욥기 8:12의 인용 해설

In the sayings of the wise, man is often likened to a plant. Taking up this metaphor, Bildad explains that the system of exchange he has proposed can be compared to the way Nature acts with regard to different plants. If a gardener uproots a plant that is growing in a rocky, dry and desolate site and replants it in a fresh and fertile plot, the uprooting obviously does it no harm. On the contrary, it is for its good so that it will grow as a noble vine (Jeremiah 2:21). However not every plant can take this sort of treatment. Plants which need lots of water to grow, and which are by their nature tender and soft, will not take root again after being transplanted but instead will wither quicker than any other plant (Job 8:12).

Likewise, God will not alter Universal Governance in order to punish a wicked person whose destiny ordains that he be rich and successful, and sound in limb (Psalms 73:4). Rather, He will leave the world to its Nature, as it was said: The world goes on in its own way but the fools who sin will be brought to justice (Avodah Zarah 54b). The wicked person will be punished in the future, in the eternal world, as he explained in his second speech. And so there is no problem as to why he prospers in this world: his stars are the reason. And yet, he will wither quicker than any other plant (Job 8:12) as in the analogy with the rushes and reed-grass. And God will then compound his punishment in proportion to the measure of the good he had enjoyed and according to his wickedness.

האביב; the time when the earliest harvests ripen. Compare the use of the word אביב in this context in Job 8,12 עודנו באבו לא יקטף, “while still tender not yet plucked.” The word also occurs in Song of Songs 6,11 in this senseלראות באבי הנחל, “to see the budding of the vale.’ The dagesh in the letter ב in the word באבי replaces the missing letter ב from the word אביב.