Commentary on Job 1 part 13/15

Someone might ask: how is it that, having just said to them, 'But you are unjust physicians, and do you not speak against the Lord, and before Him utter deceit?', he now says:

'But be yourselves the judges'? To which it must be said that everyone who sins, being beguiled by pleasure, does not look up at the overseeing eye of God.

But whenever a righteous and wise man—or even another who is not such—provokes the conscience of the sinner, leading him to be disposed to recognize that God sees the intentions of each one, he strikes him into an awareness of himself.

This is the very thing the holy man does when he says:

'But be yourselves the judges.'

'It would indeed be well, if He should search you out.' For those who are conscious within themselves of some fault do not wish to be examined even by a righteous man, still less by God.

For such is the manner of the saints, who say, according to David:

'Try my reins and my heart.' 'For even if, doing all things, you are joined to Him, none the less does He reprove you.'

Even if, having done all that must be done, you are joined to Him—that is, are made His own household—you are still subject again to reproof on account of things done in ignorance. This indeed is what the blessed Apostle said:

'I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not thereby justified.' For it is possible for me to overlook some of my ignorant faults, and I am not justified because of that.

But in so far as I seem to be conscious of nothing against myself, I seem to be free from accountability.

Yet it is not my judgment that shows me justified, but God's. The blessed David also confirms this when he says:

'Who discerns them?'—but transgressions, which are in a sense involuntary, a man understands only with difficulty.

'And even if,' he says, 'you do all things unto purity, you will still incur reproof from your involuntary faults, since God judges.' Wherefore the Lord also said to His own disciples:

'When you have done all things, say:

We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.' 'But if in secret you show partiality to persons, will not His terrors whirl you about, and shall not fear from Him fall upon you?' The best judge is an examiner of deeds; he does not look to the persons of those being judged.

For if those being judged are rich, or rulers, or possessed of some other superior rank, he does not look to their persons, but to the deeds which he judges.

This is also set forth in the Catholic epistle:

'showing partiality to persons for the sake of advantage'—clearly meaning those who take bribes, justifying the ungodly for the sake of gifts, and taking away the justice of the righteous.

But God, in His commanding, does not so will, but lays down the law:

'You shall judge the great and the small alike; you shall not respect a person'—that is, of the rich man—'and you shall not have pity on a poor man in judgment.' And elsewhere it is also said:

'You shall justly pursue what is just.' For one must neither side with the rich, nor, in pitying the poor man's need, overlook what is just.

It is the work of an upright judge—as has been handed down also in the history concerning David—that, after the verdicts and the outcome of the cases, if it should happen that a poor man, or one who was ignorant of what was just, or one who acted unjustly, is involved, he should urge the rich man to show kindness toward him.

And he will be the more ready for this when he has accepted the uprightness of the judge.

For it is thus said concerning David:

'executing judgment and righteousness...'

'If in secret you show partiality to persons'—for every taker of bribes accepts the persons of those who offer them not openly, but in a hidden way, often even while feigning to act against that person...

And he adds a threat, saying that even if someone dares by deceit to conceal his partiality, yet God, being angered, will whirl them about through the visitation that comes upon sinners—that is, He will give them a taste of His wrath.

By 'whirlpool' (dine) he means the visitation that comes with the onrush of wrath, using a metaphor from waters that swirl together in eddies, so that what he says may briefly amount to this:

'Will you indeed endure His agitation, if He should be indignant?' Like this is what is set forth in Zechariah, spoken to sinners:

'The Lord will go forth in the tempest of His threatening.' By 'tempest of His threatening' he signifies the wrath that comes because of their sins, for He Himself...

And the words 'He will go forth' might perhaps be like what is said in Genesis concerning Adam, that he heard God walking, having just sinned:

By this very thing he receives a perception of God's withdrawal, because he no longer has anything luminous within himself.

For those who remove themselves far from God hear:

'The Lord is far from the ungodly'—this being said not with reference to place, but to the fact that God is good, while the wicked man has withdrawn from Him.

And these things have been said with regard to 'He will go forth in the tempest.'

We must return to the beginning, to those who in secret show partiality to persons, whom also the wrath of God, in the manner of a whirlpool—as has been explained—will whirl about.

And upon them also falls fear from God, and this too for their benefit, that they may know that a threat is brought against them as sinners.

But of this fear—I mean the one associated with threatening—there is another, concerning which it has been said:

'The fear of the Lord surpasses all things'—which is also, properly speaking, godliness.

For the fear of God is nothing other than an intensified reverence, through which those who possess it come to lack nothing:

'For there is no want to those who fear Him.' But the passion-driven fear follows upon those who sin.

For another kind, different from this, is said to be sent upon sinners by way of punishment:

Consider, then, whether by the name of 'fear' it signifies nothing other than the escape from wrath.

This is not a passion of God:

a passion is not sent forth.

'And your boasting shall turn out for you like ashes.'

The word makes plain the condition of sinners after the wrath, when they are brought to nothing in the manifestation that comes through the wrath, which swallows up the conceit of those who judge in secret.

That ashes signify worthlessness one may learn from one of the twelve prophets, who says:

'And you shall trample down the lawless, and they shall be as ashes under your feet.' For ashes are something burnt that has lost its own power.

Indeed, a threat is set forth in Deuteronomy concerning burning, as through the crops being hindered because the land has lost its own power.

But it can also be to someone's benefit that sins be reduced to ashes:

For just as thorns and thistles, when burnt, bring no small harm, so also sins—if they are burnt, according to what has been said, 'lawlessness shall be burned as fire, and as dry grass shall be devoured by fire'—no longer defile the soul, but it is called to repentance, according to what is said in the Gospel:

'If the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.' For if anyone receives in his mind the saving fire, of which the Savior spoke:

'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I, if it be already kindled?'—it reduces his former sins to ashes.

And 'sitting'—that is, having ceased from sinning—he turns to repentance, having chosen a severe and laborious life.

Man is composed of soul and body.

And there is a time when the body is enslaved by the soul and in a certain manner is no longer of clay, being led... subordinated to the rational faculties... henceforth serving the soul that acts with reason and with mind.

But whenever someone takes no thought at all for the salvation of his soul, and turning to wickedness henceforth serves the flesh, doing such things as differ in no way from those of an irrational animal, he shows that his body is of clay, as one that receives no help from the movements of the soul.

For the body is of a different substance from the soul, as the Savior Himself taught, saying:

'Do not fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.' Since they are able to kill a man's body, but not his soul, it is clear that the substance of soul and of body is not one and the same.

Whenever, therefore, the soul is hindered from its own proper impulses, then man appears as a body of clay—not because the soul is changed into body, but because its actions are no longer heavenly but bodily; even as Paul calls those who walk according to the flesh 'men' and 'according to man,' saying that they have human and not divine activities.

It has therefore been said by the blessed Paul, addressing all those who have given themselves over to bodily things and are on this account 'men':

For where there is strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man? But those who, while walking upon the earth, have their citizenship in heaven and bear the image of the heavenly one, …

Keep silence, that I may speak and find rest from my wrath.

Urging them to give heed to the things brought forward by him, he says these words, adducing the reason in his saying:

And I shall find rest from my wrath — teaching that, if they should obtain correction from his having been permitted to speak, he will find rest from that very wrath which he justly bore, being angry against their folly, not in a passionate manner, but as the law was laid down to be angry against those who sin.

The word 'deafening' signifies silence, as in the passage: I was made deaf and did not open my mouth, because it was you who made me.

For he calls the not-speaking a deafness.

reproaching her, being an enemy and an avenger; then she, ashamed, keeps silence, taking up deafness.

He says, then: Restrain your much speaking, so that through his own speaking instruction may come to be in them.

Taking up my flesh in my teeth

in a certain way he gives them respite.

For since he had earlier blamed them as being comforters of evils — for they did not comfort as was fitting, but rather stirred up the grief and pain of the one supposedly being comforted — he says: I take up my flesh in my teeth; I am no longer angry against you, but against myself.

Thus might the word 'flesh' be smoothed out in meaning.

For often, when someone wishes to declare a crushing calamity that has come upon himself, he makes mention of the flesh, as it has been said:

when evildoers drew near against me to eat my flesh — meaning, to do me harm;

for they were not eating his flesh that was beneath the skin, but afflicting him.

Similar to this also is the phrase then they would have swallowed us alive, indicating the vehement assault of those who use force.

He may be saying: I take up my flesh in my teeth. Thus I feed upon my own pains.

And just as food that is taken up into the teeth is broken small and shows forth its usefulness, so also, feeding upon my pains and boiling down the afflictions that come from them, I receive an increase of benefit. But if, by saying 'taking up my flesh in my teeth,' he is displaying his endurance — meaning that he took no thought at all of the affliction — consider it together.

And I shall put my soul in my hand, if the mighty one should lay hold of me, since indeed he has already begun.

In harmony with 'taking up my flesh in my teeth,' one must also understand 'and I shall put my soul in my hand,' so that he is saying: I even despise my own soul, for the sake of profiting you with some benefit, submitting to the one who lays hold of me and who has already begun to do so — indicating God, who has granted this to the one who demanded him.

I am therefore ready to be handed over to death. But if by this he means the coming change that will befall him, it is worth considering, taking thought whether the phrase 'since indeed he has already begun' does not stand in opposition, when he calls God 'the mighty one' because of his delivering from those who oppress:

Verily I shall speak and reprove before him, and this shall turn out for me unto salvation.

Throughout, his zeal is to instruct his friends concerning the cause of his sufferings, so that he might gain them, that they not hold contrary opinions.

For he reckoned this to be salvation — that they should come to know the reasoning of providence concerning this very matter; and wishing to make it manifest, he said 'and I shall reprove.'

For often 'reproof' signifies demonstration, even as Paul also says:

All things being reproved are made manifest by the light; and again: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the reproof of things not seen — meaning, the demonstration.

For no deceit shall enter in before him.

Wishing to set forth his freedom from falsehood and his reverence, he says: The things I speak, I utter while God is looking on.

For it is not possible that any deception should come to be for God, so that deceit should enter in before him. This might be understood in two ways by the setting alongside of the similitude, which is thus, being from the Gospel:

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. For either that which overshadows is dissolved, having no subsistence at the presence of the light; or whoever brings deception, upon coming near to the light, is turned away as his deceit is dissolved, and altogether he does not overcome.

For all the zeal of those who deceive and contrive is profitless;

for they shall not lay hold of the beauty of the truth.

Deceit, then, does not draw near to the fountain of the truth, because those who employ it dare not bring it to her.

And in another sense: there is no deceit in God;

for it is not in his nature for it to come to be in him.

For God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him. And again:

If we deny him, he remains faithful. For he is unchanging and unalterable.

Hear, hear my words;

for I shall declare while you are listening.

For it is possible sometimes that, though the hearing be struck by the voice, one has not heard because the mind was not attentive.

For this reason the Saviour, rousing his hearers to hear genuinely, would say:

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And again to others who were not attentive he says:

You have neither heard his voice nor seen his form; and interpreting somehow, he adds:

Neither do you have his word abiding in you — which would have been the case, had they been hearing genuinely.

In this way too the blessed Job, wishing to prepare their hearing beforehand, said 'Hear';

for when you have thus been made ready, I am well pleased to speak — wishing them to become wise hearers;

for the ear of a wise hearer is the object of desire. Behold, I am near to my judgement.

Even now he lays down for them the beginning of instruction that teaches: that it is not on account of sin, but for the sake of a contest, that it has been decreed for him to suffer thus — so that he even knows the time at which the judgement will cease.

I know that I shall be shown to be righteous.

For who is there that shall enter into judgement with me, that I should now keep silence and pass away? He says this not out of boastfulness, but in order to teach them not to hold any conception concerning him other than the true one.

For sometimes a person speaks good things about himself, not having set out to do so, when another has disposed himself in a certain way against him.

Consider: if someone entrusted with a ministry of fulfilling the needs of the poor were slandered as though embezzling something, we would not blame him if, by way of apology, he said 'I furnished all that was mine to the needy,' though he had not said this beforehand.

In the same way, Job is in no wise to be blamed — not for self-love, but for the aforesaid reason he speaks these things, and speaks them with pure boldness:

Who is there that shall enter into judgement with me, that I should keep silence — meaning, be silent — and pass away? — meaning, that I should cease speaking.

Then I shall be hidden from your face;

Withhold your hand from me, and let not the fear of you strike me down.

The obscurity of the passage before us might be smoothed out in this way, as he says: if you deal with me as my friends say, showing me to be base, I shall be hidden from your face; but if it is as I say, then withhold your hand from me and let not the fear of you strike me down.

Now everyone who sins, doing things unworthy of God, is hidden from the face of God, even as Adam too was hidden from the face of God.

Opposed to this is being hidden away by God, according to what has been said:

You shall hide them in the secret place of your presence, from the troubling of men. And this too is salutary, God sheltering the diligent one, so that he may not fall away amid human turmoils.

And the secret place of the face of God would be the mystical contemplations, set in contrast to that which is manifest.

For to behold God from the works of providence and from the things created is not in the hidden place, but in the manifest.

wherefore that which is known of God is manifest in them;

for God made it manifest to them.

For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, are clearly seen. Therefore to be hidden away by God, as was said before, is salutary, but for one to hide oneself after the manner of Adam is unprofitable; and since this does not happen to Job — because he is not liable to sin — he says:

Withhold your hand from me, and what follows — so that these men may be instructed that it is not on account of sin that I suffer this.

For the friends thought nothing else than that he was suffering on account of sin.

Then you will call, and I will hearken to you;

or you will speak, and I will give you an answer in return.

Through many words he makes known his boldness toward God, so that in this he may lead them up to the true knowledge of the things befalling him.

For this too is an indication of his being righteous.

You have this same thing also concerning the hierophant Moses, who was counted worthy to speak with Him, in the words, 'Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice.'

But one must not suppose the answer that comes from God to be a mere voice, but rather divine energies, out of which he speaks boldly to God.

Again, it is for the sake of those men that he says such things, so that they may learn that he who has sins and lawless deeds is not hidden from God.

And he himself, though he had said, 'I know that I shall appear righteous' before his friends, yet before God he says reverently, 'Do you teach me how many are my sins.'

Similar to this is the saying, 'I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not hereby justified; but he who judges me is the Lord.'

It is a good thing also to learn one's faults, so that we may turn away from them.

'Why do you hide yourself from me, and count me as your adversary?' This too is spoken in view of their misconception.

For God, who dwelt within him, was not hidden from him; but it is because those men supposed this that these things too were said.

For these men think this—that you happen to be my adversary—supposing that I suffer on account of sins. 'Or as a leaf moved by the wind will you be wary, or do you set yourself against me as against grass carried along by the # wind?' The whole sense would be thus:

Why do you hide yourself from me, counting me to be your adversary, and a leaf moved by the wind, and grass carried along by the wind?—things which happen to be indicative of a fickle manner and of worthlessness, according to what is said by the Saviour concerning John:

'What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind?'—meaning someone contemptible and shifted about by any chance thing.

These things, as has been said before, Job speaks in view of the friends' misconception.

'For you have written down evils against me, and you have surrounded me with the sins of my youth.'

It is clear that he speaks in view of their supposition.

For by 'evils' he here means the afflictions.

For since the friends thought this, that he suffers on account of sins, he himself joined to 'you have written down evils against me' the phrase 'and you have surrounded me with the sins of my youth,' signifying that, from the way his friends, in running him down, are disposed to hold that he suffers on account of sins, it follows that they suppose the sins of his youth have now been laid upon him.

'You have set my foot in a hindrance.'

He does not say these things according to his own conviction, but in reference to the one who supposes that everyone who is afflicted undergoes this because he has sinned.

Smoothed out, it would be thus:

My power of walking, by which I make progress, which is otherwise supposed by them—as though I had sinned and therefore shared in calamities—you have set in a hindrance. For in a certain manner He himself brought this about by handing him over to the one who asked for him, whence it came about that his foot was set in a hindrance, being hindered among them, as has been said, on account of sins—since they were unwilling to interpret rightly the advancement of the righteous man, which is the foot.

That it is customary for Scripture to speak of things brought about by the will of the one who acts as though they were from God, because He has permitted them, will be clear to you from the words, 'God gave them up to passions of dishonour and to a reprobate mind and to the lusts of their hearts.'

But if it is also on account of the affliction of his whole body, no longer permitting him to attend in person to the needs either of those in want or of any others—as indeed he has said,

'My door was open to everyone who came'—he was saying this, consider it well, which he was not ignorant had come upon him for the sake of the contest.

For God does many such things for the sake of what is profitable, as one may learn from the things concerning His people, whom God led through the wilderness † . . . † for a useful purpose over three days, so that they might not suppose their return to Egypt to be a swift one.

But consider whether perhaps he says this also of the fellowship with the body, which is a burden and comes about by an unspeakable dispensation, inasmuch as the highest purity is not thereby brought to completion.

And this again arises from a certain cause.

For neither ourselves nor God is to be blamed.

'And you have kept watch over all my works.'

Grievous things, so that from this they might understand that the magnitude of so many afflictions brought upon him is not on account of sin, but on account of a contest and the aim of manly courage.

The word 'you have kept watch' here is not equivalent to 'you have preserved,' but to 'you have closely observed.'

But if he also speaks of the sins of his own youth, and the phrase 'and you have kept watch over all my works' gives the impression that he has sinned, one should not be startled.

For all the saints, both out of moderation and out of a right disposition of mind, utter such words, as did the men in the furnace and the blessed David, saying:

'Remember not the sins of my youth and my ignorances.' 'And you came to the roots of my feet.'

—meaning, you have scrutinized all that pertains to me as precisely as one examines the roots, that is, both the causes and the beginnings of my practical undertakings, so as to watch closely in order to bring punishment upon me.

But this again he says according to their supposition.

'Which grows old like a wineskin, or like a moth-eaten garment.'

'In their view,' he says, 'you have made remembrance, in accordance with these men, of my past sins, which have grown old like a wineskin.' Now a wineskin that has grown old is useless for the purpose for which it was made,

for it does not hold the liquids poured into it.

So too the sins of youth have grown old, and like a moth-eaten garment no longer serve any use.

But sins grow old whenever virtue succeeds them;

for what is being actively practised is always young; and even if he who practises it should be advanced in years, he too is called younger from the renewing character of his disposition.

'A mortal, born of woman, is short-lived and full of wrath.'

He wishes to set before them the cause of his own affliction, as they compare the weight of the calamity brought upon him with the span of human life;

for having gone through that 'you have surrounded me with the sins of my youth and have kept watch over all my works' so as to send upon me such great sufferings, he adds, as it were by way of indication that the matter is not so, the words 'A mortal, born of woman, is short-lived and full of wrath.'

For upon one who is short-lived and full of wrath because of the wretchedness of his life, He would not have brought so great a punishment, unless it had happened for the sake of a contest.

For if they had put together the goodness of God and the short life of men, they would no longer have reckoned that he had suffered these things as though on account of sin.

But consider whether it may also have such a meaning:

he who has not been born of God through virtue, but remains in the condition of a man—this one is in wrath and is short-lived, having in a certain manner set his hope on this life only.

But he who believes in the Saviour so as thereby to become a god is not thereby subject to wrath in the sense of punishment, even if he be afflicted, since affliction is otherwise called wrath.

He would therefore say: If I too had conducted my life merely after the manner of a man, consider it, so that from this you might declare that I have fallen under wrath.

'Or like a flower that has bloomed, he has fallen away; and he has fled like a shadow and shall not stand.'

These things must be joined to what precedes them.

That upon a man who passes away like a flower and a shadow He has brought so great an affliction—this cannot be, according to the present line of thought, on account of sins.

'For if you should mark iniquities, Lord, Lord, who shall stand? For with you there is propitiation.' So that it ought to have occurred to the friends that it was not on account of faults, but, as has been said before, on account of his having been set forth as an aim of manly courage, that these things befell him.

And these things indeed according to the first sense.

But according to the second, it might be put thus:

As a flower he falls away, he who walks according to the flesh, and he is like a shadow that resembles a mere accompaniment, doing nothing that has priority.

That the shadow is taken as standing for what has no substance is shown by the words, 'My days pass away like a shadow.'

'Have you not also taken account of him, and made him to enter into judgement before you?' In agreement with the former interpretation one might say that these things are so, joining them thus:

that he enters before you. A proof of this would be what is said by God:

'My people, what have I done to you?' And again, 'Behold, I am judged before you.'

God, then, who introduces such care for men, would not so inexorably and unrelentingly have demanded penalties from man, as the friends supposed him to be paying.

These things he adds to establish that he does not suffer otherwise than for the sake of appearing righteous, according to the words, 'Do you think that I have dealt with you for any other reason than that you might be shown to be righteous? For who is clean from defilement? Not even one, even if his life on earth be but a single day; and his months are numbered by you.'

And these things he joined, so that they might understand that he does not suffer on account of sins.

For if this were so, no one would be free from calamity, even if he lived but for a short time.

But these things, so that the friends might be instructed as to the cause:

for he said this as though an objection were about to be raised against what he had said, someone objecting and saying that, even if you are short-lived and passing away like a shadow and falling like a flower, nothing prevents you from suffering on account of sins.

To which he most aptly replied:

'For who is clean from defilement?' But no one; so that all, as has already been said, would have had to suffer.

One might say that 'defilement' and 'sin' signify the same thing, though another would call defilement something less than sin.

You have concerning defilement and sin in Isaiah the following words:

The Lord shall wash away the defilement of the sons and daughters of Sion, and shall purge the blood from among them — here the blood signifies sin, the uncleanness, while the defilement signifies the involuntary offences, which the Saviour, when He came to dwell among us, cleansed by His very presence.

That blood often signifies sin is shown by what was said to the devil, the author of all evil:

As a garment defiled with blood shall not be clean, so neither shalt thou be clean. For he was not literally defiled with blood, but it is plain that the blood signifies for him the sin unto death.

He, then, who has a fault that can be washed away has defilement; but he who is, as it were, impenitent — like the one who has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit and the like — is not under defilement but under sin; so also is the one who transgresses the commandments knowingly.

The phrase 'not even if his life upon the earth be a single day' may be approached in two ways.

There is the one now being born who by succession inherits the sin of Adam, and there is the one who is beginning to judge matters by reason, when he is also completing the rational faculty of man.

Not even such a one will be clean for a single day, since ignorance accompanies him who is even now beginning to discern what is to be shunned from the good — whether he live but a day or a countable number of months.

The wicked man, then, being blotted out of the book of the living, is not counted among the number before God; but the earnest man is reckoned with Him.

'Even if you should suppose such a one,' he says, 'not even he is free from defilement.' To this is like the saying: I know nothing against myself, yet am I not thereby justified; and: Cleanse me from my hidden faults.