פירוש על איוב 6:1

Returning to the fray, Job reemphasizes his conviction that, as he had postulated, the Earth has been placed in the hands of the Cosmos and that no account or reckoning is kept of a person's deeds, whether they be good or bad. For everything a person does is prescribed and he cannot change what has been predetermined by his luck and horoscope. Hence, there is no difference between the righteous and the wicked. The proof of this is that we observe righteous men perishing in their righteousness (Ecclesiastes 7:15), as was shown by the example of he himself and what had happened to him. For he had become like a shattered vessel (Psalms 31:13) even though he had been both righteous and virtuous.

Eliphaz had countered this by asserting that the evil which befalls a righteous person is only temporary and no righteous person ever perishes completely. A righteous person suffers only by reason of some small sin he has committed; in order that he be purged of this minor transgression with mild passing afflictions and be thereby saved from eternal perdition. According to Eliphaz, Job's suffering was of this type. Against this, Job argues that what had happened to him clearly shows that a righteous person can totally perish, for there is no possible way that he could ever revert to his previous state and recover from his illness. He had been struck such a blow of death and extinction that he would not survive his illness, as he brings evidence to show (Ch. 6:4-13). This being so, of what comfort is it to him that, through this suffering, his minor sins will be purged and he will be saved from everlasting adversity or from death and perdition. And that he will yet be restored and live, broken as he is (2Samuel 1:10 ), seeing that the only hope he has left is to crave that his death be brought forward so that he might be released from his great agony (ibid and Ch. 7:11-17).