The Blasphemer's Fate and Job's Endurance

Children of corruption, besides the immoderate affliction of the body, a third thing he devises for him: the conversation of the wife; perhaps through her he might have deceived Job, just as through Eve he might have deceived Adam. For having passed a long time, such that even he is not able to shake the athlete, the woman brings forward the matter of brevity, perhaps remembering the suffering, to rid him of it, if he should speak a word to the Lord irrationally.

And to see in each word how he is called toward brevity: 'How long will you endure?' (Job 7:25),—submitting to brevity a provision for a great time of his sickness, and then after that: 'Saying: Behold, I wait a little more time, awaiting the hope of my salvation' (Job 7:26)—in a certain way he turns his expectation toward the impossible. For perhaps many times, he having preferred the things of the good hope while she was departing from him, stopped the brevity, which not seeing, having a weak thought, she considered him falsely hoping for brevity. For an irrational soul loves to always consider expectations as uncertain.

But as the repayment she thought was near, the total hopelessness, he says: 'Behold, your memorial has vanished from the earth' (Job 7:10). No son or daughter is left to you to guard the memory of the succession, she says only that: even if they should be healthy, the enjoyment of health is without children, they being or being destroyed. And these things indeed if only were present, patience would have had a reason, he says, but toward these things also you yourself 'sit in the rot of worms' (Job 7:5), and I from poverty remain 'from place to place' (Job 1:8).

Through all these words, having sent the arrow of brevity from herself, she brings the end of the most trivial conversation, saying: 'Speak a word to the Lord and end.' To which someone might say: how could the woman have this thought, that if he should speak a word to the Lord, he would end? To which someone will speak differently, either having submitted this to her as an opponent, so that the haste...

May he be satisfied with the word: 'Surely I will bless you to your face' (Job 42:10), or perhaps in those cities the one blaspheming against the Lord died by a ruler or the citizens. For perhaps he knew no one, both the blasphemer and the living. For perhaps this happened then, lest the wickedness be poured out. Perhaps he reckoned that even God would not allow him to live after speaking blasphemous words.

And it also appears through: 'Behold, I will make your remembrance depart from the earth' (Job 7:35), as if: you shall have no hope of ever coming to it for the enjoyment of good things, which he alone considered to be good, being irrational concerning the good according to truth. And being ignorant, he spoke a word otherwise true; for the remembrance of those who despised the heavenly human life is not earthly. For the Scripture confirms this, the Psalmist says: 'The face of the Lord upon those doing evil, to destroy from the earth the remembrance of them' (Psalm 37:10). For when some have sinned and are saying 'God is not in the heart' (Psalm 14:3), God brings hardship upon them, so that after they have been benefited, their remembrance may be destroyed from the earth and 'they may be written in heaven' (Luke 20:37), having been transformed into virtue.

And the things concerning the children, as the woman said, reckoning their salvation alone to be the hope, she claims to have borne them in vain. And she also brings before him her own suffering. 'But he looked and said to her: You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we accepted the good from the hand of the Lord, shall we not then accept the evil?' His patience of soul is shown in this, in not remaining under such pains and the word brought forward unsuitably by the woman, but also saying: 'You have spoken like one of the foolish women.' And looking intently, he has said this, understanding from her reproaches, the holy man that she had brought these things forward by a diabolical suggestion, and being wise, he knew that the first woman having been struck by the devil's suggestion had become the cause of Adam's transgression.