18 And wherefore hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb?
I should have expired, that no eye had seen me,
19 I should have been as though I had never been,
Carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few? then cease
And turn from me, that I may become a little cheerful,
21 Before I go to return no more
Into the land of darkness and of the shadow of death,
22 The land of deep darkness like to midnight,
Of the shadow of death and of confusion,
And which is bright like midnight.
The question Wherefore? Job 10:18, is followed by futt. as modi conditionales (Ges. 127, 5) of that which would and should have happened, if God had not permitted him to be born alive: I should have expired, prop. I ought to have expired, being put back to the time of birth (comp. Job 3:13, where the praet. more objectively expressed what would then have happened). These modi condit. are continued in Job 10:19 : I should have been (sc. in the womb) as though I had not been (comp. the short elliptical
(Note: כלא is there = לא כאשׁר, like ללא, Isa 65:1 = לא לאשׁר [vid. Ges. 123, 3], and כּ is used as a conjunction as little as ל (vid., on Psa 38:14).)
expression, Oba 1:16), i.e., as one who had scarcely entered upon existence, and that only of the earliest (as at conception); I should have been carried (הוּבל, as Job 21:32) from the womb (without seeing the light as one born alive) to the grave. This detestation of his existence passes into the wish, Job 10:20, that God would be pleased at least somewhat to relieve him ere he is swallowed up by the night of Hades. We must neither with the Targ. translate: are not my days few, and vanishing away? nor with Oetinger: will not my fewness of days cease? Both are contrary to the correct accentuation. Olshausen thinks it remarkable that there is not a weaker pausal accent to ימי; but such a one is really indirectly there, for Munach is here equivalent to Dech, from which it is formed (vid., the rule in Comm. ber den Psalter, ii. 504). Accordingly, Seb. Schmid correctly translates: nonne parum dies mei? ideo cessa. The Keri substitutes the precative form of expression for the optative: cease then, turn away from me then (imper. consec. with waw of the result, Ewald, 235, a); comp. the precative conclusion to the speech, Job 7:16., but there is no real reason for changing the optative form of the text. ישׁית (voluntative for ישׁת, Job 9:33) may be supplemented by ידו, פניו, עיניו ,פ, or לבו (Job 7:17) (not, however, with Hirz., שׁבטו, after Job 9:34, which is too far-fetched for the usage of the language, or with Bttch., מחנהו, copias suas); שׁית can however, like שׂים, Job 4:20, signify to turn one's self to, se disponere = to attend to, consequently מן שׁית, to turn the attention from, as מן שׁעה, Job 7:19, Ps. 39:14 (where, as here, ואבליגה follows).
He desires a momentary alleviation of his sufferings and ease before his descent to Hades, which seems so near at hand. He calls Hades the land of darkness and of the shadow of death. צלמות, which occurs for the first time in the Old Testament in Psa 23:4, is made into a compound from סלמוּת, and is the proper word for the obscurity of the region of the dead, and is accordingly repeated later on. Further, he calls it the land of encircling darkness (עפתה, defective for עיפתה, from עוף, caligare, and with He parag. intensive for עיפה, in Amo 4:13, who also uses הבליג, Job 5:9, in common with Job), like midnight darkness. אפל cannot mean merely the grey of twilight, it is the entire absence of sunlight, Job 3:6; Job 28:3; Psa 91:6; comp. ex. Job 10:22, where the Egyptian darkness is called אפלה חשׁך. Bttch. correctly compares אפל and נפל: mersa ad imum h.e. profunda nox (the advancing night). Still further he calls it (the land) of the shadow of death, and devoid of order (סדרים, ἅπ. λεγ. in the Old Testament, but a common word in the later Hebrew), i.e., where everything is so encompassed by the shadow of death that it seems a chaos, without any visible or distinct outline. It is difficult to determine whether ותּפע is to be referred to ארץ: and which lights (fut. consec. as the accent on the penult. indicates, the syntax like Job 3:21, Job 3:23; Isa 57:3); or is to be taken as neuter: and it shines there (= and where it shines) like midnight darkness. Since ותּפע (from יפע = ופע, to rise, shine forth; vid., on Psa 95:4), as also האיר, does not occur elsewhere as neuter, we prefer, with Hirzel, to refer it to ארץ ot, as being more certain. Moreover, אפל is here evidently the intensest darkness, ipsum medullitium umbrae mortis ejusque intensissimum, as Oetinger expresses it. That which is there called light, i.e., the faintest degree of darkness, is like the midnight of this world; "not light, but darkness visible," as Milton says of hell.
The maxim of the friends is: God does not pervert right, i.e., He deals justly in all that He does. They conclude from this, that no man, no sufferer, dare justify himself: it is his duty to humble himself under the just hand of God. Job assents to all this, but his assent is mere sarcasm at what they say. He admits that everything that God does is right, and must be acknowledged as right; not, however, because it is right in itself, but because it is the act of the absolute God, against whom no protest uttered by the creature, though with the clearest conviction of innocence, can avail. Job separates goodness from God, and regards that which is part of His very being as a produce of His arbitrary will. What God says and does must be true and right, even if it be not true and right in itself. The God represented by the friends is a God of absolute justice; the God of Job is a God of absolute power. The former deals according to the objective rule of right; the latter according to a freedom which, because removed from all moral restraint, is pure caprice.
How is it that Job entertains such a cheerless view of the matter? The friends, by the strong view which they have taken up, urge him into another extreme. On their part, they imagine that in the justice of God they have a principle which is sufficient to account for all the misfortunes of mankind, and Job's in particular. They maintain, with respect to mankind in general (Eliphaz by an example from his own observation, and Bildad by calling to his aid the wisdom of the ancients), that the ungodly, though prosperous for a time, come to a fearful end; with respect to Job, that his affliction is a just chastisement from God, although designed for his good. Against the one assertion Job's own experience of life rebels; against the other his consciousness rises up with indignation. Job's observation is really as correct as that of the friends; for the history of the past and of the present furnishes as many illustrations of judgments which have suddenly come upon the godless in the height of their prosperity, as of general visitations in which the innocent have suffered with the guilty, by whom these judgments have been incurred. But with regard to his misfortune, Job cannot and ought not to look at it from the standpoint of the divine justice. For the proposition, which we will give in the words of Brentius, quidquid post fidei justificationem pio acciderit, innocenti accidit, is applicable to our present subject.
If, then, Job's suffering were not so severe, and his faith so powerfully shaken, he would comfort himself with the thought that the divine ways are unsearchable; since, on the one hand, he cannot deny the many traces of the justice of the divine government in the world (he does not deny them even here), and on the other hand, is perplexed by the equally numerous incongruities of human destiny with the divine justice. (This thought is rendered more consolatory to us by the revelation which we possess of the future life; although even in the later Old Testament times the last judgment is referred to as the adjustment of all these incongruities; vid., the conclusion of Ecclesiastes.) His own lot might have remained always inexplicable to him, without his being obliged on that account to lose the consciousness of the divine love, and that faith like Asaph's, which, as Luther says, struggles towards God through wrath and disfavour, as through thorns, yea, even through spears and swords.
Job is passing through conflict and temptation. He does not perceive the divine motive and purpose of his suffering, nor has he that firm and unshaken faith which will keep him from mistaken views of God, although His dispensations are an enigma to him; but, as his first speech (ch. 3) shows, he is tormented by thoughts which form part of the conflict of temptation. The image of the gracious God is hidden from him, he feels only the working of the divine wrath, and asks, Wherefore doth God give light to the suffering ones? - a question which must not greatly surprise us, for, as Luther says, "There has never been any one so holy that he has not been tormented with this quare, quare, Wherefore? wherefore should it be so?" And when the friends, who know as little as Job himself about the right solution of this mystery, censure him for his inquiry, and think that in the propositions: man has no righteousness which he can maintain before God, and God does not pervert the right, they have found the key to the mystery, the conflict becomes fiercer for Job, because the justice of God furnishes him with no satisfactory explanation of his own lot, or of the afflictions of mankind generally. The justice of God, which the friends consider to be sufficient to explain everything that befalls man, Job can only regard as the right of the Supreme Being; and while it appears to the friends that every act of God is controlled by His justice, it seems to Job that whatever God does must be right, by virtue of His absolute power.
This principle, devoid of consolation, drives Job to the utterances so unworthy of him, that, in spite of his conviction of his innocence, he must appear guilty before God, because he must be speechless before His terrible majesty, - that if, however, God would only for once so meet him that he could fearlessly address Him, he would know well enough how to defend himself (ch. 9). After these utterances of his feeling, from which all consciousness of the divine love is absent, he puts forth the touching prayer: Condemn me not without letting me know why Thou dost condemn me! (Job 10:1-7).
As he looks back, he is obliged to praise God, as his Creator and Preserver, for what He has hitherto done for him (Job 10:8-12); but as he thinks of his present condition, he sees that from the very beginning God designed to vent His wrath upon him, to mark his infirmities, and to deprive him of all joy in the consciousness of his innocence (Job 10:13-17). He is therefore compelled to regard God as his enemy, and this thought overpowers the remembrance of the divine goodness. If, however, God were his enemy, he might well ask, Wherefore then have I come into being? And while he writhes as a worm crushed beneath the almighty power of God, he prays that God would let him alone for a season ere he passes away into the land of darkness, whence there is no return (Job 10:18-22).
Brentius remarks that this speech of Job contains inferni blasphemias, and explains them thus: non enim in tanto judicii horrore Deum patrem, sed carnificem sentit; but also adds, that in passages like Job 10:8-12 faith raises its head even in the midst of judgment; for when he praises the mercies of God, he does so spiritu fidei, and these he would not acknowledge were there not a fidei scintilla still remaining. This is true. The groundwork of Job's faith remains even in the fiercest conflict of temptation, and is continually manifest; we should be unable to understand the book unless we could see this fidei scintilla, the extinction of which would be the accomplishment of Satan's design against him, glimmering everywhere through the speeches of Job. The unworthy thoughts he entertains of God, which Brentius calls inferni blasphemias, are nowhere indulged to such a length that Job charges God with being his enemy, although he fancies Him to be an enraged foe. In spite of the imagined enmity of God against him, Job nowhere goes so far as to declare enmity on his part against God, so far as אלהים ברך. He does not turn away from God, but inclines to Him in prayer. His soul is filled with adoration of God, and with reverence of His power and majesty; he can clearly discern God's marvellous works in nature and among men, and His creative power and gracious providence, the workings of which he has himself experienced. But that mystery, which the friends have made still more mysterious, has cast a dark cloud over his vision, so that he can no longer behold the loving countenance of God. His faith is unable to disperse this cloud, and so he sees but one side of the divine character - His Almightiness. Since he consequently looks upon God as the Almighty and the Wrathful One, his felling alternately manifests itself under two equally tragical phases. At one time he exalts himself in his consciousness of the justice of his cause, to sink back again before the majesty of God, to whom he must nevertheless succumb; at another time his feeling of self-confidence is overpowered by the severity of his suffering, and he betakes himself to importunate supplication.
It is true that Job, so long as he regards his sufferings as a dispensation of divine judgment, is as unjust towards God as he believes God to be unjust towards him; but if we bear in mind that this state of conflict and temptation does not preclude the idea of a temporal withdrawal of faith, and that, as Baumgarten (Pentat. i. 209) aptly expresses it, the profound secret of prayer is this, that man can prevail with the Divine Being, then we shall understand that this dark cloud need only be removed, and Job again stands before the God of love as His saint. |