Man, who is born of a woman, has a short life, because he has been ordered to return to the earth.^[1] With regard to the expression full of wrath, Job thinks about that moment in which man received the order to observe the commandment^[2] but transgressed it.^[3] And therefore like a flower that has finished blooming, he fell after being shaken; he bloomed in paradise, so that he imposed a name on every animal. But he fell after being shaken, when Adam was enticed into the deception of the dragon. At that stage he fled like a shadow, because, being naked, he concealed himself away from God and hid under a tree of the paradise. When God called him, Adam, where are you?^[4] he did not show up. . . . Therefore our hope was destroyed. Since he had fallen from paradise, man was deprived of his goods and perished completely, because with a single blow he was condemned as someone who had fallen, without any possibility for us to hope of judgment. In fact, if there is hope for judgment, there is also hope for crowns.

Job has surveyed both the power of Almighty God and his own frailty. Before he brought himself and God together, he considered who would come into judgment and who would judge. He saw on the one side man, and on the other side his Creator, that is, dust and God. And Job rightly exclaims, Do you deign to open your eyes on such a one? With almighty God, to open the eyes is to execute his judgments, to look upon whom to smite. For as it were, with eyes closed, God does not wish to look at him whom he does not wish to smite. Hence it is immediately added also about the judgment itself, To bring him into judgment with you? But whereas Job had viewed God coming to judgment, he again takes a view of his own frailty. He sees that no one who comes forth from uncleanness can be clean by his own will.

You see Job taking refuge again in his nature, because it is impossible, he says, to be pure. [He implores God] not only because of our weakness or our ephemeral nature or the disheartening that fills our life, but because it is also impossible to be pure. Stay away from me, so that I may be peaceful and satisfied about my life like a laborer. Job expresses again the ephemeral, miserable and unhappy character of life. And since I am overwhelmed and unhappy, I ask only to be left in peace. Then Job demonstrates that human beings are the unhappiest of all, more than trees, rivers and the sea.

Since God is with Job through the hardships he lays upon him, Job says, Look away! in the sense of Bring your anger to an end! God approaches in different ways by allowing participation and through anger. The friends had come to the conclusion that Job suffers for his sin. He therefore harshly responds that The human being has a short life and is like a withered flower and a shadow and God sees him. In this Job was demonstrating for them that he was not suffering because of sin. He says, Look away! If God delivers someone into such a flood of afflictions, the human being has no calm for remorse. Job therefore teaches his friends that their opinion is unreasonable. For he says, Look away from him and desist, that he may enjoy, like a hireling, his day. In such affliction he would not be able to have calm or to enjoy his life. . . .

But Job spoke this to his friends so that it might be clear that God grants a break in order for remorse to occur. This is why Paul says, Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?^[1] That desist is said instead of end your wickedness and be virtuous becomes plain in the words If you have sinned, desist!^[2] And the earth feared and was still when God rose up to establish judgment.^[3] When people realize that God is judge, they desist from sinning.

Here the blessed Job assumes the role of teacher and prophet, and through the symbol of the tree coming to life again, he predicts his return to his former state. At the same time, Job prophesies that human nature in its entirety will be renewed. Giving vigorous thanks to the perfume of the baptismal waters, the human race will sprout again. Endowed with a new growing foliage, human nature will regain the dignity of its former beauty. After, it will be planted again through the death of the Lord.

Now because Job’s words are clear according to the letter, we must refer the sense to the inward things and search how they are to be understood spiritually. Thus, in holy Scripture by the name of tree we have represented sometimes the cross, sometimes the righteous person or even the unrighteous person, and sometimes the Wisdom of God incarnate. Therefore, the cross is denoted by the tree when it is said, Let us put the tree into his bread,^[1] for to put the tree into the bread is to apply the cross to the body of our Lord. Again by the title of the tree we also have the just person, or even the unjust person, set forth, as the Lord says by the prophet, I the Lord have brought down the high tree and exalted the low tree.^[2] According to the word of the self-same Truth, Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.^[3] Solomon also says, If the tree falls towards the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree fell, there it shall be.^[4] For in the day of their death the just person does fall to the south, and the unjust to the north, as both the just person favored by the Spirit is brought to joy, and the sinner, together with the apostate angel, who said, I will sit also upon the mount of the testimony, in the sides of the north,^[5] is cast away in his frozen heart. Again, the tree represents the Wisdom of God incarnate. As it is written, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her.^[6] And as she herself says, If they do these things when the tree is green, what shall be done when it is dry?^[7] And so in this text, whereas a tree is preferred above a man, what is man understood as but every carnal person? And what is denoted by the title of the tree but the life of the righteous? There is the hope that a tree, if it is cut down, will be green again. For when in a death of painful endurance the just person is hard pressed for the truth, in the greenness of everlasting life he is recovered again; and he who here proved green by faith, there becomes green in actual sight. And his branches shoot, in that it is most often the case that by the sufferings of the just person, all faithful persons are redoubled in the love of the heavenly country. They receive the greenness of the spiritual life, while they are glad for what he courageously did here in God’s behalf.

By calling death sleep, Job has clearly given us the hope for resurrection. However, he says, we will not awake until heavens are no more. That is obvious, because, as Isaiah said, it is necessary that they shall be rolled together like a scroll.^[1] It is necessary that all their powers are shaken, that the sun and the moon are obscured and that the stars, after being unsettled, fall like leaves. Then, at the sound of the trumpet,^[2] the angels will raise us from the dead, as from sleep, obviously under the order and the sign of God.

The meaning is, Oh that in the time when you were inflamed with rage against me, you would have kept me in custody in the netherworld—there, in fact, custody is not due to faults—and that you would not have forgotten me completely but would have set a time for my custody there! Job has given us a reason for his desiring death. Without trials, he says, while being kept there, I will wait for resurrection. In fact, Job says, if a person dies after completing the days of this life, he does not withdraw into nonexistence but lives in his soul and waits for resurrection.

We are said to answer anyone, when we work in a way answerable to what another requires. Thus, in that change the Lord calls, and a person answers. Thus, before the brightness of the Incorrupt, humankind is shown forth as incorrupt even after being corrupted. For now so long as we are subject to corruption, we do not in any way answer our Creator, seeing that whereas corruption is far from incorruption, there is no similarity suitable to our answering. But of that change it is written, When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.^[1] Then, therefore, we shall truly answer God, who calls, when at the bidding of the supreme Incorruption we shall arise incorruptible.

Since Job wants to show that not only the body is resurrected but also the soul whose thoughts are fixed on God, he says, You would call, and I would answer you. For listening when God calls is a quality of a creature endowed with reason, that is, the soul.

I believe that we must interpret the mountain as the devil, or as the human pride that swells up like a mountain before God through arrogance of mind, so that, after rising up, this mountain tumbles down and is destroyed, and after being reduced to dust, it is totally annihilated. I think that by rock are signified those who had to remain in the goodness of nature like rocks with a strength similar to that of the ground but who are brought, by their will, to a certain obtuseness and hardness of heart, so that, after turning down their dwelling place, which they presumed to possess thanks to their merits, they must be rejected toward suitable places for them. These waters that always flow towards lower things, and through which sometimes ruin comes, represent the hostile powers and the storms and whirlwind of the world. These waters, I say, waste with an incessant dripping those people who assume to be very strong and stable and have confidence in their virtue, and therefore they are compared with rocks. I think that the soil of earth is those who by withdrawing from dangers and temptation give themselves to destruction.

A person is punished, Job says, and, even if he has many descendents, he does not know them. In fact, after his death, he is often deprived of the pleasures that he was accustomed to enjoy while alive. What is the pleasure of leaving children after one who has departed? You see, everywhere Job emphasizes the ephemeral character of life. It is impossible to come back and to return down here. Even if he leaves children after him, he does not know how they will prosper. He does not know at all whether his descendants will be numerous or scarce. What is more painful than to ignore one’s successes and to go away alone by only knowing one’s afflictions? Even if something good happens to him after his death, he does not know, nor will he ever know it [in this life]; but what he surely knows now is that his flesh is in pain and his soul mourns.