What do the words he adds at the beginning of his speech mean? It is not that he completes his speeches, but he comes back to his starting point, without allowing his adversaries to interrupt him or to begin new arguments. What does he say? I would like to live one month of my old happiness in order to shut your mouth and to show you who I was.

One month comparable to a month of my past days. He calls for nothing extraordinary, only to live his past happiness for thirty days and to enjoy that prosperity with which nobody can provide him anymore. Then he describes it through his words. In fact, since it was impossible now [to live his past happiness], he shows it through his words and says what he did and how he lived before. See the piety of the man: he attributes everything to God. In fact, it is impossible that a person deprived of divine help may ever stand.

If he actually searched for his former happiness, that was in order to show the providence of God; this is clear when he says, In the days when God watched over me.^[1] Then he gives evidence of this godly watch. When his lamp, he says, shone over my head. This means, you will make the light of my lamp shine, because a lamp is really necessary, if the present darkness is deep, if the difficulties of my situation are serious, as well as the assaults of physical suffering, and the plots of the wicked and the fights and attacks of cruel demons. All this shows that by his light I walked through darkness. You see that darkness invades everything and that light shines through darkness.^[2] But, as natural darkness is useful to have rest, it is not useful because of its own nature but thanks to the wisdom of God, who has created everything.

It was the custom of the ancients that the elders should sit together in the gates and judge the cases of those entering in, so that the people of the city might be more peaceful. Now we in revering the sacred history hold it certain that this blessed Job did everything for the sake of the observance of just dealing. We are led further to investigate the mystery of the allegory.

What then is denoted by the gate of the city? It refers to every good action by which the soul enters into the company of the heavenly kingdom. Hence the prophet says, You, who lifted me up from the gates of death, that I may declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion.^[1] For the gates of death are bad actions that drag to destruction. But because Zion is the word for a viewing, the gates of Zion we interpret as good actions by which we enter into the country above, that we may view the glory of our King.

Thus now the young men see holy church and hide themselves, and the old men rise up and stand, because the youth fear its mighty righteousness, and the elderly magnify it. Those empty of mind flee. The serious and perfect do homage to [the church] by rising up in response to the merits of its life. By this discipline the mature come to love and the immature to judgment. And so the young men see her and hide themselves, because they are afraid to be detected in their hidden courses of conduct. But the elders rise up and stand, because all the perfect ones make it appear by humility how they have gained ground in good practice. But because he describes all this of his own people, let him further describe how he is feared by foreign people. . . . Who else in this place can be understood as [foreign] nobles or princes but those who promote wayward teaching? About them it is said by the psalmist, Strife was poured out upon their princes, and they led them aside in the pathless place and not in the way.^[1] For these identical persons, while they are not afraid to interpret the dispensation of God in a wrong sense, assuredly draw the common herds subject to them not into that way that is Christ but into a pathless place, over whom strife is also rightly said to be poured out, because by their statements they mutually contradict themselves.

In order to explain why they proclaimed him to be blessed, he mentions his good works. I have saved, he says, the poor from the hand of the powerful, but it is after attributing to God the merit of protecting and watching him that he is glorified in the Lord.^[1]

The blessing of the one about to die will come upon me, that is, the blessings of the poor, who, being without a coat, was about to die, will come upon me, as I provided him with a garment. In a different sense, you may suggest that the person about to die is he who is dead to the world and its wealth; when the world is dead together with the things that are in it, the one who said, Whoever lost his soul for me will find it will come to him. The blessing of this poor, Job says, will come upon me.

I put on righteousness, he says. There are people who occupy higher positions than others but who often commit injustice. But this is not the case with Job, because he constantly lived in the greatest righteousness. So, when with regard to God you hear that he is clothed with righteousness, do not believe that real garments clothe incorporeal beings. Job did not wear that kind of garment either. And I clothed myself with judgment like a double mantle. That was my elegance. To be sure, others are unhappy with that activity; they find it unpleasant and heavy. But I did not, he says. As one is proud of a double mantle, so I was constantly glorified. . . in that activity. But who appointed him to be a judge? He became one by himself, thanks to his virtue, like Moses.

See how these miracles are worthy of the apostles.^[1] Job was not able to give sight back to them, because that charisma did not yet exist, but he provided them with light, even though they remained blind, whereas now we even make blind those who are able to see.^[2] He did not say, I employed my servants to do that, but I, he says, corrected the errors of nature, not only the errors that derived from the action of people but also those coming from nature itself. ^[3] JOB’S PERFECTION. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: The words I shall be perfected like the reeds, that is, I will end my days [by becoming full] of riches, by germinating and growing like the palm tree and the reeds and the [vegetables] planted along the edge of water. Henana^[1] says, As the reeds spring up and reach a great height in a short time, so I shall be completed and perfected. ^[2]

My glory was fresh with me, that is, contrary to my expectations, this is what happened to me. Instead of lasting, I became ephemeral; instead of being happy, I became wretched, according to the judgment of God. And my bow will travel in his hand. My means of defense was with God. If we used a hyperbaton,^[1] that is, his bow will travel in my hand, the meaning would be, all his wrath will move toward me.

For this awe of those under him we unquestionably believe to have been directed toward blessed Job. But, as we have already often said, holy church, being driven to extremities by the inflictions of heretics or carnal persons, remembers the times past, in which all that is spoken by it is listened to with fear by the faithful. Lamenting the evilness of its adversaries, [the church] says, They listened to me, and waited and kept silence for my counsel. It is as though it expressed itself in plain speech, Not like these evil and swollen ones, who while they refuse to admit the words of truth, do it as if in teaching they could forestall the sentences of my preaching. These disciples now intent upon its counsel keep silence, because its words they dare not impugn but take on faith. For they may be able to profit by these same words; they hear them, doubtless not with a view to judge them but to follow them. Of them it is rightly added, To my words they did not dare to add anything. The wayward teachers, free of all check, are in their freedom the most mischievous. They dare to add something to the words [of Scripture]. They busy themselves as if to correct the rightness of [the church’s] preaching. Concerning the good hearers, Job adds: And my word dropped upon them. By this dropping of word, what else is understood but the gauge of holy preaching? Thus it is required that the boon of exhortation is bestowed to each according to the capacity of his parts. . . .

They waited for me as for the rain; they opened their mouths as for the latter rain. Of this latter rain it is elsewhere written, I will give you rain, both the early and the latter rain.^[1] For he gave the early rain, because in the former period he bestowed on his elect the knowledge of the law. He gave the latter rain, because he caused the mystery of his incarnation to be preached in the last days. In this same mystery, holy church does not cease to tell it forth day by day. It waters the mouth of its hearers’ hearts as it were by the latter rain.. . .

If I laughed on them, they did not believe it; and the light of my countenance did not fall on the earth. These words agree perfectly with the words of our Redeemer in the last part of the sentence where it is said, And the light of my countenance did not fall on the earth. For what is styled the ground but the sinner? He is the same one to whom it was said earlier, Earth you are, and to earth you shall return.^[2] So the light of the Lord’s countenance does not fall to the earth, because the brightness of his vision does not appear to sinners. Thus it is written, Let the ungodly man be removed away that he may not see the glory of God.^[3] For light would, as it were, fall upon the earth, if when he comes in the last judgment, he manifests the brightness of his majesty to sinners.

This is what he means: I inquired into actions, corrected them as a chief and dealt with them like the best of governors. Therefore, through me authority was pleasing to them, as if a comforter was alleviating their sufferings.