Thomas Aquinas Commentary Job 27

Previously, Job had successfully refuted the speech of Bildad, who had cited divine power against him as if Job were ignorant of its greatness. When his response to Bildad was finished, Job understandably expected that the third friend, Zophar, would answer in the usual order. But since Zophar remained silent as if he were convinced, Job resumes his speech. He shows through another argument that it is not contrary to divine providence for the wicked to prosper in this world while the good suffer adversities. The text continues, And Job also added to this, after no one answered him, taking up again his allegory, because he was speaking through metaphors in the style of an allegory.

Before proving his proposition, Job declares that he will never adopt the opinion of his friends, and to establish this, he begins with an oath. The text continues, and he said: As God lives, who has taken away my judgment. This refers to their opinion, by which they affirmed that present adversities only come upon sinners because of God's just judgment.

To explain how his judgment was taken away, he adds, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter. This means God brought external adversities upon him without any prior fault, which caused his soul to suffer bitterness. Nevertheless, Job does not fall away from his reverence and love for God. The proof of this is that he swears by Him.

He connects this oath to the next part of the text: For while breath still exists in me, meaning, while I have life that is sustained by breathing. To show that he recognizes life as a gift from God, he then says, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils. For one breathes primarily through the nostrils, and breathing through the mouth is not very proper, as Aristotle says in his book, The History of Animals. Thus, human breathing, which occurs principally through the nostrils, is here called the spirit of God because a person receives from God the ability to live by breathing.

Job does not want to show ingratitude for this gift by sinning, and so he says, my lips will not speak evil, by saying that everyone who suffers adversity is evil, nor will my tongue practice deceit, by claiming that it is a matter of divine justice to reward the merits of the just with present prosperity and to punish the sins of the wicked with temporal adversity.

Since Job’s friends had asserted such opinions, he adds, Far be it from me to judge you just. He could not judge them to be just unless he approved of their unjust opinion, which would cause him to deviate from his own justice. So he says, until I fall (in death), I will not desert my innocence. He means he does not intend to abandon it. He would abandon his innocence if he, along with them, judged the saints who suffer adversity in this world to be evil.

Just as he does not propose to turn from innocence to harm, so he does not propose to abandon the way of justice. Therefore, he says, My justification, which I held in the beginning, I will not desert. This justification, which pertains to the execution of justice, he held from the start by not approving of a person for their prosperity nor condemning them for the adversity they suffer in this life. He will not abandon it by deviating to their opinion.

Those who have sinned once are usually more prone to sin a second time, but those who do not know sin slip into it with more difficulty. He then says, for my heart has not accused me of anything my whole life long. It is as if to say: I am confident that I will not abandon innocence or justice because I have learned this from experience, for I do not have a remorseful conscience about any grave sin I have committed throughout my life.

Alternatively, this can be connected in another way. Because he had said that he would not fall away from his innocence or abandon the justification he had held from the beginning, someone could object that he had neither innocence nor justice before this. However, he disproves this when he says, my heart has not accused me of anything, and so on. For he would fall away from innocence and abandon justice if he were to favor his friends, who uphold injustice and impiety. So he says, Just as the wicked man is my enemy, when he speaks against the truth of divine judgment, and my adversary is evil, as it were, inasmuch as he upholds an evil opinion in opposing me by saying that I am evil because I have been gravely afflicted.

After discussing these arguments to refute his friends and strengthen his own opinion, he proceeds to his main proposition: that it is not contrary to divine providence if the evil prosper temporally in this world and the just are afflicted temporally. He has clearly shown this above (Job 19:25 and 21:32) using the future rewards and punishments reserved for the good and the evil after this life. But now he demonstrates this by the weakness of the temporal goods that evildoers possess in this life and the greatness of the spiritual goods that are granted to the good (Chapter 28). He first maintains that it is useless for sinners to attain temporal goods in this life without the goods of the soul. So he says, What is the hope of the hypocrite if he should steal things greedily, that is, if he should gather riches unjustly, and God not free his soul from sin through the gifts of grace? What good can he attain from this? He uses the "hypocrite" or "tactician" to stand for all sinners because pretended righteousness is a double evil. Also, hypocrites, as falsely virtuous, appear especially reprehensible in the eyes of God. As he later says, Tacticians and cunning men provoke the anger of God (Job 36:13).

He consequently shows that they are deprived of hope in two ways. First is the hope the just have that God hears their prayer in time of need, but he excludes this by saying, Will God hear his cry when anguish comes upon him? He implies the answer is “No.” The reason for this is found in the book of Proverbs when the voice of Wisdom says, I have called and you refused me (Proverbs 1:24), and continues a little later, Then, when anguish will come upon them, they will invoke me and I will not hear (Proverbs 1:28). Further on in the same book it says, The prayer of the man who turns his ear away so that he does not hear the law will be accursed (Proverbs 28:9).

The second hope of the just is that when they lack temporal consolation in time of trial, they enjoy delight in God and are delighted in His praise. But he excludes this from the impious man, saying, Or will he be able to find joy in the Almighty, whom he did not love, as his works prove, and invoke God in every time? For out of great love for God, some people always praise God in their speech.

After showing the small value of the temporal goods that the evil possess without the hope that the saints have, he consequently shows that the temporal goods which the impious sometimes possess are fragile. Before asserting what he is about to say, he begins with two points. First, what he will say accords with divine wisdom, so he says, I will teach you by the hand of God, by His strength, what the Almighty has fixed in His wisdom, and I will not conceal it, meaning what I learned when God instructed me. Second, he shows that what he is about to say is so clear that even they cannot be ignorant of it, so he says, Behold all of you know what I am about to say is true, and so it is strange that you speak so irrationally against the plain truth. He expresses this theme, saying, and why do you speak foolishness without proof, that is, things with no reasonable support? For people are slow when they know the premises but often do not perceive the conclusion that follows from them.

Consider that since God is the Creator and Governor of all things, all receive something from Him like an inheritance from a father. Evil men receive from God the temporal goods of this world as their share and their inheritance, and Wisdom speaks in their name, saying, This is our portion and our lot . Inversely, the good understand spiritual goods as their portion and inheritance, according to the Psalm, The hopes have fallen for me on outstanding levels and my heritage is outstanding (Psalms 15:16). When, therefore, he describes how frail and perishable the lot of the impious is, which they receive in temporal things, he says, This is the lot of the impious man before God, that is, such is what comes to them as a lot when spiritual goods are distributed to the good and temporal goods to them, and the inheritance of violent men, who unjustly acquire temporal goods, which they will receive from the Almighty. This means He is the one who permits and furnishes the power to get them, as Job has already said, when he fills their houses with good things (Job 22:18).

He shows that this share or inheritance is perishable, first regarding what happens for the most part to the children of evil men, which are held in great esteem among temporal goods. The sons of evil men who have prospered in this world are sometimes killed, so he says, If his children are multiplied, which was held as a sign of great prosperity, the sword will wait to kill them, meaning they will be killed. Although it rarely happens that the sons of a rich man fall into great poverty, this happens frequently to their grandsons and descendants. So he then says, and his grandchildren will hunger for bread because of want. As for the other members of his household, he says, those others who follow him, his household members and friends, will be buried in ruin, without ceremony like people who are killed. And as for their wives, he says, and their widows will not be lamented, which usually happens in solemn funerals.

Just as the happiness of his sons and friends is frail and perishable, the same is true of the man-made riches he possesses. Among these are artificial riches like money, which was devised as the measure for the exchange of things, as Aristotle says. Regarding this, he says, If he heaps up silver like dust, that is, if he should acquire as great a supply of money as there is earth. The same is also true for his natural riches, which provide for the natural necessities of humanity, like bread and wine, clothing, and other such things. Regarding these, he says, and has acquired his clothing like dust, so that he should have as great a supply of clothes as there is dust. Truly he has indeed acquired these things, that is, has expended care and labor in acquiring them, yet another will have the fruit, and sometimes a good man who is not interested in this sort of thing. So he says, but the just will wear those things, clothing in his need, and the innocent will divide his silver, for he will distribute and give it to the poor. He will not keep it hoarded, which would be against his innocence.

Spacious houses are also signs of earthly prosperity, but he shows these to be perishable for two reasons. First, because sometimes a man builds a house for himself by violence on another’s land after he has driven them out. So he says, he has built his house like a moth, which makes a place for itself by gnawing another’s clothing, by which it is expelled when the clothing is shaken out. In another way, he shows it because even if he builds a house on his own land, he still cannot care for and possess that house for a long time, but only for a short time. So he says, like a watchman of a vineyard makes a shelter, which he demolishes when his time as watchman is finished.

He shows how the rich man loses the goods he had acquired when he says, When a rich man goes to sleep, when he dies, he will take nothing of his possessions with him to the next life. He will open his eyes, in the resurrection, and will find nothing, because he will not return to possess temporal goods. Sometimes even in this life he suddenly loses them in the way that rain suddenly comes upon a person, so he says, It will overtake him like the water of the rain, unexpectedly, because it comes suddenly upon him. Although the rain can be anticipated in the daytime in some way, at night it suddenly overtakes a person. So he says, in the night the tempest of adversity will oppress him, taking him completely by surprise.

Finally, he shows the frailty of earthly prosperity regarding the person himself, who may sometimes die from a fever or some persecution. To express this, he says, The scorching wind takes him away, that is, will kill him with fever, and will bear him away from the society of the living. This will happen suddenly and unexpectedly, so the text continues, and like a whirlwind he will be snatched from where he stands, violently and without delay.

Sometimes, however, he is not killed by an internal weakness but by an external persecutor. So he says, He (God) will send some persecutor on him who is more powerful than he, whom he cannot resist, and he (the persecutor) will not spare him. He (the evil man) will flee from his hand, from his power, and escape, either by flight or by death, because, as it is said, after he has died, he has nothing more to do (Luke 12:4). Once he is dead, awe and mourning remain for his friends. So he then says, and a man will wring his hands over him, as though struck with awe, and will sigh over him from compassion, considering his place, when they consider his former dignity.

Chapter 28