Глава 9

The first half of Job's response to Bildad's speech. Job 1:1–35. The justice of God is the justice of a strong being who violates the demands of truth in relation to all people, in particular in relation to Job. Job 9:1. And Job answered and said: Job 9:2. Truth! I know it is so; but how can a person be justified before God? Agreeing with the opinion of Bildad about Divine Justice (Job 7.3, 20), Job at the same time does not allow, like the psalmist (Psalm 142.2), the thought of the possibility of a person being justified before God (“how can a person be justified before God?”). From here it naturally follows that Divine Justice appears to him in a different light from that of his friends. Job 9:3. If he wants to enter into a debate with Him, he will not answer Him one out of a thousand. Job 9:4. Wise in heart and mighty in strength; who rebelled against Him and remained in peace? According to Job, a person must recognize God as just because He surpasses him in two properties: wisdom and omnipotence - strength. God is wise; man is not able to object to any of His thousand words, and therefore he is forced to recognize each of them as true and fair. Wise in heart, the Lord has sufficient power to force people to fulfill his commands. And no matter how much a person resists the latter, in the end he is forced to submit to them, to agree that this is how it should be (“who rebelled against Him and remained in peace?” v. 4). The truth of God is the truth of a being who is strong in mind and, thanks to his omnipotence, unyielding in His determinations. Job 9:5. He removes mountains, and they are not known: He transforms them in His wrath; Job 9:6. he moves the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; Job 9:7. He will tell the sun, and it will not rise, and he will put a seal on the stars. This power of divine omnipotence, which does not tolerate opposition (v. 4), is reflected primarily in the physical world, in such phenomena as earthquakes and eclipses. During the first, mountains move and are destroyed, the earth moves from the place (Isaiah 13.13), which it occupies in cosmic space (Job 26.7), and its foundations shake (Ps 103.5; Job 38.6), during the second, the sun does not give light, it seems as if it has not risen, and the brilliance of the stars weakens (“to seal” in the sense of limiting the power in Dan. 9:24). Job 9:8. He alone spreads out the heavens and walks on the heights of the sea; Job 9:9. created As, Kesil and Hima * and the hiding places of the south; Further indicators of divine omnipotence are the heavens, which are spread out like a scroll (Isa. 40.22, 44.24; Ps. 103.2); sea ​​storms arising at the will of the Lord (Ps 106.25–26; Hab 3.15) and, finally, the constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres: “As” - Ursa Major, “Kesil” - Orion (cf. Am 5.8), “Hima” (“heap”) - the constellation of the Pleiades and the hiding places of the south - all the stars of the southern hemisphere. Job 9:10. does great, unsearchable and wonderful things without number! All the facts cited by Job constitute an insignificant part of the incalculable great deeds of God (cf. Job 5.9, 26.14). Job 9:11. Behold, He will pass before me, and I will not see Him; will fly by, and I won’t notice Him. Job 9:12. He will take it, and who will deny Him? who will say to Him, “What are You doing?” The same incomprehensible and unlimited omnipotence is expressed in God’s relations with people. He deals with them without their knowledge (v. 11), much less without asking their consent or disagreement (v. 12; cf. Is 40.9; Jer 49.19; Jer 50.44); acts solely at his own discretion (cf. Ps 77.38). Job 9:13. God will not turn away His wrath; The champions of pride will fall before Him. The will of the almighty Lord, which does not tolerate contradictions, tramples on the will of the “champions of pride” (Hebrew “ragav”), all the proud, arrogant. As can be seen from Ps 88.11, Isa 51.9 "ragav" means sea monsters, hence the reading of the LXX: "ὐπ ἀυτοῦ ἐκὰμφτη κὴτη τὰ ὐπ οἐρανῶν" - "slush The whales of the heavens (have humbled themselves) under Him.” Job 9:14. Moreover, can I answer Him and seek words for myself before Him? Job 9:15. Even if I was right, I will not answer, but will beg my Judge. In the face of the all-wise and unyielding God in his definitions, who turns human reasoning into nothing, the considerations brought by man as proof of his rightness mean nothing. Such a God cannot be convinced, but only begged, asked that He turn his anger into mercy. Bildad indicated a similar outcome (Job 8.5); Job himself is inclined towards it. Job 9:16. If I had called and He answered me, I would not have believed that He heard my voice. Job 9:17. Who strikes me in a whirlwind and multiplies my innocent wounds, Job 9:18. does not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with sorrows. You can beg God, but you cannot expect your prayers to achieve their goal. The Lord strikes Job in anger (v. 16), and does not allow him to rest from suffering for a minute. And if anger is inevitable (v. 13), then prayers and the hope for forgiveness they create are in vain. Job 9:19. If you act by force, then He is powerful; if by judgment, who will bring me together with Him? Job 9:20. If I make excuses, my own lips will accuse me; if I am innocent, then He will find me guilty. It is also impossible to force God to heed prayers: omnipotence does not yield to the pressure of a weak person. Eliphaz advised Job to turn his business over to God (Job 5.8). But, firstly, no one is able to force the almighty God to enter into his discussion. Secondly, even if the trial had taken place, its results would have been unfavorable for Job. The all-wise God will turn Job’s self-justification into an accusation. Even if he manages to justify himself, to prove his innocence, then even then the Lord, who does not turn away his anger, will declare him guilty; and to such a verdict of almighty God Job will have to submit. Job 9:21. I am innocent; I don’t want to know my soul, I despise my life. Job 9:22. It's all the same; therefore I said that He destroys both the blameless and the guilty. Job 9:23. If He suddenly strikes this one with a scourge, then He laughs at the torture of the innocent. Job 9:24. The earth is given into the hands of the wicked; He covers the faces of her judges. If not Him, then who? In this state of affairs, Job cannot take advantage of the advice of his friends to wait for his situation to improve (Job 5.19 et c.; Job 8.21). As an innocent person (v. 21), he could hope for this, and yet he does not even want to know his soul, life, i.e., take care of it (Hebrew “yada”, see Gen. 39.6), feels disgust for it. The reason for this phenomenon is that under Divine injustice, the innocence and sinfulness of a person are indifferent (“all are one,” v. 22) for his fate. If the Lord equally destroys the guilty and the innocent, in trampling the truth he comes to the point that he finds pleasure in prolonging the suffering of the righteous, and makes representatives of justice unable to distinguish between good and evil (v. 24; cf. Isa. 29.10), then Job’s innocence will not save him from suffering, and such a life is disgusting for him (Job 6.7). Job 9:25. My days are faster than a messenger - they run, they see no good, Job 9:26. rushing like light boats, like an eagle striving for prey. Life inspires Job with nothing but disgust; the desire for its continuation is inappropriate. It is not supported by present reality: in Job’s life, which flows so quickly that the speed of a messenger, a light boat made of papyrus (Heb. “ebeh”; cp. Isa. 18.2) and an eagle (Job 7.7; Ps. 89.10), cannot be compared with it, there is nothing joyful; all of it is left behind. Job 9:27. If you say to me: I will forget my complaints, put aside my gloomy appearance and be encouraged; Job 9:28. then I tremble at all my sufferings, knowing that You will not declare me innocent. The desire for life can be maintained artificially, by creating a cheerful mood, by encouraging oneself (v. 27). But this is also impossible due to the fact of suffering. They are indicators of divine inevitable wrath (vv. 17–18), indicators that God considers Job a sinner and will not release him from punishment. Job 9:29. If I am guilty, then why am I languishing in vain? Job 9:30. At least I washed myself in snow water and completely cleansed my hands, Job 9:31. even then You will plunge me into the mud, and my clothes will abhor me. Life in the role of a guilty person is also not desirable. She is “languor” (v. 29), a painful expectation of punishment. The latter is inevitable due to the impossibility of a guilty person being justified before God. Even with the highest cleanliness, such as that achieved by washing with snow water (Ps 50.9; Isa 1.18) and soap (“I completely cleansed my hands”, more precisely “I washed my hands with soap”; cf. Jer 2.22), God recognizes him as so unclean that his clothes will feel disgust for him. Job 9:32. For He is not a man like me, so that I can answer Him and go with Him to judgment! Job 9:33. There is no mediator between us who would lay his hand on both of us. Such a sentence, which is not subject to objection on the part of Job, is the result of the fact that he and the Lord are two unequal parties on trial. God is a wise and unlimited power being; he is a weak, insignificant mortal, unable to respond to any of a thousand divine words (v. 3), much less free himself from submission to the will of the Lord (v. 4). An end to this relationship could be put by a mediator, a third disinterested person, a representative of the truth, who has the power to limit the injustice of God. But he is not there; there is no way to get out of the role of the guilty; continuation of life is also undesirable. Job 9:34. May He withdraw His rod from me, and may His fear not terrify me, Job 9:35. and then I will speak and will not fear Him, for I am not like that in myself. There is no mediator between God and Job; however, an equal trial, providing him with the opportunity to prove his innocence, can also take place under the condition that the Lord temporarily stops suffering - ceases to be his enemy (cf. Job 23.3-7). For his part, Job is able to prove his innocence, since he is “not like himself” - his conscience does not make such reproaches that would put him in an unrequited position before God. Constellations corresponding to the current names: Ursa, Orion and Pleiades. You might be interested in: