욥기 37:23의 인용 해설

הצור תמים פעלו, “the Rock, Whose work is perfect!” According to the plain meaning of the text the term צור applies to G’d and describes strength, toughness, such as the essence of a rock. Just as rocks appear to be the foundation of the earth, so G’d has founded the earth and the description fits Him. At this point, Moses starts speaking to the witnesses and says: “this Master about whom I wish to speak is the Rock, and there is none as strong and enduring as He. Nonetheless, His works are perfect” [although He could get away with being imperfect and no one could challenge Him successfully, He obeys His own rules. Ed.]. David used similar language when praising the Lord in Samuel II 22,31 ה-אל תמים דרכו, “the G’d Whose path is perfect.” He meant that in spite of G’d’s overwhelming power, He deals with His creatures in absolute perfection. We have another verse, in Job 36,22-23 where Elihu mentions that no one ever reproached G’d for His conduct in spite of the great power He represents. He is even very generous in forgiving His creatures.
Our sages (Megillah 31) state that whenever G’d’s power is mentioned we always find examples of His “modesty,” i.e. of how He restrains Himself in exercising this power. They cite proof of this both from verses in the Torah, the Books of the Prophets, as well as from Scriptures. If David used the expression תמים פעלו, that “His works are perfect,” it is because no other forces of the universe can be perceived as performing their duties in a perfect fashion. Their imperfections consist in that they need divine input in order to perform their tasks at all. They do not originate anything.

את קרבני לחמי, “My offering, My bread.” The words שנים ליום, mean “two sheep per day, one in the morning and one in the evening,” not both at the same time (verse 4).
We find that King Solomon consumed far more than that as is spelled out in Kings 5, 2-3: “Solomon’s daily provisions consisted of 30 kors of semolina, 60 kors of ordinary flour; 10 fattened oxen, 20 pasture-fed oxen, 100 sheep and goats, besides deer, gazelles, roebuck and fatted geese.” The author (of Kings) appears to contrast Proverbs 13,25: “a righteous person eats (enough) to satisfy his soul (life-force), whereas the belly of the wicked will always feel in need.” Eliezer, Avraham’s trusted servant is an example of the righteous mentioned by Solomon, seeing that he asked Rivkah to only let him sip a little water from her jug (Genesis 24,17). Esau, on the other hand, demanded from Yaakov that he let him “gulp down the red stuff” (Genesis 25,30).
We find that in Job 37,23 Elihu tells Job that “Shaddai we cannot attain to Him, He is great in power and Justice,” whereas in Job 36,22 the same Elihu proclaims: “see, G’d is beyond reach in His power; who governs like Him?” [This suggests we can appreciate His greatness. Ed.]. How can these two verses be reconciled? When G’d gives to us He gives according to His power; when He asks of us He asks much less than is due Him, demanding only that we give according to our means. To illustrate: the Torah writes in Exodus 26,1 that the coverings for the Tabernacle be made of ten carpet-like strips of cloth; this is an illustration of the verse in Job 37,23, seeing “we cannot attain to Him, providing Him with His needs.” Similarly, when the Torah asks the Jewish people to provide olive oil for the Menorah in the Tabernacle (Exodus 27,20) the request is one well within the power of the Israelites to fulfill. Similarly, the Torah asks the farmer to present merely the first ripe fruit of his orchard to the Lord (Exodus 23,19). On the other hand, when the Bible describes G’d’s largess to man, such as in Ezekiel 47,12 the wording is: “all kinds of trees for food will grow up on both sides of the river. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fall; they will yield new fruit every month; each tree will produce new ‘first-fruit’ every single month.” This is a perfect illustration of the imbalance of what G’d asks of us and what He is prepared to provide for us. The author quotes a few more verses depicting the generous measure of G’d’s largess.

על גוזליו ירחף IT HOVERETH OVER ITS YOUNG — it does not press heavily upon them, but hovers above them — touching them and yet not touching them. So too, the Holy One, blessed be He, (Job. 37:23) “The Almighty, we did not find Him to be too powerful in strength”: when He came to give the Torah to Israel, He did not reveal Himself from one side, (thus concentrating His power at one point), but from four sides, as it is said, (Deuteronomy 33:2) “The Lord came from Sinai, and shone forth from Seir unto them; He appeared from Mount Paran"; also (Habakkuk 3:3) “God came from Teman” — this is the fourth side (Sifrei Devarim 314:1).

He makes nations great and destroys them Heb. משׂגיא. Some say, as He did to the Egyptians when they overtook Israel before Baal-zephon (Exod. 14:9). They erred and said, “You should know that He agreed with us, to drown them in the sea as we decreed, ‘Every son that is born you shall cast into the river’ (ibid. 1:22), and [they also said] that their deity Baal-zephon is mighty, seeing that no acts of judgment were performed upon it, as [they were upon) all the [other] gods of Egypt, and the Omnipresent caused them to be misled in order to drown them. But this explanation is not the main one, for were it so, it should have been dotted on the right, מַשְׁגִיא like שׁוגֶה, the misled. This is the main explanation: It means making great, an expression of שׂגיא כֹח, having great strength. He makes the nations great and causes them to prosper, and their heart becomes haughty with their prosperity, so that [the fact] that they prosper is their destruction.