The sayings of the holy man, as we have already often said, are to be understood as spoken sometimes in his own person, as sometimes in the voice of the Head and sometimes as a prefigurement of the universal church. Now the soul of the righteous is deeply distressed when people launch severe sentences against the good; they have not learned to lead good lives. By their words they claim righteousness for themselves, while in their actions they prove to be its enemies. To the friends of blessed Job, who bear the type of heretics, he rightly answers, How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words? For good people are broken into pieces by the words of the wicked. They come out against them with words of the lips while they lie low either in a corrupt faith or in bad habits.

Only know that the Lord has dealt with me thus. . . . You speak against me; you do not feel for me but bear hard upon me. . . . May the dignity of him who punishes me make you change your mind, he says. We do not have to trample underfoot the people who are punished by God, but we must shed tears and grieve over their fate. Above all, we must not rejoice over the death of anybody, because such an action will not be left unpunished. Who would have not respected Job’s misfortune, at least because of the dignity of him who chastised him?

Job says this as a concession. He always acts in this manner, by multiplying his concessions. He does not allow the discussion to languish on the same point but begins his fight again. Let us admit, he says, that you reprove my words for being foolish, vain and inopportune. You, nonetheless, had no reason to insult me, even if things were so, but it was necessary to respect my distress, to fear him who had struck me, to forgive because of the greatness of my misfortunes.

But alas! Since you magnify yourselves against me and insult me with reproach, he says, know then that it is the Lord that has troubled me. What do these words mean? That it is necessary to have respect and fear? In my opinion, Job wants to suggest in this passage that if he was suffering so much, it was not because of his faults—in fact, if God strikes one, does one always suffer because of his faults? Not Job, and not many others—but in order to be tested and to achieve more victories.

And if I—let us suppose—had done things that should not have been done, even if I had been in such a condition, was it not necessary just the same that you felt ashamed while seeing my afflictions, disease, worms and loss of goods? But you approach me without commiserating with me and without feeling any sympathy for my adversities.. . . I will cry out, and there is nowhere judgment; I still contend. This is as if Job had said, I cried out like an athlete in the stadium, but my judgment is nowhere there. Indeed, I still fight. But if I do not bring my fight to a close, I will not get my crown. We actually say these things lest we accuse God of the fact that Job suffered such misfortunes and there was judgment for him nowhere.

No speech, Job says, can describe my misfortunes. As those who are surrounded on every side by a wall or are oppressed by darkness, I cannot proceed any further. So, it is impossible for me to escape these calamities. He says that his crown was taken away from him, that is, he also was a king before, or. . .^[1] He tore me off, he says, and like a tree he cut away all my hopes from the roots. Like an enemy who is inflamed with anger, he destroyed all my prosperity. Job correctly says like an enemy, because God does not inflict torments with an angry or hostile mind. He says these things in order to persuade his friends and himself that his punishment exceeds the limits of human crimes. Indeed, that righteous man was suffering not because of his crimes but in order that his patience might be tested.

His robbers came together, and through me they made their own way. Either Job employs use of the simile that he had chosen in order to say that he is exposed to the attack of the enemies and that they go back and forth without any obstacle on their open way, or he refers to the messenger who announced to him those misfortunes that had befallen him. Indeed, the text says, While he was still speaking, another messenger came.^[1] His robbers came together. He has developed the metaphor that he had suggested with the name enemy. In fact, since Job said that God came as a king to fight him as an enemy, he now adds, His robbers came together. It is as if he said, his soldiers, because Scripture usually calls the spies of the enemies robbers.

The grace of the Gospel testifies that these words have been said about the Lord in truth. John, in fact, says, His brothers did not believe in him,^[1] when they said to him, Leave from here, and go into Judea, so that your disciples may also see the works that you do. For there is no man that does anything in secret, and he himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.^[2] They said that because they did not know his ability and recognized strangers rather than him. This certainly referred to the Jews, that is, they looked after their own interests, and when he had to be admired, they despised him.

We shall show this more effectively if we introduce the testimony of John, who says, He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.^[1] For his brothers were put far from him, and his acquaintances were estranged from him, concerning whom the Hebrews that held the law were taught to prophesy and never realized they should acknowledge when present. Thus it is rightly said, My relatives and my close friends have failed me. The Jews, relatives in the flesh, an acquaintance by the teaching of the law, forgot him whom they had foretold. They sang of him in the words of the law as destined to become incarnate. When he was made incarnate, they denied him with words of unbelief. The text continues, The guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger. The inhabitants of God’s house were the priests, whose race was once set apart in the service of God and continued henceforth by office in that state. But the serving girls are not improperly taken as the souls of the Levites, servants to the hidden parts of the tabernacle, as it were, by a more familiar service to the interior of the bedchamber. Therefore, let Job say of the priests, serving with diligent care, let him say of the Levites attending in the interior of the house of God, The guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger. For they refused to acknowledge and reverence the incarnate Lord, whom they had for long foretold in the words of the law. And yet, Job more plainly shows that he was not understood by their wicked will when he adds, I have become an alien in their eyes. This prefigures our Redeemer who, because he was not recognized by the synagogue, was rendered, as it were, an alien in his own house. The prophet plainly witnesses to this, saying, Wherefore shall you be as a settler in the land and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry?^[2] When Christ was not heard as the Lord, he was not accepted as the owner but as a settler of the land. He only turned aside to tarry as a wayfaring man, in that he bore away only a few people out of Judea, and proceeding to the calling of the Gentiles finished the journey that he had begun. ^[3] A TARGET OF SCORN. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: When I rise, they speak against me. Like a target, Job says, I rise before them, and they will spit upon me all the words of abuse that they want to say. ^[1]

My flesh is corrupt under my skin, and my teeth grip my bones. While I am alive, Job says, my flesh putrefies, and my bones are chewed by the teeth of some wild animal. Pity me, pity me, O friends, for it is the hand of the Lord that has touched me. You are not ashamed before the one who says righteous words. As benevolent persons, you have compassion upon me and take pity by considering also the respect due to what has been inflicted on me by God. You will not be tested by God through the same calamities. Why do you persecute me as also the Lord does, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Why do you add your wrath to divine wrath without doing this according to God’s will? Even though God punishes, he, nonetheless, wants to be good to us—and therefore, why do you insatiably use the harshness of your words against me? In fact, abusive words are sufficient to devour flesh. So let us fear invectives and insults, because we are aware of the fact that they wound our brothers.

We desire what we have said with a troubled mind not be confusedly relegated to oblivion as a cause of shame. On the contrary we want what we have said seriously and carefully to be fixed in the memory and remain in the mouth of many people. Therefore also holy Job, intending to show that he had not poured out what he had said with a troubled mind but that his words were truthful and reasonable, wishes that his words are not only written on paper but also engraved on lead and stone, so that they may be preserved for a long time.

For I know that my Redeemer lives and that at last he will be revealed upon the earth. Here the blessed Job predicts the future manifestation of Emmanuel in the flesh at the end of time.

For I know that he, who is about to deliver me on earth, is immortal. That is, he who has to deliver me on earth is God. What does this mean? If God is immortal, why do you want your words to be written and their memory to remain eternally, in an imperishable manner? Notice the state of the soul of those who are in distress. They want not only those who are seeing these events now, but also those, who will come later, to be witnesses of their own misfortunes, in order to obtain, in a sense, a certain sympathy from everyone. This is evidently what the rich man^[1] tried to do when he wanted to inform everybody about his own misfortunes and about the situation in which he who previously lived in luxury finally finds himself.

He will raise up my body that endures these sufferings, for it is the Lord who caused them. Did Job know the doctrine of resurrection? I believe so, and the doctrine concerning the resurrection of the body, unless he says here that the resurrection that he speaks about is the deliverance from the afflictions that pressed him. That is why, Job says, even after my deliverance, I want my afflictions to be immortal. This is an extremely wise way to keep always before one’s eyes the punishments of God even after they have gone. . . . For it is the Lord, he says, who caused these sufferings. Job is correct in saying that the Lord will be the actual cause of his change. He strikes, Job says, and he heals.^[2]

Everyone who does wicked things, even he who is too indifferent to fear this, does not know of the judgment of God. If he did know that this was a thing to be feared, he would never do things that are destined to be punished. For there are very many who know that there is a final judgment as far as the words go, but by acting wickedly they bear witness that they do not know it. Since one does not dread this as he ought, he does not yet know with what a tempest of terror judgment will come. For if he had been taught to estimate the weight of the dreadful scrutiny, surely in fearing he would guard against the day of wrath. Moreover, to fly from the face of the sword is to propitiate the sentence of the strict visitation before it appears. For the dread and terror of the Judge cannot be avoided, except before the judgment. Now he is not discerned but is appeased by prayers. But when he shall sit on that dreadful inquest, he is both able to be seen and no longer able to be propitiated in that the deeds of the wicked, which he bore long in silence, he shall pay back all of them together in wrath. Hence it is necessary to fear the Judge now, while he does not yet execute judgment, while he bears patiently for long, while he still tolerates the wickedness that he sees, lest when he has once stretched out his hand in the awarding of vengeance, he strikes the more severely in judgment in proportion as he waited longer before judgment.