Comentário sobre Jó 14:26

also on this one [creature of] futility that decays have You opened Your eyes to be exact with his sins, and You bring me into judgment for my iniquities?

Who can bring a clean thing from a putrid drop, and semen, which is unclean? Not one of them is clean, that he should not sin.

If, despite all the arguments to the contrary, God does in fact govern and there is individual Providence, then it should take account of two factors: (i) man's inherent uncleanliness by reason of the manner of his conception and birth; (ii) that man has no free-will, his fate being predetermined from above.⁶During the 18th century a fierce debate raged between those who believed that the growth and development of an embryo was 'epigenetic', i.e., all its limbs and parts emerge from the primordial material and become recognizable at the same rate, and those who believed in the doctrine of 'preformation' according to which the primordial germ already contains a miniature replica of the adult and this only has to enlarge and unfold before birth. Whereas the former theory required an agency which conjured the limbs from the undifferentiated primordial material the latter just involved an inherent mechanical process. Aristotle, who advocated the epigenetic model, regarded the semen as being the spiritual agency that conjured the limbs and other body parts from the menstrual blood.
True to his eclectic ways, Malbim combines elements of both theories in his interpretation of this verse as a demand that God make allowances for man's innate unclean tendencies when he judges him. As he writes:
For is the branch not always like its root and the plant like the seed from which it grew? And so, how can man who is born out of uncleanliness, for he is born of woman – from semen and menstrual blood which is an unclean thing – how can he change his nature and not be at one with the lowliness of the source of his birth 'and the quarry from which he was hewn' (Isaiah 51.1)? He therefore tends to uncleanliness from his birth and from the womb and from conception.

If his days are limited If he is requited with this recompense—that his days are limited to a day set for death, and the number of months is set with You, and [that] You set this boundary—and he will no longer exist in the world, [then] this payment is sufficient for You.

Turn away from him during those few limited days and let him rest from pain until he desires, in his old age and the weakness of his strength, the day of his death like a hireling who desires the completion of his day’s work; for his passing from the world is decided and more definite than all passings.

a tree has This [tree] has hope that it will renew itself and its bough will not cease from being a branch.

Rejecting Zophar's thesis that the virtuous receive their real reward in the Hereafter, Job argues that unlike trees that may hope to revive after being cut down, man has nothing to hope for after death.

and it will produce a branch Heb. קציר. This is a branch, as (Ps. 80:12), “She sent out her boughs (קצירה) to the sea.”

a sapling Heb. נטע. This is a noun. It is accented on the first syllable, and is punctuated completely with a “kamatz” because it is the end of the verse, but it is derived from נֶטַע, a sapling.

As the waters fail from the sea From the place whence the river comes and emerges, from its source that comes to it from the sea. [Alternative explanation of Rashi: From the place whence the river comes, and they went away from its source (from) which (the water) comes to it.]

and the river that comes from there is drained dry forever. So does a man lie down and not rise.

Even were he to be punished in that eternal world, the punishment would some day end and he would at least have that to look forward to. But the notion that there is another world, where the injustices of this world are corrected, defies reason.

All the days of my lifespan, I will hope for life.

If God is callous towards us in this world and permits injustices, why should He act differently in the other world? And if the next world is fairer than this one, should we not be spending our lives in this imperfect world hoping to die quickly so as to enter the next perfect world as soon as possible?

Call This is a supplication. Call to me and I will answer you to prove my case.

You desire Heb. תִכְסֹף, You desire.

But now You are harming me.

my steps You are counting.

You do not wait Heb. תשמר. You do not wait for my sin to requite me, as (Gen. 37:11), “but his father awaited (שמר) the matter,” and in the language of the Mishnah (Sanh. 63b): “A person may not say to his companion, ‘Wait (שמר) for me beside such and such a pagan deity.’” [It is] an expression of waiting.

sealed up in a bundle Sealed and preserved in a cloth bundle like silver and pearls, lest it be lost.

I am now being made to suffer even though I have not sinned. Will You then be so loving as to cover up my sins however great they may be?

and You have attached Yourself to my iniquity Heb. ותטפל, You have attached Yourself to my iniquity.

And surely the falling mountain gives forth produce The height of a falling mountain will give forth produce. It will produce dust, and there will be hope of deriving benefit from it. and the rock that moves from its place will also give forth produce. This is an expression of grain.

Malbim notes that 'naturalists have agreed that mountains grow'. He is perhaps referring to the hypothesis of a geological uplifting force that balances erosion first proposed by Hutton in 1785 and popularized half a century later by Lyell.

Stones which the water eroded by constantly passing over them.

it washes away i.e., the flood. its aftergrowth of the stone, to be transformed into dust so that something should grow in it. As the aftergrowths of the harvest grow, so will the aftergrowths of this earth be transformed to stone.

but the hope of man is not so, because as soon as he dies, it is lost forever.

You overpower him You are stronger than he; You overcome him with Your power, and he goes away from the world.

Hope is a cruel illusion, that entices a man when he is young, only to fail him when he becomes old. For when a person dies, there is nothing more. To hope for a life after death is futile.

become wealthy Heb. יכבדו, lit. they will become heavy. They will become heavy with silver and gold, but he will not know.

and they become poor And they have little of any good, but he will not understand it.

But his flesh causes him pain A worm is as painful to the dead as a needle in the flesh of the living.