Chapter XLII.
But Job answered the Lord, saying: I know that you can do all things. That is, you humble the devil as you wish and when you wish.
And no thought is hidden from you. Who can hide from the examiner of the heart and kidneys? From these words, it is clear that righteous Job accuses his own thoughts, confessing to God in repentance that he had given himself the greatest credit for his own sins, and that he had tried to accuse God, as it were, of being unjust.
Who is that who conceals counsel without knowledge? That is, no one can hide counsel from your conscience. Already in the following, he demonstrates his error most clearly, and confesses his ignorance, through which, being ignorant, he has exceeded in speaking to God, saying this:
Therefore, I have spoken foolishly and have exceeded my knowledge. Listen, and I will speak: I will question you, and you shall answer me. Now, having set aside foolishness and rejected the presumption of folly, corrected by the knowledge of divine reproach for the purpose of correction, and purified by the examination of present chastisement, he still dares to question God, saying: Listen. He shows the mercy of divine indignation, and it seems that he speaks this because God has worked that punishment upon him in a far different way than he previously judged, and therefore, he desires to be taught by God and demands to be shown this very thing to himself. Therefore Job, accepting, as is to be believed from his words, the divine oracle of visitation, said to God:
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. After the testing of temptation, having come closer to divine knowledge, he says that he now sees God, whom he said he heard before when he was being examined. However, to hear or see God, who is invisible and incomprehensible, is not of these eyes or ears, but rather of the mind and heart. Therefore, blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God.
Therefore, I rebuke myself and repent in ashes and dust. But after the Lord spoke these words to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: My anger is kindled against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken rightly before me, like my servant Job. Therefore, take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will pray for you. I will take his appearance, so that foolishness may not be imputed to you. For you have not spoken rightly before me, as my servant Job has. Therefore Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite departed and did as the Lord had spoken to them. The place which others have spoken of; Therefore I despise myself and repent, and I esteem myself as dust and ashes. And here it is evident that his friends have not spoken rightly about the injury to holy Job. As the Lord accuses them, it is shown that he himself says to them that their sin of reproach cannot be forgiven unless the blessed Job prays for them and offers a burnt offering of propitiation. Here we understand that it is not beneficial for anyone to exult and criticize in God's punishment and the hardships of tribulations. For it is said that when Job was offering a sacrifice for them, the Lord gladly turned his face to listen. And the Lord added double. In the following, the sense of his doubling is diligently explained by the writer of this book. But brothers and sisters, who had gathered to the blessed Job after the plague of his punishment, all thoughts, and the families of his kind, must be understood. Also, all his acquaintances and friends, who had known his royal power and unique wisdom before, came to him and ate with him in the feast of his honor: in which he showed that the filth of all impurities had been washed away from him. But in the movement of the head, we know that the indicated joy of those who came together for him: and those who, out of kindness, gave each sheep and each gold earring as a gift, as if to a poor person who had absolutely nothing. In this consolation, although small and doubling of previous goods, it can be observed that a great multitude gathered to him: and although he received little from each, he suddenly became the master of such great riches. The author of this book could have said this by anticipation, so that after that temptation, after one hundred and forty years of his life, with the blessing of the Lord, he possessed doubled riches: but we do not read that the number of his sons was doubled. Therefore, I believe that when those things that were completely lost were restored to her twofold, her twenty sons were also given back to her in exchange for ten. For those same ten first ones who were crushed by the collapse of the falling house are not considered to be extinguished before God. Therefore, for the strengthening of our faith, we must understand that she received from God as many sons as she had lost, just as her entire possessions were restored to her twofold by the Lord. And as a most faithful servant of God, she should have no doubt that those whom she had sent to God did not perish. Thus, when throughout this entire book of Job we have perceived the figure of the Savior, by the grace of Him who deigned to bestow it upon us, we have explained it, and in certain places, we have understood his friends to represent heretics, just as we have also discussed that Job himself had the image of the Gentiles. But because through Christ there is reconciliation for the impious and the erring: for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved: therefore, now that the Gentiles have been extinguished and abolished, the heretics are sent to Christ by God the Father, so that through whom they were previously saved, they may be reconciled to God again by the same mediator. In the Holocaust of Seven Bulls and Rams, the satisfaction of prayers and alms, the complete cleansing of pride and anger, and the perfect demonstration of repentance through labor and innocence is shown. However, what he says:
And the Lord accepted the face of Job, and the Lord also turned to the repentance of Job, when he prayed for his friends; this is what the Apostle says: Christ Jesus, who is at the right hand of God: who also intercedes for us, according to the apostle John, he is our advocate, and propitiation with the Father. Thus, the face of the Savior is received by the Father, both when he himself hears, and is heard.
And the Lord added double to all that had been Job's. Therefore, those things were added to Christ the Lord and our God, when a multitude of nations was added to the people of Israel through faith, and it will be added to the kingdom.
But his brothers and all his sisters came to him, and all those who knew him from before, and they ate bread with him in his house. And they were astonished by him. Whether brothers and sisters generally from all nations we can understand: because he took on the flesh of the human race, through which he deigned to make all others his brothers. Concerning them, he says to the Father: I will proclaim your name to my brothers, and in the midst of the Church I will praise you. And in the Gospel he says: Whoever does the will of God, this one is my brother, and sister, and mother. And all who knew him before came to him: and so it must be understood about them, because all the saints and prophets knew him before, who certainly saw him in spirit: whom they also announced would come in the flesh, just as the Lord himself says: Many prophets and righteous people desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Those who saw him in the Spirit desired to see his coming in the flesh, just as the holy Abraham, about whom the Lord says: Abraham desired to see my day: and he saw it, and rejoiced. Therefore, these aforementioned saints came because they had the same spirit of faith, they prophesied as righteous ones living by faith, foreseeing the sacrament of the future incarnation of Christ in the spirit. They came to the same faith in Christ through the same repentance, that is, from faith to faith, to be one under Christ the head, and they themselves constituted in the body of the Church. where, now with Christ glorified by the resurrection, and the dishonor of his passion restored to its former honor, all those who come to him in faith eat the bread of his sacraments in his house, the Church. But when they are said to eat the bread with him, it is because he himself said: Behold, I am with you all days even unto the consummation of the world. Either because he is the consecrator of the same mysteries, in which we receive both himself blessing and consecrating: for he himself said: I am the living bread which came down from heaven. And the word of the Scriptures is the bread of Christ, by which in the Church, the house of the Savior, they are fed, and by their exhortation they are refreshed, once poor in faith, who in this world, being estranged from God, suffered hunger for the divine word, and all who had previously known him came to him, that is, those who had known him on earth, merited to come to him in heaven. And Scripture says that they moved over his head, rejoicing because they had become participants in the spiritual and sacred banquet of Christ: as the Lord says in the psalm: I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him: the poor will eat and be satisfied, and those who seek him will praise the Lord.
And they comforted him in all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Our Savior is greatly comforted, who believes with joy in the passion that he undertook for the redemption of the world, and faithfully contemplates it with the eyes of faith; for he himself is filled with such consolation, that when he saw the crowd of believers, he rejoiced in the Spirit, as we learn from the holy evangelist's writing. And we say that God the Father brought upon his Son the evil of suffering and death, as the Apostle said: 'He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.' Great is the consolation that we receive, because He will give us His blessings, who has taken on our sufferings.
And each person gave him one sheep, and one golden coin. Each person who comes to Christ in faith offers him their innocence and obedience of mind. For the Apostle also teaches that sinners become holy and live in this way, saying: I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. Therefore, those who come to Christ become the Lord's sheep, holy sheep, those reasoning creatures, born again in Christ through obedience to God's commandments, innocent and simple workers and faithful.
But the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys. The beginnings of the Christ of God, and of our Lord, signify the beginnings of the Law of Moses. But his latter days are shown to be the Gospel. Therefore, the Preacher says: The latter things of his speech are better than its beginning. Therefore, the mysteries of the Gospel revealed in Christ are better than the significations and figures of the Law: the better sacrifices are the contrite hearts, than the burnt offerings of animals. The manifestation of truth in the Gospel is better than the shadow of allegories in the Old Testament. And thus the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, so that grace would abound in both peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles: whom this Scripture wanted to call by the names of various animals, according to the qualities of their character. But I remember saying at the beginning of this work that the same animals contain this meaning in their names. But I think the number of these animals was doubled, for the sake of both peoples, either because of the more abundant grace of the Gospel, as we have already said, about which the Apostle says: Our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient as ministers of the new testament, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
And he had seven sons and three daughters. The fact that he had seven sons and three daughters indicates the number seven, which is symbolic of Law, Prophecy, and Grace, as I mentioned at the beginning of this. Their father, when dying, made them coheirs of their brothers, that is, he incorporates their souls, through the spirit of grace, into the testament of the divine Scriptures, making them indeed participants in his promises. The names of these daughters also contain a great mystery within themselves.
And he called the name of the first Day, and the name of the second Casia, and the name of the third Horn of Antimony. But beautiful women were not found, like the daughters of Job in all the land. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. And Job lived after these afflictions one hundred and forty years, and he saw his sons, and the sons of his sons, even to the fourth generation: and he died, an old man, and full of days. Therefore, this is the law of God, which enlightens the night of human ignorance in order to bring knowledge of the truth. Casia is the gift of holy anointing. The horn of antimony is most fittingly joined to the forces of the Church and the riches of spiritual things, which are the treasure of the Church. But the horn belongs to the royal emblem and the dignity of the Church, as the prophet says: He exalted the horn of his Christ. Therefore, the holy Job clearly had the figure of the Savior, and in that he became needy and poor from being very rich, so that we might be enriched. The devil exercised his power over his whole body, but he accomplished nothing, as the Lord himself said: The prince of this world is coming, and he will find nothing in me. Just as the blessed Job, after the loss of his faithless sons, was enriched with new sons, so too the Savior, after the rejection of his faithless children, was enriched among the nations. Therefore, in many ways, the holy Job prefigured the passion and patience of our Lord, in the number of his sons and daughters, in the names of his children, in the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, and in the fulfillment of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel in our Savior. In which the spirit of wisdom and understanding rested: the spirit of counsel and power: the spirit of knowledge and piety: filled him the spirit of the fear of God, which is to be understood, full of days.
Finally relieved of the burden of a long explanation, as if breathing after a heavy burden has been set aside, I direct the conclusion of my discourse to you, most blessed Father Vecter, asking that if you find anything worthy in this work through probable truth, you also marvel at the abundant gifts of our Lord regarding my insignificance: I beg you not to flatter me with friendly favor or defend me with benevolent excuse. For I do not want the eminence of your judgment to fall from the sublimity of its own worthiness: rather, make my work praiseworthy as you correct its unpolished parts, and chastise its completed amendments.