Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Awit 74:6

In the same speech, Job elaborates all the arguments raised by philosophers against Governance that are cataloged in the Guide for the Perplexed (Part 3, Chapter 20), including the paradox of knowledge and free-will, along with everything else that is derived from this. Ranging deep and wide (Isaiah 30:33), he passed them under his staff (Leviticus 27:32; Ezekiel 20:37), and employing powerful arguments he shows that if we assume the existence of free-will, we must deny God's knowledge of contingent particulars, otherwise the philosophers will demolish us with proofs that smash with hatchet and hammer (Psalms 74:6). However, if we assume that everything depends on the governance of the Cosmos and man is constrained in his acts by reason of predetermination, then God's knowledge remains immutable.²²This is one of the central issues of traditional theology. Governance requires that God has knowledge of all events. However, the knowledge associated with a free-willed event does not exist before the event is made to happen. If God is an absolute unchanging Unity, as He surely must be, how can we ascribe to Him knowledge of such events: new knowledge, which did not exist before the event? To do so is to imply that He is not unchanging, for a being is changed when it acquires knowledge. On the other hand, not to do so is to imply that He is ignorant of the event i.e. imperfect. Hence, the perfection and unchanging Unity of God require that there be no undesignated events, i.e., no new knowledge, and consequently no free-will.

A gnat came, entered his nostril, and picked at his brain, etc. This punishment came to him because he blasphemed and cursed [God] with his words, which comes from the faculty of breath which came through the nose to the brain. As it is written (Genesis 2:7), "And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being"; and Onkelos translates [this as,] "a speaking being." And the matter of its picking at his brain, etc. and it heard the sound of a hammer and was silent, can be explained [as] a hint from the verse that it brought above (Psalms 74:4), which stated, "Your enemies roar, etc. He was known like one bringing up for stature." Meaning, he was known by the curtain that he brought to his city, that should be for his stature, to be praised for it in his city. Or it means, "like one who brings the Elevated" - as it said, "he thought that he had killed "himself." So it said that his punishment is that "the axes are caught in the tree" (the end of Psalms 74:5): Just like the axe picks at the tree, so too did the gnat pick at his brain. And also according to Abbaye - as its mouth was copper and its claws were iron - it was like this axe. And it stated (Psalms 74:6), "its entrances" - since there was a little consolation and opening, since the idolater and the Jew together, "broke away with the hatchet and with the hammer," to silence it with the sound of the hammer. And it said, "they split open his head, etc." - according to one, like a pigeon - that is a hint to the Congregation of Israel. As it is written about the visions between the pieces, "Bring Me a heifer, etc., a turtledove, and a young pigeon, etc. and he split them in the middle [...] but he did not split the bird" (Genesis 15:9-10): That is a hint that the idolaters will end, but Israel will survive. And that is what it stated in this Psalm (Psalms 74:19), "Do not deliver Your dove to the wild animal, etc." - it is the "turtledove, and [the] young pigeon."