Job · Chapter 28

For silver has a mine This, too, is another reason for his first statement that he said (27:6), “I have maintained my righteousness,” for why should I be wicked? If for silver or gold, each one has a source and an end, but from where does wisdom come? This is the end of the chapter; that is the most precious of all. Therefore, all my life, I set my heart on studying it. and...a place Gold has [a place] whence they refine and smelt it.

'Which they refine' [yazoku] — like 'yezaqqequ' (they purify). And the sense is that everything depends on fortune [mazal] — the fortune of people, and also of places.

'And a place for gold which they refine' — there is a place in the earth where they refine gold and extract it from there.

'For there is a mine for silver' — he adds this to confirm his words further: that even if the righteous and the wicked share the same fate, one should nonetheless hold fast to righteousness. For behold, silver has a place from which it is mined, and so too gold has a place from which it is poured forth — these being locations within the earth.

'Refine' [יזוקו] — an expression of pouring, smelting, as in 'and they distill it into rain' (below, Job 36:27).

'For there is' — all the things that are precious in existence and honored in people's eyes, and yet are hidden and concealed — such as the various metals that people search out because they need them for human use, like copper and iron, or that they store up for honor and glory, like silver and gold — all of these, people have investigated and searched out, and have found the place where they are to be found. There are a number of natural and man-made techniques by which their hidden stores are uncovered in the depths of the earth and the secret places of the mountains. Silver has a vein and a source from which it is taken, and gold has a place from which it is refined out of the sand and dust with which it is mixed.

and copper is smelted from stone From the mountain the smith smelts the copper. Hence, everything has a beginning and an end, for the whole world will end with all that is therein.

'Brass is molten out of the stone' [nechushah] — grammatically it should properly have been 'nachush,' the masculine form.

'And brass is molten out of the stone' — meaning: that from the stone they extract and, at a certain point, smelt nechushah, which is hardened iron — 'acier' in the vernacular. Or, 'even yatzuk' ['a poured/cast stone'] may mean 'a hard stone,' of the same form as the phrase 'vehayita mutzak,' the sense being that from a hard stone one extracts nechushah.

'Iron' — even iron has a place of source, in the dust from which it is taken; and there is stone from which copper is poured. So their place of source is visible to the eye — and it likewise becomes apparent when they run out, for they have a limit: the silver and the gold and so forth will not be found forever in one place.

'Iron is taken out of the dust' — and there is a stone that they smelt and melt down, casting copper out of it.

He made an end The Omnipresent [made an end] when there will be darkness, for the heavens shall vanish and the earth shall rot away, and He fathoms the end of everything. a stone A stone whence darkness and the shadow of death emanate. A stone is the place of the source of trouble. For this reason, a place of trouble is called a stone, like a man who dashes his foot against a stone, who suffers pain. So I heard. This is like (Isa. 34:11), “a line of waste and stones of destruction”; (Dan. 2:45), “that from the mountain a stone was cut.”

'The stones of thick darkness' — that is the earth, which is the primary source of darkness, and also the primary cause of the moon's eclipse, at the time it becomes full in mid-month, when it is at the head of the Teli or its tail [i.e., at the lunar nodes].

'Man sets an end to darkness' — a limit is set even for the darkness, as to when it shall end, for when the day grows light, the darkness comes to its end. Meaning: everything has a limit, whether for good or for bad. 'And searches out to the furthest bound' — God searches out to know the limit of every thing, when it will come to be — even though we ourselves do not know the time of the limit of anything. 'The stones of thick darkness' — so too He searches out to know when the substance of thick darkness and the shadow of death shall come to an end; and this refers to the sphere of the earth.

'Stones' [אבן] — that is, the foundation, the very root [essence].

'Man sets an end to darkness' — having explained that each of the metals precious in people's eyes has its own place and source in the ground, Scripture now begins to explain the means by which their hidden location is discovered. For although they lie in a place of darkness, in the depths of the earth, there is a 'stone of gloom and death-shadow' by which the source of the metals is revealed. This is the stone of which the ancients said that whoever possesses it can tell, by means of it, the place deep within the earth where the various metals are to be found — a stone that draws the metals to itself the way a magnetic stone draws iron. Whoever carries this stone senses through it the location of the metals. They called it 'the stone of gloom and death-shadow' — 'gloom' on account of its appearance, which was black, and 'death-shadow' because its workings are hidden and concealed; and they said that this stone's dwelling is in the valley of the shadow of death, in a place of gloom. And this stone 'sets an end to darkness,' for it reveals the metals hidden in the dark, and it searches out every limit to know the source and origin of the metals.

A stream burst forth on Sodom and Gemorrah, streams of fire and brimstone. from the place of its flow Heb. מעם גר, from the place from which it gushes and flows (נוגר). those who cause the foot to be forgotten These are the people of Sodom, who caused the feet of wayfarers to be forgotten from their land, for they would lay the wayfarer in a bed. If he was too long, they would cut off his feet, and if he was too short, they would stretch him. In this manner it is explained in the Aggadah. they are lifted up through the bursting forth of the stream, and they are moved away from man.

'Away from where men sojourn' [ger] — God breaks open a wadi [shaft] that is called 'ger,' in the sense of 'flowing' [mugar], like 'waters poured down a slope' (cf. Micah 1:4); and it lies forgotten, being far from where the multitude of men tread. 'Hang afar' [dallu] — like 'dalelu' (they grow scant) and 'become desolate.' 'From men' — it goes together with 'they swing to and fro': that is, they move about, swaying.

'He breaks open a shaft' — meaning: it swelled. 'Away from where men sojourn' — from the place where a person had dwelt. 'They hang afar' — meaning: they are high up, as in 'mine eyes are lifted up on high' (Isaiah 38:14).

'He breaks open a shaft' — behold, at times a stream bursts through its bank, turning aside from the place where it had been flowing and pouring forth. 'They are forgotten' — they are now forgotten by the feet of the people who used to be accustomed to draw water from it, for they will no longer go to that place, because the waters have grown scant and have been withdrawn from its people, and have moved off away from them. Thus those waters have come to their end, for they are lost from that place.

'Sojourn' [גר] — an expression of flowing, pouring, as in 'waters poured down a steep place' (Micah 1:4). 'Forgotten' [הנשכחים] — [i.e.,] which are forgotten; and so too, 'who had gone with him' (Joshua 10:24) [the same grammatical form]. 'Hang' [דלו] — [i.e.,] they are lifted up, raised on high, as in 'my eyes are raised on high' (Isaiah 38:14).

'He breaks open a shaft' — (a second way by which the metals are discovered): gold that lies in the rock of streams, or is mixed with the sand beneath a stream so that its place is hidden, is sometimes revealed when the stream breaks through the place where it had been flowing and diverts its course to run its waters elsewhere. Then the sand and the rocks beneath it, full of gold, which had been 'forgotten of the foot' — forgotten by the surveyor and by the one who searches for gold, until he no longer even knows gold is there, because the stream had been running over it — now, once the stream has broken through its boundary, are 'drawn up and lifted': the places that until now 'hung afar from man,' that had been forgotten and had receded from human sight and lay covered in the depths of the water, now rise up and come onto dry land.

A land—that from [it] bread emerged its place was as though turned into fire.

'Underneath it' — there is land whose underside is overturned. 'As it were by fire' — like a land of sulfur, with mountains of fire. There is also a land whose stones are a place of sapphire [cf. 28:6]. And there is a place about which we do not know what is there. And [the phrase] 'the bird of prey does not know it' [cf. 28:7] — that is, the bird.

'As for the earth' — behold, a fertile land, from which much bread came forth: when the time of its end arrives, its condition is overturned, and it becomes as dry as though it had been burned by fire.

'Underneath it' [ותחתיה] — [i.e.,] its place.

'(5-6) As for the earth' — (a third way by which the metals are discovered): sometimes the metals lying deep within the earth are revealed by an earthquake, when the foundations of the mountains shake and are overturned by the fire blazing in the belly of the earth, fed by oily, sulfurous, and saline substances and by fiery vapors pent up there. And when the earth 'vomits' these out, the lower layers are turned upside down, and gold ore and sapphire stones that lie deep in the earth come up to the surface. This is the meaning of 'as for the earth, out of it comes bread' — the ground above is fit for fields of grain, but beneath it, deep down, it is overturned as if by fire; and through this overturning, by which the depths of the earth are brought up through the earthquake, there comes, in place of fields of grain, a spot whose stones are sapphire and whose dust is gold — and thereby the treasures that had been stored away in the depths below are uncovered.

a place of sapphire its stones were.

'Its stones are the place of sapphires' — behold, the place whose stones, growing within it, are sapphires, is also the place of the dust from which gold is taken.

A path unknown to brigands Heb. עיט. A band of robbers never passed by them. and which the eye of a vulture did not see Since it sees more than other birds, and is therefore called רָאָה, because it stands in Babylon and sees a carcass in Eretz Israel. That is how it is explained in the Aggadah of Hullin (632); i.e., spies never discerned it.

'No bird of prey' — meaning: a bird. 'Has...seen it' — meaning: has beheld it. 'The falcon' — it is a particular kind of bird.

'That path' — when its time comes it shall become a wasteland, so as to be a path that no bird of prey knows and that no falcon's eye has seen, for they will not come there, on account of its great desolation; and this is by way of exaggeration and hyperbole.

'Path' [נתיב] — [i.e.,] a trail, a way. 'Bird of prey' [עיט] — the name of a wild bird [of prey]; so too 'ayah' [is a name for such a bird]. 'Seen' [שזפתו] — [means] has seen it, as in 'the eye that had seen him' (above, Job 20:9).

'That path no bird of prey knows... he puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock' — (a fourth way by which the metals are discovered): sometimes, by way of one hidden path, a channel of water runs from the top of a mountain into a cavity beneath the mountain at its side and fills that cavity; and then, by the laws governing the weight and pressure of water, it lifts the mountain and uproots it with very great force, as the natural scientists have explained. Indeed, in the year 5581 (1821), a high mountain collapsed in the land of France, and in its place there remained a deep stream of water; and this came about through a path and a channel of water that ran down from a spring found at the top of the mountain into a cavity that lay within the mountain at its base. You can understand this from the law that governs liquids: if you pour them into a bent, hollow tube, the water will rise in the second tube to the same height as the water in the tube beside it — and even though the tube at the side is wider than the first, the water in the narrow tube will nonetheless exert a pressure equal in weight to that of the water in the wide tube, as though the two were of equal width. For example, in the bent tube shown in the accompanying diagram, where the short tube A-C is wider than the long tube D-E: the water standing in the narrow tube at height F-D presses against the seal A-B that closes off both the short, wide tube and the narrow one, with a pressure equal to the weight of a column of water whose width equals the width of the wide tube A-B and whose height equals the height of the long tube F-D — that is, equal to the weight of the water that would fill the cavity of the wide tube from C-G up to height H-I. For had the wide tube not been sealed tightly at point A-B, the water would have risen to height H-I, so as to be level with height F-D in the narrow tube. Accordingly: if a mountain has within it a cavity 200 feet long and 200 feet wide, then the cavity holds 40,000 cubic feet. And suppose at the top of the mountain, off to the side, there is a spring from which a channel descends in depth down to the cavity, so that the cavity and the channel are filled up to the top of the spring — then, if the height of the channel is likewise 200 feet, it presses upon the mountain covering the cavity with a weight of 200 times 40,000, that is, eight million [cubic feet], a weight of 561,000,000 pounds. A weight of this magnitude has the power to 'put forth its hand upon the flinty rock' and uproot mountains from their very root, even though the channel issuing from the spring is only a small, thin path. And this channel — a narrow path that 'no bird of prey knows' and that no living creature ever traveled — is what 'puts forth its hand upon the flinty rock' and overturns the mountain from its root; and it —

neither did... pass by it Heb. עדה, passed, as we translate (Gen. 15 17), “which passed between these parts,” דִּעֲדָה. Proud beasts Heb. (שַחַץ) and lion (שַחַל) are some of the seven names of the lion (Sanh. 95a: The lion has seven names.) Now what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do?...

'Have not trodden it' [lo adah] — meaning 'passed' [avar]; compare the Targum's rendering of 'that passed between these pieces' (Genesis 15:17), which uses this same root; and likewise: 'as one who takes off a garment on a cold day' (Proverbs 25:20).

'Have...trodden it' — meaning: they have walked upon it. 'The proud beasts' — meaning: creatures of pride and might; they are the fiercest of beasts. 'The lion' — meaning: a lion.

'Have not trodden it' — the proud creatures — that is, the fiercest of the beasts — have not passed through it, nor has even the lion passed over it, because of its great desolation.

'Trodden' [הדריכהו] — an expression of stepping, walking; it is from the same root as derech, 'way.' 'Proud' [שחץ] — an expression of pride; so too, 'he is king over all proud beasts' (below, Job 41:26); and in the words of our Sages, 'the people of Jerusalem were a haughty people' (Shabbat 62b). 'Passed' [עדה] — [means] passed by; and so too 'even [the moon]' (above, Job 25:5) [from the same root].

upon the flinty rock and turned over the roots of the mountains from top to bottom.

'He puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock' — that is, God; and He overturns mountains from their roots, and cleaves channels through the rocks and the flint.

'Upon the flinty rock' — meaning: upon the hard rock.

'Upon the flinty rock' — when the end comes for the mighty rocks that grow within the mountains, then God puts forth His hand against them, overturning the mountains from their very root, by means of the wind confined within the belly of the earth.

'The flinty [rock]' [בחלמיש] — [means] upon a hard rock. And since the word chalamish, 'flint,' can only ever refer to rock, Scripture says chalamish alone without needing to add the word 'rock'; so too, 'the flint into a spring of water' (Psalms 114:8).

In the rocks, He split rivers He refers back to the beginning of his topic, that he said that everything has a source. He split the rocks for the source of the rivers, and so, “His eye saw every precious thing,” whence it would emerge for the creatures, [as He did for Israel; He struck a rock and its water flowed.]

'Every precious thing' — that is, the waters that He brings forth from the rocks; and the opposite of this, that He dries up rivers.

'Among the rocks' — meaning: among the mountains.

'Among the rocks' — when the end comes for the rocks, He cleaves channels through their place, until they are covered over. 'And his eye sees every precious thing' — as for all the precious things in the world, the eye of God has seen from where they came and when they will cease to be; as if to say, even though we ourselves do not know everything, it is all known to God.

'The rocks' [בצורות] — from the same root as tzur and sela, 'rock' and 'crag.' 'Channels' [יאורים] — [i.e.,] streams of water. 'Precious' [יקר] — an expression of value.

'He cuts out channels among the rocks' — that is, he breaks through the rocky covering of the mountain that had been fortified over the channels: the channel found within the belly of the mountain, in a tunnel filled with water, with the mountain's rock holding the water back so that it cannot rise to the height of the spring. Once the mountain is split open, the treasures that had been hidden within its belly are revealed — for there lay every precious thing: gold and precious stones.

He bound up the depths of the rivers Heb. מבכי. In the Creation of the world, when the lower waters wept (בכו). the depths Heb. מבכי, like (below 38:16), “the depths of (נבכי) the sea.” bound up Heb. חבש, like (Gen. 22:3), “and saddled (ויחבש) his donkey.” I did not hear this. [Other editions: Because of the weeping etc. Because of the weeping of Israel, who were weeping, saying, “What will we drink,” He bound up and fixed for them water from the rock. (Lev. 8:13),”And he fixed hats (ויחבש) for them,” is translated into Aramaic as ואתקין.] and [from] Taalumah He brings out light There is a window in the firmament, named Taalumah, from which the sun develops in its orbit [in Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer] (ch. 6). That is to say that everything has a source and an end; only wisdom has no source except from His mouth, and never an end.

The meaning of 'trickle' [mibbechi] is 'flow, current,' and similarly, 'the depths of the sea' [nivkei yam] (Job 38:16). 'He binds' — that is, he restrains, as in 'neither has it been bound up' (Isaiah 1:6), and 'I will not be a binder' (Isaiah 3:7). 'The thing that is hid he brings forth to light' — what lay hidden in the depths of the rivers becomes visible once the waters dry up. The point of all this is that God does a thing, and also its opposite: He grants good to the wicked, and He also repays him evil. Even the regions of the earth vary: one land will sprout growth, and another will not bring up any vegetation at all. And to grasp the essence of these matters — why can man not fathom the deep? He explains: even if a man could descend into the deep, he would not find this wisdom there, nor in the depths of the sea.

'The streams' — meaning: from the dripping and flowing of rivers. 'Binds' — meaning: he stops and seals up.

'He binds the streams' — when the end comes for the rivers, He shuts up and restrains the depth of their waters, so that they no longer flow and run as before; and when the end comes for the dry land, then the hidden spring, unseen by the eye of man, comes forth to light, and its waters multiply until they cover the face of the earth. As if to say: since there is an end and a limit to all physical things, their prosperity should therefore not be reckoned as worth anything.

'Streams' [מבכי] — an expression of the depths of water, as in 'the depths of the sea' (below, Job 38:16). 'Binds' [חבש] — an expression of shutting, confining, as in 'bound away in the hidden place' (below, Job 40:13).

'He binds the streams that they trickle not' — (the fifth way by which the metals are discovered): sometimes Hashem binds up the flow of rivers that wander confusedly, without a fixed course, and He binds and ties their course so that they flow along a specific path; and through this, ‘the hidden thing He brings forth to light’ — for when a river makes for itself a specific course between the mountains, it washes away the earth of the mountains alongside it, and through this the hidden things of the mountains and the treasures concealed within them become known, as is well known.

But wisdom i.e., Torah.

'But wisdom' — the prosperity of wisdom, however, is not so; for from what place is it to be found? It has no physical place that produces it, such that we might think that when that place comes to its end, wisdom too would come to an end. 'And where' — where is this place that produces understanding? The matter is repeated in other words.

'But wisdom, where shall it be found?' — but wisdom, which is the most precious thing in the world, is not known to us: neither the means by which it is found and discovered — which is why it says ‘where shall it be found,’ that is, by what device — nor the place where it exists, which is why it says ‘and where is the place of understanding.’ Now, as for wisdom, we do know its place: that it is with Hashem, for wisdom is not attained through investigation or through human understanding, but is received from Hashem alone, and that is its place — only we do not know by what means it comes to be found by us. But understanding, whose root lies in the human intellect, which grasps one thing from another through inferences and proofs — we do know whence it is found; only we do not know ‘the place of understanding,’ that is, its root and foundation, the source from which it takes its beginnings.

and it will not be found in the land of the living with one who enlivens himself, but with one who “puts himself to death” with toil and hunger.

'Man knows not its price' — and therefore it is impossible to know its worth or to set a price on it, for no desirable thing can equal it, since it is a thing that endures forever. 'Neither is it found' — it cannot be found for purchase in the portion of the earth where living creatures dwell, that is, the portion of dry land that is visible above the water.

'Its price' [ערכה] — an expression of worth, appraisal.

'Man knows not its price' — there are two deficiencies in attaining and seeking out wisdom, by contrast with attaining gold and the other precious things mentioned above. First: as for the precious metals, every person knows their worth and how much the body needs them — every man knows his own bodily needs, and knows that gold and silver will help him fill his wants; but wisdom, which is solely a treasure of the soul, man does not recognize its worth, and so people do not seek it out at all. Second: even if one did know its worth and sought after it, it would not be found ‘in the land of the living,’ for it belongs to the intellectual world, and its glory is in heaven.

The deep says, “It is not in me,” If you ask those who dive into the deep, who deal with pearls, with the source of pearls and with gold and silver mines from the place of the depths of the earth, they will tell you, “It is not in me.” I am not well-versed in halachic instruction. and the sea says And those who go down to the sea for business will say to you, “Wisdom is not with me.” Why? Because they cannot purchase it like other merchandise, to give of their wealth for its price. And in the Aggadah (see Shabbath 89a), it is stated that at the time of the giving of the Torah, Satan came before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to Him, “Where is the Torah?” He replied, “With the son of Amram.” He came to Moses, and said to him, “Where is the Torah?” “With the sea.” He came to the sea and asked it, “Where is the Torah?” “It is not in me. Go to the son of Amram.” He came to the son of Amram and said to him, “Where is the Torah?” “With the deep.” He came to the deep and asked, “Where is the Torah?” It replied, “It is not with me. Go to the son of Amram.” He came to the son of Amram and asked, “Where is the Torah?” “With the Holy One, blessed be He.” This is what the deep says, “It is not in me,” and the sea says, “It is not with me.”

'The deep says' — were it within a person's power to descend into the deep to purchase wisdom there, the deep would answer, saying, 'Wisdom is not in me'; and were someone to set out toward the sea that surrounds the inhabited world, to purchase it there, it would answer, saying, 'It is not with me.' This is by way of exaggeration and figurative language, meaning that the depth of wisdom cannot be attained, however much one exerts himself in pursuit of it, unless he first acquires the fear of Hashem, as he will say below.

'The deep says: “It is not in me”' — as against the fact that precious metals are found in the deep and in the depths of the earth, the deep says, ‘It is not in me’; and as against the fact that metals and pearls are found in the depths of seas and rivers, the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’

Fine gold cannot be given Heb. סְגוּר. This is synonymous with זהב סגוּר, lit. closed gold. This is fine gold, for when it is open, all gold establishments close.

'Gold' — meaning: gold.

'It cannot be gotten' — no one gives fine gold as its price or in its place, for it is impossible to purchase it with gold. 'Neither shall silver be weighed' — the matter is repeated in other words.

'Gold' [סגור] — fine gold, which is refined in the smelter's furnace to remove the dross. 'Its price' [מחירה] — its sense is something given in exchange for its value, as in 'they procured it at a price' (I Kings 10:28).

'It cannot be gotten for gold' — nor is it attained through barter, for gold shall not be given in exchange for it; nor through buying and selling, for silver shall not be weighed out as its price.

It cannot be praised Heb. תסלה, an expression of (Ps. 68:5), “Extol Him (סלו) Who rides in Aravoth.” He who praises it saying, “It is as esteemed as the gold of Ophir and as precious onyx,”—this is no praise for it. Similar to this is (Lam. 4:2), “praised (המסלאים) with fine gold.”

'Valued' [tesuleh] — meaning weighed or reckoned in worth, and similarly 'those weighed in fine gold' (Lamentations 4:2). 'The gold of Ophir' — that is, gold.

'Valued' — meaning: reckoned, compared. 'With the gold of Ophir' — meaning: with the gold of Ophir.

'It cannot be valued' — wisdom is not praised by comparison to the gold of Ophir, nor to the precious and esteemed onyx, nor to the sapphire. Meaning: it is no praise of wisdom to say of it that it is as excellent as these, for in truth it is far more precious than that.

'Valued' [תסולה] — [means] esteemed, as in 'those weighed out in fine gold' (Lamentations 4:2). 'The gold of Ophir' — a type of precious gold that comes from Ophir. 'Onyx' and 'sapphire' — names of precious stones.

'It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir' — the way of precious things is to set them in mountings made of things of lesser worth than themselves, as it is said, ‘like apples of gold in settings of silver’ (Proverbs 25:11). But wisdom is so precious that it cannot be valued even by setting it in the gold of Ophir and precious onyx, for all of these are as nothing beside it — it is as if the finest gold turned to rotten wood by comparison.

gold Pure gold that shines like pearls. its exchange is not a pure golden vessel.

'Glass' — it is a clear precious stone, or alternatively the ordinary, well-known substance. 'Neither shall its exchange be' — that is, carrying the negation over from the first half of the verse: 'and not in exchange for it.'

'Gold and glass cannot equal it' — gold and glass shall not be reckoned equal to it. 'Neither shall its exchange be' — the word 'not' from the first half of the verse serves double duty, as if the verse said: 'vessels of fine gold shall not be its exchange or substitute' — for their worth falls far short of its worth.

'Glass' [זכוכית] — this is white glass, which is more precious than gold, as our Sages said, 'be-zugita chivarta,' white glass (Chullin 84b). 'Fine gold' [פז] — [i.e.,] refined gold.

'Gold and glass cannot equal it' — even should one seek to set a value and equivalence for it, one could not weigh gold and glass against it, nor give in exchange for it vessels of fine gold, precious as these are on account of the costliness of their workmanship — for the workmanship of wisdom is higher and more exalted than theirs.

Coral and crystal They are names of precious stones in the sea. cannot be mentioned in comparison to it.

'Coral...or...crystal' — these are precious pearls. 'The price of wisdom is above rubies' — meaning: the pursuit of wisdom, and the effort to attain it, is more choice than rubies.

"No mention shall be made" — the importance of those stones will not be mentioned alongside the importance of wisdom, for they are as nothing compared to wisdom. "The price of wisdom" — [the word "meshech," literally "the drawing"] refers to the drawing out of wisdom, meaning the effort and study invested in bringing it from potential into actuality; that effort is more precious than rubies.

'Coral' and 'crystal' [ראמות, גביש] — names of precious stones. 'Rubies' [פנינים] — [i.e.,] pearls.

'No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal' — even things precious on account of their place of origin, such as coral and crystal, stones said to have descended from on high — even these shall not be mentioned in setting a value for it, for the place of wisdom is higher still. And ‘the price of wisdom’ — that is, the place from which wisdom is drawn out — is deeper than the place from which pearls are drawn out of the depths of the sea.

The topaz of Kush It is a precious stone, as in (Exod. 28:17), “ruby, topaz (פטדה).” with...jewelry Heb. בכתם. That is a collection of jewelry for women’s adornments, and this collection is called כֶּתֶם in Hebrew, and “al halls” in Arabic. That is (Prov. 25:12) “Like a golden earring and jewelry of the finest gold (וחלי כתם),” and similarly (Hosea 2:15), “and adorned herself with her earrings and her jewelry (וחליתה).” Others interpret כֶּתֶם like כֶּתֶר, a crown, but it is incorrect because we do not find a verb with this root, as we find with כֶּתֶר. מַכְתִּיר, to crown or surround, כותרות capitals.

'Pure gold' — because it says 'pure,' this indicates it is gold; for if it were a precious stone, what would 'pure' mean here?! So indeed it is used like the phrase 'pure gold.'

'The topaz of Ethiopia' [pitdat kush] — meaning: it is a topaz found in the land of Ethiopia, and it is a precious stone. 'Pure gold' [b'ketem tahor] — meaning: refined, pure gold. 'Valued' [tesuleh] — meaning: compared [with].

"The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it" — the topaz stone that comes from the land of Cush will not be compared to it. "Neither shall it be valued" — there is no praise in saying merely that it is like fine gold; the matter is repeated many times over, in the manner of poetic style, on account of its great importance.

'Topaz' [פטדת] — the name of a precious stone.

'The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it' — [Scripture speaks now of] the most precious of all things: the topaz of Ethiopia, whose worth cannot be reckoned even by setting it in pure gold — for the topaz is so valuable that pure gold is not worthy, by comparison, even to be counted fit to serve as its frame and surrounding mountings. Yet even this shall not equal it; it has no value alongside wisdom.

"Whence then comes wisdom?" — as if to say: since wisdom is so important, let us investigate to know what serves as the starting point and preparation for attaining wisdom, and where is the place from which understanding reaches us.

'Whence then comes wisdom?' — after all these premises, in which he explained that wisdom has no place or root in this world, for it comes from above, from the higher world and from the wisdom of God, he now asks: if so, from where does it come to us in this world? 'And where is the place of understanding?' — that is, where is the place, the root, the foundations, and the origins of understanding in the intellectual world?

and from the winged creatures of the heavens The angels who fly.

"Seeing it is hid" — yet it is hidden from the eyes of all the living, and concealed from the fowl of the air, even though they fly high up toward the heavens, the source of wisdom; this is a matter of poetic expression.

'Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living' — its existence is hidden in this world, where all living creatures walk about; and it is also concealed from the fowl of the heavens, which soar aloft to fly to the heights — for although it is not hidden in the upper world, it is hidden from mortal beings, so that they cannot grasp its nature and its truth.

Destruction and death said Those who destroy themselves and kill themselves over it said, “With our ears we heard its report that if one toils with it, it endures with him.” And others say as in the Aggadah that I explained above, that Satan came before the Omnipresent and asked Him, “Where is the Torah?” He said to him etc. That is what is written, “Destruction and death said, ‘With our ears we heard its report that it was given to Israel.’ But...”

'Destruction and Death' — that is, the dead. The ancients tell us that they too had only heard from others that man cannot fathom these matters, and that only the Creator [knows them] — He alone, who made the four foundations: earth, heaven, wind, and water — and these are mentioned in the next two verses. And He displays new wonders in the matter of rain; therefore it goes on to say: 'when He made a decree for the rain' (28:26).

"Destruction and Death say" — the ancients, the people of Destruction and Death, meaning those who have already died, said: behold, with our own ears we have heard of its great renown and the fame of its praise, but the paths to its house cannot be attained, so precious is its existence.

'Destruction and Death say: “We have heard a rumor of it with our ears”' — but since divine wisdom — which is to know the ways of His governance of the world, and the order and wisdom of Providence — is itself hidden, and human beings cannot grasp it, for they see reversals in the governance of the world, in that the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, therefore Job says that ‘Destruction and Death,’ that is, those who have already died, say that they have heard report of this wisdom with their ears. And he alludes here to what his friends had said: that after death, once the body has perished, the righteous then receive their reward and the wicked their punishment in the eternal spiritual world, and that then the wisdom of God, the rightness of His governance, and His reward and punishment become known. And he says further: ‘for—’

God understood its way, and He knew its place For He knows where it is situated, and they will also praise it and say of it that God understood its way; He looked at it and created the world with its letters in their order and according to their weight. He created all creatures as it is written in the secret of Sefer Yetzirah.

"God understands its way" — but God alone understands the way that leads to it, and He knows the place of its encampment.

'God understands its way' — only Hashem knows the way of this wisdom, how it proceeds in its course toward the governance of the lower creatures, to reward and to punish according to righteousness and wickedness; and He knows its place — its root above, with Hashem, who governs all things in righteousness according to His wisdom, which is hidden from the eyes of all living.

For He looks to the ends of the earth how He should build them and create them, and under all the heavens He saw in it the needs of their creation.

"For He looks to the ends of the earth, etc." — for the Omnipresent looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens, so as to bestow influence upon them all by means of the arrangements of the heavens.

'For He looks to the ends of the earth' — and here proof is brought of Hashem's particular providence, extending even to the earth, from the law that He set in the expanse of the air, which he mentioned in chapter 26, where it says, ‘He drew a boundary on the face of the waters, to the point where light meets darkness’ (26:10). Through this law He established the earth upon its foundations: at first the earth was submerged in water, and through this law the waters were separated and rose up, by means of the light created on the first day, into the sphere of the air and the region of the clouds. And in this, ‘He looks to the ends of the earth’ — He watched over and provided that the ends of the earth should emerge from the water, so that dry land would appear; ‘and sees under the whole heaven’ — for in this He saw and provided for what is under the heavens, that is, for the lower world, which begins from the point where the heavens end, beneath them — that is, from the region of storm-clouds and clouds, for from there upward is the boundary of the heavens.

To make with it a weight for the wind, for each land according to its strength, and so the water according to its measure, according to what each land required to water it. There is an arid land which requires much rain, and there is a land that does not require so much.

"When He makes a weight for the wind" — to send the wind out in [proper] weight to every place, according to need. "And metes out the waters by measure" — to give to each place according to the abundance of its mountains and the dryness of its ground.

'When He makes' — this came about through His providential care in fashioning a weight for the wind, for the very element of air has weight and heaviness; and by this the vapors rise to the boundary of the clouds, driven by the heaviness of the lower air, whose weight is heavier than the light vapors. And by this, too, 'He metes out the waters by measure' — thereby measuring how much of the water would remain suspended above in the clouds and mists, and how much would descend to the seas and rivers, never to return and cover the earth.

a decree A set decree according to all the lands, and a spring and rivulet to water each land by His making a way for all the clouds, so that two thunders do not emerge through one hole, lest it destroy the world.

'Storm of thunders' [chaziz] — this means 'strength and power'; and similarly: 'Hashem makes storm-clouds' (Zechariah 10:1).

'And a way' [vaderech] — meaning: a fixed, orderly practice. 'For the storm of thunders' [lachaziz kolot] — referring to the lightning, which is the cause of the sounds and the thunders; or perhaps the phrase is missing a vav, and the intent is 'lachaziz ve-kolot' — 'for the lightning and the thunders.'

"When He made a decree" — at the time of creation, when He set a fixed law for the rain — when it would fall and how it would fall upon the earth — and when He made a path for the storm and the sounds of thunder, [determining] by which way they would travel.

'Storm' [חזיז] — this is a name for a cloud; so too, 'Hashem makes storm-clouds' (Zechariah 10:1). 'Thunders' [קלות] — [this is spelled as if it were] וקולות, with the vav missing; there are many examples like this.

'When He made' — this was when He made a statute for the rain. By making this statute, the vapors rise upward through the expansion of the air, and through the power of heat and the electricity bound up in the clouds — for through heat the vapors become light and rise upward; and when the heat departs from the vapors, the waters contract and grow heavy, and the rain descends. And then He also made 'a way for the storm of thunders' — for when the heat and the electric force depart from the clouds, lightning and thunder occur, as is known. All of this makes it abundantly clear that there is particular providence at work in the workings of nature and in the governance of the earth, so as to give life to the earth and to all that is upon it.

Then He saw He saw it, looked at it, and with its counsel made everything. and counted it He counted its letters, the double ones [such as בּב] and the simple ones, the first one (א), middle one (מ), and the final one (ת). אֶמֶת, is the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He. And so with the remaining orders He created everything with these letters. Everything is explained in the secret of Sefer Yetzirah. prepared it He prepared it [wisdom] for the Creation.

'Then He saw it, and declared it' [va-yesapreha] — the word 'va-yesapreha' is not from the root of 'va-yesaper Moshe' ['and Moses told'] (Exodus 18:8), but rather from 'mispar' [number], or from the root of 'sofer' [to be recorded, as by a scribe] — the sense being that it, [wisdom,] is recorded with Him; and similarly: 'who can number the skies with wisdom' (Job 38:37).

'And declared it' — He put it in a book and wrote them down; meaning, He set them as a statute and an ordinance. Explanation of the words of the response: When Job saw that not one of his friends was answering him anything more, he continued to take up his discourse about his own case, and said: "As Hashem lives, who has turned aside my right" — in that He has ordered the good and evil that befall a man in this fashion, arranging them by way of the celestial bodies. Or: "As Hashem lives, who has turned aside my right" — [reasoning] on your own view, that good and evil come from Him in judgment, according to people's deeds — "and the Almighty, who has embittered my soul": as long as I remain alive, my lips will not speak wrongdoing and deceit by conceding to what you say. Far be it from me that I should grant that you are right in what you say of me, that I have already sinned; until I die I will not remove my integrity from myself, to say that I am wicked and a sinner, as you say of me. I hold fast to my righteousness, to say that I am righteous; I will not let go, nor will my heart ever swerve from this view that I hold. And as for what you say of me — that I side with the wicked in saying that Hashem has abandoned the earth, since on this view righteousness avails nothing over wickedness, which shows that I have not been careful to avoid sin — far be it from me to hold any such thing! Let my enemy be counted as the wicked man, and him who rises up against me as the unrighteous. It is also possible that this is the very same intent behind what was said just before it: that he means, "As Hashem lives" — together with the belief that man is not punished according to his deeds — "I will not sin with my lips" by speaking wrongdoing and deceit. Far be it from me that I should concede to you that I am wicked, even now, when these evils have come upon me unjustly — for then it would appear to everyone that you were right in saying of me that I am wicked. Behold, until the day of my death I will not remove my integrity and my righteousness from myself, nor will my heart swerve from the good way I have held to all my life. Let my enemy be as the unrighteous, and him who rises up against me as the wicked. But he says this out of his hatred for wrongdoing and wickedness — that is, to explain why, even on this view that I hold, wrongdoing and wickedness should not be praised. For what is the hope of the godless man, though he get his gain by robbery and violence? And even if Hashem should leave him alone in peace for now, without punishing him, will he then trust that, when troubles come upon him, Hashem will rescue him from them when he cries out to Him? Surely this is impossible — not only on my view, but even on yours — for he does not delight in Hashem and cling to Him in such a way that he could pray to Hashem whenever he wishes and have his prayer heard, as Scripture says elsewhere, "Then you shall delight yourself in Hashem, and He will give you the petitions of your heart" (cf. Psalms 37:4). This being so, see how fitting it is for you to judge that I am praising the wicked, unrighteous man! Is not the wicked, unrighteous man, on my own view, just as exposed to misfortune as the righteous man is, with no end in store for him but a success that is illusory — one bound, indeed all but certain, to be lost from him when his day of disaster comes, with no possible escape for him then? Whereas the righteous man, when his day of disaster comes, loses only his illusory success, while his true success — the success of the soul — remains to him. It is also possible to say that the intent of his words, "will he delight himself in the Almighty," etc., is this: he is asking whether this wicked man could delight himself in Hashem in the sense that his soul continually cleaves to Him through what it grasps of Him intellectually, calling upon God at all times so as to comprehend and know Him, remaining with Him always, until the success of the soul is attained by him. It is clear that this is impossible, for the success of the soul cannot be attained together with base character traits — as is well known and established beyond any doubt. "I will teach you concerning what is in the hand of God; that which is with the Almighty I will not conceal from you" — namely, that in truth He leaves individual human beings to the limited order fixed for them by the celestial system. Now how, on this basis, can you believe that I am praising the wicked man? For "behold, all of you have yourselves seen it, and have reported that you have already learned from experience that this is the portion of a wicked man with God" — "and the heritage that violent, wicked men receive from the Almighty" — meaning, that wondrous evils do indeed befall them, as he goes on to relate. And you yourselves know that all my proofs for my own view are drawn from the senses. And since this is so — that by the evidence of the senses it appears that wondrous evils have indeed befallen wicked men — know that I differed from you only in this: you claimed that no wicked man escapes having such things happen to him, whereas I argued, from the evidence of the senses, that some wicked men do in fact attain prosperity, with no punishment reaching them at all until the day of their death. How, then, can you believe that I am praising the wicked man? Why, then, do you speak such vanity, saying that I choose the way of the wicked men who lived in the generation of the Flood, and the men of Sodom and Gomorrah? Behold, just as you have related, it does often happen that if the wicked man's sons multiply, their end is to die by the sword, and his offspring will not be satisfied with bread; and those of his who remain — his own sons — will be buried at their death, in that people will not leave them until their life has fully departed; yet because of his wickedness, not even his widow will weep over his death and the death of his sons. Though he heap up silver like the dust, and prepare clothing to wear until he has it in such abundance as clay — he will indeed prepare the clothing, but a righteous man will wear it; and the silver he has amassed will pass to the innocent, who will divide it and scatter it as he pleases. "He builds his house like a moth" — meaning, his house will be destroyed as easily as a moth's cocoon, or like the booth a vineyard-watchman builds, which has no permanence. The rich man will die, and not be gathered for honorable burial, but will be dragged along and cast out, like the burial of a donkey (cf. Jeremiah 22:19) — so quickly does he die and perish, within so short a time, that in the very moment a person could open his eyes to look at him, he is turned from being into nothing. "Terrors overtake him like waters" — meaning, they come upon him in a flood, in a rush; and in the night a storm-wind steals him away, and the east wind sweeps him from his place, so fearful is he of the troubles coming upon him, that he cannot even wait for the light of morning, but flees in the night. Hashem hurls His blows and afflictions upon him and spares him nothing of his wound; like one fleeing before the east wind, he runs, thinking to escape. Every man claps his hands over his ruin, and hisses at him from where he stands, out of sheer astonishment at the evil that has befallen him. This, then, is what you have related — that it often happens that these evils befall the wicked; and on this point I did not differ from you. But I established, from the evidence of the senses, that this is not found among all the wicked; rather, some of them are found to prosper, with no punishment reaching them at all. My own explanation for why evil befalls both the wicked and the good alike is this: that for all these matters found in this lowly world, there is an end and a limit. For this is what one finds: at various times, in some place on earth, silver will emerge from it, being freshly formed there at that time; and likewise one finds a place on earth where gold is refined and brought out; and likewise one finds some place on earth from which iron is brought out, freshly formed there at that time — "and the stone is poured out as copper," meaning the hard metal, iron — that is, it has already been extracted from there at some point. For Hashem has set a limit to the state of non-generation in various places of the earth, and when that limit is reached, comings-into-being of this kind take place there. He has also set a limit to every purpose that man searches out and seeks, in that which "the stone of darkness and the shadow of death" instruct him — meaning, by "the stone of darkness and the shadow of death" is meant the prime matter, together with which are all privations, and which is the final end of all generated things; or else by "the stone of darkness and the shadow of death" he means the element earth, since it stands, relative to the other perceptible existents, at the very extreme of privation. At times a stream bursts forth and swells near a place where a person had formerly dwelt as dry land, since even that place's dryness has an end and a limit. And the reverse is also found: mighty waters, untrodden by any foot, deeper than a man's height, so that no person ever crossed there because of their great depth, will in time recede and be exhausted, and the dryness will return to that place where the river had been. One will likewise find land that produces bread, being good for sowing, and when its term comes, its underside is turned over as if by fire, which dries it up and burns it, until it can no longer be worked or sown. One will also find a place whose stones are sapphire, in which gold dust is found, and people come there continually to take the sapphires or the gold; but when its term comes, it becomes so desolate that not even the birds and wild beasts will come there. When the term of even the mighty mountains arrives, Hashem sends forth His hand and overturns them by the root, by means of the wind pent up within the belly of the earth. At times, when their own term comes, streams break through even the mightiest rocks; and before that, the eye had seen every precious thing within them, since the place was dry. The reverse also happens: at other times Hashem holds back the flow of the rivers, and whatever had been hidden in their beds He brings out into the light, so that the eye may see it. Since this is so — I mean, that there is an end and a limit to all these material things — it is clear that success consisting in such material possessions ought not truly be called success, for all of it perishes when its term comes; and in this respect the wicked and the righteous are equal. But since the righteous have a true success — the success of the soul — which the wicked do not have, while both alike share only in that other, material kind of success, it is clear that I do indeed praise the righteous man over the wicked. Job then began to relate the excellences of wisdom and understanding, and the difficulty of attaining them, and that they can be reached only through the fear of Hashem and turning away from evil — and by this too it becomes clear that the wicked man is to be condemned and the righteous man praised, on this score as well. He began, and said: "But wisdom — from where shall it be found, and where is the place of understanding, that man may take it from there?" It is hidden from man, so that he does not know its worth; nor is it to be found in that part of the earth where the living dwell — the visible part of the earth — nor in the deep, nor in the sea, which surrounds the rest of the earth's regions. But he says this so that no one should think that the things perceived by the senses suffice, on their own, for the acquisition of wisdom — for it has already been established in the book On the Soul that the senses alone do not suffice for the acquisition of intelligibles; rather, there must also be present an active intellect that produces these intelligibles within us and imparts them to us. And along with this, it has already been established in the Wars of Hashem that we lack the capacity to grasp this order and arrangement belonging to existing things exactly as it truly is — namely, the single, unified order and arrangement that inheres in them — and that this degree of knowledge is never attained in its full perfection, for it belongs to Hashem alone. For this reason no one but Hashem knows the true worth of wisdom in its perfection. Yet people's degrees of wisdom do differ, according to how near or how far they stand from this order as grasped intellectually — an order that exists, so to speak, in the mind of Hashem. And he says that, because wisdom's worth is so great, gold cannot be given in its place, nor can silver be weighed out as its price; it cannot be valued against the gold of Ophir, or against precious onyx and sapphire — gold and clear glass do not equal it, nor can vessels of fine gold be exchanged for it; coral and crystal, precious stones though they are, are not even mentioned alongside wisdom — the drawing near to wisdom, and the effort spent in acquiring it, are more pleasant and more precious than pearls. The topaz found in Cush, exceedingly precious though it is, does not equal wisdom, which cannot be valued even against pure gold. He says this to show that the acquisition of wisdom surpasses all other acquisitions, and therefore the intelligent man should never abandon the pursuit of wisdom for the sake of striving after these illusory successes. Wisdom is also more pleasant, for there is no comparison between the pleasure that comes to us from illusory possessions and the pleasure that comes to us from our efforts toward wisdom. "Whence, then, does wisdom come?" — meaning, what thing serves as the starting point and preparation for wisdom's reaching us, and from what place does understanding come to us? Behold, it is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, and concealed even from the bird of the sky, however high it soars — it may well be that wisdom lies far off indeed. "Destruction and Death say, We have heard a report of it with our ears" — meaning, from the privation and death found in these generated things, and, in general, from the deficiency found in the prime matter underlying them, we may infer that there is here a cause responsible for supplying all these forms with their perfection. For this reason he goes on at length concerning the inquiry into the intelligible nature possessed by each of these lower existents — which is what wisdom consists in — and then we shall know that Hashem alone possesses perfect knowledge of this order belonging to existing things; for He makes every existing thing, and looks to the ends of the earth to carry out His work there, and sees beneath the whole heaven. "To assign a weight for the wind, and to fix the waters by measure" — meaning, He takes care that there be a proper balance among the elements, so that air and water are each in their fitting proportion, and likewise with the other elements; for this balance among them comes about on account of two things: the balance that exists among them in themselves, in quantity and in quality, and the balance among the causes that act upon them as the heavenly spheres return in their circuit — for it is through this that the balance among the elements is preserved. This is a matter of the utmost wonder and wisdom: that He fixes for the rain a statute and an order, so that it never exceeds what is proper, lest the element of water prevail beyond what is fitting; and that He fixes a way and a custom for the thunderbolts and the thunder, so that fire and wind never prevail beyond what is fitting. Behold, in founding the world upon custom and statute, "He saw wisdom and inscribed it" — meaning, He set it as a statute and an order, and prepared it, and also searched it out, until He arranged all things in the most perfect way possible. "And He said to man: Behold, the fear of Hashem — that is the way by which wisdom is reached, and turning away from evil is the preparation for reaching understanding" — since it is impossible for the perfection of the soul to be attained together with preoccupation with bodily desires, and this is self-evident. From this it is likewise clear that, in Job's view, wrongdoing and wickedness are not to be praised, since they prevent the attainment of the success of the soul, which is man's true success. The general principle that emerges from all this is that Job defended himself against the charge that it was evident from his own view of providence that he praises the wicked man and follows his example, since he does not believe that punishment reaches the wicked because of their wickedness — and that this was precisely what moved the wicked men of earlier generations to conduct themselves as they did, believing that Hashem had abandoned the earth. Job's response to this is that far be it from him to choose wickedness on account of this view of his. For even granting that some measure of prosperity does at times befall the wicked man, that is no reason for him to desire the wicked man's condition, since the wicked man too is exposed to the accidents of time, with no way to escape them, exactly as is the case with the righteous man. For Job believed that the righteous and the wicked are alike with respect to illusory goods, since many wicked men are indeed found to whom wondrous evils happen, so that by the very nature of these material successes they are bound, in the end and of necessity, to perish, being material things. Given this — that the righteous and the wicked are equal with respect to this illusory success — the righteous alone have, in addition, an eternal success, pleasant and exceedingly precious, namely wisdom and understanding, which is the success of the soul, attainable only through the fear of Hashem and through guarding oneself from wickedness and wrongdoing. It is thus clear that, in Job's view, righteousness is very much to be preferred over wickedness.

"Then" — at the time He did all these things, He then saw wisdom and made use of it, and set it down in a book so that it would endure forever; He arranged it in the most fitting order, and also searched it out to know all its secrets. This is a matter of poetic expression, and it refers back to what was said above, that God understood its way — for He had made use of it from then on.

'Declared' [ויספרה] — from the same root as sefer, 'a book' [i.e., a recounting].

'Then He saw it' — the wisdom and its statutes; 'and declared it' — that is, He brought it forth from potential into actuality, and from thought into deed; 'He established it, indeed' — He prepared it and made it ready for its purpose, namely, to govern the world; 'and searched it out' — He also calibrated it to align with the deeds of those it governs, and according to what is needed relative to the freely chosen deeds that human beings perform for the sake of reward and punishment — for all of this was determined through the measures of wisdom and its statutes.

Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom One requires the other, and wisdom is unseemly without [the] fear [of the Lord].

"And to man He said" — meaning: since human wisdom suffices to attain the depths of wisdom's secrets, it is as if Hashem said to man, "Behold, the fear of Hashem, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding" — meaning, through fear of Hashem one attains hidden matters that cannot be attained by natural means, for then Hashem places wisdom in his heart. All this refers back to the beginning of his words, where he said, "Surely there is a mine for silver," etc., to say: is not wisdom better than all treasures? If so, one must acquire it only through fear of Hashem. And therefore, even if the same fate befalls the righteous and the wicked alike, one should hold fast to righteousness and the fear of Hashem in order to attain the secrets of this most precious wisdom. (What emerges from these words is that he speaks at length to tell his friends that he is not aware of having sinned, for he would not speak deceitfully, since he himself knows the truth. And even though he may think that the same fate befalls the righteous and the wicked alike, still one should not choose wickedness, for the wicked, too, is subject to the mishaps of time, while the righteous has an advantage over him, in that he enjoys spiritual pleasure. He further substantiates his words by saying: are not all the possessions of the world ultimately perishing and passing away, while the acquisition of wisdom endures forever? If so, it is better than all possessions, and it cannot be attained without fear of the Omnipresent. If so, who would choose wickedness and thereby lose this beautiful wisdom?)

'And to man He said' — but He created the human intellect in such a way that it cannot attain the essence and true nature of wisdom itself; man can only receive it from the Supreme Sage by tradition, and believe it with wholehearted faith through the fear of Hashem that is in his heart — which is the very foundation of wisdom. For it is through the fear of Hashem that a person comes to believe in the statutes of wisdom given by Hashem, and walks in its statutes; and this is 'wisdom,' as it is written, 'The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem' (Psalms 111:10), and 'The fear of Hashem is the discipline of wisdom' (Proverbs 15:33) — as I explained at length in my commentary on Proverbs. 'And to depart from evil is understanding' — for the very essence of the understanding a person attains through his own reasoning is that he depart from evil; for by this, understanding was placed in man's heart, so that he reflects according to the discipline planted in his heart, to turn away from evil. But beyond this, man cannot grow wise on his own, nor can he grasp anything at all of Hashem's governance. And this is part of Job's grievance — that he complains why man was created in such a way that he cannot grow wise and cannot understand the ways of Hashem, but must rely, like a blind man groping through a skylight, on faith and fear alone.