Thomas Aquinas Commentary Job 36

Elihu wanted to argue against two points he found in Job's words: first, Job's claim that he was righteous, and second, his accusation that God's judgment was unjust, based on Elihu's interpretation. Elihu had argued against these two ideas previously (Chapters 34 and 35). Now, he intended to argue against the same ideas a second time, using a new line of reasoning. The text says, “And Elihu continued,” with arguments supporting those already used, “and said,” what follows.

First, he gets Job’s attention, saying, “Bear with me a little while,” because he intends to argue briefly against the two ideas with a single answer. He says, “and I will show you,” the truth of the matter we are discussing. He does not want to seem redundant, since he has apparently already demonstrated his points (Chapters 34 and 35), so he adds, “for I have something to say on behalf of God.” It is as if to say: I still have other arguments at hand with which I can defend the justice of divine judgment.

Since he intends to present reasons a second time against both ideas, he says, “I will take up my argument from the beginning,” meaning, “Against everything that has been said from the beginning, I will again bring forward arguments that support my opinion.” He shows this is his duty, saying, “and my Maker,” that is, God who made me, “I will prove just.” He means: I will show there is no evil in His judgment, which you, Job, want to charge Him with so that you may assert that you are just. He prevents anyone from saying that what he was about to say did not proceed from true knowledge but from false opinion, saying, “For truly my words are without deceit.” He will not say anything but what is true and agrees with true knowledge. So he says, “and I will show you perfect knowledge,” meaning the following proofs will convince you because they come from perfect knowledge.

After these introductory remarks, he begins to discuss the arguments already presented by Job. First, he argues against Job’s claim that he was just. To disprove this, he proceeds in this manner: Job had enjoyed great power in the time of his prosperity. Powerful men sometimes threaten others who, from either envy or fear, are afraid that they will be crushed by their power. This is typically the situation of the weak, who both envy the powerful and fear their oppressions. But this cannot be said about God, who surpasses all in power, and so he says, “God does not cast out the powerful because he is powerful.”

Therefore, we can understand that God does not hate anything in a person that is similar to Himself, because since God is the very essence of good, nothing can be like Him unless it is good. From this it is clear that God does not persecute certain men because they are powerful, but because He sometimes finds evil in them, and for this God punishes them. So he says, “but he does not save the wicked,” that is, He condemns them. He shows the cause of this condemnation, saying, “and he grants right judgment to the poor,” because He passes judgment on evil powerful men in favor of the poor who have been oppressed by them. He does not refrain from helping the righteous because of their power, and so he says, “He does not take away from the just,” even the powerful man, “his eyes”—the gaze of His goodness and mercy, according to The eyes of the Lord are on the just (Psalms 33:16).

Since God does not take His mercy away from the powerful if they are just, Elihu shows the benefits He gives to them. He shows this in three ways:

1. He confirms their power, saying, “And he places kings on the throne for all time,” if they have been just.
2. He promotes them to greater dominion, saying, “and they,” placed on the throne, “are raised up,” for they are exalted to greater things when God increases their power and wealth.
3. He shows mercy even if they are punished for their sins, if they wish to repent. He says, “and if they (the kings) were in chains,” placed in prison, “and were bound with the bonds of poverty.” This is like a chain that binds men so that they cannot fulfill their work, and they are confined by many other miseries besides.

Yet to those who have been placed in such unhappiness, God first gives the benefit of recognizing the past sins for which they have been punished. So he says, “he will show them their works,” for He will make them know what they have done that is unjust. He continues, “and their crimes,” because He will force them to recognize that the works they did were criminal acts. He then shows what their sin was, saying, “because they were violent.” For the special sin of the powerful is to inflict violence on their subjects, using their power as the law of justice.

Not only does God force them to recognize their past sins, but He also shows them that they are punished for these sins. So he says, “He will also open their ears,” that is, He will make them understand that God is speaking to them in their punishment. They are punished for their sins, and so he says, “to correct them.” This is to say: He will make them recognize that God punished them to correct them. Furthermore, He will persuade them to repent, saying, “and he speaks,” internally or by external warning, “to turn them back from evil,” by repenting for their past sins.

He shows the fruit of this repentance when he says, “If they listen,” taking it to heart, “and they observe it,” completing it with works, they will be brought back to their former state. Thus, “they will complete their days in the good,” of virtue and earthly prosperity, “and their years in the glory” of the earth. “But if they do not listen,” if they do not obey this internal inspiration to repent, “they will pass away by the sword,” because they will be led to prison to be killed, “and they will be consumed,” or destroyed, “in their foolishness.” Here, consider that in this Elihu seems to agree with Job's friends that current adversities are punishments for sins and that through repentance one returns to his former state. Although this sometimes happens, it does not always happen, according to Job's opinion.

Since people sometimes suffer adversities even though their sins are not apparent, Elihu wants to prevent his previous opinion from being disproven by this fact. So he interprets them as pretenders who feign a justice they do not have, and as clever men who use certain means to commit injustice under the guise of justice. In this they sin more gravely. So he says, “Pretenders and knaves provoke the anger of God,” since God detests this even more. Such men do not repent easily, even in times of persecution, because they think themselves just since they are praised by others. So he says, “they will not cry out” begging for mercy from God, “when they have been bound,” with the chains and bonds of poverty.

In this, he implies that he thought Job was a pretender and a knave and that he should recognize his sin in the punishments he was experiencing. Because such men do not repent in their punishments, they are not freed from adversity. So he says, “Their soul will die in torment,” since they suffer diverse agonies even to death, “and their life” will fail, “among effeminate men,” who do not have the power to free themselves from the hand of their oppressors. He rightly compares pretenders to effeminate men because pretensions arise from a meanness of soul. As Aristotle says, people who are magnanimous do everything in the open.

Since he had said that God helped the powerful in tribulation, he does not want to seem to say that God is a respecter of persons, so he shows that He gives the same benefit to the poor. He expresses this by saying, “He will rescue the poor man from his anguish,” by freeing him from adversity. He shows the process of liberation, saying, “and he will open his ears in tribulation,” for He will make him understand that he is punished for his sins and will lead him to repent, as he has also said about the powerful.

Elihu then applies what he has said in general to the person of Job (verses 5-12). Since he has said that God brings salvation to both the poor and the powerful in tribulation (verses 8 and 15), he concludes that even Job can hope for such salvation from God. He says, “Thus he will save you most amply from the narrow and gaping mouth”—that is, from the tribulation which is like a narrow hole through which a person enters into a wide range of different miseries. For one evil becomes the cause of many different evils, and the multiplication of such evils can continue infinitely so that one never arrives at a state of rest.

He expresses this by saying, “which is without a foundation,” on which a person can rest, “beneath him,” when he has descended to the depths of evil. This seems especially to express the punishments that occur after death, which last forever without any relief. He not only promises Job freedom from evils if he is willing to recognize his sin and repent, but also an abundance of goods. So he says, “The rest at your table will be full of fat,” as if to say: You will be able to eat abundantly in safety and peace from the good things that will be restored to you by God.

Since he has shown that “God does not cast out the powerful” (verse 5) but the wicked, while Job seemed to be cast out by God through many adversities, he says, “Your cause has been judged as evil.” This is to say: You were not punished because you were powerful but as a wicked man. In contrast, he promises him a reward if he will repent, saying, “you will receive the cause and judgment.” This means the authority to judge will be restored to you so that you can investigate the cases of others and rule on them. As though this had already happened, he now warns him how to conduct himself in that situation. Judges sometimes deviate from justice because of anger, and regarding this he says, “Do not let anger master you so that you oppress someone,” unjustly, when “you will receive the cause and judgment.”

Judges also sometimes deviate from justice for other reasons, and Elihu warns Job about these temptations for his future state of authority:

• Do not deviate because of greed for bribes: “not let a great number of gifts make you waver.”
• Do not deny justice out of pride: “Lay down your greatness,” the pride of your soul, “without tribulation,” before God sends you a trial for your humiliation.
• Do not fail to execute justice out of fear of the powerful: “and all the strong with your courage,” whom you pull down with your own strength. Or, this can mean: do not hesitate to pull down men with your justice, however strong they may be in their power.
• Do not lack justice for the sake of your own comfort: “Do not lengthen the night,” that is, do not permit the justice of a cause to be hidden for a long time but immediately bring the truth to light.

He shows the reason for this last point when he says, “so that the peoples rise up because of them,” that is, the strong men. This is as if to say: Do not delay your judgment in such a way that the whole population is stirred up by the violent actions of the powerful and comes to disturb you because of their wrongs. Or it can mean something else: “Do not lengthen the night so that the peoples rise up for them,” as if to say: Do not delay exercising judgment against the strong, lest they find by their power many supporters who rise to their defense and hinder your judgment.

All these things lead to this conclusion: to avoid injustice in the state of future prosperity. So he says, “Beware that you do not fall into evil,” in one of these ways or others. Job could say that this warning was unnecessary because he was accustomed to diligently striving for justice, as he had said in Chapter 29:14. And so Elihu adds, “you began to pursue this (evil) after your misery,” because you considered yourself more just than God. Therefore, you must take care not to turn to injustice if you happen to return to the state of prosperity.

After Elihu rejected Job’s claim to be just, he now rejects Job's words because he believed Job had spoken against the justice of God's judgment. First, he presents the sublimity of God's power, saying, “Behold, God is preeminent in his power,” for God has a power greater than all else. It is unreasonable for someone with less power to convict a greater authority of injustice.

Second, he presents God’s authority, saying, “and no one is like him among the lawmakers,” because it is through His wisdom that those who make laws discern what is just, as we read in Proverbs 8:15. Therefore, no law can condemn Him for injustice; rather, His wisdom is the rule and measure of all laws.

Third, he presents the incomprehensibility of God's works, saying, “Who will be able to examine his ways?”—that is, to sufficiently search the nature of His works. From this, he concludes that God cannot be convicted of injustice, and so he asks, “Or who dares to say to him: You have done evil?” To condemn someone for evil, that person must be subject to a higher power, be bound by the laws of others, and have their deeds fully known. None of these conditions apply to God, as has already been established.

As a result, he begins to show clearly that humanity cannot examine the ways of God—which are His works—saying, “Remember that you are ignorant of his work about which men sang.” These “men” are the wise, so-called because of the strength of their souls. He says “they sang” because of the ancient custom of the wise, who expressed divine and philosophical truths in verse.

However wise some may be, they cannot arrive at knowing and explaining God’s essence. Instead, all human thought and discourse about God must come through His works. For no one is so lacking in wisdom that they do not perceive some of God’s works. Likewise, no one is so wise that their knowledge is not completely surpassed by the excellence of divine clarity. Therefore, he says, “each one beholds from afar.” This means that human knowledge is very far from the perfect comprehension of the divine essence, both because we can only know God through His works, which are an infinite distance from the excellence of His essence, and because we do not even know His works perfectly.

From this, he concludes that God, in His excellence, exceeds human knowledge, and so he says, Behold, the great God who surpasses our science. God cannot be known by us perfectly, not because of some defect in Him (as with motion and time), but because of His own excellence. Someone might object that although we cannot know what God is, we can still know that God is, which relates to His duration. He shows that this, too, exceeds human knowledge, saying, The number of his years cannot be counted, since the eternity of His duration cannot be comprehended by the human intellect.

Next, he shows the magnitude of God’s works that exceed human reason, listing different changes in the atmosphere. Sometimes it is disposed to dryness, and regarding this, he says, “He bears the drops of rain,” by which he means God prevents it from raining. Sometimes, however, the air is filled with rain, and he describes this abundance by saying, “he pours showers like torrents” that flow on the land. This abundance of rain seems marvelous when we consider its origin, for so much water bursts forth from clouds that have no solidity. Regarding this, he says the torrents “flow from the clouds,” not because the rain actually exists as liquid in the clouds, but because the vapors within the clouds gradually condense into rain.

The rain is even more wonderful because it is poured over a great expanse. So he says it “covers everything from above,” meaning that where it rains, no part of the land remains unwatered. Then he speaks about the clouds themselves, saying, “If he wills to unfold the clouds like a tent,” because the clouds hide heaven—the seat of God—just as a tent hides the seat of a man. Lightning proceeds from the clouds because of the collision of winds, and so he says, “and to make lightning with his light from above.” Sometimes the clouds cover the sky as far as the horizon and seem to enclose the farthest boundaries of the sea beneath them. Thus, he says God will “even cover the roots of the sea” with the tent of the clouds.

He says, “If he wills,” to show that the divine will is the source of all natural works. To will properly means to act for a purpose, and so he shows the purpose of these works: “Through these he judges the peoples,” because people are punished by them, and “he gives food to many mortal men,” because the rains are useful for the fertility of the land that produces food for humanity.