Midrash sobre Job 23:3

Even to the poor with thee. Our sages of blessed memory said: All manner of physical suffering is on one side (of the scale), while poverty is on the other. At the time that Satan came to denounce Job, it is said: Then Satan answered the Lord, and said: “Doth Job hear God for nought?” (Job 1:9). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Job: Which do you prefer, poverty or suffering? He replied: I willingly accept all the suffering in the world but not poverty. How can I transact business in the marketplace without even a perutah in my possession? Satan thereupon departed from God and afflicted Job with ugly boils from the sole of his foot to his head. Job cried out: O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat (Job 23:3), to plead for divine justice. Elijah then said to him: Why do you complain? Did you not choose suffering in preference to poverty, as it is said: For this hast thou chosen rather than affliction (ibid. 36:21).

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: “See, I have called by name Bezalel” (Exod. 31:1). Solomon said: Whatsoever cometh into being, the name thereof was given long ago, and it is foreknown what man is (Eccles. 6:10). Scripture also says elsewhere in reference to this: Who hath wrought and done it? He that called the generations from the beginning (Isa. 14:4). The Holy One, blessed be He, declared: When I determined at the very beginning of time to build the Sanctuary, I already announced his name, and made his name known. And it is foreknown what man is. Even when the first man was a lifeless mass, the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him all the righteous men who would descend from him. Some hung from his head, others were suspended from his hair, and still others from his neck, his two eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears, and his arms. Proof of this is in the fact that when Job complained against his Creator, saying: O that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even unto His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would say unto me (Job 23:3–5). The Holy One, blessed be He, replied to him: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? (ibid. 38:4). R. Simeon the son of Lakish maintained: Where wast thou is written because the Holy One, blessed be He, was in fact asking Job: Where were you suspended from the first man? Was it from his head, his hair, his neck, his eyes, or from one of his limbs?