Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Jeremias 20:18

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).