The Nineteenth Oration - God’s Answer to Job

At the close of the symposium, which had been based on thought and reasoning, the Lord appears to Job out of the tempest (Job 38:1), commanding that he be restored to himself (Job 38:3) and regain his strength, and that the afflictions be lifted from upon him and he join the Lord in debate. The appearance of God Himself effectively brings the whole argument to a close, for it patently proves that (Deuteronomy 4:35):

1. God’s Providence extends over mankind severally, in as much as He had listened attentively (Psalms 116:2) to everything Job had said and had now come to argue with him and teach him some sense (Ecclesiastes 12:9). This testifies to the existence of individual Providence over all the steps a man takes (Psalms 37:23, Proverbs 20:24). Thus, Job’s thesis that God does not administer the world is refuted.

2. Man’s soul is divine¹ and immortal, alive and protean. For the only way we can conceive of God speaking with man is by virtue of his soul being a part of Him. And when the soul sheds its bodily coat, it perceives with that Divine Perception which is an integral part of the Selfhood of the Blessed One.² Thus, all the doubts Job had expressed concerning the immortality of the soul and the concept of redress in the world to come are shown to be unfounded. For he now has a living experience of how the soul separates from the body during a vision or an encounter with God and of the spiritual bliss it enjoys from glimpses of His Holiness.

footnotes: ¹ בת אלוהים - a daughter of God. ² The actuality of the Revelation is more significant than its content: the medium is indeed the message. The metaphysical is made physical through revelation. Instead of the Neoplatonist postulate of a Logos, viz. a transcendental intellect standing between God and man to whom knowledge and Providence is ascribed rather than to God himself, Malbim postulates that man's soul is a 'piece of God'. When God speaks to man He is in fact speaking to his soul - to the 'piece of God' that is clothed in man. The soul's divinity is only manifest when it is separated from the body, i.e., during a prophetic experience or in the Hereafter.

With this, God directly answers all the questions Job had asked concerning the suffering of the righteous. For it makes him realize that man’s essence is his soul. which is distinct from the body and cleaves to God; to gaze upon the pleasure of the Lord (Psalms 27:4) and to hear His voice from the fire (Deuteronomy 5:20); And this is the essential reward that awaits the righteous after the wasting of the body, when the spirit returns to the Lord who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

God addresses him at length on this point, elaborating on how His Providence extends severally over everything He created; over the totality of existence as well as each individual creature. How He concerns Himself with the needs of each creature, availing it of food and shelter, and providing for the survival of its species, both in the matter of its birth and the sustenance of its offspring; and all the more must this Providence extend over man, the chosen-one of the creatures.

After explaining all of this, God goes on to deliver a second lecture to Job, in which He replies to the question he had asked concerning the prosperity of the wicked, namely, why God does not wipe out the wicked who ravage civilization like beasts of prey. In His response, God points out that a similar question can also be asked concerning the animal world: why He created both weak and strong animals that live alongside one another, the strong preying on the weak. According to Job, He should only have created weak and powerless creepy-things! But that would not have befitted the greatness of the Creator. His stature requires that He create awesome and terrifying creatures whilst providing, through His Providence, for the weaker species to survive, thereby demonstrating that from on most high, a guardian, (Ecclesiastes 5:7) a Single One, rules over all of them. Likewise, there are fierce, tyrannical and powerful individuals amongst mankind, but He has nevertheless provided, through His Providence, for the survival of humanity by making it societal by nature, endowing it with the power to do justice and act with probity (Proverbs 1:3, 2:9) as Elihu has already clarified in Chapter 35.³

footnotes: ³ It might well be asked why God did not take the opportunity of revealing to Job the simple truth, that we the readers have known all along, namely, that his suffering and the loss of his family and all his possessions occurred within the setting of a contest between God and Satan as to whose evaluation of his integrity was correct. That God does not do so is perhaps of no lesser significance; there are some things that a person just does not have to know.

At this point, Job confesses that he had not spoken sense (Job 34:35) in all his arguments. He reveals that throughout the entire debate his mind had not been at one (2Kings 5:26) with the words in his mouth (Psalms 36:4). For in truth, in his heart, he had believed all along in Providence and the immortality of the soul. His whole polemic was just an attempt to find a way to this end through the medium of study and thought: it was all by way of being a search. As the master of the prophets [Moses] had said, Show me Thy Glory. (Exodus 33:18) He too had first investigated this subject by the use of reason and had worked on composing the Book of Job, in which he recorded all his investigations and insights in these matters. But when he saw that no solution could be found by the use of reason, he had asked that God Himself make the glory of His judgments and Governance known to him, as He had to Job,⁴ and He showed him... and told him; (Deuteronomy 34:1) and he was then comforted for being dust and ashes (Job 42:6).

footnotes: ⁴ Carried away by his faithfulness to the rabbinical tradition, namely, that Moses was the author of Job, Malbim is driven into contradiction. If Moses wrote the Book of Job before the Exodus, as Malbim postulates, he must have known the truth concerning the workings of Providence that Job is about to learn from God before the revelation at Mount Sinai and the sin of the golden-calf. Consistency requires that Moses must have been asking for something else when, following these events, he asks of God: 'Show me Thy Glory'.Alternatively, perhaps Malbim is suggesting that Job and Moses are one, and God's lectures here in the Book of Job were His reply to the request made by Moses,

This Revelation, out of the tempest,⁵ They reply that '...just as the blow and the cure comprise a single unit, so death and life [after death] comprise a single unit. at once settles the central issue raised in the debate: God, and He alone, governs. For it is God Himself who appears to Job and restores his health and well-being; He Himself who now addresses the issue with His own series of questions; He and not an agent who now proclaims the Majesty of His Creation and Governance; and finally, it is directly to Him that Job ultimately submits. And when this is all over, it is again God Himself who restores Job’s household and all the possessions he had lost, blessing him with even more riches than he had before his trial. Who is this who with empty words, would cloud my design in darkness? Who had dared to suggest that God does not govern? Who had argued against the existence of Providence and ethical Governance? God had been listening to the debate and had now appeared; ergo there is Providence!

footnotes: ⁵ A tempest was the same agency as had swept away Job's children. Malbim quotes the Midrashic adage (Exodus Rabbah 23:3, 26:2, 48:5, 50:3; Leviticus Rabba 18:5) that unlike man, who 'strikes with a knife and heals with a plaster,' God strikes and heals with the same instrument. In the Talmud (T.B.Pesachim 68a), this notion is the basis of a suggested reply to those who deny that the concept of the revival of the dead is implied in the Torah. Commenting of the verse '...I put to death and I keep alive; I wound and I heal...' (Deuteronomy 32:39) the Talmudic Sages asked: ...is life one unit and death a separate unit as is generally supposed?'

During the debate, Job had asked for a hearing with God; this is now being granted to him. However, he had also asked that if it were granted, then first 'let Him remove His rod from my back, and let His awe not terrify me' (Job 9:34) so that they might confront one another on terms as equal as possible. This second request is now also granted and so before God proceeds any further with His questioning, He first restores Job to full health.

Malbim regards these verses as referring to God's institution of the gravitational force that holds the universe together and determines the motions of the stars and planets. He writes: 'How far the Earth is from each star is determined by the universal attractive force that the spheres exert on one another, for they all attract the Earth such that it is left hanging between them in its place, as is known from astronomy. But the construction of the Earth itself was done by God Himself.'⁸

footnotes: ⁸ According to Rosenblum, Malbim's knowledge of modern astronomy most probably came from The Book of the Covenant (ספר הברית) by Pinchas Eliyahu Horwitz (1795). This popular book had been widely approved by contemporary orthodox rabbis. In order to avoid religious controversy, its author had adopted Tycho Brahe's (1546-1601) model of the universe. In this ingenious amalgam of the Ptolemaic and Copernican models, the sun revolves around the earth whilst all the other planets revolve around the sun. The eclecticism of Brahe's model was perfectly suited to Malbim.

The ancient belief in the Music of the Spheres, according to which objects moving through space produce sounds whose pitch depends on their speed, is mentioned by Maimonides (Guide II,8). The Pythagoreans (c500 B.C.E) are credited with the discovery that harmonious sounds are emitted by strings whose lengths are simple ratios of whole numbers. An octave is the interval between the notes emitted by strings of similar composition and tension one of which is twice the length of the other; the fifth is that between strings whose lengths are in the ratio two to three. According to Pythagorean astronomy, the speed of a planet increases with its distance from the Earth, and so as they circle in their particular orbits each emits a different sound. However, their distances from the Earth are such that these sounds are in harmony. Adopting this notion for his own purposes, Malbim sees this verse as depicting the way the force of gravity acts between the heavenly bodies: ...the strings of this force of attraction and its proportions correlate with the scales of the musical notes. This shows the logical order, relationship and equilibrium that exists between the earth and the other spheres, all of which is indicative of great Wisdom and Providence. The Pythagorean notion of a celestial harmony—the harmonious notes, beyond the reach of mortal ear, emitted by the heavenly bodies in their motions—was revived and advanced by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). It led him to the law of planetary motion (Kepler's Third Law) that the squares of the periodic times of the planets are in the same ratio as the cubes of their respective mean distances from the sun. He expressed his joy at this discovery in the following paean to God (Kline p.78): The wisdom of the Lord is infinite, so are His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises. Sun, moon and planets glorify Him in your ineffable language. Celestial harmonies, all ye who comprehend His marvelous works praise Him. And thou, my soul, praise they Creator. It is by Him and in Him that all exists...To Him be praise, honor and glory throughout eternity.

After describing how planet Earth was fixed in space, God goes on to explain how He then made it habitable. The primeval planet had been formless and void, and totally covered by water. It was as a result of the ordinances God invoked to gather the waters into the seas and the atmosphere that the dry-land appeared. Malbim describes the process as follows: The element water was sandwiched between the element earth below and the element air above.¹¹ At God's decree, vapor began to rise from the element water up to the firmament which is the atmosphere, where the clouds are. As it says: 'And the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water' (Genesis 1:2) and this made the water-vapor begin to rise. As a result of this, the element air was separated from the evaporating water and some dry-land began to appear. Afterwards, God ordained that the remaining waters gather and form the seas, thus making more dry-land appear.

footnotes: ¹¹ (This notion of a series of concentric spheres, each surrounded by another out to the ultimate sphere, is Aristotelian. According to this notion, earth has its natural place at the center of the universe, and water, being the next heaviest element, has its natural place immediately above earth. The comes air, and above them all, fire.)

Thus far shall you come and no farther... as is written (Jeremiah 5:22): 'Have you no fear of Me? says the Lord...who made the shivering sand to bound the sea, a barrier it can never pass?' ...and should your waves surge, here shall you be stayed. The statutes God ordained to gather the waters into the atmosphere and the seas are the Providential instruments expressed by the laws of nature. Though these statutes cannot be frustrated or revoked by man or Nature, they nevertheless remain under God's control and He can suspend or alter them as Providence requires.

Of all natural phenomena none is more central nor wondrous than light. However, as with water, Providence can alter its nature too as circumstances require. Has Job any such power over it? From the moment the sun and moon were put into position on the fourth day of Creation, the cycle of day and night as we now know it began. In this cycle, daybreak is a shadowy line of longitude that moves continuously across the face of the Earth from east to west with a period of 24 hours. God asks Job if he knows from where that line started to move on the fourth day of Creation. Have you ever called up the morn?... This refers to the first morning of Creation. According to Malbim, during each of the first three days of Creation, i.e., before the sun and moon were placed in position, there was light over the entire planet Earth for 12 hours followed by 12 hours of darkness everywhere. The change from light to dark and back again was gradual, such that 'evening came and morning came' (Genesis 1:5).

...shaking the wicked from it. Lest they be seen, thieves and burglars must return to their lairs at daybreak.

At different times, parts of the Earth are in the light and others in darkness. Malbim identifies two such cycles: The first is that which occurs in the Arctic and Antarctic (the Earth's limits), namely, that when it is light round the clock (summer) in the one it is night round the clock (winter) in the other;

The second is the variation in the length of the day that follows the sun's passage through the Houses of the Zodiac.

God now speaks of other features of Creation and of their use as instruments of Providence: how He had created the Universe to be a home for man. Malbim takes these verses as referring to the permanent snow found on high mountains in places such as Switzerland, the Tyrol, Savoy and Piedmont as well as in the polar regions (Iceland and Greenland), and to the invisible ice-crystals in the upper atmosphere.

He adds that both are essential and useful, but both can also cause great damage and destruction, as in avalanches or hail-storms as happened, according to Malbim, in the year 5548 (1787/8 - he does not say where). Thus, they can be employed as instruments of Providence.

Malbim sees the action of Providence in the way the light intensifies only gradually at dawn, allowing time for the eyes to adjust to it. He notes that even at his own time, the middle of the 19th century, the nature of light and how it propagates is still an unsolved riddle: is it a 'fluid substance' (from the German Ausstremungsystem) or an 'aerial propagation' (in German: Vibrationsystem) that is generated by the motions of the source of illumination?²¹

footnotes: ²¹ The former refers to the Newtonian corpuscular theory of light and the latter to Huygens' wave theory. Rosenbloom (p.258) points out that Malbim was one of the few Jewish scholars of his time to mention both theories. Most of the others, following Mendelssohn (Biur, Genesis 1.3), opted for the wave model.

Not all atmospheric lights are accompanied by thunder. For instance, notes Malbim, the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is silent. In viewing this whole passage as referring to Providence and the precision with which it operates - for example, never confusing איוב (Job) with אויב (enemy) - Malbim follows the line taken by the Talmudic Sages in their interpretation of this verse: Many drops have I created in the clouds, and for each drop a separate mold, so that two drops should not issue from the same mold, since if two drops issued from the same mold they would wash away the soil and it would not produce fruit...Many thunderclaps have I created in the clouds and for each clap a separate path, so that two claps should not travel by the same path, since if two claps traveled by the same path they would devastate the world. (TB Baba Batra 16a).

Rain falling on desolate land can be a blessing or a waste depending on the circumstances; this provides more opportunities for Providence. Sometimes for good? For example, if the people of Israel were absolutely wicked on Rosh Hashana [the annual Day of Judgment] and meager rainfall was prescribed for them but they subsequently repented. Their allotment could not be increased, for the decree has already been ordained. However, the Holy One, Blessed be He, then makes it rain at the right time and where it is needed, all in accordance with the condition of the land. Sometimes for bad? For example, if the people of Israel were absolutely righteous on Rosh Hashana and bounteous rainfall was prescribed for them but they then change their ways. The allotment could not be decreased for the decree has already been ordained. However, the Holy One, Blessed be He, then makes it rain at the wrong time and where it is not needed (TB Rosh Hashana 17b).

God asks Job whether he knows the causes of these phenomena or has any control over them.

What causes water to freeze solid? Malbim mentions two theories which had been around since antiquity: (i) the existence of a substance that cools and freezes - a primum frigidum; (ii) that the principal nature of water is to be in the frozen state, the addition of heat [caloric] causing it to melt and the removal of heat causing it to return to its natural solid state.²⁴

footnotes: ²⁴ Whether cold, in the objective sense, should be regarded as a real quality or just an absence of heat was long an unresolved question. In his New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, Robert Hooke wrote: '...the dispute which is the primum frigidum is very well known ...some contending for the earth, others for water, others for the air...but all seeming to agree that there is some body or other that is of its own nature supremely cold and by participation of which all other bodies obtain that quality.'

The ancients attributed cold and warmth to forces that emanated from the stars: that there is a constellation of stars called the Pleiades in the north from which cold and freezing issues and another constellation called Orion from which heat issues.²⁵' (TB Berachot 58b).

footnotes: ²⁵ This idea appears in the Talmud: 'Were it not for the heat of Orion, the world could not exist because of the cold of the Pleiades; and were it not for the cold of Pleiades, the world could not exist because of the heat of Orion

Concluding this section of his address, God asserts that even more remarkable than His creation of the physical world is the way He has united body and soul in man (the microcosm) and, likewise, harmonized heaven and earth in the Cosmos (the macrocosm).

Malbim adopted Tycho Brahe's astronomical system according to which the Earth is at rest at the center of the Universe and the Sun revolves annually around it while the Planets concurrently circle the Sun. In his interpretation of this verse Malbim attempts, not entirely successfully, to unite Kepler's harmonies and planetary laws with Brahe's system and writes: Behold, God ordered the multitude of orbiting spheres by means of the force of attraction that each body and sphere exerts on its neighbor; with the Earth as the center of the orbit in accordance with the ancients' astronomy. And scientists have already shown that if we draw chords from a star to its companion, the force of attraction that one exerts on the other will be in the same ratio as are the strings of a harp, with regard to sound: that a string that is double [the length of] its companion, its pitch is cubed [23 = 8, i.e., the interval is an octave], and so it always is, and so is the action of the force of attraction.

The next chapter should properly begin here, for at this point God turns from describing how His Providence extends over the inanimate world to how He has provided for the existence and survival of living beings in this world. Though man is the most intelligent of these beings, is he capable of contriving such a design.

Providence also extends to the raven, traditionally regarded as one of the meanest of beasts: 'He gives cattle their food; to the raven's offspring too when they cry out' (Psalms 147:9). The Talmudic Sages asserted that 'when the raven has offspring the male tells the female that another bird impregnated her and so they despise and abandon them. What does the Holy One Blessed be He do? He ordains midges [or flies] for them [the offspring] that come out of their excrement and they eat them' (Tanchuma Deuteronomy: Ekev).