Commentary on Job 1 part 9/12

He who made the whole universe, he says, is in the highest.

For let no one suppose that there is any respite for robbers; and against which of them will his ambush not come? For how shall a mortal be righteous before the Lord? Or who that is born of woman could cleanse himself? For since he said:

He has not yet made his visitation; yes, he says, there is no respite for men that are robbers. And indeed he says the contrary of what actually happens:

But this man says these things so as to contradict Job.

For how shall a mortal be righteous before the Lord? Since, of all necessity, he is punished.

For since Job was saying that he wished to come to judgment:

Even if I have not sinned, yet nevertheless I am punished; to this he replies that there is no one righteous among men.

For how, he says, could this be possible, that there should be even a single righteous man at all? So that you inquire needlessly into the judgment and the examination. Heaven itself, he says, is not clean.

He who commands the sun, and it rises not, and gives an order to the moon, and it does not shine; and the stars are not blameless before him.

Alas, every man is corruption, and the son of man a worm.

To whom do you attach yourself, or whom do you intend to help? Is it not him who has great strength and whose arm is mighty? With whom have you taken counsel? Is it not with him who possesses all wisdom? Or whom do you follow? Is it not him whose power is greatest?

To whom have you declared words? And whose is the breath that has gone forth from you? That is to say:

I do not even blame you for undertaking the part of God;

yet you ought not to have condemned me. For it is possible both to speak the word on God's behalf and not to let this word become liable to reproach.

Shall giants be brought forth from beneath the water and its neighbours? Hades is naked before him, and there is no covering for destruction.

He stretches out the north wind upon nothing, and hangs the earth upon nothing; he binds up the water in his clouds, and the cloud is not rent beneath it.

He who holds fast the face of his throne, spreading his cloud over it.

He has encircled the face of the water with a decree, until the ending of light with darkness.

The pillars of heaven were spread out, and were amazed at his rebuke.

By his strength he has stilled the sea, and by his understanding he has laid low the sea-monster.

And the bars of heaven feared him, and by his command he put to death the apostate dragon.

Behold, these are parts of his way, and we shall hear but a mere drop of a word concerning him.

But the might of his thunder, who knows when he will make it? THEN JOB CONTINUED AND SAID IN HIS PROLOGUE:

As the Lord lives, who has thus judged me, and the Almighty who has embittered my soul:

Truly, as long as my breath is yet in me, and the divine spirit is still present in my nostrils, my lips, he says, shall not speak iniquity, nor shall my soul meditate injustice.

I will stand by the same verdict.

No one shall be able to turn me aside, no one to strike me from my course, no one to lead me away from my purpose. Far be it from me to declare you righteous, until I die.

I will not accuse myself, nor will I change my ground;

even if you say ten thousand things, I will not surrender my verdict. For I will not put away my innocence from me, but holding fast to righteousness I will by no means let it go.

For I am not conscious to myself of having done anything amiss.

What he says is of this sort: that the wrongdoer has no boldness of speech, neither to utter nor to say these things which I now say, but is silenced and has his mouth stopped;

but I have not suffered this; rather I speak and I contend, whereas the unjust do not do so. And moreover, he says, may my enemies be as the overthrow of the ungodly, and those who rise up against me as the destruction of the lawless.

Let my enemies perish, he says;

for they slander me. Yes, truly:

For what hope is there yet for the ungodly, that he holds on? Though he trust in the Lord, will he indeed be saved, or will God hear his prayer? And when necessity comes upon him, will he have any boldness before him, or how, when he calls upon him, will he hearken to him? For what hope, he says, is there yet for the ungodly, that he holds on? Just as I, he says, expect to be saved and to escape this danger.

But indeed I will declare to you what is in the hand of the Lord;

the things which are with the Almighty I will not conceal by falsehood.

What he does, what he administers continually, what his work is.

Behold, you all have seen it, that you cast empty things upon empty.

This is the portion of an ungodly man from the Lord, and the inheritance of the mighty shall come upon them from the Almighty.

This is his work, he says, to destroy the ungodly;

for I too know this. For this reason he everywhere sets it down, that he punishes the wicked, so that they may not think that he charges God with any injustice.

If his sons become many, he says, they shall be for slaughter;

and if they grow to manhood, they shall beg; and those of them who survive shall die by an evil death, and no one shall have mercy on their widows.

And though he heap up silver like earth, and prepare gold like clay, the righteous shall take possession of all these things, and the true-hearted shall hold his wealth.

But his house has passed away like moths, and his wealth like a spider's web.

He lies down and will not do so again; he opened his eyes, and he is no more.

Pains shall come upon him like water when he lies down, and in the night a thick darkness has carried him off.

The burning heat shall take him up, and he shall depart, and it shall winnow him out of his place, and cast him away and not spare him;

he shall flee headlong from his hand.

He shall clap his hands against him, and shall hiss him out of his place.

For there is, he says, a place for silver, whence it comes, and a place for gold, whence it is refined.

For iron comes from the earth, and brass is hewn out like stone.

He has appointed, he says, an order for darkness; he himself accurately determines the limit of the seasons.

He means either this, that he who has ordained an order even in chance matters much more provides for human affairs, and cares for them;

nothing at all passes by simply or at random.

Or he means that all other things are manifest, but the administration of God is unseen.

For silver and brass have a place, but no one has known the place of wisdom; rather he alone knows wisdom.

And to men he said that the fear of God is wisdom, and to do good is understanding.

He has appointed an order for darkness, he says.

He knows how to give way and to withdraw.

Who drives away that thick darkness? Whence comes such good order in so great a matter? Then he recounts His power and His wisdom, persuading them not to wish to demand an accounting from Him.

'Why is there darkness?' he says. We do not know.

He can do all things, He does all things wisely. Then, after saying many things in between, he declares:

'Behold, the fear of God, that is wisdom; and to abstain from evils is understanding.'

Nothing is equal to this art, nothing is more powerful than this wisdom.

'The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and a good understanding is granted to all who practice it.'

This is the greatest good, this is the greatest wisdom: to be godly, not to pry curiously and to cast up reckonings and to demand an accounting of the things that happen.

Do not, then, suppose that you will find any other wisdom.

'Who might set me back month by month, as in the days that are past?' What does this mean?

By adding this to the preamble, he does not conclude his words, but leads them back again to the beginning, not allowing those men to break in nor to descend into dispute.

What, then, does he say? I wished to have a month of the former prosperity, so as to stop your mouths, so that it might be shown who I was: 'one month, according to the months of the days that are past.'

He sought nothing great: only that thirty days might be restored to him as in his former blessings, and that he might enjoy that abundance which no one has ever yet been able to describe.

For since this was impossible, he sets it before them in word as best he can, and tells what he used to do and in what state he formerly was.

Behold the piety of the man!

For it is not possible for one deprived of the help from above ever to be able to stand.

'Of the days,' he says, 'in which God guarded me; as when His lamp shone above my head, when in His light I walked in darkness; when I was heavy-laden upon my ways, when the Lord kept watch over my house; when I was very well wooded, and my servants were round about me.'

That it was for this reason he sought his former prosperity — namely, that the providence of God might be shown — is plain from his saying:

Then he tells the tokens of that guardianship:

'When His lamp,' he says, 'shone above my head.'

'And Thou wilt make my lamp to shine.'

So great is the present darkness, so many are the reverses of affairs, the risings-up of bodily passions, the plots of wicked men, the fights and factions of savage demons, that He might show this very thing.

'When in His light I walked in darkness.'

Do you see that darkness holds all things fast? And the light shines in the darkness.

But just as this darkness is useful for rest, so that other darkness is useful to us — not by its own nature,

but by the wisdom of God who fashioned all things.

'When the Lord kept watch over my house.'

Do you see that this is what he longed for — to show the watchful care and providence of God? 'When my ways flowed with butter, and my mountains flowed with milk.'

Do you see that nowhere does he make mention of wealth that is unjust or superfluous, but only of that which is useful and reasonable? 'When I went forth early into the city, and my seat was set in the broad places.'

He speaks of his boldness of speech and his former dignity, then of his glory.

'When the young men saw me, they hid themselves, and all the elders rose up; and the mighty ceased speaking, laying their finger upon their mouth.'

It seems to me that he is also striking these men and hinting at them, inasmuch as they were trampling upon him: 'Before this I was feared,' he says, 'and held in honor. And those who heard concerning me called me blessed, and their tongue clave to their throat; for the ear heard and called me blessed, and the eye that saw me turned aside.'

'For I delivered the poor man out of the hand of the mighty, and the orphan who had no helper I helped.'

For what reason did they call him blessed? He tells his good deeds:

'For I delivered,' he says, 'the poor man out of the hand of the mighty.'

But first attributing to God the watchful care and the guardianship of him, then he boasts in the Lord.

'Let the blessing of him who was perishing come upon me, and the mouth of the widow blessed me.'

'And I had clothed myself with righteousness, and I put on judgment like a double cloak.'

'I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame.'

'And the cause which I knew not I searched out.'

'I broke the jaws of the unjust, and out of the midst of their teeth I plucked the prey.'

'My age shall grow old like the trunk of a palm tree, and I shall live a long time.'

Not that I acted with this hope, but that I expected from this a long old age, coming of a good conscience and of upright hopes. 'For I delivered,' he says, 'the poor man out of the hand of the mighty.'

See him priding himself not on abstinence from evils, nor on sacrifices as the Jews did, but on this — on what God wills:

'Judge,' He says, 'for the orphan, and do justice to the widow.'

See him not exalting himself, but using his power for what was needful, being a common harbor and a refuge for those in distress.

He was a common father and protector.

He did not use his wealth for injustice, nor his glory for arrogance, nor his wisdom for wickedness, but so as to deliver from the evils that gripped them those who were being taken captive.

'And the orphan who had no helper I helped.'

See him telling even these things with reserve.

'And the mouth of the widow,' he says, 'blessed me.'

You know that this class of people is somewhat ungrateful — not by its own nature nor of set purpose, but through the constraint of poverty; and it is a difficult thing to praise one's benefactor.

For poverty is a furnace.

'And I had clothed myself,' he says, 'with righteousness.'

For there are those who preside over others, yet themselves often do injustice.

So continually was he in the righteous life, that even when you hear concerning God that He has a garment of righteousness, do not suppose garments about that incorporeal nature.

For neither did this man have these garments.

'And I put on judgment like a double cloak.'

Thus did I adorn myself, though others find the matter irksome, are vexed at it, and reckon it burdensome and heavy.

'But not I,' he says; 'rather, just as one might adorn himself with a double cloak, so also I did continually — not today, and tomorrow no more, but just as it is necessary to have one's garments always, so also with these deeds.' And yet who appointed him judge? He became a self-appointed judge by virtue itself, just like Moses.

Such ought men to be!

But since they forsook virtue, God appointed authorities.

Do you see that the thing lies in nature — I mean the capacity to preside? For tell me, what law taught this man? Who compelled him? Who gave him the vote? Who set him upon the throne? 'I was,' he says, 'an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame.'

I lightened their calamity; nor did I take away the sensation of their maiming.

They saw through me; they did not experience their own calamity because of me; they did not seek out those who lead by the hand, those who guide; everywhere I made the darkness light to them. Just as many who have eyes yet see darkness, so also this man made the blind to see.

He did not restore eyes — for that grace was not yet — but while they remained maimed he furnished light.

But those of the present day make even the seeing blind.

I did it through my servants — but I myself corrected the faults of nature, not only those coming from men, but also those from nature itself. 'I was a father to the helpless.'

See after how long a time he says these things — not boasting nor priding himself, but being compelled to declare the providence of God, and in what things he enjoyed it, and in what state he now is.

'The cause which I knew not I searched out.'

Do you see his protectorship? Not only as far as money, nor as far as food and clothing, but even to the point of dangers I championed another's fight.

I sought after no matter that concerned me for my own advantage, but rather, like some most excellent hunter, I pursued it.

I did not merely escort my acquaintances on their way—as men do now—nor did I thrust aside those who were present; but even if there was no one at all, as though I held this for my very task and like some most excellent hunter, I went about ceaselessly looking on every side, lest anywhere someone was being wronged, lest anywhere someone was being oppressed. 'I searched it out,' he says.

The matters, he says, that lie utterly hidden and concealed, and that are hard both to be discovered and to be resolved. 'And I broke the jaws of the unjust.'

'And from the midst of their teeth I snatched the prey.'

See the difficulty of the matter:

The thing already swallowed down and seized beforehand, this I set upright again.

'It cannot be done,' one says; 'it is impossible.' 'I broke the jaws of the unjust.'

See how he holds the first place in each of the two virtues—both where it was needful to punish and where it was needful to help.

And for what reason? 'I broke,' he says, 'the jaws of the unjust,' thereby helping those very men and rendering them henceforth useless for any further such greed.

They bore me no hatred in return for these things, but rather they welcomed me, he says, when I spoke. Then he says:

'My root is spread open upon water, and dew shall lodge upon my harvest.'

'My glory is ever fresh with me, and my bow goes forth in his hand.'

'Elders that heard me gave heed, and they fell silent at my counsel; and to my word they added nothing, and they became exceedingly glad whenever I spoke to them.'

Just as thirsting earth waits for rain, so did these men welcome my speech.

'If I smiled upon them, they scarcely believed it.'

Neither did his wealth make him an object of envy, nor his championing of the wronged, nor any other such thing at all.

'And the light of my countenance,' he says, 'did not fall.'

'I chose out their way, and I sat as a chief, and I dwelt like a king amid his warriors, in the manner of one who consoles the grieving.'

'But now the meanest have laughed me to scorn.'

What then are the present things compared with those? 'The meanest,' he says, 'have laughed me to scorn.'

'Now they admonish me in turn—they whose fathers I disdained, whom I did not count worthy to be set with the dogs of my flocks.'

He was not being contemptuous or arrogant, so as to compare men with dogs, but he is hinting at the wicked and defiled.

For such men he reckoned as nothing.

'And what to me was even the strength of their hands? Upon them destruction had utterly perished, in want and in famine of struggle—those who fled the waterless place yesterday, distress and misery; those who compass the saltwort upon the resounding shore, whose food was saltwort; men dishonored and despised, lacking every good thing, who even chewed the roots of trees because of great hunger.'

'Thieves rose up against me, whose houses were holes in the rocks.'

'In the midst of sweet-sounding places they will cry out'; or:

'They lived beneath the wild brushwood.'

'Sons of fools, and a name without honor, and a fame quenched from the earth.'

'In his sight the evildoer is brought to nothing, but them that fear the Lord he glorifies.'

'Dishonored,' he says, 'and despised, lacking every good thing, who even chewed the roots of trees.'

It is a further wickedness that even in their poverty they should be such as these.

Poor, cityless, homeless, having nothing to be proud of either from worldly prosperity or from virtue of soul.

'But now,' he says, 'I have become their harp, and they hold me for a byword.'

'They abhorred me and stood far off, and they did not spare to spit in my face.'

'Having opened his quiver, he afflicted me, and he let loose a bridle upon my face.'

'Upon the right hand of my offspring they rose up; he stretched out his foot and made against me the paths of their destruction.'

Do you see what things especially grieve him? To be mocked by such people to their own hurt.

'Thieves,' he says, 'and wicked and defiled and lawless men have made us their sport and their byword.' Then he tells his calamity and again heightens it and turns it into tragedy, that God had done this:

'For he stripped me,' he says, 'of my robe.'

'With his arrows he shot me down, and he has used me as he willed.'

'My pains turn back upon me; my hope has departed like a wind, and like a cloud my salvation has passed away.'

'And now my soul shall be poured out upon me, and days of pains lay hold of me; and by night my bones are crushed together, and my sinews are dissolved.'

'With great force he laid hold of my robe;'

'like the collar of my tunic it encompassed me.'

'And he reckoned me as equal to clay; in earth and ashes is my portion.'

'I have cried out to you, and you do not hear me.'

'They stood and gazed at me; they trod upon me without mercy; with a mighty hand I have been scourged.'

'You have appointed me in pains, and you have cast me away from salvation.'

'For I know that death will grind me to pieces;'

'For O that I were able,' he says, 'to lay hands upon myself, or to entreat another and that he would do this for me.'

Do you see that he says 'I were able' not out of weakness, but because he was hindered? 'But I wept over every helpless one.'

This too is no small thing, beloved—but could you name something even greater than that?—to possess a compassionate mind.

'And I groaned when I saw a man in distress.'

'And yet, when I was in wealth, I did nothing of that kind;'

'I did not exult,' he says, 'over others' misfortunes'—the very thing I now suffer. 'And I looked for good things, and behold, there met me rather days of evils.'

'My belly boiled over and will not be silent; days of poverty came upon me beforehand.'

'Groaning I have gone about without restraint; I have stood in the assembly crying out.'

'I have become a brother of sirens and a companion of ostriches.'

For the excess of the terrible things that had come upon him compelled him to lament and to bewail himself.

'Not even when I wish to be still am I able,' he says; 'I have stood in the assembly crying out, respecting none of those present nor ashamed before the multitude of the gathering.' And this comes from the greatness of the calamity.

'I have fallen into the savagery of the birds,' he says;

'I have forgotten my own nature; I am in no better state than they.' This too David says:

'I have become like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as a night-raven in a ruined dwelling.'

'And my skin,' he says, 'has been greatly blackened, and my bones are scorched by burning heat.'

'My harp has turned to mourning, and my psalm to weeping for me.'

See too a certain unpleasant and repulsive appearance, all his comeliness stripped of its bloom.

'And my bones,' he says, 'are scorched by burning heat'—either from the calamity, or from being ever exposed to the open air.

The calamity is varied and manifold; the terrors are of every kind.

'My harp has turned to mourning, and my psalm to weeping for me.'

The instrument is a means of melody, but here of the opposite.

The calamity is the greater, when I must use the very same thing for contrary purposes.

The instrument becomes to me a reminder of my former prosperity; for the men of old made use of music when they sang their psalms.

From this it is plain to us that he lived before Moses;

for the psalm came into being after Moses, but before him it existed in no way at all.

'I made a covenant with my eyes, and I will not so much as give a thought to a virgin.'

'And God apportioned it from above, and an inheritance from the Almighty out of the highest.'

'Woe and destruction to the unrighteous man, and estrangement to those who work iniquity.'

'Will he not himself behold my way, and number all my steps?' 'But if,' he says, 'I had walked with scoffers, and if indeed my foot had made haste unto deceit'—

No one can say—no one—that, having squandered upon indolence and dissipation the wealth and good things I formerly possessed, I am now paying this penalty and have been transformed, God having laid upon me a remedy suited to my case. For a man who loves laughter, who is devoted to luxury and given to frivolity, one might reasonably bring into the opposite state by handing him over to a mournful and much-lamenting manner of life.

But as for one who even before this shunned revelling, and avoided men who jested and made sport—what argument could there be that he should fall into a gloomy and dejected life? Do you see that the word of the psalm was fulfilled in his case too: 'and rejoice in him with trembling'? And yet, though he set a lavish table and enjoyed great abundance and lived amid continual luxury, he suffered nothing such as befell the whole race of the Hebrews in a single day.

'If I laughed'—nay rather, 'if I walked with these'—

'Neither did I,' he says, 'so much as share their road.' And yet what law forbade this? 'But if my foot had made haste unto deceit'—

No one can say, he means, that while I did not pursue indolence and dissipation and this soft way of life, yet, being austere and severe, I fell into the vices proper to that other kind of life—I mean wickedness and deceit; rather, I held myself far from both sorts of wickedness alike.

'For I stand in a just balance.'

My life partakes of such exactness even in small matters as the scales of justice possess; not even the least thing has been neglected by me.

'For these things,' he says, 'I call to witness not a man'—one who might show favour, one ignorant of much—'but God, who knows accurately all things, even the hidden, from whom nothing of ours can be concealed.' 'And the Lord,' he says, 'knows my innocence.'

'If my foot has turned aside from his way, if also my heart has followed after my eye'—

This is still a small matter—or rather, a great one as in those times, and perhaps a great one even in the present day.

For not even to have desired is a great thing; and no less than this is it, having admitted the desire, not to have added the act.

And going on, he mentions something even greater than this: that not even his eyes suffered any such thing.

'And if I have touched gifts with my hands'—and he calls God to witness and invokes a curse upon himself.

'Let me sow,' he says, 'and let others eat, and let me become rootless upon the earth.'

'If my heart has gone after another man's wife, and if I have lain in wait at her doors, then let my own wife please another, and let my little ones be brought low.'

Not my eye—nor even my heart.

'I did not suffer,' he says, 'even my mind ever to be corrupted, much less my body.' This is the very thing which Christ says:

'He that looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'

'For the wrath of anger is unrestrained—the defiling of another man's wife.'

'For it shall be a fire burning on every side;'

'and wherever it enters, it destroys from the very roots.'

And for what reason does he also set forth the punishment? 'I knew,' he says, 'the magnitude of the injustice; I examined carefully the excess of the outrage.' If we too were to feel this, we would not sin.

Had he known the anguish and the wasting away of the poor man who is defrauded, he would not have done what he did; but even if the fear of God did not restrain him, the pity of nature would have bent him.

But he knows it—yet he does not know it as does the very one who suffers.

But I, no less than the very ones who are wronged, understood the outrages. 'What you hate, do not do to another.'

'Whatever you wish that men should do to you, this also do to them.'

For this reason, whenever we often wrong others, and God, exhorting us in countless ways, avails nothing, he sets us amid the actual experience of these things, so that through what we suffer we may learn, and be taught how great the evil is.

This is said to have happened also in the case of Elijah, and that on this account God left him in famine.

This came to pass also in the case of Jonah;

for this reason too God thereafter presses hard upon him, opportunely saying:

'For you had pity on the gourd; and shall I not have pity on Nineveh, my great city, in which dwell more than twelve myriads of men?' This happened also in the case of Jeremiah;

'For why,' he says, 'did God overthrow them?' And then he utters imprecations against them.

It seems to me that in recounting his suffering he is also tearing down his own praise, saying that I did nothing great in not committing adultery nor in not working so great a lawlessness.

'For it uproots the house,' he says, 'wherever it enters.' You have seen his chastity; behold also his humility;

'But if I have despised,' he says, 'the cause of my manservant or my maidservant, when they contended with me'—

'Neither slave nor free,' he says, 'has been wronged by me. For what shall I do if the Lord makes an inquisition of me? And if he makes a visitation, what answer shall I give? Were not they too formed even as I was formed in the womb? And we came to be in the same belly.'

See how he everywhere cuts back his own praises and tears down his good deeds;

'I did nothing great,' he says.

'This is what nature itself desires;'

'we share in common with one another; for all there is the same origin, the same entrance into life.'

'I am no more venerable than their nature. And the helpless never failed of whatever need they once had, nor did I let the widow's eye waste away.'

Do you see how he was not disdainful? how moderate? how a common physician to all, a common haven, a common refuge for those in distress? 'Whatever need they once had,' he says.

Not this need, yes, but that one, no—rather any need whatsoever, even if it was full of dangers, even if it was costly, even if it was perilous.

And observe: he helped those from whom he expected nothing in return—widows and orphans and the helpless.

And that he did it not for display and vainglory, but for God's sake, is plain both from his unwillingness to speak of these things before this—although such long discourses had been drawn out and much conversation had taken place—and plain also from his succeeding in those things for which he had no human witness: I mean the things of the mind, the matters concerning his children.

'If my heart,' he says, 'has followed after another man's wife'—

And yet of this he had no human witness, but only the sleepless Eye; and nevertheless those things too had been rightly accomplished by him.

It is quite clear that these things too were done for His sake;

'and I did not let the widow's eye waste away,' by overlooking her and passing her by and leaving her in her lamentations.