The Seventeenth Oration - Job’s Reply to Bildad’s Third Speech

This oration, Job's final address, comprises three separate discourses.

In the First Discourse (Chapter 26), Job opens with a rebuff of the philosophical thesis put forward by Bildad in his last speech.

He points out that by taking this approach, he [Bildad] is actually reinforcing Job’s own thesis and opinion that it is the Cosmos that rules the world and that it is by its decree that each person's fortune is determined, whether for favor or reproach. for prosperity and joy, or poverty and plague. For though by his insistence that individuals are subject to God’s Governance and that the stars do not predestine an individual’s acts of volition, so there is reward for the good and punishment the wicked, Bildad had differed from Job’s position, he nevertheless recognized that the administration of this Governance does not override the Governance of the Cosmos, and so it is conceivable that what befits a wicked person befalls a righteous one, or vice versa, for God will not alter the Cosmos because of the deeds of the righteous person.¹ Thus, the question of the suffering of the righteous and of the prosperity of the wicked remains in all its force. For Bildad’s assurance that they will be rewarded or punished after death is totally rejected by Job, seeing, as he has already stated, over and over again, that he has no proof of a life after death; something which is hidden from the sight of all flesh (Job 28:21).

footnotes: ¹ On this view, prayer has no instrumental purpose, for Nature will always decide.

As regards Bildad's main thesis, namely, that God cannot punish the wicked in this world in violation of its natural order or that of the Cosmos, Job points out that according to Bildad’s own school of thought,² the stars do not rule everything in the world, but only those things that are influenced by the stellar motions by virtue of having elemental qualities in common with them, as is the opinion of the Philosopher expressed in the passage from Sefer Ha-Ikarimquoted in The Introduction to Job’s First Speech.³ This being so, God could punish the wicked through those things that do not depend on the motions of the stars.

footnotes: ² The Peripatetic (Aristotelian) school with whom Malbim identifies Bildad. ³ The relevant part of the quotation is:As for any other signification the stars may have in relation to other things which have no connection with their elemental qualities, as for example in the determination of poverty or wealth, or whether a given person will marry one wife or more than one, or whether he will be virtuous or vicious - this school denies any such power. It is false, they say, and extremely unlikely that the stars should give indications of things which have nothing to do with them, like poverty, wealth love, hate, etc.

He illustrates this with a metaphor from the nature of air and water. The laws according to which the waters were first gathered together from over the dry land were invoked by God’s will. They were not implicit in the original nature of the waters themselves.⁴ For initially, it had been their nature to blanket the entire earth as they did at the beginning of Creation.⁵ Thus, their confluence into seas is contrary to their nature and does not ensue from the Cosmos or from the nature of the world. Hence, God could scatter the wicked by means of water, as happened at the time of the Flood. Let Him now, likewise, punish them by means of the nether elements,⁶ through forces that, in the opinion of the Philosopher, are untouched by the Cosmos. [But since this does not happen] it is clear, as is his [Job’s] opinion, that the Cosmos also rules over those things whose elemental qualities have nothing in common with it, including the actions of human beings and their choices, as is the opinion of the astrologers and as is Job’s opinion and philosophical method.⁷

footnotes: ⁴ 'According to the nature of the elements the earth should be covered with the element water...' (Sefer Ha-Ikarrim, Book 4. Chapter 8). Albo is referring to the Aristotelian idea that earth has its natural place at the center of the universe and water, being the next heaviest element, has its natural place immediately above (I. Husik, 1930). ⁵ In his commentary on Genesis 1 Malbim adopts the view of Nahmanides that creation (ex nihilo) took place only at the first moment: 'In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth.' Malbim identifies this 'first creation' with the act of creation described by the Kabbalists as involving the 'contraction' (צמצום) of the Divinity.According to Malbim, the Heaven (שמים) of this 'first creation' is the Cosmos to whose governance Job attributes his misfortunes. No further changes were to be made to this Cosmos by God after its creation; God granted it an autonomy and its governance is therefore independent of Him. During the next six days, only the primeval Earth was affected by God's fiats. Everything it was to comprise had been created at that seminal moment, whether actually or potentially, but was not positioned or expressed until the six days of the creation of the sublunar world. This process required that God make changes in the Earth of the 'first creation'; the Earth was not given autonomy but was subject to God's will, and still is.For example, Malbim explains the firmament (רקיע) that separates between the waters on the earth and those in the atmosphere, as being associated with the new property of evaporation - the law of the force of expansion - with which, on the second day, God endowed the primeval waters that had enveloped the earth after 'first creation'. Similarly, waters were used by God to punish Noah's wicked contemporaries, proving that God can, when He wants, use the earthly elements to exercise His Governance.We might add that though this might have been the case before the Flood, afterwards God promised: 'While the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease (Genesis 8:22).' This covenant restricts the agencies available for His Governance of the sublunar world. No mention of this is made in Job. But as we have noted elsewhere Job stands alone amongst the books of the Tnach, as though its protagonists and narrator had no knowledge of the other books or of their contents. ⁶ Elements such as Flood and Tempest, that are subject to special natural laws and not to the rule of the Cosmos. ⁷ In his commentary to Psalms 36, Malbim explains God's Governance as being exercised under two headings. The first is the Natural Governance ordered by the fixed unchanging laws of Nature, such as the cycles of day and night, summer and winter etc.; this Governance, which is designated 'faithfulness' - אמונה in Scripture, is set in Heaven - בשמים - and operates according to fixed laws laid down from its inception. The second is a non-uniform miraculous Governance by which God overrides Nature when required, such as at the crossing of the Red Sea; this Governance is designated 'mercy' - חסד, and is set in the Vault of Heaven - בשחקים.This gives rise to the mistaken view that man's actions, good or evil, do not directly affect the physical world. That only God Himself can affect the workings of Nature; that only through His intervention is mankind rewarded or punished in this world, Nature itself being indifferent to a person's observance of God's ordinances. On this view, reward and punishment are miracles and when God chooses not to intervene, the wicked may prosper and the good suffer, whichever way Nature prescribes at the time.However, continues Malbim, the Torah teaches otherwise. There is a resonance between the deeds of man and Nature; good deeds bring good things and evil deeds bring bad ones: 'If you follow My statutes...I will give you rain at the right time...' (Leviticus 26:2ff). The Creator, in his infinite wisdom, linked the microcosm of man with the macrocosm of Nature, such that the laws of the latter follow on from the volitional acts of the former; Nature's strings resonating to the music made by man. [Malbim acknowledges taking this imagery from Akedat Yitzchak by Isaac Arama].But there is a difference between the two types of requital. Conspicuous miracles, such as the splitting of the Red Sea, are brought about by God's direct intervention: this is designated 'charity' - צדקה. However, the hidden miracles such as rainfall at the right time occur through Nature, as an inherent reaction to man's conduct: this is designated 'law' - משפט. Individual Providence is hidden because were we to receive immediate tangible returns for our deeds we would be no more than trained animals responding to the whip or to lumps of sugar; free-will would be meaningless; man would be just another animal.That the exercise of our intellect can make us act against the dictates of our natural animal instincts demonstrates how man's deeds can affect the physical world. For all the natural laws scattered throughout Creation are contained in man's body; he has within him the entire macrocosm of Nature. Thus, when his human thinking soul determines the laws of the microcosm and places it under its rule, it also subdues the macrocosm, for the two are but a single concern.

In the Second Discourse (Chapters 27 and 28), seeing that his companions have given up arguing, they having found no solution, Job returns to justifying the position he had previously taken in disagreeing with their theses and in refusing to accept propositions with which his mind cannot agree. To do otherwise would be hypocritical, and hypocrisy is hateful in the eyes of God. Better that he voice what he really thinks is the truth, even though it involves heretical and contrary notions, than he should flatter, spouting the opposite of what he really thinks, even though it might repair the remnants of faith and restore its desolation (Isaiah 61:4). (Ch.27:2-11)

Accordingly, he berates his companions for making statements that they knew in their hearts to be the opposite of the truth. To suggest that a wicked person’s punishment is that his children will perish and his possessions waste away after his death is nonsense. For what does a person like that care about what happens to his home afterwards, just so long as he spends his days well and his years pleasantly (Job 36:11)? The calamities should befall him, the person himself (Ch.27:12-23).

And so he goes on to bewail why God has concealed wisdom from the eyes of all the sighted, as a result of which people do not detect Divine Wisdom8**and Governance in His world, wherewith to understand its mystery and enigmas. To such a degree, that these otherwise percipient beings are forced to assert that the Wisdom of Governance, its order and regulation, becomes apparent only after death, when the soul disengages from matter, which is a circumstance shrouded from those clothed in mortal bodies. Instead of opening their eyes and showing them His ways and the morality of His Wisdom and Governance, as would be the proper thing to do, He has hidden and secluded the root of the matter (Job 19:28); telling them to be comforted with fear of God and faithfulness of the heart (2 Chronicles 19:10) and to desist from inquiring about God’s deeds; presenting them with foolishness as wisdom and ignorance as understanding (Ch.28).

In the final part of the speech, he continues his discourse (Job 27:1, 29:1) with three formal declarations, bursting forth flames of fire (Psalms 29:7).

In the first of these, he details the success, honor and esteem that had been his in days gone by (Chapter 29).

In the second, he sets his present degradation and poverty against this; his humiliation, disgrace and suffering, comparing the one with the other (Chapter 30).

In the third, he passes all his deeds under the rod of scrutiny (Leviticus 27:32) and brings evidence to prove that no iniquity shall be found in him; no sin (Hosea 12:9), in any of his deeds or acts. For he was blameless in all his ways (Ezekiel 28:15) and righteous in all his deeds (Psalms 145:17), and he is now stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4), though he is totally innocent (Job 16:17) and has said nothing wrong.

And with this, the utterances of Job and of his companions come to an end and their debate is over.

Bildad had argued that though God rules both man and the world, He is prevented from punishing the wicked by the requirement that the constancy of universal Nature be maintained. Job retorts that this argument in fact reinforces his own thesis, namely, that in practice Nature and destiny determine everything

After the initial act of Creation, God instituted new and special laws of Nature in order to change the properties of the primeval Earth. Job argues that this shows that God, when He so wishes, can exercise His rule over the Earth. And so, if He wished, He could now call upon the nether elements - ‘shades’ - such as Sheol and Abadon, which are in no way linked to the motions of the Cosmos, in order to punish the wicked, as had happened at the time of the Flood; but He chooses not to. Job maintains that the fact that He does not exercise this power shows that government of the Earth has been ceded to the Governance of the Cosmos.⁹ Malbim also offers an alternative interpretation of these two verses, according to which the 'shades' are not instruments of divine punishment through which the Cosmos could be side-stepped, but are the dead and buried.. This interpretation gives the translation: Can the buried dead be resurrected from beneath the waters and their abodes? For Sheol is naked before Him and Abadon has no clothing. Spirits cannot be recast in bodies and so they cannot be brought back to receive reward or punishment; in 'shades', and refers to the Titans of Greek mythology hurled down into the abyss Tartarus by their father Uranus and subsequently released from there by their mother Gaea and brother Chronos. Malbim does not suggest that giants had not lived in ancient times, there are numerous references to them in the Tnach, but that the myth of their resurrection is just that - a myth.

footnotes: ⁹ Malbim makes repeated reference in all his commentaries to what he calls the 'law of expansion - חוק ההתפשטות', by whose invocation the original nature of the element water to blanket the element earth was altered. As he writes: At the beginning of Creation, planet Earth was completely covered by water, for it is the nature of the element water to envelope the element earth just as the element air envelopes the element water. And God altered this nature and decreed that the water should be gathered to one place. The universal law that God ordained to change the nature of the water is the force of expansion that He established in the air. For initially, the element air was mixed with the element water and it was by virtue of the law of the force of expansion in the air that vapors were separated from the water by the light created on the first day. They rose upwards forming the firmament: the atmosphere, the mists and the clouds...And this law has no link with the Cosmos, for it was invoked after the first Creation.

The far north¹¹ stretches out across primeval chaos; **the earth is suspended above upon restraint.**¹²

footnotes: ¹¹ Malbim asserts that the ancients considered the far north to be uninhabited i. e., that 'the lower part of the sphere which is covered by the waters of the Ocean they called 'north', and there the earth remained in chaos (תהו) and covered by water as it was at the beginning of creation.' ¹² Malbim regards the word 'בלימה' as being derived from the root בלם - to restrain. He explains that the statute referred to in verse 10 is the natural law by whose injunction God restrained the primeval waters on the second and third days of Creation producing the blue sky and clouds, and making possible the appearance of dry-land, rivers and seas.

The statute that the Almighty imposed upon the waters in order to restrict their expansion over the earth is outside the control of the stars or of destiny. This shows that if He so wishes, God can overrule all the laws of Nature