욥기 3:1의 주석

In Sefer Ha-Ikarim (Part 4, Chapter 4), Joseph Albo notes that there are two ancient opinions concerning the workings of astrology.

• One is the view of the Philosopher, who says that the heavenly bodies and the stars exert an influence upon the lower world by means of their various motions, by which they cause the elements to move, and combine them and prepare them in various ways to receive the natural forms, so that some persons are prepared to acquire wisdom and others are not; some are prepared to receive the divine prophetic influence and others are not... As for any other signification the stars may have in relation to other things which have no connection with their elemental qualities, as for example in the determination of poverty or wealth, or whether a given person will marry one wife or more than one, or whether he will be virtuous or vicious - this school denies any such power. It is false, they say, and extremely unlikely that the stars should give indications of things which have nothing to do with them, like poverty, wealth love, hate, etc.

• The second view is that of the astrologers and star-gazers. They say that all things that happen to a man, do so by the decree of the stars. And they prove it by actual verification. The astrologer tells a person what will happen to him in all particulars, whether he will live long, whether he will be poor or rich, how many wives he will have and so on. This shows that all things that happen to a man are due to the decree of the stars, which it is impossible to escape...Some of the Rabbis hold this view: 'Luck makes one wise, and luck makes one rich' (TB Shabbat 156a).

Clearly, Job held the same opinion as the astrologers, namely, that all human affairs are prescribed and apportioned by the Cosmos.¹ Nahmanides and Gersonides ascribe the same belief to Job. This however raises the question of why, if he did not believe in God's Governance of the sublunar world, Job had offered sacrifices to God lest his children had sinned. Gersonides replies that Job had believed in the immortality of the soul and it was by reason of this that he had done his best to educate his children to the worship of God, even though he did not believe that any material reward would accompany it. Confused as to the workings of Providence, he had wanted to do the right thing and to cover all possibilities and so had acted as though he believed in reward and punishment. However, when the calamities befell him he lost his faith. Malbim's answer to this question, as we shall see, would be that Job never ceased to believe in Providence. The positions and arguments he assumes in the debate were just an act: polemics. This is the principle he lays down at the beginning of his speech, when he curses the night of his conception and the day of his birth, for they had been his ruin (Judges 11:35) (Ch.3:3-10). If they had seen, at the time, that his horoscope prescribed that he was to be a failure during his life, they should have decided upon his extinction, for why should he come into existence just to see strife and sorrow (Jeremiah 20:18)? (Ch.3:10-14).

For man instinctively feels² Literally, 'the impression stamped on man's mind is' that non-existence is bad for him. Thus, he rues any degree of non-existence which may leave him in want of any object in existence, such as a lack of wealth and the like. Above all, he is frightened by the thought of his own total extinction. But all this is only the homeborn child (Leviticus 18:9) of his imagination, after he has already come into existence. This would not be so had he never existed in the first place, for then nothingness and the absence of presence would be equivalent. We could not then delineate the extent of the non-existence, namely, whether he became extinct never having been of great rank or never having been of low rank, for there is no difference between nothingness and nothingness (Ch.3:14-17).³In his glosses, Malbim adds the following explanation:
For persons who actually exist, differences of rank have meaning; one is a king, another a courtier. There are also many levels within existence, the weakest and frailest of which is that of a dead fetus, below which there is only extinction. But such distinctions are meaningless for one who has never existed. There are no degrees within nothingness. It is only man's imagination after he has come into existence which makes him feel that these distinctions are bad. But if he did not exist to begin with, these too would not exist.

And with this he broadens his argument and comes to the same conclusion as that attributed by Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed Part 3, Chapter 12) to the scholar Al-Razi, namely, that there is more bad than good in the world.
For if the happiness of man and his pleasure in the times of prosperity be compared with the mishaps that befall him, - such as grief, acute pain, defects, paralysis of the limbs, fears, anxieties and troubles, - it would seem as if the existence of man is a punishment and a great evil for him. This author commenced to verify his opinion by counting all the evils one by one.
As the folk-songs and proverbs of many of the peoples of the world say:
'It is a wonder when anything good happens.'
Yea, his misfortunes are many (Deuteronomy 31:17) and enduring too.
Job makes much of this in his argument (Ch.3:17-20).⁴We would all be better off had we not been born because there is always more bad than good in the world. But this would not be the case if God Himself governed.

And even if some other person denies [that the bad outweighs the good] and says that he is bright-eyed with success, enjoying the passage of time as he laps the sweetness of the honeycomb, desirous of life and length of days, for ever and ever (Psalms 21.5). The question [asked by Job] still remains in full force. Why did [the night of his conception and the day of his birth] bring him into existence and give life to one who is only waiting to die? (Ch.3:20).

Moreover, consider the vagaries of destiny. For it is only by reason of this troublemaker (1 Kings 20:7) that a person, who had been desperately poor and destitute all his days, and had longed for and begged the release of death but to whom the stars gave life, suddenly comes upon great treasure and vast wealth, only to die soon after, just when he wanted to live and see the good (Job 7:7). (Ch.3:21).

This clearly shows that the governance of man is subject to the rule of astrology and its ordinances, for good or for bad.⁵Nature's indifference to ethics or morality is an evil that could not possibly be the result of God's Governance. It is the ultimate proof that Governance has been delegated to the blind rule of the Cosmos.
For Nature, heartless, witless Nature
Will neither care nor know. (A.E.Housman). And, furthermore, that man is neither master of his actions nor has freedom over them. Choice and enterprise make no difference whatsoever, for his individual acts are prescribed by order and by reason of the stars, and he is incapable of doing good .nor bad other than at their behest (Ch.3:22-24).
Job asserts that the proof of all this is in what had happened to him. He had considered himself to be a truly righteous man. Accordingly, he could not accept that what had happened to him was God's retribution for wicked deeds he had done. Nor, in the light of the unnatural way in which he had lost his possessions, could he consider that it was all accidental. In the space of just one hour he had been struck by a variety of agents—tempest, fire and hostile action—suddenly and all at once. Clearly, he was under attack from heaven itself. This must have happened because the stars had decreed that at that particular moment his fortune should reverse. (Ch.3:26)
Further proof of this was the premonition he had always felt that the future would be bad. It was as if his mind foresaw that the fate decreed for him by his stars was bad and that he was destined for doom. (Ch.3:25).

Behold! Underlying all the postulates Job put forward was the conviction that God must know everything that happens in the world below. For no lack of knowledge can be ascribed to Him, nor can He be designated a source of injustice. The unfairness in reward or punishment does not ensue from God. It is caused by the stars. For man has no freedom over his actions; he is compelled in what he does.
All of this will be further clarified by the proofs Job will be presenting in his coming arguments, one by one.