Job 10 · The Lantern

Job’s Plea to God

My soul loathes my life. I will let loose my complaint upon me; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

But he also said above, "God would not hearken to him, so that he should answer to one of his charges or of a thousand." How can Job speak so here? "In the bitterness of my soul," he says. Therefore it is not him who speaks but his bitterness, insofar as the reflections of Job allow us to express what he means.

My soul is weary of my life. Now whensoever the present life has once begun to grow tasteless, and the love of the Creator to become sweet, the soul inflames itself against self, that it may accuse self for the sins, wherein it formerly vindicated itself, being ignorant of the things above. Whence he yet further adds with propriety, I will let my speech go against myself.

Job earlier proposed that both the innocent and the unjust are assailed by trials in this world, and touched upon one reason for the punishment of the innocent which he could think of, i.e. that the earth, as if forsaken by God, had been exposed to the almost evil will of an iniquitous power which punishes the innocent at will.

I will say to God: Do not condemn me. Let me know why you contend with me.

Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should reject the labor of your hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?

Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as a mortal sees?

Are your days like the days of a mortal? Are your years like the days of a man,

that you seek out my iniquity and search after my sin —

though you know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverer from your hand?

Your hands shaped me and made me, all around together — and you swallow me up.

Thine hands have made me and fashioned me, altogether round about: and dost Thou thus suddenly cast me down? As if He said to Him in humility; 'Whereas that which I have done being submitted to a just examination is not meet for the propitiating of Thee, consider in Thy mercy lest that should perish which is Thy doing.' By which same words too the wicked doctrine of Manichaeus…

The authority of the one commanding ought to move us to observe the commandments of God: because it is God who commands that the precepts be observed.

Since he had already stated that he was the work of God's hands to show by this that it cannot seem good to God to oppress him for his own sake, as though he delighted in suffering, he clearly explains what he had merely stated as a given.

Remember, please, that you made me like clay; and to the dust you will return me.

Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?

The seed from which life emerges he calls "milked milk," for as milk curdles and becomes cheese, so the seed becomes "nature" when it curdles. This is a condition before the embryo. For the seed that sinks into the channels of the vagina becomes "nature" when it curdles like cheese.

Hast Thou not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin, and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.

Next he treats the making of man with reference to the work of propagation by which man is generated from man. Note here that he attributes every work of nature to God, not so as to exclude the operation of nature, but in the way things done through secondary causes are attributed to the principle agent. Similarly the operation of the saw is attributed to the carpenter.

With skin and flesh you clothed me, and with bones and sinews you wove me.

Life and loyal love you did with me, and your visitation kept my spirit.

And these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was with you:

Do you see that "the possibility to know God is manifest in creatures," that our creation was already sufficient to show me the nature of God and his power, without any help from heaven?

Though Thou hide these things in Thine heart; yet I know that Thou rememberest all. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION As if it were in plain words; 'Why do I tremble for myself, who know that Thou dost gather in one even all nations?

To preclude someone thinking because he had said to God, "Remember, I beseech you, that you made me like clay," that he was of the opinion that God could forget, he excuses himself concerning this language saying, "Although you hide these things in your heart, I know that you still remember everything." For God is said by analogy to hide something in his heart like a man when h…

if I sinned, then you would watch me, and you would not acquit me of my iniquity.

If I were guilty — woe to me. And if I were righteous, I could not lift my head; I am full of shame, and look upon my affliction.

And if it lifts itself up, you hunt me like a lion; and you turn back and show yourself wonderful against me.

A human being is called "lion" with good reason, because he is a royal animal, and even more so the righteous, because, by preserving the honor of God's form, he is dreadful to his enemies.

And by reason of pride, Thou wilt take me like a lioness. When a lioness hunts for food for her whelps, she rushes with ravening jaws into the pitfall.

Because Eliphaz imputed the fact that he said he was innocent to pride, he then says, "Because of my pride, you will capture me like a lioness." For Eliphaz had already referred to Job saying, "The roaring of the lion and the voice of the lioness and the teeth of the lion's whelps have been broken." (4:10) Therefore he says, "Because of my pride, you will capture me like a lion…

You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your vexation with me — changes and a host are with me.

And why did you bring me out from the womb? I would have expired, and no eye would have seen me.

I would be as though I had not been; I would have been carried from the belly to the grave.

Are not my days few? Let him cease, and set himself away from me, that I may be cheerful a little,

Job wants to find relief before he has to go from where he cannot return. Therefore, he does not pray for himself, but to teach the friends who think that those who suffer hardship are evil but those who are free from hardship are righteous. He desired that they should gain certainty regarding the divine resolutions about him.

Will not the small number of my days be finished in a short time? He shews himself to live with good heed and circumspection, who, in considering the shortness of the present life does not look to the furtherance but to the ending of it, so as to gather from the end, that all is nought that delights while it is passing.

There is no one who delights in the torments of another who is so cruel that he would give him at least a brief respite from afflicting him. So even if one supposes that God were not the cause of the birth of man, the man's days are still short, especially in comparison to the eternity of God.

before I go — and I shall not return — to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

In order to avoid scandalizing many who see his life end in affliction and sadness, it is not without reason that the righteous man asks for the termination of his ordeals.

Before I go whence I shall not return, even to a land of darkness, and covered with the shadow of death. For what is denoted by 'the land of darkness' saving the dreary caverns of Tartarus, which are covered by the shadow of eternal death, in that it keeps all the damned for evermore severed from the light of life. Neither is the place below improperly called a land.

But one could object: On the contrary you should rather be afflicted here for a little time so that when you go from here, you will find consolation. This can be interpreted in two ways. In one way by returning a second time to this life. He excludes this saying, "Before I go away," in death, "and I do not return to live," again. This can be explained in two ways.

a land of gloom, like darkness itself; of the shadow of death, and without order; and it shines like darkness.

Job10

Job’s Plea to God