Commento su Giobbe 23:16

And if I have now failed the test; and if, as a result of the suffering, I have turned away from worshipping God and from the fear of Him; and if it now appears that my worship was motivated by expectation of benefit, know that this is only because God has broken me. He left me alive to suffer instead of mercifully putting an end to me.⁵To illustrate the idea that extreme suffering may be worse than death itself, Malbim quotes from TB Ketuboth 33b: Whence do we know that the penalty of death is more severe? Perhaps punishment with lashes is more severe? As Rab said: If they had lashed Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, they would have worshipped the golden image (Daniel 3).