Chapter XVI.
But Job answered and said: I have often heard such things; all of you are burdensome consolers. Will windy words have an end, or is it something bothersome to you if you speak? I could speak similar things to you. And I wish that your soul were in place of my soul! If you, he says, were enduring these things that I endure: I would not deal with you in such a way that you do not cease to act towards me.
I would console you with my words, and I would shake my head over you. I would strengthen you with my mouth, and I would move my lips as if sparing you. Surely I would encourage you with the sweetness of my words: I would also support your minds, which have been aggravated by bitter afflictions, so that you would not fall into blasphemy, and I would sustain you with gentle and peaceful speech.
But what should I do? If I speak, my pain will not cease, and if I remain silent, it will not retreat from me. That is, whether I speak these words to you now or remain silent: I confess that I am tormented by unceasing grief.
But now my pain has overwhelmed me, and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing. This also must be understood of Christ.
My wrinkles testify against me. The contraction of the skin, which is dried up by the same pus, I suffer, in a way, gives evidence against me, and as if speaking, reveals how many pains or torments I endure.
And the deceiver rises up against my face, contradicting me. He has gathered his fury against me. Here either Eliphaz himself speaks falsely because he reproaches holy Job, saying that he endures these things because of merits of sins, or the devil, who called him a sinner. Otherwise, the deceiver is to be understood as Judas or the Jewish people, who gave false testimony against Christ.
And he gnashed his teeth against me, threatening and roaring. With the mouths of friends, who disputed against the holy Job, the devil threatened: or the Jews gnashed their teeth against the Savior. Another interpretation: The arrows of the pirates fell upon me. Those pirates are either ministers of the devil, whether they are men or demons: who are then called pirates in the Scriptures, when this world is called the sea. But the arrows can be understood as pains or torments that he suffered, so that blasphemy may die because of being pierced by them. And thus indeed, the gold and silver of his wisdom and knowledge, as well as precious garments of virtues, hope and faith in God will be taken away from him, and exchanged for valuable necklaces.
My enemy looked at me with terrifying eyes. In those terrifying eyes, he described the invisible enemy who wounded the soul within himself, whether through nocturnal visions or through the terrifying countenance of friends, intending to threaten: and so, while Job's friends spoke wicked things with holy understanding and even with mockery, it must be understood in reference to Christ.
They opened their mouths against me, and reproaching, they struck my cheek; they were satiated with my punishments. Therefore, in the cheek, there is a certain nobility of character or honor that is evident. And as others have said, he was fiercely struck on the cheeks, to the extent that he became estranged from honor, nobility, and wealth when he willingly presented his cheek to be struck in accordance with his faith, which the devil attempted to disturb by striking, as if breaking open a doorway of divine confession, or when they falsely testified against Christ, or when they said, 'Crucify him.'
God has concluded me with the wicked, and delivered me into the hands of the impious. That is, to the devil and his angels. Or it can be understood in reference to Christ, when he was delivered into the hands of the Jews.
I, that once wealthy person, suddenly am crushed. He held my neck, broke me, and made me his own as if a sign. That is, from rich to poor: or Christ, from God born as man.
They surrounded me with their spears: they wounded my loins. They did not spare, and poured out my entrails on the ground. These spears, mentioned in this place, are clearly understood as the wounds of affliction that Job suffered: or they can be understood as the blasphemies against Christ that he endured from the Jews. But Job not only decayed throughout his entire body, but also liquified with the stench of pus: so that Job himself said, my wife recoils from my breath. All around his loins have rotted. If it is to be understood about Christ, he wounded my loins. Because the Jews persecuted the apostles up to this point, who were born as it were from the loins of their doctrine, in order to wound them with the wound of unbelief by denying Christ: while Peter says, I do not know the man. And he held my neck, or as others have said, holding my hair he tore it out. Therefore, let us now understand with what madness the devil has moved and shaken this man with his power, or broken him, so that he even tried to pull out his hair. Or concerning Christ it is to be understood in this way: at the time of his passion, the adversary held him by his own permission, and he inclined even to the sleep of death, whom he had already broken by beatings and the fastening of nails, and they placed a sign of salvation on the opposite side.
He has struck me with a wound upon a wound: he has fallen upon me like a giant. While my weaknesses and wounds multiply, countless blows are added to me, and I am completely divided and broken down, so that no residue of my limbs remains that sustains any solidity. The same must be understood about Christ: When Judas was killed by a deadly wound of apostasy, he did not spare him; for he was so consumed with cruelty that he even proclaimed the evil he had conceived in his mind with his mouth: they added wounds of nails to the wounds of the cross.
I sewed a sack over my skin, and covered my flesh with ashes. And it seems to me that this saying, to the humiliation of his kingdom pertains to me. But the horn is called kingdom in the Scriptures: according to that, He will exalt the horn of His Christ. But Christ called that nation from which He was born a sack. And He covered the princes of the Jews with ashes, when He transferred the kingdom from them, due to the sacrilege of denial, to the Gentiles.
My face swelled from crying, and my eyelids darkened. Crying or tears are generated in a person from pain or sadness; but tears sometimes flow silently down the cheeks: crying, however, is accompanied by tears, not without sound and bodily movement: Job testifies that he had such crying, which arose from the afflictions of his soul and from the torments of his sufferings. Likewise in another way: the prophets understand the face of God because they know the future: when they contemplated the destruction of the wicked in the spirit, let us understand that they wept for them with constant groaning. The eyes of Christ also grew dim, while the martyrs or saints, wavering and troubled in temptations, were disturbed: but they remained in the light, liberated by the grace of God.
I have endured these sufferings without iniquity, as I have had clean prayers to God. None of the saints have prayers to God that are as clean and immaculate, without any stain or slightest thought of sin, as the mediator of God and man, Jesus Christ, who did not sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. Indeed, it is to be believed that he has prayers and supplications according to the humanity he assumed, when he himself, according to his divinity, hears with the Father. Whether they are saints, who for his name have suffered without any iniquity of rebellion or any crime, and have been killed by persecutors: as for those persecutors, they have been given over to death without charge.
Earth, do not cover my blood, nor let my cry for hiding find a place in you. This is all that it says, that the merit of the innocent, and of one who is conscious of his innocence, may not go unnoticed, especially when he himself has suffered such great evils. By the name of blood, he wanted to express the condition of this present life. But by placing the cry in this location, he calls attention to his own holiness which protests against the punishments inflicted deservedly upon the wicked for vengeance, but upon the just for testing. Sometimes in the Scriptures, a cry of the emotions and the focused mind is shown towards God, or even a cry of the wickedness of the people, who were expected to produce grapes, but produced thorns. Not every cry is called wickedness, but only that which is done publicly.
For behold, my witness is in heaven, and my conscience is in the highest. For God has borne witness of him.
My verbose friends. One who speaks words that do not pertain to God is called verbose; but one who speaks the words of God cannot be judged as verbose.
My eye drips to God. With tears he calls upon God.
And I wish that a man would be judged with God, just as the son of man is judged with his colleague. This is what he said: I wish I had the opportunity to argue with a man, so that I could prove myself innocent. But I do not want my God to enter into judgment with me, for He is the one who searches hearts and minds; He is God, whose judgment cannot be deceived; and He Himself does not need to be questioned by anyone.
For behold, the short years pass, and I walk a path from which I will not return. Thus he believed that he would not return either to his mortal body or to the tortures of his body.