Chapter XV.
But Eliphaz the Temanite responded and said, 'Will a wise man answer with empty knowledge, speaking into the wind? By this understanding, it seems as if he has begun: Does anyone not wise, and a student of philosophical discipline, become so possessed by frenzy and madness that he speaks without any fear of God or regard for religion, as if he were similar to a gust of air and the wind that is dispersed? Therefore, Eliphaz dared to rebuke the holy Job, who was humble in spirit and timid in the face of the wind's power.'
And he will fill his stomach with ardor. By the name of ardor, he desired to indicate his soul, exhausted by the gall of anger, which presumed to be angry against God as if He were equal to himself. Another interpretation has it this way: And he will fill his stomach with pain. Let us understand that the stomach is a certain receptacle of the soul: just as there is a certain receptacle of the vital organs in the body which we call the stomach, so he said, by a change of name, that the soul has a certain power capable of exercise, so that it is filled with thoughts, just as the stomach of a man is filled with food. Therefore, Job is reproached by Eliphaz because he has filled his belly with such pain, that is, he thinks about things that torment his soul, or from which he rightly suffers bodily pains.
You accuse with words him who is not equal to you, and you speak what is not advantageous to you. By saying this, you indicate him as rebellious and opposing God. Perhaps for this reason, because in the previous discourse Job said to God among other things: And you think of me as your enemy.
You have a great deal within you, you have banished fear, and you have offered prayers before God. You are so elevated, he says, that you are completely free from divine fear, and you no longer consider it worthy to supplicate God. This is why he says: 'and you have offered prayers before God,' that is, as if you have taken away from yourself things that are not necessary for you.
For your iniquity has taught your mouth: and you imitate the language of blasphemers. Therefore, the evil of your mind, your mouth has learned to speak, and for this reason you are an imitator and a disciple of those who always have their tongue ready for blasphemy against God.
Your own mouth will condemn you, not I, and your lips will answer for you. That is, you will receive the consequences of your words.
Were you the first man born, and were you formed before all the hills? Therefore, before the human race existed, you began to exist, giving you the greatest gift of wisdom above all other men: where in a mocking conversation Adam could have first said: whom we certainly know to have been made the wisest by God. Thus, he is attacked in a holy manner in Job, saying: were you before the father of the human race, and did you begin to exist before the existence of the angels?
Have you heard God's counsel, and will his wisdom be inferior to yours? He often accuses excessively, and reproaches one who is pleasing to God, and vehemently rebukes, saying that he not only thinks he knows God's counsel: but also that his wisdom is inferior to his. It therefore appears that his mind is full of envy, directing the arrows of reproaches against a just man without cause, in order to overwhelm the innocent with insults.
What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not understand? A lot: first and foremost, he knew God himself more, then he saw with the spirit the mysteries to be revealed in Christ.
And the old people, and the ancients are much older in us than your fathers. The old people, and the ancients placed with us, who have attained much knowledge and wisdom through their long life: did not dare to speak rashly against God, as you do.
Is it too great for God to console you? But your perverse words prevent this. It is evident that it is neither great for the Almighty, nor difficult for the mercy of God, to console man: to hear him when he calls upon Him, and to deliver him from the oppression of tribulation; but by belching blasphemies, you further provoke God to punish you, whom you could appease through humility and satisfaction.
What lifts up your heart, and as if thinking great things, you have astonished eyes? What does your spirit swell against God, that you utter such words from your mouth? What is man, that he should be blameless, that a child of woman should appear just? Behold, among his holy ones no one is unchangeable, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; how much less abominable and useless is man, who drinks iniquity like water? The heart, eyes, and spirit all signify the entire soul of man, but let us seek wisdom in the heart of man. In the eyes, the clarity of understanding. But in the spirit of that soul, there is a movement by which it is incessantly moved to do whatever needs to be done. In the lifting up of the heart, and with eyes wide open, there is also a swelling of the spirit: very proud against God, and excessively inflated. This is what Job's friend Eliphaz reproached him for. He was offended by those words that blessed Job had previously spoken to God. If I am judged, I know that I will be found just, and I speak against that statement: What is man that he should appear blameless?
I will show you, listen to me, what I saw I will tell you. I speak of an experienced matter, which you know I have known and seen.
The wise confess and do not hide their fathers. Thus, he wants to restrict and bind him in various ways and examples, as if to force him to confess the punishment he endured for his merits. Or thus: by not defending themselves and their fathers who are like them, or by imitating the parents they began to have; they do not hide or conceal their own sins or the sins of their parents. Whether they do not conceal their fathers, that is, their elders, or their priests, to whom it is beneficial to confess sins.
To those to whom the earth is given, and strangers will not pass through them. Frequently God, because of the sins of the wicked, delivers the land to other nations. Therefore, concerning the entrance and coming of conversation, and the entrance of Zophar to Job, he speaks: In their bitterness, they will come and go upon him horribly, that is, moved as if by the anger of vipers, and turned into bitterness and fury by the poison of envy: they will constantly dwell around you, he says. Whether morally. Those who are wise in Christ, and foolish in this world, faithfully confess their sins or errors of heresy, converting themselves to God through the satisfaction of repentance. They reveal the authors of their crimes or doctrines, so that they may possess the earth of their body alone, that is, so that vices or hostile wickedness do not dominate them. And let no stranger pass through him, that is, let the devil not have power over him. He is truly to be called a stranger, because he has made himself a stranger to God and the company of angels.
Every day the wicked man boasts and the length of his tyranny is uncertain. Eliphaz seems to direct these words against Job, which he continues until the end of his speech. However, I believe that under the inspiration of the spirit of prophecy, he could have said all these things about any wicked person, whether it be the devil himself or his companions.
The sound of terror is always in his ears. Just like the Egyptians suffered.
And when there is peace, he always suspects plots. The wicked person persists in evil, always with a guilty conscience, for he knows according to the just judgment of God, what retribution awaits the wicked.
He does not believe that he can return from darkness to light. In vain, deceived by error, he thinks that he can be redeemed at some cost. This wicked person, sinking into the depths of sins, has despaired of being able to attain life. And therefore, he does not believe that he can return from the darkness of sins to the light of repentance. But he explains the cause of this lack of confidence, saying:
Looking around on all sides with a sword. That is, from here and there: either awaiting death. We have said that the devil is given as food to unclean spirits, because they live by his malice: but sinners themselves, who are like vultures, and unclean are understood. Therefore, when these have been converted, then they themselves will have the enemy devouring them as food in return, because he is the dragon who was given by God as food to the people of the Ethiopians, who once were sinners because of the darkness of their sins, but now have become lightsthrough faith in the Lord. They consume and devour this impious one or dragon: while they introduce every body of his, who are certainly sinners, through faith into the body, that is, into the Church: according to this, which was said to Peter: Rise, kill, and eat. Hence also Moses compelled the sons of Israel to drink the broken calf, so that just as they had been absorbed by it in error: so they would pass over into the body of the people of God, leaving behind the error.
When he moves to seek bread, he knows that the day of darkness is prepared in his hand. The movement of minds is the beginning of thought. Therefore, when he has been reminded of this, guilty and always conscious of his evil, he can think of nothing else but that horrible day of God's judgment, in which he dreads the infliction of eternal punishment.
Tribulation will terrify him, and distress will surround him, like a king preparing for battle. Before the appointed day arrives, he will be tormented by the evil of fear; he will be hemmed in on all sides by pressures and distress, as if a king setting out for battle. I believe that under the name of the king, an impious man or the devil is signified, who fights against God daily, preparing battles of blasphemies and contentions, or fights of vices.
For he stretched out his hand against God, and against the Almighty he strengthened himself. In arrogance, or the spreading out of his hand, he shows resistance to God, calling himself even in his swollen pride robust.
He ran towards him with his head held high. His sudden and reckless behavior indicates a proud and arrogant mind: because being possessed by madness against God, he did not advance with slow steps while resisting.
And he was armed with a fat neck. By calling the fatness of the neck, he indicated an excessive and overflowing pride. As the prophet says when speaking of the same pride of men, saying: Their iniquity has prospered as if from fatness, this testimony in a new edition says more clearly: Their eyes have gone forth from fatness, that is, the senses and thoughts of the excessively proud have burst forth into blasphemy.
His face was covered with thickness. The face itself is usually understood as the mind or soul of the spirit, as the Apostle says: But we, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. This face, the devil or impious man does not have serenity, holiness or humility, but it is covered with the thickness of pride, which is blind and dull in heart. Another edition: His face was covered as if with fat; as if to say: namely, black pride, the author of all vices: it did not clothe itself with the thin and transparent virtue of humility, as with a precious garment, but made itself in a way a mockery of itself, and an obscure garment, by which it might dull the thick blindness of pride in heart.
And from its sides hangs the love of agriculture. Its sides can be understood as ministers or companions, who have been similar to it. Not surprisingly, ears are also understood, which are nourished in hearing: hence excessive deafness is generated in stubborn people, according to, 'The heart of this people is made fat.' Another edition: It makes a little head on the thighs. This little verse seems to contain the meaning of this kind, that in this impious person is reproached, because he did not want to have the restraint of discipline, by which he could be held back to virtues, but rather he threw himself into a certain dissolution, having set aside the rigidity of his mind, so that he might be led by a loose rein to pleasure and luxury.
He dwelled in desolate cities and deserted houses which have been reduced to mounds. The habitation therefore of unclean spirits of beasts and birds says: those who dwell in humans whom God has forsaken. For it dwells in humans abandoned by God, and for this reason, graves have become the abodes of the dead. And if sins are sometimes called dead in scripture, then sinners and the wicked are necessarily the tombs of the dead. Therefore, in the cities, there can be a general name for all sins, but in households, a specific name for each sinner and wicked person.
She will not be destroyed, nor will her substance endure. Here, substance does not refer to material wealth, but to sins: as the Holy Spirit says in the Book of Revelation of John. 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit.' When it says 'she will not be destroyed,' it seems to me that it is saying that her life in the wealth of misdeeds will not last long, since even the accumulated substance of her vices will not endure.
Nor will he send his root into the earth. That is, because like an uprooted tree he will die: therefore, he will not have eternal stability in the land of the living or their companionship: because he did not first send forth the hope or the root of faith: he will not even have the breath of salvation, to live under the shadow of refreshment.
He will not depart from darkness. Others have said, he will not escape darkness: that is, he has undergone eternal punishments, and will not escape darkness. However, he will not depart from darkness: we understand this as darkness of unbelief. This wicked man refuses to come to the light of repentance.
The flame will dry up his branches. In the branches, let us understand the fruits of evil works, as Solomon says: The fruits of the wicked are sins. But these, like wood, hay, and straw, will be consumed by the fire of Gehenna.
And the breath of his mouth shall be taken away from him. Therefore, since his mind is filled with rage against God, he does not cease to breathe out blasphemies against Him: of his mouth, He says, he is condemned by judgment. According to the ancient edition, I believe that the root or branch signifies the origin of impious life, which the Spirit of God, the judgment’s sentence, strikes like a wind hovering: so that, just like a withered tree, the impious one immediately dies, and thus all the flower of his honor and glory drains away.
He will not depart in vain, deceived by error, because he must be redeemed at some price. Therefore, perhaps the devil says this, and the wicked man persists in impiety through the hardness of his heart, because God does not reward him according to his merits: while God in no way spares him, and if he prays for this with powerful and composed words to obtain it, since he is already condemned to eternal torments according to God's just judgment.
Before his days are completed, he will perish. The day of each person is said to be fulfilled when the retribution of good men and evil men comes. Therefore, this man, whether human or devil, anticipated the day of the clear judgment before the Lord will give it to them in the judgment: he has foreseen in predestination (Al. he foresees): just as in, etc.
And his hand shall wither. Surely not having any fruit of good work in itself.
He is wounded like a vine at its first flowering, and like an olive throwing off its flowers. In the bunch it is clear that the fruit of the work is understood. Therefore, the flower of temporal joy will not be able to lead to the maturity of eternal fruit, because it will be dissipated by the hot wind of pride in the very hope of false glory. Whether injured by the cold of God's love, as if by frost, as I think is said in the following in the same sense. And as if casting away its flower like an olive. For in the divine Scriptures, the olive and the vine are sometimes understood as representing only a man: sometimes a people, whether good or bad. And when he says it will be laid waste or overturned, it is to be understood as it is written in the Apocalypse: 'Whoever keeps the commandments of the Lord will not be harmed by the second death.' Therefore, the vine and the olive can be understood as the people of the Jews. Therefore, this vine will lose or forfeit the fruit of holiness and justice, which did not want to have Christ as its first and best flower, and all saints in the field of the law. For He Himself says, 'I am the flower of the field.' But, as if an unbeliever and incredulous, so that the faith of Christ might not blaze in him, she cast Him off from herself. And while she casts Him off outside the vineyard and shakes Him off from herself like a flower, she herself, torn away from the root of the patriarchs, is uprooted, and, separated from Christ, is shaken off from the fruit of our salvation.
For the congregation of hypocrites is barren. The robber and violent one is represented by Job in these speeches, and it is said that wealth collected through iniquity will not benefit him: for thus he spoke against Job in the first discourse, where he also compared him to a lion and lioness, and to the cub of lions and a tiger. But it is more trustworthy to believe God, who, praising him, said that he was not a simulated person, but rather innocent and sincere. But as Eliphaz says.
And fire shall consume their tents, who gladly receive bribes. No harm can happen to the holy man Job. For he himself, as I have already said, spoke thus concerning himself, testifying according to God’s testimony of himself, and said this, that though a stain adhered to his hands, when he spoke of bribes. By mentioning fire, he surely signified Gehenna, because the tents, that is, the bodies of the wicked, are to be consumed. Concerning this fire, also Zophar says in what follows: The fire that is not kindled shall consume him, that is, the impious.
She conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity, and her womb prepares deceit. David also later said of such things: Behold, she has given birth to injustice, she conceived sorrow, brought forth iniquity. Therefore, sorrow is injustice, and iniquity. Thus the wicked person brings forth what they have conceived, and yet the womb of their heart does not cease to prepare deceit. These are then brought forth when their actions come to fruition. Therefore, in a concept, an unjust thought is understood, just as in giving birth the result of evil thoughts is recognized. Eliphaz spoke all these things against Job; but we have already said before that these things can be seen as coming from the devil or any wicked person through the ministry of prophecy, as well as other things that his friends have spoken.