約伯記註釋 第 1 章 第 4/19 段

who overturns the counsels of the crafty, so that their hands shall by no means accomplish anything true;

'who overturns the counsels of those who do not accomplish what is true' — that is, who does not allow matters to turn out according to the intention of the crafty, but easily, whenever he wills, overthrows the wicked devices of such men.

By 'hands' he means their deeds.

who catches the wise in their own prudence, and has thrown into confusion the counsels of the crooked;

He who convicts them, who shows the wisdom that is among men to be foolishness.

By 'the devious' he means the crooked, whom those who speak with precision call 'men of twisted mind.'

The word 'he has thrown into confusion' stands for:

'he nullified them, he caused them to miss their aim.'

By day darkness shall meet them, and at noon they shall grope as in the night, and let them perish in war;

By 'day' and 'noon' he alludes to prosperity, meaning that in the very midst of abundance and at the height of their success, the unjust — who count themselves wise and crafty — will undergo an unforeseen reversal of their prosperity;

for by 'darkness' and 'night' he means adversity.

And it also befalls these men to suffer slaughter at the hands of enemies.

But may the powerless escape from the hand of the mighty;

and may there be hope for the powerless, and may the mouth of the unjust be stopped.

'The one who is humble before God,' he says, 'and clothed with no power of his own, yet having hope in God, will escape the malicious assault of the powerful.'

And the mouth of the boastful, the unjust, and the arrogant is stopped up, that is:

their haughty strength is pulled down.

Blessed is the man whom the Lord has reproved;

and do not refuse the admonition of the Almighty;

for he himself causes pain, and again he restores;

he has struck, and his hands have healed.

He calls 'blessedness' the discipline that leads to moral correction.

And he also exhorts Job, as one being disciplined on account of sins, not to be vexed, but to entreat God, who both inflicted the blow and is able to bring about the healing.

By 'the hands of God' he means his active powers.

Six times he will deliver you out of distresses, and in the seventh no evil shall touch you.

In famine he will deliver you from death, and in war he will free you from the hand of the sword.

He will hide you from the scourge of the tongue, and you shall not fear the evils that come.

By 'six times' he means 'many times.'

Then he mentions the hardships that are likely to occur.

'After the trial of these things,' he says, 'if you show yourself grateful, then in the seventh instance — that is, after the many trials — God finally no longer allows you to suffer.'

By 'the hand of the sword' he means the effective power of the sword, that is:

'he will not allow you to fall in war.'

'Moreover, he will hide you also from a wicked tongue that knows how to slander;'

'and for the rest of your life you will remain without fear.'

You will laugh at the unjust and the lawless, and you will not fear the wild beasts;

for the wild beasts shall be at peace with you.

Then you will know that your house shall be at peace, and the dwelling of your tent shall not fail.

'Having come to know,' he says, 'the power of piety and of taking refuge in God, you will laugh broadly at the unjust, and you will have no fear of men who are like wild beasts.'

For indeed, these men too, being put to shame before your piety toward God, will no longer choose to make war against you.

And then you will learn by experience that your house will be at peace, and the whole conduct of your life shall not fail — that is:

'it shall not fall outside of good hopes.'

And you will know that your seed shall be many, and your children shall be like the abundant grass of the field.

'Moreover, you will also have many children, and be the father of comely children;'

'for your children shall be like the abundant grass of the field' — that is:

'like a field blooming with every kind of plant.'

And you shall come to the grave like ripe grain reaped in its season, or like a heap on the threshing floor gathered in at its proper time.

Moreover, full of days, like grain fully ripened and grown fit for the cutting, you shall end your life in a good old age; or like a heap on the threshing floor gathered at its proper time into the storehouses.

Observe that, among the ancients, an abundance of children and length of years were reckoned to be marks proper to happiness.

He said 'a heap of the threshing-floor,' meaning that, abounding in all good things, you will depart this life.

Behold, these things we have thus traced out; these are what we have heard.

But you, know for yourself whether you have done anything amiss.

We, then, have carefully observed that these things are so; but you, consider for what transgressions you are paying the penalty and enduring these things.

For if someone were to set my wrath in a balance and weigh it, and take up my pains together with it in the scale, they would indeed be heavier than the sand of the seashore.

Preliminary survey of the chapter. Since Eliphaz exhorted the righteous man to repentance, on the view that he was being punished for sin, his counsel came to nothing for him.

For he could not persuade one who was conscious of no wrongdoing in himself that he was a sinner, so that the righteous man was even moved to contradiction.

And he makes his defense concerning the very fact that he speaks at all, and does not display his fortitude through silence, but by means of natural examples he demonstrates the reasonableness of his own words.

And he calls God holy, and says that he has placed his hope in him; and he makes public the hidden cause of his despondency, saying that he fears God has utterly abandoned him.

Then he recounts his own misfortunes and exhorts men not to trust in wealth and power.

And he reproaches his friends for making his griefs more burdensome to him through their words.

And he exhorts them to fear, looking at what befalls their neighbor.

And he teaches all men a most excellent lesson, that man's life upon earth is a trial.

And again he laments in tragic terms his own misfortunes, and entreats God to remember him and visit him.

And again he defends his own words, and puts forward the nothingness of man as a plea for supplication, and asks God to grant him amnesty, if he has in any way transgressed.

The text. But Job answered and said:

For if someone would indeed set my wrath in the balance, and take up my pains together with it in the scale,

they would indeed be heavier than the sand of the seashore.

For Eliphaz had said: 'If you have admonished many, and have strengthened weak hands, and have raised up the failing with words, and put courage into feeble knees - yet now trouble has come upon you, and it has touched you.' But you, Job, as though someone had accused you of lacking philosophy and being unable to console yourself, hastened to show that your calamity is beyond consolation, saying: 'Would that it were possible for the wrath brought upon me by God, and the trial and the pains, both of soul and of body, to be weighed together in the balance, so that it might be shown that what oppresses me and drives me to despair is heavier even than the sand of the sea.'

But, as it seems, my words are worthless.

Whenever I begin to speak, they sting me.

'But you disparage my words,' he says, being at ease yourselves and not considering that the punishments brought by God upon my body - for he calls the punishments 'arrows' - with a certain violence drain my blood and consume my strength, not even allowing me to speak without pain, but wounding me at every moment.

For what? Does the wild ass bray in vain, and not rather because it seeks food? Or will the ox low when it has fodder at its manger? Will bread be eaten without salt? Or is there any savor in empty words? He too, using natural examples, shows the reasonableness of his own words, and that he was right not to be persuaded by Eliphaz's exhortation, but instead was moved to contradiction.

'For,' he says, 'just as the wild ass does not bray in vain, but only when it lacks food, nor does the ox low at the manger unless the fodder fails, so neither would I have despaired, had I not been driven to the extremity of evils.'

How shall I be persuaded by your exhortation, which has neither reasonableness nor is fitted for consolation? For just as bread without salt is not edible, so also words that are empty and lack persuasiveness or reasonableness cannot persuade those who hear them.

For by 'taste' he means persuasiveness, continuing the metaphor of bread.

For this reason the Apostle also said:

'Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt' - as it were sweet and pleasant to the taste, at once bracing and delighting those who hear it.

But Symmachus has rendered it thus:

'The hungry wild ass does not groan when grass is present.'

And he stated the natural fact more clearly, that an animal does not seek food when food is present.

For my soul cannot be still.

For I see my food as though it were the stench of a lion.

And how can I console myself, seeing even my food as full of disgust and foul odor? And this necessarily happens to those who are gravely ill and have lost their appetite.

For would that he would grant it, and my petition would come to pass, and the Lord would give me my hope!

Let the Lord begin and wound me, but let him not utterly take me away.

Let us first see what Job's hope was, so that we may also thoroughly examine the present words.

We recall, then, how his wife spoke to him:

'How long will you hold out, saying:'

'Behold, I wait yet a little longer, looking for the hope of my salvation'?

Since it has thus become evident that he was hoping to obtain salvation from God, it is clear that he now also prays for this, and says:

'Let the Lord correct me, but in judgment and not in wrath.'

just as David also said:

'O Lord, rebuke me not in your wrath, nor chasten me in your anger' - for he was not refusing correction itself, but that which comes with wrath. This, then, is what he also says here:

Even if he has wounded me, let him not prolong my torments for long.

For this is indeed the hope that I hold.

'And let my city be my grave, upon whose walls I used to leap.'

According to the literal sense, he seems to say that it would be better for me to die and have the grave as my dwelling instead of the city in which, being illustrious, I once lived in prosperity.

But according to the deeper sense, since he was awaiting the hope of salvation, he says:

'May it be granted that, having received back my hope, I die within the excellent citizenship and righteousness, fenced about by God as before.'

For this is what is meant by 'upon whose walls I used to leap.'

Whether, then, through death or through health, he prays for release from his afflictions.

But he uttered nothing offensive nor blasphemous.

'For I have not lied concerning the words of my holy God.'

'Therefore,' he says, 'I will not refrain from disputing with you.'

'For I cannot endure to hold one thing in my mind and utter words contrary to my judgment; rather, I speak with truth what I think.'

For this disposition of his, and his truthful frankness, Scripture, praising him, says:

'And that man was true, blameless.'

Observe his kinship with Abraham; behold in him a successor of Isaac and Jacob, not only according to the flesh, but also according to piety.

'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'

And what does this genuine offspring of theirs say? 'For I have not lied concerning the words of my holy God.'

Do you see what love he has for God, how he claims as his own the God who is over all? Praise also his truthfulness in everything.

And consider with how much love for God he uttered these words.

'For what is my strength, that I should endure? Or what is my span of time, that my soul should bear up? Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of bronze? Did I not trust in him? Yet help is far from me.'

'Mercy has forsaken me, and the visitation of the Lord has disregarded me.'

'For am I then without feeling, or made of stone, or of bronze?' he says.

'Do I not wear the flesh of a man? Am I not short-lived?' Let no one, therefore, find fault with one who suffers and asks for release from present afflictions.

And such are the matters concerning the body.

'But what grieves my soul most is to conjecture from present circumstances that the God whom I long for, on whom I have hung all the hope of my life' - for 'I had trusted' stands here for 'I trust,' the tenses being constantly interchanged throughout the whole book - 'has abandoned me and stripped me of his own visitation and compassion.'

For these reasons especially the righteous man was despondent.

And let each one of those wounded by divine love consider how much pain it causes a rational soul to suspect that it has been abandoned by the God it longs for.

For if those wounded by love of a woman, should they happen to be scorned, consider life unlivable and are struck with unbearable griefs, what would a soul suffer that has been wounded by love for God and thinks it has endured abandonment? Then he adduces the things that had happened to him, from which he suspected that he had been overlooked by God:

My nearest kin did not look upon me;

like a torrent running dry, or like a wave, they passed me by.

those who used to revere me have now fallen upon me like snow, or like frozen ice;

just as, once melted by the coming of heat, that which it was is no longer recognized, so I too have been abandoned by all, and I have perished and become without a home.

Ice is snow that is hard to dissolve, upon which one can even walk.

For just as, he says, a torrent running dry, or a wave that has passed by, or snow or ice dissolved by the heat of the sun, leave behind not even a trace, in the same way, I think, they have reckoned me as though I did not even exist — and this by those who, on account of kinship, ought to have shown me sympathy.

But there is also another thing, still more grievous:

for those who formerly revered me now trample upon my misfortunes.

And 'I have become without a home' is used instead of saying:

the great David also said similar things, lamenting:

I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I have become like a vessel that is broken.

Behold the ways of the Themanites, and the paths of the Sabeans, you who look closely:

and shame shall be owed by those who trust in cities and riches.

Another of the translators has rendered it thus:

'They look toward the ways of Theman; they await for themselves the journeys of Saba.'

Therefore, from the change that has happened in his own case, he admonishes those who think great things of themselves on account of wealth and power, that they should not place their hope in the uncertainty of these things.

For those, he says, who pay attention to the ways of Theman and the paths of the Ethiopians (for the Sabeans are the Ethiopians), that is:

those who expect gains from trade with them: do not trust in riches;

for those who set their hope on these things shall owe shame.

Or it is also possible to understand it otherwise, as pointing to regions that once showed themselves prosperous but are now desolate and lie in ruins, and he says that:

look upon these things, and do not trust in the uncertainty of riches.

Whether it be this or that interpretation, he exhorts that one should not trust in riches or in power.

But indeed you too have trampled upon me mercilessly, so that, seeing my wound, you were afraid.

But granted, he says, that those others overlooked me:

why is it that you too, my friends, have used such bitter words against me? Then follows the excellent counsel of one who is both a lover of wisdom and a lover of God: that each person, when attending to the misfortunes of others, ought to become more cautious and full of apprehension for himself.

...to deliver me from the hand of enemies, or from the hand of the mighty? And yet, he says, in no way have I been burdensome to you; I asked no money from you, nor any assistance;

so why have you attacked me so violently and so pitilessly? And he makes his speech general, directing it against the words spoken by Eliphaz:

Teach me, and I will hold my peace;

if I have erred in anything, tell me.

But it seems that the words of a truthful man are held to be worthless.

But behold, he says, I am silent:

teach me if I am asking for death in error and mistakenly.

Are not my misfortunes grievous and unbearable? Is it not desirable to be rid of these pains? But it seems you have suffered the same thing as the majority — for truth is always burdensome to the majority, and for this reason you disparage the words of my truth.

For I am not asking strength from you;

nor will your reproof silence me with words, for I will not even endure the sound of your speech.

except that you fall upon an orphan, and you leap upon your friend.

But do not even condescend to me, he says, nor speak pleasing words as though wishing to strengthen me;

but refute me with frankness.

For I do not fear your refutations, but I hope to prevail, answering back against every single word.

But this I know, that you thus assail me with bitter reproaches, taking into account neither my misfortune nor our friendship, as though I had truly been bereft of God's help.

But now, looking into your face, I will not lie.

Sit down now, and let there be no injustice, and once more come together with what is just.

For there is no injustice on my tongue;

or does not my throat meditate on understanding? I will speak with frankness, and, in no way blushing before you nor preferring you to the truth, I ask you yourselves to sit as judges for me and to render just verdicts.

For I trust that I will say nothing unjust, nor put forth foolish or nonsensical words.

He says these things, provoking them to an examination of the matter.

Is not the life of man upon earth a trial, and his life like that of a day-laborer hired for a single day, or like a servant fearing his master and having obtained only a shadow of rest, or like a hired worker awaiting his wage?

As though he had already seated them as judges, he begins to plead in defense of his own words and to show that he is not worthy of blame for longing to depart from this life.

From these two causes he establishes his desire as reasonable: first, that in general this precarious life is full of dangers; and then, that besides the general and common fears and anxieties, he himself has been exceptionally surrounded by irremediable misfortunes.

For now he sets forth the general wretchedness of life, and says:

Does it not seem to you that the life of all men is filled with trials and adverse circumstances? And that every man resembles a day-laborer hired for a single day, who toils the whole day in order to gain some small thing, or a servant who fears his own master and scarcely ever obtains a little rest, or simply a hired worker, even if not one hired by the day, who after many labors receives some wage? He said these things to show that our life is filled with trials and fears,

and even if someone seems to fare well, having obtained some small enjoyment, he spends the whole rest of his time in toils.

Having shown that life is generally wretched, he moves on to the things that have happened to him personally, and says:

So I too have endured empty months, and nights of pains have been allotted to me.

'When will it be day?' And as soon as I rise again:

'When will it be evening?' And I am filled with pains from evening until morning.

My body is smeared with the rottenness of worms, and I dissolve clods of earth as I scrape off the discharge.

But my life is swifter than a runner, and it has perished in empty hope.

So I too, then, have become one of those who drag out this grievous life, and I have already been tried in miseries for a long time;

for this is what 'empty months' signifies.

But if you wish to learn what has happened to me personally, it is this:

when night comes upon me again, I am tried by the very same sufferings, until the next day.

And would that the matter had stopped at mere pains;

but worms are born from me, and they consume my very body, and I discharge such acrid pus that, if I run short of a potsherd and then wish to receive it with a clod of earth, they melt the very clods by the intensity of their acridity.

Why then do I endure these things? Do I, hoping to live a long life, expect some change? But even this life, however long it may be, is short, and passes by more swiftly than the swiftest runner hastening toward the finish line.

And already much time has passed, with no good hope having appeared at all.

Having thus constructed his argument, he has left us to understand that he did not desire death mistakenly, since he was not deemed worthy of obtaining even a little rest.

Then, leaving aside his discourse with his friends, he turns for a while to prayer, and says:

Remember, then, that my life is a breath, and my eye shall no more return to see good.

David too prayed in like manner, saying:

'Spare me, that I may find relief, before I depart and exist no more.'

Now 'my spirit is my life' means:

and as for 'my eye shall no more return to see good,' it is because no one can ever recover what has passed away.

He says this not out of ignorance of the mystery of the resurrection, as we shall show further on, but because whoever has once died can no longer return to this present life, even though some have been raised by a certain mystery.

'The eye of him who sees me shall not look upon me again; your eyes are upon me, and I am no more, like a cloud dispersed from the sky.'

'For if a man goes down to Hades, he shall never come up again, nor shall he ever return to his own house, nor shall his place know him any more.'

And thus, he says, the end of life is a swift thing indeed, for those who see me today will not necessarily see me tomorrow.

For as soon as you will it, I perish—this is what 'your eyes are upon me' means—and I am like a cloud that has dissolved and lost its own substance.

For whoever has once died shall not return to his own house, nor shall he be recognized doing his accustomed deeds;

for this is what 'nor shall his place know him any more' means.

'Therefore I too will not restrain my mouth; I will speak, being in the anguish of my spirit; I will open my mouth in the bitterness of my soul, being hard pressed.'

Therefore, he says, I will not keep silence, but I will pray and make supplication, being hard pressed.

He puts forward his present distresses, his soul embittered, and the meanness of his nature as grounds for supplication.

'Am I a sea, or a sea-monster, that you have set a guard over me?' Consider, he says, O Master, that I am not something great and extraordinary among your creatures, such as the sea or a whale, but something cheap and small, and I am worn out, hemmed in by so many misfortunes.

As you have enclosed the sea, he says, and the sea-monsters within it by bounds which they do not overstep, so you have hedged me about with misfortunes, from which I find no way of escape.

Then, calling God to compassion, he adds:

'My bed shall comfort me, and I shall commune with myself alone upon my couch;'

'you frighten me with dreams, and terrify me with visions.'

For at the very time of rest, when I hope to converse a little with my own thoughts, to obtain sleep, and to rest, terrifying dreams beset me.

This happens naturally, above all, to those who are tried during the day, as the wise Ecclesiastes also somewhere said:

'For a dream comes with a multitude of trials.'

It is also likely that the devil, showing him certain fearful apparitions, terrified and troubled him in his sleep.

But this blessed man, not yet having been fully assured that he had been demanded by the devil, supposes that it is God who brings upon him both these things and his torments.

'You will free my soul from my breath, and my bones from death.'

'For I shall not live for ever, that I should bear patiently.'

I beseech you, therefore, take my soul and free me from pain through death;

and afterward let me live the remaining time in rest.

I ask nothing, therefore, contrary to your own decree, O Master; you fashioned me mortal, and not immortal;

Moses too made a similar supplication, saying:

'If you are going to deal with me thus, kill me outright.'

'Depart from me, for my life is vanity.'

'My life is vanity' means:

'I am failing, I no longer have strength.'

David too prayed in like manner:

'Remove your scourges from me, for I have failed because of the strength of your hand.'

'For what is man, that you have magnified him, or that you give heed to him, or that you should visit him until morning, and judge him unto rest?' He puts forward the meanness of human nature and God's providential care for him as grounds for supplication.

'For what,' he says, 'is man, in his own nature? Nothing.'

But you, out of the abundance of your love for mankind, have magnified him to such a degree that you deign to give heed to him and diligently oversee his affairs every day;

for this is what 'morning' signifies.

Yet since it is your judgment and decree to bring him to rest—that is, to prepare us for death—do not prolong my pains.

'How long will you not let me be, nor let me go, until I swallow down my spittle in pain? If I have sinned, what can I do to you?' He says this not out of despair, but beseeching to learn how long his pains will be prolonged—whether even to the point where he could not so much as spit or utter a sound. David spoke similarly:

'How long, O God, will you be angry to the end? Your wrath will burn like fire. Remember what my substance is.'

For he too spoke not in complaint but in supplication, putting forward the weakness of human nature as grounds for his plea.

Then, seeking to appease God still more, he says:

'If I have sinned, what can I do to you?' meaning:

'Even if I have sinned, what can I do to you?'—for indeed my sin does not even reach up to you.

What else can I do but flee for refuge to your compassion? 'You who know the mind of men, why have you made me your accuser, and I am a burden upon you?'

But you also know, he says, O Master, since you enter into men's thoughts, how many people, again and again, seeing me, your servant, enduring these things and being overlooked, blaspheme your name;

and in a certain manner I have become a burden to you, being the occasion of weighty words and of blasphemy.

By 'accuser,' then, he means one who is the occasion of outcry.

'And why have you not granted forgetfulness of my iniquity, and a cleansing of my sin?' And these words too are full of supplication.

For the phrase 'why,' as has often been shown, is used in a suppliant sense, or else expresses the desire to learn the reason for his trials.

'Are you not,' he says, 'loving toward mankind, able to forgive sins and, through the abundance of your compassion, to show the sinner clean? Why should not I too enjoy your goodness?' 'For now I shall go down to the earth, and I shall be no more found early in the morning.'

And he wove the brevity of life into his supplication, calling upon God to pity him from every side.

The phrase 'I shall be no more found early in the morning' suggests the following meaning:

For death, he says, is not like sleep;

for after sleep, men rise early in the morning and are again found in life, but he who has died looks for no morning, nor for any converse with men.

Job said these things, not being conscious of any sin in himself, but speaking by way of concession, as if to say:

'Even if I have sinned, I too, along with all others, ought to enjoy God's love for mankind.'

Thus it has been shown throughout that Job's disposition was pious, devoted to God, just, and blameless, even though he expressed his words in a somewhat obscure manner.

Then Baldad the Sauchite, taking up the discourse, says:

'How long will you speak these things? A spirit of many words is in your mouth.'

Preview of the chapter. Setting himself up in opposition to what Job has just said, Baldad reproaches him as talkative, but he too has rolled into the same arguments as Eliphaz, supposing that afflictions necessarily follow upon sins.

But since he knew that an objection would arise against him—namely, even if Job had sinned, why were his children punished?—he anticipates this and says that they too suffered on account of sins;

and he exhorts the righteous man to entreat God, while he tries, by natural examples, to persuade him that punishments always come upon men because of sin.

But he too has fallen into the same error as Eliphaz, having likewise taken upon himself, so he supposes, the advocacy of God's cause.