욥기 16:1의 주석

Job does not reply at once to the resolution of the question of the prosperity of the wicked advanced by Eliphaz, nor to the thesis Bildad adopts on his issue, preferring to wait until all three of his companions have addressed the subject. He then answers them all (in Chapter 21) in comprehensive response that rebuts everything they had said on the subject.

Nor does he react to Eliphaz's repetition of the claim he had made in his first oration, namely, that he had received a prophetic vision concerning the suffering of the righteous, as he had already replied to it at the time. He just rebukes him for repeating himself and for adding nothing new, as though all he wanted to do was to drown him with words, which is not the way of the wise (Ch.16:2-5).

Neither does he comment on the ideas Eliphaz repeats concerning free-will, there being no point in reiterating what he had already said.

And so he limits himself, at this point, to dealing to just two matters:

• The first, that Eliphaz had now sought to brand him as a totally evil person; one deserving of the condemnation and punishment due to the wicked. For everything he had described about the fears that possess a wicked person and his ultimate collapse had pointed the finger(Proverbs 6:13) at Job, for it had all happened to him. Job cries out and fiercely protests against this (Ch.16:7-21).

And the second, Eliphaz’s attempt to reinforce his previous thesis that the essential reward [of the righteous] is the survival of the soul after death, as when he said (Job 15:11): Are God's consolations inadequate for you; For you will return your spirit to God. Job rejects this completely, saying that since the essential quality of the soul is a hidden matter and most people cannot understand this mystery and see only that which is sensed, i.e., that the righteous person is tormented with suffering in real-life; and since as regards this other spiritual life, there is nobody who can give them a guarantee that the soul lives on after death, for such things are hidden from the seeing eye; and since even the intellect can make no sense of it, as he says (Job 17:4): But You have hidden comprehension from their minds, and since all human beings only set store by what is seen in real-life, there are those who, when they see a righteous person suffer, pass a perverse judgment over him and conclude from this that he must have sinned, as happened in the case of Job, whereas others will maintain that the person was indeed righteous and so complain about the workings of Providence.¹'If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.' - Samuel Butler (1835–1902). It follows that this disposal of the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked [viz. reward or punishment of the soul after death in the Hereafter] leads people to dissent and reproach, and to barren thought: it is a shadow of death in Governance; incoherent (Job 10:22). The righteous and the wicked should be given their just deserts in this world, for all to see, to learn and to take note; so that injustice be gagged (Psalms 107:42).