Thomas Aquinas Commentary Job 10

Job earlier proposed that both the innocent and the wicked are assailed by trials in this world. He touched upon one possible reason for the punishment of the innocent: that the earth, as if forsaken by God, had been exposed to the evil will of a wicked power that punishes the innocent at will. He showed that this explanation was untrue because there was something clearly unfitting in that argument. He then asked who punishes the innocent and why. He now intends to pursue this question here.

Before proceeding with this investigation, however, Job shows the point of view from which he is speaking. He speaks in the character of an afflicted man, according to the thoughts that sadness provides. He first speaks about the weariness he suffers in this life because of his tribulations. These trials make life itself wearisome, in proportion to their severity. For although living is enjoyable in itself, living in anguish is wearisome. So he says, My soul is weary of my life.

Just as a person who finds life enjoyable chooses to live, one who finds life burdensome seeks to end it. For this reason, Job adds, I will unleash my speech against myself. Something is "against" someone when it is destructive to him. A person therefore speaks against himself when he expresses a desire to be deprived of life.

He specifically says, I will unleash, because a person often suffers disturbances in his heart from passions like sorrow, desire, or anger. Yet, he controls these impulses with his reason so that he does not express them outwardly in words. However, when his reason decides to reveal what it is suffering internally, it brings forth these hidden disturbances in words. It is then that reason is said to unleash the speech that was previously kept hidden. To express this, he says, I will speak from the bitterness of my soul. This is as if to say: The words I will speak outwardly reveal an internal bitterness, letting us understand that he speaks in the persona of a bitter man.

To prevent this unleashing of speech from being interpreted as reason being overcome by sorrow, he adds, I will say to God: Do not condemn me. When reason is overcome by passion, a person murmurs against God and at times goes as far as blasphemy. But when reason remains rightly ordered amid tribulations, one submits to God and expects the cure to come from Him, saying, Do not condemn me.

At the same time, he addresses the resolution of the question. Having asked earlier what was the cause of the punishment of the innocent in the world (Job 9:24), he here at last confesses that God is the author of punishment when he begs not to be condemned by Him. As 1 Kings 2:6 says, The Lord brings death and gives life. This text also serves to refute the heresy of the Manichees.

With these premises, and assuming that God is the author of punishment, he inquires about the cause of his own punishment, saying to God, Tell me why you judge me so. That is, he asks God to help him understand the reason he is being punished. For he knew that human reason cannot arrive at the goal of truth unless God divinely teaches it. A person must know the cause of his punishment, either to correct himself or to endure the trials with more patience. He proceeds to investigate the question with a kind of disjunction: a sufferer must be either innocent or a sinner. He first proceeds by supposing that he is innocent. Because we come to the knowledge of divine things through human ones, he proposes two ways the innocent are sometimes condemned by human judgment.

The first way is because of the malice of the one inflicting the punishment. From this cause, punishments are inflicted on the innocent in three ways. First, through cunning, they heap slander upon the innocent. On this theme, Job says, Does it seem good to you to slander me? Second, they oppress them by violence, which he expresses by saying, and to chastise me, the work of your hands? Third, they do not make the innocent suffer for their own interest, but because they excessively love wicked men, they help them in persecuting the innocent. Therefore, he adds, and to aid the plot of the wicked?

Consider carefully, however, that the same thing can be both good and evil in different natures. For a dog to become angry is a good thing for its nature, but for a man to become angry is an evil thing. No one in his right mind doubts whether God does anything from an evil intention, for there can be nothing evil in the highest good. However, something that is considered a fault in a person might be an aspect of divine goodness. For example, not being merciful—in the sense of feeling passion—is blameworthy in a human, yet this very quality belongs to divine goodness because of its perfection.

It is clear that the three actions mentioned—to slander, to chastise, and to aid the plots of evil men—are evil in a person. So Job calls into question whether they can be good in God. He does not ask, "Do you slander me or do you oppress me?" but rather, Does it seem good to you to slander me and to chastise? He speaks as if assuming with certainty that God never does anything unless it seems good to Him, and that this is truly good.

Likewise, note that no one blames another for things that are part of their nature. It is natural for each thing to destroy its contrary. So too, God, who is good in the highest degree, hates and destroys those things that oppose Him. Psalms 5:7 expresses this, You hate all who do evil and you will destroy them. If, then, men were not made by God but by some contrary principle, as the Manichees falsely claimed, it would seem good for God to chastise men for His own sake. To exclude this possibility, Job does not simply say, to oppress me, but adds, the work of your hands.

Furthermore, it would seem good for God to fulfill the wills of the just. However, those who wish to slander and oppress innocent men are not just but wicked, especially if they do so not from ignorance or by accident, but from deliberate, premeditated choice. Therefore, since Job assumes himself to be innocent, it follows that those who wish to oppress or slander him deliberately are wicked. He therefore pointedly asks, and to aid the plot of the wicked?

Having dismissed this first cause—since such actions cannot seem good to God, Job is the work of God’s hands, and his enemies are shown to be wicked—Job next proceeds to the second way the innocent are sometimes afflicted in human judgment. Sometimes, when an innocent person is falsely accused, a judge, acting according to justice, subjects him to torture to discover the truth. This is caused by three defects in human knowledge.

First, because all human knowledge comes from the senses, which belong to the body and perceive physical objects, a judge cannot know the inner conscience of the accused. Job excludes this from God when he says, Are your eyes made of flesh? as if to say: Do you know through physical senses, seeing only physical things and being unable to know what is interior? He uses "eyes" because sight surpasses all other human senses.

Second, a person cannot understand even all physical things through the bodily senses, for he cannot know what happens in places far away and concealed from him. Job shows this is not the case with God when he says, Or do you see as a man sees? meaning, are you unable to know what happens everywhere, even hidden things?

Third, human knowledge is defective due to the nature of time. A person's knowledge both increases from day to day and is forgotten over long periods, making it necessary for him to learn by repetition. Job shows this is not the case with God, saying, Are your days like the days of a man? meaning your knowledge increases daily, and, And are your years like man’s time? meaning some of your knowledge decreases over time.

He continues, that you should question me about my evildoing and examine my sin, as if investigating through trials whether I have sinned in my work or am evil in my thought, just as men investigate criminal guilt using torture. Job speaks as if, after this kind of investigation is completed and God finds no sin in him, God will then know that I have done nothing wicked. It is as though God could not know this otherwise and must therefore search for his sins with scourges. Job says God can do this freely and without contradiction, since there is no one who can take me from your hand. For human judges sometimes fail to discover the truth using torture when those who ought to be tortured are taken from their hands.

Since Job had already stated that he was the work of God’s hands—to show that it cannot seem good to God to oppress him for His own sake, as though He delighted in suffering—he now clearly explains what he had merely stated as a given: It was your hands that made me. To prevent anyone from accepting the Manichean heresy that the soul of man was made by God but the body was formed by a contrary creator, he continues, they fashioned me wholly, round about.

He says round about because the body seems to surround the soul as a garment surrounds the wearer, or a house its dweller. He says wholly to refer to every member of the body. He says fashioned to allude to the fact that man is said to be formed from the slime of the earth. The hands may be interpreted as the divine operation; he uses the plural hands because although the divine power operating is one, its operation is multiplied in its effects. This is due both to the diversity of the effects and to the variety of intermediate causes through which God produces His effects.

He then says, and so will you cast me down unexpectedly? This is because it seems sudden when a creator corrupts what he has made without a clear cause. When someone creates something, he wills it to exist; indeed, he made it for that purpose. Someone who destroys something wills it not to exist. So, if someone destroys something he previously made, it seems to be a sudden change of will, unless some obvious new cause arises to make it clear that what once had to be made now should be destroyed.

But no sudden change of will can happen in God, and so Job asks, almost in surprise, and so will you cast me down unexpectedly? He seems to be saying: It seems unfitting for you now to destroy without cause someone you earlier made. Alternatively, the words made me can refer to the constitution of his substance, and the words They fashioned me wholly round about can refer to those things that modify the substance, whether they are the goods of the soul, the body, or external fortune.

Having generally stated that he had been formed and created by God, Job now proceeds specifically to the manner of his creation. He is like someone who wants to remind another of something he seems to have forgotten, explaining everything part by part so that it may be brought back to mind. For God seems to forget the benevolence He had toward His creation when He exposes it to corruption. He acts like one who forgets, and Psalm 12:1 expresses the same idea: How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? Therefore, Job says, Remember, I beg you, that you have made me like clay.

Consider that he recalls two productions of man. The first is the original institution of human nature, which alludes to what Genesis 2:7 says, God formed man from the slime of the earth. And so he says, you made me like the clay. Here he also seems to refer to the composition of man from primary elements. Since it was also said to the first man, You are dust, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19), he says as a consequence, and will you grind me to dust? This also befits his natural matter, for it follows that what is generated from the earth is fittingly resolved back into the earth.

From this, one might wonder: since it seems a greater work to form a man from the earth than to keep men already formed in being so that they do not revert to the earth, why is it that God, who formed man from the dust, permits him to return to the dust? The question is whether this is only the result of the necessity of matter—meaning that in this respect man has no advantage over other things formed from the earth—or whether it is a result of divine providence punishing man for some fault.

Next, he discusses 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 to exclude the operation of nature, but in the way that things done through secondary causes are attributed to the principal agent. Similarly, the action of a saw is attributed to the carpenter. The fact that nature operates at all comes from God, who established it for that purpose. In the generation of a person, several stages occur:

1. First, the release of the seed occurs. To express this, Job says, Did you not pour me out like milk? For just as semen is a product of nourishment, so too is milk.
2. Second, the physical mass is joined together in the woman’s womb. He expresses this by saying, and curdle me like cheese? For in the generation of humans and other animals, the seed of the male is related to the matter which the female furnishes, just as a coagulant is related to the making of cheese.
3. Third, the distinction of the organs takes place. Their strength and consistency come from the nerves and bones, and they are encased externally by skin and flesh. So he says, With skin and flesh you clothed me; with bones and sinews you knit me together.
4. Fourth, the animation of the fetus occurs. This is especially true in the case of the rational soul, which is not infused until after the matter is organized. Certain seeds of virtue are divinely infused into a person along with the rational soul, some common to all and others special to the individual. For this reason, some people are naturally disposed to one virtue and others to another. Job says later, Mercy grew in me from my infancy and came forth from the womb with me (Job 31:18). He therefore says here, You gave me life and mercy.
5. Last, the conservation of life occurs, both in the mother’s womb and after leaving it. This conservation is partly due to natural principles and partly to gifts of God that are added over and above nature, whether they pertain to the soul, the body, or external goods. Expressing this theme, he says, and your visitation guarded my spirit. For according to the language of Scripture, just as God is said to draw back from someone when He withdraws His gifts, so He is said to visit him when He bestows His gifts on him.

To prevent anyone from thinking that because he had said to God, Remember, I beg you, that you have made me like clay, he was of the opinion that God could forget, Job excuses this language. He says, 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," as a person does when he does not show by his actions what he has in his thoughts or affections. Therefore, Job says that God hides these things in His heart because He does not externally show by His actions that He recognizes Job—whom He seems to cast down so suddenly—as His own creation.

Previously, Job sought the cause of his punishment by assuming he was innocent. Now, he proceeds to ask whether he is being punished because he is a sinner. To show that he is not being punished for sin, he first uses the following argument: If he did sin, he must have sinned during his time of prosperity.

But if sin is the only reason people suffer adversity in this life, then the effect must follow the cause. Therefore, adversity must follow immediately after someone sins. However, it is clear that Job maintained the same way of life during his prosperous times. If he was sinning then, he had been sinning for a long time before he suffered adversity. Since adversity did not immediately follow his sin, it must be said that God spared him during that time by not bringing any adversity upon him. It seems unfitting to say that God would now punish him for a sin that He had previously spared. Therefore, it does not seem right that he should be punished now for a sin he committed before.

He speaks to this theme when he says, “If I have sinned” (in my time of prosperity), “and you have spared me for a moment” (because you did not immediately cause me adversity), “why did you not allow me to be cleansed from my iniquity?” This is as if he were saying: “Since you once considered me pure by pardoning my sin, why do you now punish me again as if I were not pure?”

He then adds another argument: If sin were the sole cause of present adversities, it would follow that the just would not suffer in this world as sinners do. However, we see that adversity is suffered universally by both the just and sinners. This is what he means when he says, “If I am unjust, woe is me!” because I suffer adversity; “and if I am just… I will not, on this account, lift up my head,” as if I have been raised up from misery. He speaks as one “drowned in affliction” from sorrow, “and misery” from need and confusion.

By “drowning,” he refers to the abundance of his affliction and misery, and he seems to say this in response to Eliphaz (Job 5:18) and Bildad (Job 8:5), who had said that if he were to repent, he would be freed from adversity. Against this, he says that even if he were justified, he is still not free from misery, even though he has been sufficiently punished for any past sins. He shows this by using a term that signifies the fullness of misery and affliction.

Because Eliphaz attributed Job’s claim of innocence to pride, Job then says, “Because of my pride, you will capture me like a lioness.” For Eliphaz had already said of Job, The roaring of the lion and the voice of the lioness and the teeth of the lion’s whelps have been broken (Job 4:10). Therefore, Job says, “Because of my pride, you will capture me like a lioness,” as if to say: “You cause those who hear my words to consider me proud, like a lioness.” The very fact that he was considered evil for this reason was, for him, an additional punishment.

So he continues, “and returning you torment me wondrously,” meaning: “You first afflicted me by taking away my possessions and wounding my body, and now you have returned to torment me through my friends.” This is a cause for wonder because he ought to receive consolation from his friends, not torment. Alternatively, he says this because a person is most tormented when derided by friends.

He describes this type of torment, continuing, “You set up witnesses against me.” For Eliphaz and his companions pretended to defend God’s justice, wanting to stand as witnesses for God and attack Job to convict him of sin. Therefore, he says, “you multiply your anger”—that is, the effects of your anger, as you punish me in so many different ways—“and your punishments battle against me,” meaning they assault me with a certain authority and without contradiction. This is like soldiers who, with royal authority, attack anyone thought to be a criminal without being challenged.

Job had finished his investigation with the statement that he has suffered many tribulations, whether he is just or unjust. He now wants to ask if this can be true, so that no one would believe that God rejoiced in his tribulations. It would seem unfitting for a creator to treat his own creation evilly, because every agent intends the good in its effect. This assumes, however, that he is the work of God, as he made clear in the preceding arguments (verses 3 and 4). So he asks him, “Why did you take me from the womb?” as if to say: Did you cause my birth in order to subdue me with trials?

Because someone could object that, considered in absolute terms (simpliciter), it is better to exist even in tribulations than not to have been born at all, he rejects this opinion, saying, “would that I had perished in my mother’s womb, so that no eye would see me.” He says this so that he would not suffer shame from the great evils that men see in him. If he had perished in his mother’s womb, he would still have had the dignity of existence without the unhappiness that befell him in life. He speaks about this, saying, “I would have been”—that is, I would have participated in the good of existing—“as though I had not been”—that is, I would have been free from the evils of this life as if I had never existed. For the dignity of a man’s being does not consist in being preserved perpetually. Instead, when a man eventually dies, he is carried to a tomb prepared for the dead so that his memory may remain in some way after death. I would have been without even this, and so the text continues, “carried from womb to tomb.”

No one who delights in the torments of another is so cruel that he would not give him at least a brief respite from his affliction. So, even if one supposes that God was not the cause of man’s birth, a man’s days are still short, especially in comparison to the eternity of God. A man expects that brief time to end quickly, since he has already passed a great part of his life. This is what he says now: “Will not the short span of my days finish quickly?”—meaning, since all the days of my life are few, and a great part of that short span is already past. It is not a great thing to stop persecuting me for the rest of my days, and so he concludes, “Leave me, then.” If it seems difficult for you to stop afflicting me for even one hour, it is certain that even after you cease, there remains no cause for my joy, but only for grief. He continues on this theme, seeking “a little comfort in my pain,” which he feels from the blows he is suffering. He says this because he still considered himself to be struck hard as long as his friends were rebuking him. He spoke about this when he said, “You set up witnesses against me” (verse 17).

But one could object: On the contrary, you should be afflicted here for a little while so that when you depart from here, you will find consolation. This can be interpreted in two ways. First, by returning a second time to this life. He excludes this, saying, “Before I go away... and I do not return”—that is, in death, he will not return to live again. This can be explained in two ways. One way is that he is not to return to the same kind of life, as some have falsely maintained. A better interpretation is that he is speaking as a debater, adopting the viewpoint of his adversaries before the truth is revealed (Job 14:13 and 19:25). In a subsequent chapter, Job will clearly give evidence for the truth of the resurrection. In all the preceding text, therefore, he speaks about the resurrection by assuming the opinion of those with whom he argues is true, for they do not believe there is another life besides this one. They think men are punished or rewarded for their evil or good deeds only in this life. Alternatively, he could expect consolation after the end of this life in the state of death itself. But he rejects this, saying he will go “to the land of gloom” after death.

This, too, can be explained in two ways. First, it can be interpreted as expressing the hell (infernus) to which the souls of all people, even the souls of the just before Christ, descended. Although the just did not suffer physical pains there, but only darkness, the others suffer both pains and darkness. But since Job had spoken as if it were doubtful whether he himself was just or a sinner—as his friends unjustly accused him (though, in fact, he was just)—he describes hell in a way common to both the good and the wicked.

If hell is considered in this common sense, it is called a “land of gloom” because it lacks the clarity of the divine vision. It is said to be “covered with the mist of death” because of original sin, which is the mist leading to death. It is said to be a “land of unhappiness” because of the punishments the condemned suffer. It is called a “land of shadows” because of the obscurities of actual sins that entangle the wicked. A “shadow of death” is said to be there—that is, a likeness of death—because their affliction is like a perpetual death. There is said to be “confusion” there, either because of the confusion of minds that the damned suffer or because the order observed here is not observed there. Here, fire burns and gives light, but not so there. There, “one dwells in everlasting terror” because although they are always in pain from present punishments, they still always fear future ones.

But since those against whom he disputes did not assert the immortality of the soul as surviving after death, he continues to speak from their position. The passage is better explained in its literal sense, so that the whole text refers to the body that is buried in the ground and turns to dust. So he says, “to a land of gloom,” to express the property of the earth itself, which is opaque. Although the earth is opaque in itself, those who inhabit it are illuminated by the light of the air covering it. The dead, however, do not enjoy that kind of light, and so he says, “covered with the mist of death,” as if to say: Because of death, one does not enjoy the light after death that the living enjoy. Sometimes, a living person might not enjoy the light surrounding the earth—for instance, while living deep in hidden caverns—yet he can still enjoy things according to his appetite and contemplate truths with his intellect. But the dead cannot do this, and so he calls it “the land of unhappiness,” because of the lack of all desirable things, and “of shadows,” because the contemplation of truth is lacking. Among the things enjoyed by the living, human society is special, with its proper order in which certain people rule, others are under them, and still others serve them. The dead are deprived of this society, and so he continues, speaking of “the shade of death,” as if to say: From the perspective of the living, there is nothing but shadows among the dead. For Wisdom says, “Specters who appeared sad made them tremble with fear” . “No order” is there, because the condition of the dead is one without honor or dignity. “But everlasting terror dwells” there with respect to the living, for whom the dead are a horror. It is as if to say: There is nothing in the state of the dead except what people shudder at, and this will be eternally true for them if they do not return to life.

Therefore, in his investigation into the cause of his trial, Job shows that it is not caused by:

• some unjust person into whose hands the earth has been given (Job 9:24 and following),
• God persecuting him on a false charge (verse 3),
• God looking for a fault (verse 4),
• God punishing sins (verse 14),
• or God enjoying the punishments (verse 18).

As a result, the cause of his pains remains in doubt. Job pursues all these things to lead his friends to conclude that there must necessarily be another life in which the just are rewarded and the wicked are punished. If this position is not accepted, no cause can be given for the suffering of the just, who are certainly sometimes troubled in this world.