial.'

'You yourself,' she says, 'have utterly perished together with them through your offspring.'

'Childless, without offspring, you have been torn up by the roots.' And observe how measuredly she frames the deadly counsel, so as not to stir him to anger, but to break him down into pity.

'God took them and destroyed them'—but she uses a middle term instead.

'Your sons and your daughters,' she says.

She made mention of both sexes.

'The pangs and travails of my womb,' she says.

'Both sexes'—these are the words of a mother once flourishing and tenderly loving.

'Your own losses you bear magnanimously,' she says; 'have pity on my loss.'

Since from the things that had befallen him she did not expect to bend him, she recounts her own case more full of passion.

'The pangs and travails of my womb'—the pangs of childbirth, the travails of rearing.

'I am the one who has suffered more pitiably than all.'

'Those over whom I labored in vain with toils.'

See how unseasonable is this funeral dirge over the children.

She says these things in order to show that she too shares in the calamity.

For one who is going to counsel and exhort someone suffering badly need not stand outside the troubles; since he will be an unpersuasive counselor if he philosophizes amid another's ills, and will be suspect in his exhortation.

For since she was about to counsel him to die, in order that she might not seem to say these things out of enmity, she shows herself to have suffered even more terribly, and by her words she magnifies the calamity.

'But you yourself,' she says, 'sit amid the rottenness of worms, passing the night under the open sky; while I too am a wanderer and a hired servant.'

See how she interweaves her own circumstances with his:

'For behold, your memorial has vanished.'

'The pangs and travails of my womb.'

'But you yourself sit amid the rottenness of worms.'

'And I am a wanderer and a hired servant.'

Continually she shifts her discourse from his affairs to her own, so that she may draw goodwill from the one who hears.

'Your case has no strength; let mine prevail. But you yourself,' she says.

'That righteous one, the wondrous one, the great one, the crown of good things for us—you sit amid the rottenness of worms, passing the night under the open sky.'

'No one has shared his lot; no one is compassionate, no one merciful, no one grieving with him.'

'And I am a wanderer and a hired servant.'

No one pitied the woman nor lightened her poverty, but she who had been the consort of a king was in servitude and out under the open sky.

It seems to me that they even regarded her as some transgressor because of the calamity.

'Homeless, without a city, without a dwelling, I wander,' she says, 'about the city, unable to find even servitude, nor able readily to obtain hired labor itself.'

'I sit at other people's doors, as though contending to teach all men my own calamities.'

'Nor is it possible to conceal the shame of poverty within a single house, but everywhere I must be paraded and made a spectacle.'

How much harsher is this calamity than the death of the children!

'Everywhere I go about as a teacher of woes.' And what I said from the beginning—that for this reason God also permitted it to last a long time, lest after the change the calamity should be disbelieved, and for this reason he was under the open sky, that all might see—this same thing may be said also of the woman.

This was so that, when they should see her changed and become better off, blessed with children and abounding in children, those very ones who had exacted from her the wages of her toils might not disbelieve her former calamity.

'Going about from place to place,' she says, 'and from house to house, waiting for the sun to set at last'—and reasonably so, for the woman had been reared in freedom.

'That I may rest from my toils and from the pains that encompass me, which now hold me fast.'

She means the great toil, the wandering, and the servitude.

'But say some word to the Lord and die.'

Observe: after having recounted the tragedy in full detail, only then does she bring in the shameless counsel, not having dared to say these things before, but having first shown the exhortation to be somewhat plausible, then she injects the poison—and not even that openly.

'Blaspheme'—rather she says, 'Say some word to the Lord and die.'

For what purpose? Do you really know that death is the outcome of the matter? And what comfort will there be for you from my death? What consolation? For those who counsel wicked things do not dare to introduce their counsel unveiled, but with obscurity they cloak the wickedness of the exhortation.

'That which you did not dare to counsel, this you exhort me to endure? For why do you not say, what sort of word? On every side the harbors have been closed against you, the children have been slain, the wife fares more pitiably than all, the body is in such a state as you yourself see.'

'One consolation is left, one way of deliverance: to say something to God. What are you saying, O woman? When one ought to propitiate him, when one ought to be reconciled, do you rather exhort me to provoke him? For if God did these things, one must entreat him, not blaspheme; and if it was not he, then still one must not blaspheme.'

'Why do you heighten for me the heaping-up of horrors by means of the release from horrors? How do you think it will go? For whence is it clear that I shall both speak and die? And what if, after speaking, I am again enveloped in yet greater horrors?' But she said none of these things.

And why did she not say to him:

'Do away with yourself'? But rather that which the devil especially desired—this she counsels and exhorts. Just as before through the serpent, so now through the woman.

'If I accuse God,' he says, 'he does not accept the counsel.'

'Have pity on me. And what comfort will there be for you in your horrors once this one has departed? What consolation? Will they not rather be intensified? For now indeed one may hope for something good, but then no longer—only widowhood without consolation.'

It seems to me that she was even ashamed of herself.

Whom would these things not have thrown into confusion? Whom would the words spoken not have made dizzy? What then did this noble and God-loving man do? 'But he, looking at her, said…'

He displayed his indignation through his look, since his words were not sufficient to lay hold of her.

And see how measuredly:

He let fall no word of one who is exasperated or vexed.

He both recognized the woman and did not accept the counsel.

'You are senseless and foolish'—but what does he say? 'Why have you spoken thus, like one of the foolish women?' That is to say:

'Nothing worthy of yourself, nor of your rearing and the training you received from me.'

'These words are not yours.' For he was eager not only to rebuke her, but also to lead her away from this wicked thought.

'If we have received the good things from the Lord,' he says, 'shall we not endure the evils?' That is to say:

'Even if there were only evils, one ought to bear them.'

'Does he not have authority to bring all things upon us? For what reason did he give the good things? Not as to those who were worthy.'

'Therefore let us not now grieve as though we were suffering beyond our desert.'

'Above all, indeed, the Lord had authority to give even the evils alone.'

'But if he has also given good things, why do we complain?' See how nowhere does he speak either of sins or of good deeds, but only that it is permitted to God to do whatever he wills.

Remind yourself of your former prosperity, and you will not bear the present sufferings grievously.

It is enough for our consolation that it is the Lord who has brought this upon us.

Let us not say 'justly or unjustly.' And behold, once more the proclamation of the athlete:

In all these things that had befallen him, it says, Job did not sin, nor with his lips before the Lord.

One cannot say that he spoke these things to his wife, while the hidden recesses of his mind were full of wrath and vexation;

on the contrary, not even with his lips did he utter anything amiss.

And when his three friends heard of all the evils that had come upon him, they came, each from his own city, to him:

Eliphaz the king of the Temanites, Baldad the ruler of the Sauchaeans, and Sophar the king of the Minaeans;

and they came with one accord to him, to comfort him and to visit him.

Just as from the very place whence he expected to find some consolation and the best exhortation — from his wife — he there found ruin, so likewise from his friends.

They come as though to console him, yet they do the very opposite.

And even before their words, the mere sight of them was enough to cast down the righteous man.

For we perceive our own misfortunes most keenly amid the good things of others.

Consider how great a thing it was for him to behold himself in such a state, while those familiar acquaintances of his remained in their former prosperity.

For he was picturing to himself nothing other than his own former prosperity in these men, as he reflected on himself and on what condition he had once been in.

And indeed the dreadful thing was this: that the calamity had been noised abroad on every side.

For if these men, being so far away, had heard of it, much more had those who were near.

But what grieved him most was not the magnitude of his sufferings, but that he seemed to be suffering these evils as one impious and lawless, as an enemy and foe of God, as one who had lived his former life in hypocrisy.

He cared not that his body was being destroyed, but that his good name was being brought low — not because the man was ambitious for honor, nor because he lived for the opinion of the multitude, but because he saw many being made to stumble on account of these things.

So also Moses feared for the glory of God, and Paul likewise.

For hear what Moses says:

Lest, he says, they should say that you brought them out of Egypt in malice, to destroy them here.

For what was he pondering? That if those who had received many good things from him — whose poverty he had relieved, whose widowhood he had helped to bear, whose orphanhood he had made lighter, to whom he had become a haven and a refuge — if these should hear that he was storm-tossed and met with no consolation, with how many surging waves of doubts were they likely to be beaten, so that his own afflictions tossed the reasonings of others as in a tempest.

And that this is so, let us wait, and we shall learn it from what follows.

And they came, it says, with one accord to him, to comfort him and to visit him.

But this they did not do; on the contrary, the very opposite.

Friendly indeed was their coming, but unfriendly their exhortation and counsel.

And seeing him from afar, they did not recognize him; and crying out with a loud voice they wept, each one rending his robe and sprinkling dust upon his head.

They sat down beside him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none of them spoke a word to him:

for they saw that the affliction was dreadful and exceedingly great.

All these were good things, tokens worthy of friends and of those who share in suffering; but what came after was no longer of this kind, but far worse than these.

That they might not seem to speak the words that followed as enemies and slanderers, they had beforehand, by their deeds, removed that suspicion, so that he who judged their words might not be misled by any suspicion of enmity.

And none of them, it says, spoke a word to him.

Behold, the calamity was greater than any consolation that words could give.

And this they did prudently, comforting him by their deeds — by their sitting beside him, by rending their garments.

And after this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.

Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which they said:

That the things that had befallen him were dreadful, they themselves bore witness by their silence.

They would not have dared to console him, had he not first given the occasion.

Let the day perish, he says, in which I was born? This also the Preacher says:

I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living.

And better than these two is he who has not yet come to be.