II. ONE BOOK OF ANNOTATIONS ON JOB. "And his works were great upon the earth": because he was occupied with these works themselves. "They made a feast daily": until their number was fulfilled; it is a sign of love. "And he offered sacrifices for them according to their number": it is to be understood that some are particular confessions, as it were single victims, and another is the sacrifice for all and for all sins, which signifies the Lord. "Lest perchance my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." It is well added "perchance," because he suspected that they had cursed in their heart. "And behold, the angels of God came to stand before God":
the disposition of the soul toward the truth could not otherwise be narrated, unless it were spoken of in some way temporally and locally. "And the devil indeed came with them": is it said "with them" because he could only hear by means of them? "And the Lord said to the devil: Whence comest thou?" The comparison of past action with that from which something is thenceforth permitted to be done is a response to the question; but the question itself is the divine power, in which it is not permitted to do what one pleases—for "in the thoughts of the ungodly there shall be questioning"—for the purpose of making him manifest to us. "But put forth Your hand and touch all that he has": grant the power. "Unless he bless You to Your face": a suspended utterance, that is:
if he does not bless You to Your face when his goods have been touched—as though it were understood: what do You command? "And the devil departed from the face of the Lord": from consultation to action. "And enemies came and took them." According to that saying: "he who now works in the children of unbelief" also stirred up these. It is to be noted, however, how he had power over men and over the elements, yet a power given by God. "Naked I came out of my mother's womb": it is to be noted how consolingly he speaks, although according to custom he made mourning. "Behold, I deliver him to you: only preserve his soul": lest he presume that he could snatch away his life. "And he took for himself a potsherd, to scrape off the matter": through the Lord's passion he signifies the scraping away of the sins of those who confess. "And the night in which they said:"
a man is conceived: some higher powers which were able to know this. "Let that night be darkness": let it not suffer the things which it has suffered, that is, let it be darkness, that is, let it be given over to oblivion. "Nor let the Lord seek it from above": let it not be restored through immortality, that is, let mortality perish. "Nor let light come into it": the light of memory. "But let darkness and the shadow of death seize it": this life which is the shadow of the future punishment, so that the sense is: let the just man, who is light, not see it, but let darkness see it—that is, sinners and carnal tribulations belonging to this life. "And let it be troubled as with the bitternesses of the day": the precepts of the good life, or the day of judgment, by which carnal men are disturbed. "And let perpetual darkness seize that night."
"Let it not be in the days of the year": of the just spiritual ones who enjoy the sun and are greater. "But let that night be sorrow": because it causes sorrow to those who love it. "Nor let it be numbered in the days of the months": the just in the Church, on account of the moon as it were the lesser, to whom it is said: "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual ones," so that Paul himself belongs to the days of the year. "But let him that curses the day curse that night": the Lord, who will curse those who love carnal things. "Let the stars of that night grow dark": those eminent in sins. "Let it remain and not come into the light": because they will not be converted, he says by way of prophecy. "Because it did not close the doors of my mother's womb": the earthly city, which Babylon signifies;
for the doors would be closed, if the sinner were not praised in the desires of his soul. "For why did I not die in the womb?" before I rose up to You by any action; for conception belongs to hope. "I came out of the womb and did not perish at once?" The figure of this man, then, is to be understood in these words—of one who had grown old in such concupiscences. "And why did the knees support me?" that I might there be confirmed. "Why did I suck the breasts?" the teachings that nourish unto wickedness. "For now indeed sleeping I should be at rest": by dying to this world. "With the honored kings of the earth": in the Church. "Who gloried in swords": whence is: "and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." "Or with princes, who had much gold": wisdom.
"Who filled their houses with silver": with the eloquence of the Lord. "Or like an abortion slipping out of the mother's vulva": that it might never rise to eminence. "Or like infants who did not see the light": they did not attain to any nobility. "There the ungodly laid aside their fury": in death, away from this world. "There they rested, wearied in body": either wearied in body, not in mind, or having attained the end of bodily things. "They did not hear the voice of the exactor": "the judge will deliver you to the exactor"—thence it is; that is: that their sins were forgiven them; for he was speaking of the ungodly. "The small and the great are there": I think it is well understood, said of one, according to that saying that "he who humbles himself shall be exalted." "And the servant not fearing his lord": either according to that: "would you not fear the power?"
do good—or according to that: "perfect love casts out fear." "For why is light given to those who are in bitterness?" the honor of sinners. "And life to the souls that are in sorrows?" in the matter of sorrows, that is: in sins. "Who desire death and it does not come to them?" the obtaining of the fruit of sin. "Death is rest to the man whose way is hidden": either because before God, or because known to few. But this is to be received of that death now, by which we die to the world; for in that other death there is no rest. "For God has shut him in": by not giving him over to the desires of his heart. "For before my meals my groaning comes": that before the joy of God's foods, tribulations should go before. "And I weep, constrained by fear":
seeing that I cannot avoid the things I feared. "For the fear which I dreaded has come upon me": the adversities which come from the mercy of God for correction. "Neither in peace nor in silence nor in rest": for the things on account of which he was afraid were false. "For wrath has come upon me": the vengeance according to which the just man is scarcely saved. The words of Eliphaz: "But who will endure the weight of your words?" Here, then, he says that he is compelled to speak, because he cannot endure his sayings. "Is not your fear foolish?" for you ought to have been prepared for these things, if you were truly persuading others. "Nor did you fear such things well, when you said: the fear which I dreaded has come upon me." "And your hope and the simplicity of your life": as it were a folly, by which these things are thought to be good.
"The roaring of the lion and the voice of the lioness": the devil himself and the city of pride, which is often by the prophets set forth even in the manner of a beast. "And the joy of the dragons has been extinguished": of the proud and the treacherous. "The myrmicoleon perishes because it had no food": because at the last there will not be those whom by enticing it may devour; for the godly will be separated from the ungodly. But here he errs, in that the things which he had heard prophesied of the devil he understood of Job.
The myrmicoleon (ant-lion), however, is to be taken either because both are in it, since it both seizes and secretly persecutes the grain, which it causes not to germinate by removing the eye; or because it lords it over the greedy and those who lay up treasure on earth; or because it persecutes the just as ants that prepare for themselves food in summer for winter, on which it will not feed, when the good have been separated from the ungodly. "And the whelps of the lions have been divided from one another": the conspiracy of the princes of that city has been scattered, those born of that society—the city and the devil—or because they laid waste one another. Thence is: "nation shall rise against nation." "None of these things would have happened to you": either those losses and bereavement and the stroke of the wound;
or grief of mind would not pierce you, because you too would console yourself, if you had spoken to others from the heart: "does not my ear receive magnificent things from him?" because he says that the things he speaks he speaks from revelation. "And a spirit met me in the face": as though he wishes it to be understood that he felt a breath; for he denies in what follows that there was any figure. It is to be remembered that the Spirit likewise descended upon the apostles. "What then? Shall a man be clean before the Lord?" Either he says that he heard these things, or he says that he shuddered for this reason, that no one is clean before the Lord. Or he so saw for this reason, that no one is so clean before God as to see God as He is.
Now "clean" is to be taken according to perfection, so that what he above denies—that a clean man perishes—we may understand in a certain manner. "If He does not trust against His own servants." This happens when Elijah said: "Lord, they have killed Your prophets," and He says to him: "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men." For those seven thousand men were not on that account already clean. For the prophets too are called angels. "And against His angels He has found something perverse": either what is said against them, or what they themselves say. Yet this can also be received of the true angels. "But those dwelling in houses of clay": whose conversation is not in the heavens. "He struck them as a moth." Either some corruption struck them as a moth, or God struck them:
either by this moth or as a moth strikes, that is: secretly from within by a corruption arising from themselves through carnal concupiscences, that is, by dwelling in houses of clay. "And from morning to evening they are no more": either they are no more beyond this age, or from prosperous things even to tribulation; for they have incurred punishment. "And because they could not help themselves, they perished": while they have hope in themselves. "They died, because they had no wisdom": namely, of not hoping in themselves. "But call, if anyone will answer you": for those are answered who are clean before God. "For indeed wrath slays the foolish":
the indignation by which anyone is vexed, as though something had unjustly befallen him, while he does not consider that he is so unclean before God that the angels have not deigned to answer one calling or to show themselves. For he who does not consider this is foolish and is slain by an irrational wrath. Or for this reason the foolish man cannot hear or see the angels, because he is slain by wrath and killed by zeal. "And zeal slays the one who errs": unto the imitation of sinners. "But I have seen the foolish casting forth a root": the foolish are now to be taken as the ungodly, so that on the contrary the wisdom of man is piety, as it is said in what follows. "And let them be crushed at the gates of the weak": of the humble, when they have been received into the chamber by the bridegroom and the foolish have remained outside.
"For the things which they gathered, the just shall eat": it can be understood both of the Jews who gathered the prophecies, which rather the Gentiles ate, and of those who, while doing, eat the things which others command and do not do. "But they themselves shall not be delivered from evils": although they preach that they are not to be done. "Let their strength be drained": by which they are proud against the weak; let it be drained, however, so that it may already begin to labor. "For toil shall not come forth from the earth": that is, let them not complain of the creation but of themselves. "But man is born unto toil": it is said "is born" according to that whereby each one is turned from a quiet into a toilsome life. "But the young of the vulture fly very high":
the vulture is well understood as the Lord, because by the height of prophecy He saw our mortality, by descending to which He might be fed, turning us into His own body. "The young of the vulture," then, are called the sons of the bridegroom, but flying very high, having their conversation in the heavens, that they may be freed from the toil into which man is born. For they have followed the voice of Him who says: "Come to Me, all you who labor." The "young of the vulture" can also be understood in an evil sense, as the aerial powers, which are fed on deaths, that is, on sins. Since these prevaricating angels were not brought down to the most toilsome humility of mortality into which man is born, they are exceedingly proud, that is, they fly very high. "Who gives rain upon the face of the earth":
as though He shows mercy to those confessing. "That their hands may not do truth": let them not do what they promise, gaping to lord it over the weak. "In the day darkness shall meet them": as the Jews who did not know who the Lord was. "Or as in the night they shall grope at noonday": just as, seeing the signs, they nevertheless doubted, saying: "He is a prophet," others: "He deceives the people," when they would not see even by a lamp. "And let them perish in war": in temptations. "And let the weak go forth from the hand of the mighty": of the devil. "But let there be hope for the weak": for those strong ones seek the thing here. "But blessed is the man whom the Lord reproves."
For in this he errs, that Job seems to himself to suffer these things for his iniquities, whereas he is blessed for this reason, that in this life, when he is reproved, he has the possibility of being corrected. "And in the seventh evil shall not touch you": the sacrament of the Sabbath. "In famine He will free you from death": for by His word He nourishes and makes firm against temptations. "But in battle He will loose you from the hand of the iron": from the power of bonds. "He will hide you from the scourge of the tongue": that you may not feel insults, not that you may not suffer them. "You shall deride the unjust and the wicked": as wisdom will laugh over the destruction of the wicked. "And you shall not fear the raging beasts": that is, you shall not fear the Jews, because the Gentiles will obey you; but these things are to be received of the Lord.
Eliphaz here errs, because he thinks that the things revealed to him are to be understood of Job, whereas the whole belongs to the Lord. "For you shall have a covenant with the stones of the field": the stones of the field, because among the Gentiles there was no ordering of the law, so that they were as it were stones from a building. "For the wild beasts shall be at peace with you": whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles. "Then you shall know that your house shall be in peace": that is, the Church. "And your sons shall be like all the grass in the field": without dryness. "And you shall come to the grave like ripe grain": unto the passion. "Behold, thus have we searched these things out": here the authority of this prophecy is confirmed. "But know for yourself what you have done"; for God did not unjustly permit these things to befall you. The words of Job.
But, as it appears, my words are evil; for the words of Job are not from impatience under the scourges, since they signify grief, not Job's own peculiar grief, but that which he had concerning the whole human race. "For the arrows of the Lord are in my body": the words of God, by which the soul is pierced through, when it is compelled to confession. "Whose fury drinks my blood"; for they take away sin. "For when I begin to speak, they goad me": for what I speak, they compel. "What then? Shall the wild ass bray in vain, unless seeking food?" that thence it may suffer hunger, because it wished to be free. "Or does the ox low, when it has fodder in the manger?" For the ass, fodder is prepared by the labor of the ox, as for the Gentiles by the labor of the prophets and apostles, who indeed were Jews.
And so these words are those of one desiring food, that is, help, not of one impatient under grief. "Can bread be eaten without salt?" as though it were said to him: why do you speak these things thus through figures? He answered. Because if he were to say them from his own person, they would be insipid. "Or is there flavor in empty words?" He calls the words of men empty, because bread is the words of God, but heavenly bread. "So neither can my soul cease": just as bread cannot be eaten without salt, so now I render the ministry of the word of God on account of that saying: "how shall they hear without a preacher?" "For I see my foods to be foul like the odor of a lion":
For my words are loathsome like a lion, whether because of the pride by which boasters fancy themselves, or because those who embrace carnal things have the stench of the lion, since they rejoice in their own words. 'But if He grant, and my request come to pass'—by 'request' he means the thing he was asking for. 'And the Lord grant my hope'—for thus, trusting because of his hope, he is fittingly tested after tribulation in expectation of the consolation that is to come. And rightly does he say 'hope,' because, when the reality has come, the testing will no longer be necessary. 'Let the city be my tomb, upon whose walls I leaped'—he wishes that fellowship of Babylon to be his tomb, not so that it should overwhelm him, but so that he may know that whoever shall have been in it lies dead and buried—the very thing in which, as in a stronghold and bulwark, he had been taking pride. 'I will not spare';
'for I have not lied. The words are holy, of my God'—because he said nothing other than what he heard from God, that is, prophesying in a general way concerning man, that he stands in need of help in confession. 'For what is my strength, that I should endure?'—which signified his wound. 'Or what is my time, that my soul should hold out?'—because, with death pressing upon them, men are terrified, so that they may turn and confess to God the rottenness of their sins; by the consideration of this he says he is compelled to confession. 'Is the strength of stones my strength?'—those hard and impenetrable to the darts of God's words, who are not moved to confess. 'Or did I not trust in Him?'—when it was well with me, that is, when I was immortal after the image of God. 'But help has departed from me':
having become mortal while wishing to trust in myself. 'And the visitation of the Lord has despised me'—according to what is said: 'or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?' 'My neighbors did not regard me'—I shuddered at the angels. 'Like a failing torrent'—for mercy at one time flooded over me, and I dried up and was not to myself a fountain. 'Or as waves they passed me by'—as though consolations were a draught of drink. 'Those who feared me now have rushed upon me'—the devil with his angels. 'I have perished and become an exile from my house'—either from the heavenly dwelling or from conscience; therefore he was sitting outside, beyond his own house. 'Behold the ways of the Themanites, look upon the paths of the Sabaeans':
he means those who trust in temporal things, concerning whom he—that is, the man whom he signifies—says that he does not presume. 'But now you also have risen up against me without mercy'—reckoning the blessedness of men to lie in an abundance of carnal goods, since they insulted rather than had compassion. 'But seeing my wound, be afraid'—understanding what it signifies, fear the punishments to come. 'For what? Have I asked anything of you? Or do I need your strength?'—because before Him is weak the one who is able to save him. 'Teach me and I will be silent'—therefore they ought to have been patient toward His teaching, because they themselves could not teach Him. 'But, as I see, you speak distorted the words of the true man':
he calls 'the true man' the one who represents the person doing penance through conversion to God, whose words they were distorting. 'For I do not seek help from you'—for the true man seeks help from God; for he is true who confesses. Hence it is said: 'He who does the truth comes to the light.' 'For neither will I endure the delivery of your speech'—for he said that he endures God's discourse, by which he may be instructed. 'Nevertheless you have rushed upon the orphan'—as far as concerns you, you wished to insult me, although you did not understand what it signifies. Because they ought not to have insulted even Job, whom they saw, therefore: 'nevertheless.' 'But now, looking on, attend to me'—you having nothing to teach me. 'And again, stand by justice':
because at first they seemed to themselves to be compelled by justice to speak. 'For there is no iniquity in my mouth; and did not my throat meditate wisdom?'—he says that he did not accuse God, but brought in a man accusing his own iniquities, as his discourse above was understood. This he calls the meditation of wisdom. 'Is not the life of man upon the earth a trial?'—here he now more openly shows in whose person he was speaking above. And by 'trial' he means as it were the arena of a contest, where a man either conquers or is conquered. 'And is not his life like that of daily hirelings?'—of one awaiting a temporal wage, so that for those who await the fruit of their justice in the time to come, life is no longer upon the earth.
'Or like a servant fearing his master and having attained the shade?'—this signifies Adam's hiding from the face of the Lord and the covering of leaves from which a shade is made, which man attained when he had forsaken God. 'Or like a hireling who awaits the wage of his work?'—this one differs from the former in that the former possessed those very temporal things, while this one desires to possess them. 'So I too have awaited empty months'—he has already called the shade 'empty,' that is, temporal goods. 'And nights of sorrows have been given to me'—in which both the light of wisdom is lost and there is matter for punishments. 'If I sleep, I say: when is day? And if I rise, again: when is evening?'—when a man suffers desire for business in leisure and for leisure in business.
'But I am filled with sorrows from evening until morning'—until he sets, away from God. Hence also, walking 'toward evening,' God dismissed them—which signifies the willing, for whom there is no expectation of remedy except in the morning. Of which it is said: 'In the morning I will stand before Thee'—that is, when after the judgment God shall be revealed in the morning to the just. Hence also the Lord is buried in the evening and rises in the morning. This life, therefore, he can compare to the morning star. 'And my body grows together with the rottenness of worms'—with a multitude of worms. 'I pour out clods of earth, scraping off the discharge'—an expression of lusts or cares of confession, in which the wicked rejoice, because they turn into an occasion of sinning the very things which others confess through penance; hence they are dogs, who licked Lazarus's sores.
'And my life is more meager than speech'—for I do less than I speak. 'Remember therefore that my life is spirit'—that is, in spiritual hunger. 'And I shall not return to visible things. The eye of the beholder shall not know me'—because I shall be changed, so that here we may understand the beholder to be the envying devil. 'Thine eyes are upon me and I do not subsist'—for in me Thou dost slay the carnal life in which I once was. 'Like a cloud cleansed away from heaven'—or cleansed through heaven—as we say 'cleansed of iron'—so that here it may signify that help came to him from heaven, that he might be cleansed; or indeed that it may now no longer be a cloud, but be rarefied into pure air, as though cleansed by the rays of the sun, so that the darkness of flesh and blood may not be in heaven.
For flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and death shall be swallowed up in victory. 'For if a man go down to hell, he shall not again ascend'—remember this, therefore, that thou go not down. 'And he shall not return again into his house'—that is, to his rest. 'Therefore I too will not spare my mouth'—by confessing, while there is time. 'Am I the sea, or a dragon?'—for Thou hast not driven me back like the wicked or the devil. 'Because Thou hast set a watch over me'—that I move not to disturbance, as are the bounds of the sea. 'Because I said: my couch shall console me'—the carnal things in which he rested. 'And I shall refer to myself consolation in my bed':
for to Thee I ought to refer my consolation. 'Thou frightenest me through dreams and through vision Thou astoundest me'—through the tribulations of this life, which are dreams in the same way as the good things of this life are also dreams. 'Thou shalt loose my soul from my spirit'—because of the visible terrors, from which the soul shall be freed when it fears to come to them. 'And from death I have thrust back my bones'—for my bones had gone into death, had I not, terrified by these things, become stronger and patient, which is the firmness of bones. 'For I shall not live forever, that I might bear it patiently'—by the brevity of life and the fear of death I have corrected myself. Hence the unconvertible devil, because he does not die, but is damned. The beginning of wisdom is the fear thence. 'Depart from me; for my life is empty'—because I do not endure trials.
'Or because Thou hast directed Thy mind upon him?'—because he is rational. Hence that saying: 'but we have the mind of the Lord.' By the function of reason he means the extension of the understanding. 'And in rest wilt Thou judge him?'—as worthy of rest. 'How long dost Thou not let me go?'—bound by tribulations. 'Nor dost Thou forsake me, until I swallow my spittle?'—in pain and scourges may I restrain myself and absorb the flux of pleasures, being admonished through tribulations. 'If I have sinned, what can I do to Thee?'—the meaning is this: if I have sinned, I can do Thee no harm. 'Or perhaps men are troublesome to Thee by speaking?'—Thou therefore, who knowest the mind, why hast Thou constituted man, that he should speak against Thee, that he should be a burden to Thee?
But if the sin of man harms Thee neither in deed nor in word, why dost Thou not forget his sin, but rather purge it, except because those things which are said above are referred to Thy goodness? 'For what is man, that Thou hast exalted him?'—which his friends, not understanding, supposed to be a reproach of God by him. For if Thou dost not bring trials upon me for this reason, that I may restrain my unruly motions, that Thou mayest thus take counsel for me, what other cause is there that Thou shouldst correct man? For he cannot harm Thee by sinning; or dost Thou feel as it were an enmity in his speech, when Thou knowest the human mind, and certainly couldst not constitute that which is adverse to Thee? 'And why hast Thou not forgotten my iniquity?'
If not for the reason that these trials might profit me, so that the whole may be of Thy goodness, even that Thou correctest me? 'But now I shall go into the earth'—for when Thou purgest my sin, it yet remains for me to go into the earth through bodily death. 'In the morning I shall watch, and I shall be no more'—in this earth. The words of Bildad the Shuhite. 'He sent into the hand their iniquities'—into the hand he sent, either in punishment or in reckoning, He showed them to be debtors, that is, sinners. 'And He shall restore to thee the life of justice'—which is owed to justice, that is, the blessed life. 'And thy former things shall be very small'—in comparison with the latter, which shall be infinite. 'Or will not these teach thee and report to thee?'—since the authority of some is greater.
Now here too, about to speak of Christ, he narrates things heard, as Eliphaz narrated a revelation. 'Does the bulrush grow green without water?'—so therefore the wicked too shall wither without the mercy of God. 'Does it yet stand on its own root and not be cut down?'—if it has no water. 'Before every herb drinks, does it not wither?'—unless it drinks; for never at any earlier time did the wicked man flourish. 'And his tabernacle shall be filled with spiders' webs'—useless works. Now he seems to speak of the Jews and the Lord. 'But if he have even propped up his house, it shall not stand'—either by the holy Scriptures, or by hope of the Lord's promise, or his very kingdom. 'And when he has begun, he shall not endure'—to follow God; which befell the Jews, who did not follow once they had begun. 'For he is moist before the sun':