Chapter XIX.
But in response, Job said: How long will you torment my soul and crush me with your words? It is clear that he is worn out by the responses of his friends, and he is afflicted, tired, and destroyed.
You confuse me ten times, and you do not blush, oppressing me. Ten days, he mentions for the whole time. But just as in a large number in the book of Revelation the number of time is understood: so also in this same sum of numbers a smaller number is signified, so that we may know that the greater number is signified now, now the smaller, according to the diversity of places in the divine Scriptures, with this number remaining solid and perfect.
Indeed, even if I am ignorant, my ignorance will be with me. But you, on the other hand, rise up against me and accuse me of my own reproaches. You think that I, he says, am ignorant of God, just as you also say. Is it fitting for friends to insult the oppressed, from whom they expect more comforting in their troubles? This is not the work of faithful friends, but rather the mockery of those who ridicule.
At least now understand: God has afflicted me with an unjust judgement and has encircled me with his whips. Behold, I cry out, enduring violence, and no one listens. I shout, and there is no one to judge. They said that he unjustly endures the hardships of torment: but they, speaking from their own deserved suffering, think that he has erred in this sense of theirs, and therefore later say to God: I have spoken foolishly and things beyond my knowledge.
It has surrounded my path, and I cannot pass through. I was proceeding straight and undefiled towards the glory of my merits. Therefore, this ignominy of suffering has surrounded and blocked me, so that I cannot attain that glory.
And in my path I set darkness. That is, on the path: this is the corrected way, on which, as if through a narrow and difficult path, I was proceeding with a sure hope towards the just retributor, I found darkness in this misery and calamity.
My glory has been stripped away from me and the crown has been taken from my head. The glory of my kingdom has been deprived of me: even the trust of faith has been taken away: which from the very summit of my mind, which is the head of rational nature, he has as it were removed the crown of honor.
I am destroyed on all sides, and I am perishing, and as if uprooted from a tree, my hope has been taken from me. I have been deprived of home, kingdom, family, children, friends, and the health of my body: thus, with all these things taken away, I see that I am perishing, whose very hope of life has been taken away like a tree.
He is angry with me, his fury has held me as his enemy. The anger of God in this context can be understood as the devil himself, who persecuted the blessed Job in various ways, that is, with blasphemies and torments of his flesh.
At the same time, his robbers came and made a way for themselves through me. The wrath of God is the devil, and the robbers are his ministers: this is what he says, and they made a way for themselves through me: when they stripped him of either the possessions of the world or the health of the body. Hence it is beautifully said:
And they have besieged my tent all around. My brothers have made themselves distant from me, and my acquaintances have retreated from me as strangers. My own close relatives have forsaken me, and those who knew me have forgotten me. The inhabitants of my house and my maidservants have treated me as a stranger, and I have become like a foreigner in their eyes. I called my servant, but he did not respond; I begged him with my own mouth. They have set traps for me outside; they have surrounded his tent in a circle; that is, they have placed torment upon his body. But they were not able to incline their soul towards sin.
My wife was repulsed by my breath. She said that it was rotten inside, so much so that she couldn't stand the smell, not even my wife could endure it: where could it have come from that she had an abscess in her abdomen, that it held the entire chamber of her belly, and from there, speaking, she spat out the foul odor of the festering wound.
And I prayed for the sons of my womb. The fools also despised me. In the divine Scriptures, sons are also called descendants and those who are born in a longer lineage. Therefore, when she said sons of her womb, she looked within herself as if to a fountain and to the origin of her posterity: from there the streams of her family lineage flowed. She could also call them sons of her womb, whom she had formed as if by the seed of her wisdom, having within herself the form of grace by the grace of God, and the discipline of natural law in truth.
And when I had departed from them, they were speaking ill of me. My former advisers despised me, and the one I loved the most turned away from me. This perhaps means that they wanted to imply that they had forgotten about me and had distanced themselves from their feelings and hearts towards me.
My skin, with the flesh consumed, clung to my bones. The flesh of it had become so dry that no moisture remained in it, and because of this its skin had in a way adhered to its bones: doctors call this weakness marasmus.
And only the lips around my teeth were left. For the devil, after consuming the flesh of holy Job, left his lips intact so that he would have a place in the torments in which he could easily blaspheme: as if blasphemy of the heart did not exist: for which Job himself, like for his other sins, offered a burnt offering to God on the seventh day for his children. But the devil reserved his tongue so that he could understand if Job, because of his simplicity of heart, uttered blasphemy on his lips.
Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends: for the hand of the Lord has touched me. Therefore, he called the very wound that he suffered the hand of the Lord, which was made by the power of the Lord. Touching, for afflicting, is to be understood.
Why do you chase me like God, and satisfy yourselves with my flesh? God has judged me, to whom alone it is allowed to have control over everything in His work. Why do you presume to afflict the innocent like God? Shouldn't only He have the authority to do so? Or do you think that God needs your permission?
Who will grant me, that my words be written? Who will give me, that they be engraved in a book with an iron pen, or on a lead plate, or carved in stone? Since solace could not be found in any man, he turns to God and prophesies the future resurrection in the spirit, where he will receive a reward for these evils, and he wishes that these words be inscribed on hard stones so that the prophecies may endure for ages to come.
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I will rise from the earth. And again, I will be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I will see God. Therefore, the Church, which confesses the true Incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God and firmly believes in the true resurrection of the dead, protects and defends itself with this shield, and it convinces and conquers its enemies. Where are those who say that we will have different bodies in the resurrection? Let them hear this man, praised by the mouth of God, saying:
Whom I myself will see. I myself, Job, who lie in the dung, and am consumed by all kinds of wounds: I, I say, Job, now corrupted and dissolved by wounds, in this mortal flesh, shall see God in the future incorruptible resurrection, glorified; and in order to express the restoration of his own body, therefore he said:
And my eyes shall see, and no other. This hope is stored in my bosom. All things have been accomplished in my bosom.
Why, therefore, do you now say: let us pursue him? Why do you act now, as if I were believing in something empty and without worth, as if I did not fear God: whether because I am a stranger to the divine religion, you want to pursue me and sting me with your sharpened words.
And let us find the root of the word against him. You see, therefore, that you are not behaving faithfully with me as true friends, but you are devising deceitful snares from my words; since you desire to find an opportunity, like a certain root of reproof, in my very words.
Therefore flee from the face of the sword: for the avenger of iniquities is the sword. This is what he says: if you depart from my presence, you will be able to escape the sword of just judgment of God. For the sword is the tongue of the king, and not carnal, as Solomon says.
And know that there will be judgment. By the judgment of the just judge of God, I will be able to judge the mockers.