Job · Chapter 17

flicker Heb. נזעכו have sprung away, like (above 6:17) “they jump (נדעכו).” graves are ready for me I am ready for the grave.

'My days are extinct' [nizaku] — its meaning is drawn from context, since the word has no parallel elsewhere in Scripture.

'Consumed' [chuvlah] — meaning: ruined. 'Are extinct' — meaning: are cut off.

"My spirit consumed" — has not my spirit already been ruined, and have not the days of my life slipped away from me and gone? And graves are many for me — meaning, wherever my foot treads I am close to death, as though a grave lay ready for me in every place.

'Consumed' [נזעכו] — [the same as] נדעכו; its meaning is a leaping, springing away, as in 'they vanish out of their place' (above, Job 6:17).

‘My spirit consumed’ — is it not so that, even though my life in this world comes to an end amid suffering and without reward for my deeds, my spirit is with me only as a pledge and a deposit for an appointed time, and when that time is complete, the pledge returns to its owner — as it is said, ‘And the spirit shall return to God who gave it’ (Ecclesiastes 12:7) — and I will then receive the reward for my deeds in the world of souls? To this he responds: behold, ‘my days are extinct’ — ‘graves are ready for me.’ In his poetic imagery he pictures the temporal life of man as the span of days of his existence within a bounded time — the days allotted to a person's life are, in effect, that person's very life, and each day of his life is a portion of that life. Every day that passes turns from the present day into a past day; a portion of his days has slipped away and died. In this sense, time itself is the grave of human life: every day that passes and is buried in the grave of bygone time, which never returns, buries within it a portion of a person's life. This is what he means by saying that his days, which have been consumed and have passed, are graves to him — each day is a grave for a person's existence on that day, since it will never return, just as elapsed time never returns; and all of a person's days together form the general grave of his existence as a whole, so that one may say of a given person: he lived in such-and-such a past time, and there he found his grave.

even if there were no [Even if] this had not befallen me, that scornful people had gathered with me in my consolations to mock me. in their provocation Heb. ובהמרותם, like (Ezek. 20:8, 13, 21), “And they provoked (וימרו) me”; (Deut. 9:7), “you have been provoking (ממרים).” [This is] an expression meaning: in their provocation. my eye...abide My eye, my heart, and my thought abide in them.

'Surely there are mockers with me' — he is complaining about his friends, [saying] that they speak mockery. 'And my eye abides in their provocation' — [meaning] I shall not sleep until they embitter my life; or [the root is] the same as in 'stubborn and rebellious' (Deuteronomy 21:18), like 'any man who defies your command' (Joshua 1:18).

'Mockers' [hatulim] — men of mockery; the word follows the pattern of 'atzumim' [mighty ones], which itself means 'men of might.' 'In their provocation' — meaning: in their angering of me, related to 'they rebelled and grieved His holy spirit' (Isaiah 63:10). 'My eye abides' — meaning: my eye witnesses their provocation and lodges there.

"Surely there are mockers" — behold, from the greatness of my pain I am close to death, even were my friends who mock me not with me, and even had my eye not continually beheld how they defy and provoke me; and this is the same matter repeated in other words. His meaning is: even without them I am close to death, and they only add further sorrow and grief to me.

'Mockers' [התולים] — an expression of derision, as in 'you have mocked me' (Judges 16:10). 'Their provocation' [ובהמרותם] — from the language of defiance, vexation. 'Abides' [תלן] — an expression of continuance, as in 'righteousness dwelt in her' (Isaiah 1:21).

‘Surely’ — those extinguished days are graves to me, for no trace at all of a person's existence remains from them; all that remains of them is the mockery that stays with me — the mockery and harm of a bygone time remains only in memory, nothing more. This alone remains from the past: that ‘my eye still lodges among their provocations’ — the harm done to me in the past still exists and stands before my eyes, but nothing else of it remains, for the past has slipped away and gone, never to return. So then, as for what you say — that ‘my spirit is pledged,’ that the life of the spirit endures forever and does not pass away with time, and that this pledge will return to the house of its owner after the death of the body (as in, ‘before the sun goes down you shall restore it to him’ [Exodus 22:26]), and that I will then receive my reward in the eternal world — this I answer you:

Pay heed now O Creator. give me surety by shaking the hands to debate together, for who is it of these who will shake my hand that it should be good for me?

'Give now a pledge' — he turns back to [address] the same [party, i.e., God]. 'Be surety for me' [orveni] — [meaning] guarantee me, from the same root as 'I will be surety for the lad' (Genesis 44:32). 'Who else is there' — [meaning] which of my companions will strike his hand into mine [as a pledge]?

'Give now a pledge, be surety for me with Yourself' — meaning: set Your heart upon me, to respond to my words as I argue with You, and give me a pledge I can rely on that You will answer my words; for my desire is to argue with You, not with these men. 'Who else is there who will strike hands with me' — this is the term for a handshake [tekiat kaf], used to seal any agreement.

"Give now a pledge" — he turns his face toward the Omnipresent and says: set Your heart toward me now, to give me a guarantor in Your own place, one I can trust, so that our dispute will be brought to a conclusion in truth. And who else is there who will strike his hand into mine, taking it upon himself with a full commitment, to see the dispute through to its conclusion?

'Strike hands' [יתקע] — an expression of clasping hand to hand to confirm a matter, as in 'and he who hates the striking of hands' (Proverbs 11:15).

‘Give now a pledge’ — give me a guarantee that this pledge will indeed be returned to its owner; for since the life of the spirit and the spiritual soul cannot be grasped by the senses, and there is no rational proof of it either, I have no one to guarantee this for me. ‘Who else is there who will strike hands with me?’ — who will be surety for this, and who will clasp hands on the guarantee to make it certain — meaning, who can assure me in good faith of the survival of the soul, and swear with certainty that the spirit remains after death?

For Behold. You have hidden their hearts from understanding Therefore, Your glory will not be exalted through them.

'For You have hid their heart from understanding' [tzafanta] — [meaning] You concealed, hid away, and covered. 'Therefore shall You not exalt them' — [namely,] them. And as the next verse continues: whoever denounces his friends for a share [of the spoil], vengeance shall be taken from him, and his children's eyes shall fail (cf. Job 17:5).

"For You have hid their heart" — I have no desire for these friends of mine, for You have hidden their heart from understanding, and they do not speak with wisdom; therefore You will not be exalted through them, since they have no answer with which to justify themselves and exalt Your glory.

‘For You have hid their heart from understanding’ — is it not so that the heart of men is hidden from grasping this matter — how the soul survives after the death of the body? For they have no intellectual comprehension of the essence of the soul, or of how it continues to exist once divested from matter; the nature of every person's intellect is so constituted that it cannot grasp things abstracted from matter, things the senses have no access to, and no one truly understands and knows this with certainty. Therefore the spirit is not exalted in their eyes — they do not recognize its greatness: that it is eternal, that it is alive and active even after being divested from the body — for many think it to be nothing but a material force bound to the life of the body, so that when the body dies, the spirit too comes to an end. For do you not see that—

flattery Heb. לְחֵלֶק, flattery (חלקלקות). speaks Each one of them [speaks] to his friend, and this will come to them: their children’s eyes will fail.

'For the sake of flattery' [lechelek] — related to 'flattering lips' (Psalms 12:3). 'His friends' [re'im] — meaning: thoughts and ideas, in the sense of 'You understand my thought' (Psalms 139:2).

"He who denounces his friends" — each of these friends speaks with smooth, flattering words, and does not speak with knowledge. And indeed I know that each will receive his due recompense, so that his children's eyes will fail, unable to attain what they hope for — for this matter is evil in Your eyes, since no flatterer shall come before You.

'Shall fail' [תכלינה] — one who longs for something and cannot attain it is said to have 'failing eyes.'

‘He who denounces his friends for the sake of flattery’ — every person, when his time comes to die, gives no thought at all to the life of the spirit, that it will go on living in the world of souls; he does not think about the affairs of his soul at all. He only prepares to divide up the property and possessions he gathered in this world, and in his will he names the friends and companions ready to receive a share — to take a portion of his estate and inherit his possessions. ‘Even the eyes of his children shall fail’ — if he has children, their eyes fail as they wait for their father to die so that they may inherit his possessions. No one at all gives thought to the life of the soul, or prepares provisions for the appointed day, to secure merit for his soul in the eternal world.

and...a drum Heb. תפת, like תּוֹף, a drum. before them lit. to the face; [i.e., to the face] of the people, I am [a drum].

'He has made me also a byword of the people' [ve-hetzigani] — he speaks of [his] pain [as the subject]. Some say it refers to Eliphaz. 'A byword' — [meaning] to become an object of proverb and mockery. 'And I have become one in whose face they spit' [ve-tofet lefanim] — like the place called Tophet, [taken] figuratively, as a horror before people's very eyes. Some say the final tav is an added letter, and that the root is the same as 'tof' [drum, i.e., something to be beaten].

'A byword of the people' — meaning: to become a byword and a proverb among the nations. 'One in whose face they spit' [tofet] — meaning: a lord, comparable to the officials called 'taftaye' mentioned in Daniel (Daniel 3:2). 'Formerly' [lefanim] — i.e., previously.

"He has made me also [a byword]" — my suffering has set me up to be a byword among all the peoples, so that when misfortune befalls them, they will say it resembles and is comparable to the misfortune of Job. "And I have become one in whose face they spit" — I have become, in effect, a Gehinnom in the eyes of onlookers, for they see upon me a variety of sufferings resembling the torments of Gehinnom.

'Has made me' [והציגני, lit. 'has set me up'] — [means] has stationed me, as in 'set him apart by himself' (Judges 7:5). 'One in whose face they spit' [ותופת, lit. 'a Tophet'] — this is a name for Gehinnom, as in 'the Topheth has long been ready' (Isaiah 30:33); so called because whoever is enticed by his [evil] inclination falls into it.

‘He has made me’ — that is to say: and so, after I told you that regarding the hope you promised me — that though ‘my spirit is broken,’ I would yet live and receive my reward in the world of souls — I have no guarantor for this, and most of the world does not grasp it and looks only to the life of the body and its success in this world; and so, since Hashem has made me ‘a byword of the people,’ in that the harsh sufferings He has brought upon me will be on the lips of all the peoples as a proverb, so that at every curse they will say ‘may he be afflicted like Job’ — I have already become, here and now, the ‘Tophet’ you speak of, the Gehinnom in which, you say, the wicked are judged after death: I am already the Tophet in advance; before death I am in Gehinnom, for my sufferings are the sufferings of Gehinnom while I am still alive.

and my limbs namely, the limbs with which I was formed.

'And all my members are as a shadow' [yetzurai] — these are the bodily limbs, [so called because they are] formed.

'And all my members' [yetzurai] — meaning: my thoughts, from the same root as 'for the imagination of man's heart' (Genesis 8:21).

"My eye also is dimmed" — my eye has grown dim from excess of vexation, in the manner of one who dwells in sorrow and grows angry at himself. "And all my members [are as a shadow]" — all the desires of the thoughts of my heart do not endure, like this shadow that does not stay in one place, but at every moment shifts from its place as the sun moves.

'Is dimmed' [ותכה] — an expression of dullness, as in 'the plague is dim' (Leviticus 13:6). 'My members' [ויצורי, lit. 'my forms'] — this is the name given to the desire of the heart, since it is what fashions one's thoughts, as in 'and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart' (Genesis 6:5).

‘Is dimmed’ — and because of the vexation I feel over this matter, my eye is dimmed from seeing, and all my form and limbs have become like a shadow without substance. And he goes on to explain the vexation he feels about this: ‘for—’

will be appalled they will wonder. and an innocent one If there is a righteous [man] who hears the mockery of these hypocrites. will be aroused to quarrel with you.

'Are astonished' — meaning: are amazed. 'Stirs up himself' — meaning: is amazed and astounded, and is stirred by great emotion.

"Upright men are astonished" — the upright are astonished at the greatness of my suffering, which comes without any violence on my part; and the innocent one is stirred to indignation against him who flatters Hashem without sufficient grounds.

'Are astonished' [ישומו] — [means] are amazed, as in 'turn to me, and be astonished' (below, Job 21:5). 'Stirs up himself' [יתעורר] — a term of arousal.

‘Upright men are astonished at this’ — the upright at heart, who do not judge me unfavorably by charging me with wickedness on account of my sufferings, will be astonished at this and will wonder at Hashem's conduct: why does He afflict me for nothing? But the other sort of people, who do not give me the benefit of the doubt and instead conclude from my sufferings that I am wicked, will turn my case into a moral lesson: the innocent person will be roused by it to speak out against hypocrisy, and will say to him, by way of rebuke, that he should learn from Job — who was a hypocrite, and whose righteousness was only a show put on for appearances — ‘and see what became of him in the end.’

Yet the righteous holds on his way i.e., every righteous man holds on his way to stand up against the company of the hypocrites.

"Yet the righteous holds on his way" — nevertheless, the righteous man holds fast to his way and does not abandon it by thinking, 'surely it is in vain to serve God' — for he knows that he will receive the good in the pleasure of the soul. "And he who has clean hands [waxes stronger and stronger]" — one whose hands are clean of robbery and oppression will, on the contrary, gain still more strength when he sees the disorder that befalls the possessions of this world and its prosperity; for from then on he will hold it in great contempt, and will place his hope in the prosperity of the soul, and his hand will cease from oppression. And he says this in reply to the words of Eliphaz, who had told him that he was undermining the fear of God; Job answers: on the contrary, such righteousness adds still more to it.

'His way' [דרכו] — [means] his conduct. 'Stronger' [אומץ] — [means] strength.

‘Holds on’ — and the righteous person will draw a moral lesson from this and hold still more firmly to his own way of righteousness: thinking that I was punished for sins even greater than what Hashem’s harsh punishment reflected, he will hold all the more firmly to his righteousness. And ‘he who has clean hands’ will think in his heart that I was punished for not having served Hashem with great devotion — as Eliphaz said, ‘Shall a mortal be more righteous than God?’ (Job 4:17) — he will add still more devotion to the service of Hashem, serving Him with all his strength. But in none of this does anyone say that I am righteous and that my reward is kept safe for me in the world of souls, for they are all moved only by what their eyes see — that what has befallen me resembles what befalls the wicked — and because of this, either they will sin by condemning me unjustly, or they will think Hashem's providence unjust and come to deny the fundamentals of faith. So either way, this becomes a stumbling block for the many; and it would have been fitting for the righteous to be repaid according to his righteousness in this world, so as to remove the snare from the people's path, lest they be led astray thereby from the paths of uprightness.

But all of them I say to you, “Return now and come now.” and I will not find any wise man among you insofar as you mock my lamentation.

"But as for you all" — in truth, all of you, turn back and come now to understand the truth of the matter; for I will not find among you a wise man, since you did not judge with wisdom when you said that I undermine the fear of God.

‘But as for you all’ — I say to all of you, both to the upright who judge me favorably and to the innocent, righteous, and clean-handed who judge me unfavorably: I say to you, go back and reconsider the matter, and come argue it out with me — and I will not find a wise man among you, for all of you together are mistaken.

My days etc. Behold, the days of my prosperity, to which I became accustomed, have passed. my purposes Which I had expected to last with prosperity. the thoughts of my heart have been broken off Heb. מורשי, lit. the inheritances of. The thoughts which my heart gave me to possess, for my heart said that I would inherit good because of my [righteous] way.

'My purposes are broken off' [zimmati] — my thoughts; and in the language of Kedar (Arabic) the word denotes something that binds — this being [a figure for] the binding together of thought, [i.e., a firm resolve]. 'Even the thoughts of my heart' — according to the context, [related to] we'ayfim [faint, weary thoughts, cf. Job 4:13]. And Rabbi Moshe HaKohen, of blessed memory, said it is from the same root as the phrase 'their possessions on a distant road.'

'My purposes are broken off' — meaning: my thoughts have ceased. 'The thoughts of my heart' [moroshei] — meaning: my thoughts; for the heart 'inherits' from thought the first principles that it employs in its inquiry into each matter.

'My days are past' — behold, from the greatness of my pain the days of my life have passed, and I am now close to death; and from the great confusion of my mind, the thoughts that were an inheritance to my heart have been dislodged. Meaning: although in the past I used to think thoughts of wisdom, as though my heart had inherited them as a possession, now they have been dislodged and have departed.

My purposes (zemotai) - my thoughts, as in 'as he had purposed [zamam] to do' (Deuteronomy 19:19). Are broken off (nitku) - an expression of severance. The thoughts (moreshei) - an expression of possession, related to the word for inheritance.

‘My days’ — for behold, the days of my life have passed and gone by, my plans and thoughts have been cut off, and so too the thoughts of my heart have been cut off, until not a shred of hope is left to me in this world at all — and if so, how—

They turn night into day These mockers turn night into day for me, for I cannot sleep at night because of the trouble of the mockings. the light is short lit. קרוב, near, and short for me because of the trouble of the darkness of the night. The light is short; when the sun sets, it appears to me as though a short time ago the day dawned, was shortened, and left. This is like (Gen. 19:20), “this city is recent (קרובה)” it was newly settled recently and like (below 20:5), “That the triumph of the wicked is short (מקרוב),” and like (Deut. 32:17), “new ones that came up of late (מקרוב).”

'They change the night into day' — [that is,] his friends.

'They change the night into day' — the greatness of my pain confounds my thoughts, and now turns matters that were clear and revealed, like the light of day, into things dark and hidden to me, like the darkness of night. 'The light is short' — the illumination of wisdom that was once close to me has departed because of the darkness of my troubles; this is an elliptical verse, as if it said: the light is not close, because of the darkness.

‘They change night into day’ — how can it be said that the darkness of night, which is death and the grave, through which the daylight of this life in this world darkens, is in fact the true day, at which I will begin to shine forth in the light of life? Or that they say, ‘light is close on account of darkness’ — that just as after night comes light and day adjoining it directly, so too after the night of death and its darkness will shine the light of eternal life, in whose light I shall see light?

Since I hope for the grave Heb. אם, like (above 14:5), “If (אם) his days are limited” [See Rashi ad loc.], i.e., since I hope for the grave as my house. in the darkness I have spread out my couch I have spread out my couch in the grave.

'Spread my couch' — meaning: I have spread my bed.

'If I look for' — as if to say: my comfort is indeed in vain, to say that my end shall be very great; for behold, I am in such strength of pain that I hope, rather, that my house will be in the netherworld, to spread my couch in the darkness of the grave.

Have spread (rifadeti) - as in 'it spreads a threshing-sledge' (below, Job 41:22). My couch (yetzu'ai) - the bedding of my bed, as in 'then you defiled my couch' (Genesis 49:4).

‘If’ — since I hope, rather, that Sheol and the grave will be my house, that there I shall dwell, and that my couch will be spread in darkness—

To the pit I have called, ‘You are my father,’ to lodge there many days as though it was my father, since this is my hope.

'To corruption' — I call out to corruption, 'You are my father,' and to the worm I call, 'You are my mother and my sister.' Meaning: my soul has drawn very close to descending to corruption, to be with the worm as a child is with his father, his mother, and his sister.

To corruption (lashachat) - to the pit of the grave.

‘To corruption I have called, You are my father’ — for they will say that there I shall be born a second time, to become a new creation; and the father who begets me anew will be the corruption, the wasting, and the rot that destroys the body; and once the destroyer has destroyed the body, it will beget the worm as well — so the worm will be my brother and my sister, for the two of us will be children of one father. If you say that in the pit I am to be born a second time in order to receive there the reward for my deeds, I ask—

Where then is my hope [Where then is] this [my hope]? Why is it deferred, and who will see it to hasten it to me?

'Where then' — if so, where is my hope? When will I receive the good, and who will see my hope? For behold, I will die — so how then will I see the good that I hope for?

Where then (ve'ayeh eifo) - these two words carry the same meaning, for 'eifo' is [itself made up of] 'ayeh po' [where + here]; the phrase doubles synonymous terms, as in 'the dust of the earth' (Daniel 12:2). Shall see it (yeshurenah) - shall see it, as in 'I behold him, but not near' (Numbers 21).

‘Where then is my hope’ — is it not so that there I return to nothingness and nonexistence? On what, then, could the hope of another life possibly rest? And even if I do have hope for the life of the soul, ‘my hope — who shall see it?’ For is it not—

The limbs of the grave shall descend Those limbs [of my body] that will ultimately descend to the grave, for indeed they will all rest on the dust. they rest on the dust Heb. נחת, will lodge, an expression of (Num. 11:26), “the spirit rested (ותנח) upon them.”

'They shall go down to the bars of the nether-world' [badei She'ol] — like 'the branches of Sheol,' by way of metaphor, as though Sheol were a tree down below, similar to 'and it put forth branches' (Ezekiel 17:6). Properly the verse should be understood as: '[all] creatures shall go down to the branches of Sheol'; or else, [the verb] 'shall go down' refers back to 'my branches' [i.e., Job's own offshoots] — for the branches of Sheol themselves fall and descend, as though a person were [descending] upon the boughs of Sheol. 'When we are at rest together' [nachat] — some say it means 'go down'; or, [take] 'rest' according to its plain sense, for [the phrase means:] together we have rest upon the dust.

'The bars of the nether-world' — [the word 'badei'] is like 'levadi' (alone), and the sense is 'to the uttermost parts of the nether-world.' 'When we are at rest together in the dust' — meaning, when they rest together upon the dust; and the intent of the word 'Sheol' is the lowest of all places, which is the center of the earth. Similarly, 'If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there' (Psalms 139:8) — for it is the opposite of the heavens, which are the highest point, absolutely. Explanation of the words of the response: Job answered and said: I have heard words like these many times; all of you are comforters of mere vanity and falsehood. Will there be an end to such windy, empty words as yours? Or what emboldens you, that you argue and answer as you do? There is nothing in your words that lends strength to your position. I too could speak just as you do, were you in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you, to console you and to share in your distress. If it were so, I would strengthen you with my words, and my consoling you would consist of dwelling at length on the severity of your calamity, so that your pain might thereby be eased — for many a broken person is comforted when others console him and eulogize the severity of his hurt and the extent of what he has lost. But as for me — though I speak, my pain is not eased, and though I forbear, nothing of my distress departs from me. But now Hashem has worn me out; He has made all my limbs desolate. I need no other witness to my distress, for the wrinkles upon me from my great emaciation testify against me, and my leanness and wretchedness testify to the severity of my brokenness and my pain. Hashem has torn me and hated me with the utmost hatred, and has brought me to be a disgrace among men and despised by the people, until my adversary gnashes his teeth at me in anger, and sharpens his eyes at me, looking on me with an evil eye. My enemies have opened their mouths wide against me with the insults they hurl at me; they have struck my cheek; all who hate me gather together against me — and this, I take it, he said with his friends in mind, who were insulting him. Hashem has delivered me into the hand of a deceiver, and by the hand of the wicked He has thrust me from the state I was in. I was at ease, and He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me, and set me up as His target, to shoot His arrows at me. His archers surround me; He pierces my kidneys and does not spare, pouring out my gall upon the ground — and this he said with reference to the blows and pains that befell him. Hashem breaks through me, breach upon breach — that is, blow after blow He rushes upon me like a mighty warrior, striking me with force and might, many blows, upon the very scabs of my wounds. I have sewn sackcloth, a coarse garment, over my skin, and it pains and afflicts me greatly; and I have rolled my head in dust and ashes — all this from the abundance of my grief, for out of grief people gird themselves with sackcloth and put dust upon their heads. My face has become filled with mire and filth from much weeping, and on account of the weeping my sight has grown dim, until the shadow of death lies upon my eyelids. All these troubles have come upon me although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer, too, was pure — I never prayed for evil to befall my enemies, nor did I ever refrain from praying to Hashem before this trouble came upon me. This is as we have noted: that Job was, at first, perplexed by this very question, and wished to cover both possibilities, and so he would offer sacrifices to Hashem to atone for his sons. 'O earth, cover not my blood' — that is, the violence done to me by this arrangement ordained by Hashem; or the sense may be, do not cover over the violence done to me — if what my friends say is true, that these evils come from Hashem by way of punishment — and let there be no resting place where my outcry over the violence done to me might be hidden. Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, that the truth is with me — if indeed Hashem watches over these particular matters as you say, you, my mocking friends. My eye weeps toward God, and my words are addressed to Him, not to you; for were my words addressed to you, it is plain there would be no force in my account of the violence done to me, given your view — since by your own reasoning you would say you do not believe me when I say there is no violence in my hands. But my words are with Hashem — for if the matter is as you say, namely that Hashem understands every act of man, then He knows the truth of this; and so, from this angle, there is an argument to be made before Hashem, to show that if He does watch over each individual person in the manner you describe, then He is dealing with me unjustly and with violence. Would that a man could argue his case with Hashem just as one man argues with another! For the few years remaining to me to live are now coming to their end, and I shall die; or else my spirit will be consumed and my days cut off before I complete them, and the grave stands ready for me even now. Surely these mocking friends of mine are nothing but mockers! And so I flee from arguing with them; yet my eye watches what they say to provoke and grieve me, and lodges there — meaning, the vexations with which they vex me, and the words they speak against me, are not hidden from me. Ah, Hashem, set Your heart upon me, to hear my words and to answer them — for it is my desire to argue my case with You, if this be possible. I know that You would not proceed, in arguing with me, except by the way of truth, not with false claims, as these men do. And if it were possible, give me a pledge I could rely on, that You would carry the argument through with me to its end. I long very greatly — who will I find to strike hands with me, to guarantee that this argument between me and You will take place, if it be possible? And all this Job said to show that the truth is with him, and out of his disdain for the inferior arguments his friends bring against him. Behold, You have hidden their heart from understanding, and there is no discernment or knowledge in them; for it ought not to have escaped them that, in matters such as these — such stratagems and deceits — You will not exalt them. He who flatters You — let him tell of the thoughts rising in my heart, so that it may be shown that You do not act unjustly, but rather punish such a person for mocking You as one mocks a mere man — until the eyes of his children fail. Hashem has set me up as a byword and a mockery, whereas before this I was to them a lord and a prince — until my eye has grown dim from the vexation with which they vex me in their scorn, and my thoughts are like a shadow, meaning that I cannot hold on to them or settle my mind upon them, from the abundance of my worries. The upright shall be appalled and astonished at this evil that comes upon the righteous although there is no violence in their hands, and the innocent shall be stirred up against the godless, marveling why his way prospers despite his many sins and transgressions. And yet the righteous holds fast to his good way, and he who is clean of hands grows stronger and stronger in walking in the ways of Hashem; and even though there is no bodily reward in this, they do it to save their souls, for that is the entire fruit of man. This is a response to what Eliphaz said, 'you also annul the fear of God' — for the wicked do not fear Hashem at all, whereas the righteous do not annul their fear of Hashem on that account, but hold fast to their way so that the well-being of the soul may be attained; and they grow stronger still in their good way, scorning the vanities of this world because of the disorder that befalls its possessions and its successes, and for this reason set their whole intent upon the well-being of the soul. But as for all of you — come back, all of you, and come now, for I shall not find a wise man among you; and this is why you have judged that I annul the fear of God. Behold, from the abundance of my pain, though there is no violence in my hands, I have come to my end, as though my days were past; my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart, which are the possessions of my intellect — for when the intellect wishes to inquire into a matter, it first inherits from thought the opposing positions that arise concerning it, together with the arguments that establish them and the arguments that refute them. My confused thoughts now render things that were once clear and plain to me, like the light of day, dark and hidden as the night; what was near to me and plainly evident, they render like night, because of the darkness of my troubles — this, in answer to your consoling me that my end shall greatly increase. Behold, I answer you: such is the intensity of my pain that I hope my house will be Sheol, that I shall die, and spread my couch in the darkness, and call to corruption, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'You are my mother and my sister' — for I think I have no escape from death, because of this incurable pain. So where, then, is my hope? Shall I hope to see bodily good after my death? Or, he said this in answer to what they were saying — that the difference between the wicked and the righteous, when troubles come upon them, is that the wicked man does not believe he will ever return from the darkness, whereas the righteous man trusts that Hashem will remove that pain from him. Behold, because of the abundance of these blows and pains with which I am stricken — were they to rest together in the dust, they would sink down and plunge, by their sheer weight, to the bars of the nether-world, that is, to the center of the earth, for the earth could not contain and bear them; how then could I bear them and live, once they had fallen upon me? And indeed he said this by way of hyperbole and exaggeration. The general conclusion that emerges from all this is that Job refutes Eliphaz's argument, which drew empirical proof from the punishment that befalls the wicked, and concluded from it that all the evils that befall individual human beings come as judgment, according to their deeds. Job answers that this conclusion is not correct, since these astonishing evils, after which he has no hope of living, have already befallen him, though there is no violence in his hands. And should someone object that Eliphaz would not concede this argument, and that it is therefore no argument against him — Job's reply is that his words are addressed to Hashem, who knows that the truth is as Job says, if indeed man is called to account for all his deeds, as Job's friends maintained. And as for Eliphaz's reproach, that Job was annulling the fear of God by speaking such words — Job has already defended himself and shown that this is not so; rather, the matter is the very opposite, for the wicked do not fear Hashem at all, so much so that one might rather say that it is they whose words annul the fear of Hashem, whereas the righteous do not, on this account, turn aside from holding fast to the ways of Hashem, since their goal is not bodily reward but the survival of the soul. And not only do they not turn aside from their good way on account of this reasoning, but they grow stronger still in holding to it and in striving for the perfection of their souls, scorning possessions and bodily success because of the disorder that befalls them and their essential vanity.

'The bars of the nether-world,' etc. — are my troubles not so many that, were they all laid together upon the dust, they would go down and sink to the very depths of the netherworld, from their sheer weight? This is a manner of hyperbole and figurative speech, meaning that they have grown so numerous that it is impossible to survive them any longer. (The upshot of this speech: he complains of his companions, that they have not treated him in the manner of comforters, and he holds to his position that he has not sinned, and that the Omnipresent knows the truth and is his witness. And as for the matter Eliphaz had in mind — that Job sins and bears guilt by leading the many to stumble through the stumbling-block of his sin, namely, to think that there is no providence, so that the service of God would be in vain — he answers that it is not so; rather, people will gain still more resolve to cease from wrongdoing, for they will come to despise the possessions of this world upon seeing the corruption of its order, and will place their hope in the well-being of the soul.)

The bars of the netherworld (badei she'ol) - [as if] 'in Sheol'; the word further indicates the extreme depth, similarly 'amid the trumpet blasts' (below, Job 39:25). At rest (nachat) - an expression of laying to rest.

‘They shall go down to the bars of the nether-world’ — the bars of Sheol and the grave will go down and seal the grave shut. ‘When together we are at rest in the dust’ — for at the moment we go down into the dust to be buried there, the bars, which are the hinges of the grave's doors, go down, and the door seals the mouth of the grave, and no one looks or sees any more what happens there with the dead. That is to say: even if I were to live eternally in the life of the soul, no one in this world would know it, and here the complaint will forever remain — either against me, that people will hold me to be wicked, or against Hashem, that they will attribute impropriety to His governance. And so, either way, this manner of governance is not conducted with wisdom; and you, who wished by this to justify Hashem's governance — I will not find a wise man among you.