Chapter V.
Therefore, call if there is someone to answer you, and turn to one of the saints. Anger kills a foolish man, and envy kills a little one. I saw a foolish man with strong roots, and I immediately cursed his beauty. His children will be far from salvation, and they will be crushed at the gate, and there will be no one to deliver them. It is foolish to boast of one's own merits. But here he calls beauty the name of false happiness: which is to be cursed and abhorred because eternal destruction follows it.
The famished one will eat his harvest and the armed one himself will snatch it, and the thirsty will drink his riches. Let nothing on earth be without reason, and from the ground will not come forth pain. The thirsty, the famished, and the armed: they can be understood as the devil and his own, who receive power from God to lay waste the wicked: or the thirsty for the death of men, namely every good thing of nature and what is called wealth, is absorbed by them as if a draught is drunk: or unjust men, who oppress their subjects.
Man is born for labor, and the bird for flight. Therefore, I beseech the Lord, and I will lay my words before God. That is, labor reminds man to walk chastened by all vices.
He who does great and inscrutable things, and wonders without number. He who gives rain upon the face of the earth, and waters all things with his waters. He who raises up the lowly to the heights, and uplifts the sorrowful to safety. That in the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus, there is God, and through him the Church.
He disperses the evil thoughts of those, so that they cannot accomplish what they had planned. Specifically, the Jews who believed they could extinguish Christ and erase his name from the earth. He also disperses the thoughts of those who persecuted the Church through the martyrs, like Herod with Peter. And likewise: Their hands do not accomplish what they desire, because some of them are freed for a time, while others are led through the door of death into life, and God will save both these and those. Liberating them openly, crowning them secretly.
He who captures the wise in their cleverness and frustrates the plans of the wicked. Specifically, he convinces the philosophers or the Jews with apostolic doctrine, and reduces their errors to nothingness.
They incurred darkness day by day. This was for the Jews, who boasted of their kingdom, priesthood, law, and even the religion of one God: but not believing in Christ, they fell into the darkness of unfaithfulness.
And as if in the night, they will grope in the midst of the day. Certainly, their prosperity, which, with the usual splendor of this happy age, was more vain glory, when they thought themselves fortified by long security, that they would possess it even until the evening of their life: in sudden tribulation, which is called by the name of night, being greatly astonished, being restricted in narrowness, being struck even by the fear of death, they are said to grope, certainly lost in counsel, ignorant of what they should do.
Furthermore, He will save the poor from the sword of their mouth, and the needy from the hand of the violent. He will save Christ from the blasphemies of the Jews: for their tongue was a sharp sword, saying, Crucify him.
And there will be hope for the poor; but iniquity will close its mouth. Blessed is the man who is corrected by the Lord. Therefore, do not reject the chastisement of the Lord, for he wounds and heals; he strikes, and his hands will heal. In six troubles he will deliver you, and in the seventh no evil will touch you. In famine, he will deliver you from death. It shows the power of the resurrection of Christ.
And in war by the hand of the sword. But let us see, lest perchance he may call fighting a sin, battling against the soul of a man, in order to crush it as subject to himself. This sin is called by the name of the sword, as the prophet says: If the lookout sees the sword coming.
If you restrain the lash of the tongue, you will hide, and you will not fear when calamity comes. If you turn to God, the innermost parts of yourself, the swords of words hurled by the tongue will not penetrate, and you will not fear calamities or the evils inflicted by God upon sinners.
In vastitude and hunger you will laugh. You will laugh, he said, for he will rejoice and you will be glad, and happy when you see others being afflicted by hunger, whether physical or even intellectual.
And you will not fear the beasts of the earth. This is the seventh and final tribulation. The beasts of the earth, and even those irrational creatures that exist without reason, are given the power to devour humans, and evil humans are called beasts, having manners similar to the manners of beasts, against whom the Apostle says he fought at Ephesus. Therefore, he says, you will not fear this evil, when you have been corrected by the Lord and have entered the path of amendment.
But with the stones of the regions, your covenant. By stones, he metaphorically spoke of stable and quiet men, who are indeed just and holy: for these, like firm stones, are established in God, in various regions. Therefore, with them, you will have a covenant of solid charity, so that tribulation can never tear you away from them.
And the beasts of the earth will be peaceful to you. Indeed, wild and evil men, once innocent, have become like sheep; however, they retain their original name, as it is said about Matthew the evangelist: Matthew the tax collector.
And you shall know that your tent has peace. From all these, which are like enemies, your tent is not attacked, nor your dwelling, nor the house of your body.
And by visiting your appearance, you will not sin. This is what it means: Show yourself, O Job, worthy of divine visitation, both in your dwelling and in the name of the one who dwells in it. The whole and complete man has been marked.
And you will know that your offspring will be numerous, and your descendants like the grass of the earth. In a spiritual sense, we can understand this as referring to the children having good works. These children, conceived from the seed of thoughts, are born in deeds, and the saints of this generation boast in their multitude, for they desired to please God more than their carnal offspring. Therefore, Eliphaz could have said to Job, as if giving him advice: If you turn to God in such a way that you regret your past works, you will abound in the virtues of your heart, like seeds. From these good works, you will be able to bring forth offspring like children of holiness, so that the offspring of your works may be compared to a multitude of flourishing herbs, whose roots, if firmly planted in the hope within your heart, will produce flowers and fruits in your land.
Enter the tomb in abundance, like a heap of wheat brought in its time. With the years of advanced age fulfilled and full of days, you will rest in the tomb, so that in the time of the just judgment of God, having been cleansed from the smallest and lightest stains of sins, you may be found like wheat that is gathered into the barn.
Behold, as we have investigated this, it is so, as it has been understood by the mind. This says that whatever has been said by me to you, you should know carefully investigated truths, which you yourself should understand in your heart for your improvement.