Wherefore be you all converted, and come, and I shall not find among you any wise man.

“Ver. 10. But as for you all, do ye turn and come now. Which same words of exhortation he properly frames to the Elect, whom he calls to the eternal world; who are bidden in two ways, viz. that they should 'turn,' and that they should 'come;' 'turn' by faith, 'come' by practice. Or indeed that they 'turn' by abandoning evil deeds, and 'come' by doing good ones; as it is written, Depart from evil, and do good: but that is wonderful which is added, And may I not find one wise man among you. For what does this mean, that he bids them to wisdom, and yet wishes that he may not find them wise, saving that they cannot come to true wisdom, who are deceived in confidence in their own false wisdom? Concerning whom it is written, Woe unto you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own sight; and to whom it is said again, Be not wise with your own selves; whence that same great preacher sought that those, whom he found carnally wise, in order that they might attain true wisdom, should first become foolish; saying, If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. And 'Truth' saith by Itself, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. And so because they that are wise in themselves cannot come to true wisdom, blessed Job, being anxious for the conversion of his hearers, rightly desires that he may not 'find any wise man among them.' As if he said to them in plain speech; 'Learn to be foolish in your own selves, that ye may be truly wise in God.'”

“My spirit shall be wasted, etc. Job had shown above the manifold nature of his affliction, and the humility and innocence of his mind, and the brevity of a life that cannot return, from which the wordiness of his friends was being refuted; and therefore in this chapter he intends to make plain what has been said before, and finally to conclude to their ignorance. First, however, he begins to make plain what he had said about the course of human life, and he sets down beforehand the cause of the brevity of life, when he says my spirit shall be wasted: for the life of the body is through the vital spirits which are diffused from the heart to all the members, which, so long as they endure in the body, the body lives; but when the power of natural heat begins to grow weak in the heart, spirits of this kind are diminished — and this diminution and weakening he designates by the wasting of the spirit. And to this cause he subjoins the effect, saying my days shall be shortened: for the weakness of the vital spirit shortens the days of life. And lest anyone should believe that the wasted spirit would again have to be strengthened according to the species of this mortal life, to exclude this he adds and only the grave remains to me, as if to say: when the few days of this life are finished, nothing of the present life remains to me except the grave and those things which befit the grave. Then in another way he shows the vanity of their consolation: for they consoled him by saying that adversities of this kind had come upon him on account of sins, and that if he repented of these he would return to prosperity; but he, excluding this, says I have not sinned, namely because he did not have a conscience gnawing at him over any grave sin on account of which he might have incurred such great adversities — whence also below, in Job 27:6, he says "for my heart does not reproach me in all my life," and therefore this is not contrary to what is said in 1 John 1:8, "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," and through this he expresses what he had said above concerning his innocence, "I have suffered these things without iniquity of my hand." He then adds and my eye dwells in bitternesses; he speaks in the plural, bitternesses, on account of the manifold adversities which he enumerated above; and he says dwells, because although amid his bitternesses he humbled himself, sewing sackcloth upon his skin, nevertheless the bitternesses still persist; he attributes bitternesses to the eye on account of weeping, of which he had said above, "my face is swollen with weeping," and again "my eye drops toward God" — for his eye wept in this way amid the bitternesses, that it was intent only on divine help, and therefore here it is added, deliver me: for he understood that he could be delivered only by him who had shut him up in the presence of the unjust one. But he was not asking to be delivered from adversity in the way that those seek who, after adversity, attain earthly prosperity, but he asks to be led to a spiritual height, whence he adds and set me beside you: for since God is the very essence of goodness, it is necessary that whoever is set beside God be delivered from evil. Now a man is set beside God insofar as he draws near to him in mind through knowledge and love, but this indeed happens imperfectly in the state of the way, in which man suffers assaults, yet because he is set beside God he is not overcome by them; but perfectly a man is set beside God in mind in the state of final beatitude, in which he can no longer suffer assaults, and this is what he shows himself to desire when he says and let the hand of whoever fight against me, because namely, however much some may wish to assail me, if I shall have been set perfectly beside you, no one's assault will trouble me: this, then, is that in which Job, amid his bitternesses, had consolation, hoping that he would be set beside God, where he could not fear assaults. But this spiritual consolation of Job's own wordy friends did not understand, and therefore he adds you have driven their heart far from discipline, namely your spiritual discipline, by which you teach men to hope for spiritual goods with temporal things despised; and because they place their hope only in temporal and lowest things, they cannot arrive at spiritual height so as to be set beside God, and this is what he adds, therefore they shall not be exalted. And from the fact that they have been made far from spiritual discipline, it follows that Eliphaz was promising Job only temporal things for his consolation, and this is what he adds, he promises spoil to his companions, that is, the acquisition of temporal things, which cannot come to one except by another's loss, whence the acquisition of temporal things is likened to plunder. But it is not universally true that after repentance men recover temporal prosperity, since not even the good always flourish in temporal prosperity, whence he adds and the eyes of his sons shall fail; by his sons he means those who, believing his promise, hope for temporal goods from the good deeds they do, but while they do not obtain them their eyes fail, as if falling from their hope. But just as Eliphaz was promising temporal goods to those who do well, so also he was asserting that all temporal adversities come upon the one who suffers them on account of his sins; and because Job had suffered many adversities, he set him up as an example before the common people, and this is what he adds, he has made me as it were a byword of the people, and his example before them, because namely, to assert his own opinion about the cause of adversities, he set up Job as an example, as if he had been punished for sin. Now it pertains to the zeal of the just that, seeing the rightness of the divine judgments perverted through false doctrine, they should be indignant, and therefore Job accordingly shows the greatness of his zeal in two ways: first indeed through a certain disturbance of mind — for anger through vice blinds the eye, but anger through zeal disturbs the eye, as Gregory says — and therefore he adds my eye has grown dim with indignation, namely the eye of reason, whose keenness is disturbed by the anger of zeal; second, through the fact that anger through zeal also produces a certain commotion in the body from grief — whence it is said in 1 Maccabees 2:24 that Mattathias, seeing a Jew sacrificing to idols, grieved and his reins trembled — and therefore here it is added and my members are reduced as it were to nothing, inasmuch as, namely, through grief the body of man seems to waste away. But someone might believe that this dimming of the eye was against justice, and this indignation against innocence, and therefore to exclude this he adds the just shall be astonished at this, as if he were to say: it also pertains to the just that, seeing the doctrine of the wicked, they should be astonished, and this astonishment he called dimming above. There follows and the innocent shall be roused against the hypocrite, as if to say: it is not against innocence if someone, moved by the zeal of justice, is stirred to indignation against a hypocrite who perverts true doctrine. And because, as has been said, anger through zeal disturbs the mind but does not blind it, thus the just man is astonished or grows dim from zeal, yet without departing from justice, and this is what he adds and the just man shall hold to his way, because namely he will not abandon it on account of the anger of zeal: for such anger does not precede reason but follows it, and therefore it cannot separate a man from justice; for anger through zeal is useful because it makes a man rise up against evils with greater strength of mind, and this is what he adds and he that has clean hands shall add strength, being stirred, namely, by zeal — whence also the Philosopher says in Book 3 of the Ethics that anger assists fortitude. Therefore turn, all of you, etc. After Job had set forth the things by which the opinion of Eliphaz is refuted, here he gathers together what has gone before and orders it toward showing his purpose. And first he rouses attention, saying therefore — namely, since the aforesaid things are true — all of you, who have gathered together against me, and your fathers, turn back from your errors, and come to consider the truth, which once seen it will be plain how far you are from true wisdom, and this is what he adds and I shall not find among you any wise man, and this he says to repress the boasting of Eliphaz, who had said above in Job 15:9, "What do you know that we do not know?" etc., and again, "the wise confess," etc. Now in this he intends chiefly to show their folly, in that they were promising him the consolation of temporal prosperity; against which he first sets forth that the time of his life has already for the most part passed away, and this is what he says, my days have passed. Then he sets forth the evils he suffers when he adds my thoughts are broken, that is, impeded from the quiet contemplation of wisdom on account of the bitterness of bodily pain, and this is what he adds tormenting my heart, because namely his thoughts were led away from the sweet consideration of truth into the bitterness by which his heart was tormented. Now this torment of heart not even the night interrupted, which is the time appointed for human rest, whence he adds they have turned night into day, because namely, on account of the aforesaid thoughts, he passed the night sleepless as if it were day. Now it is more grievous to suffer lack of sleep at night than in the day, because in the day a man's mind is relieved by the company of men and the sight of light; and therefore, while the night was sleepless for him, he desired that it end quickly, and this is what he adds and again after darkness I hope for light, that is, I hope that the light of day will again come after the darkness of night. But because Eliphaz was urging him to bear all adverse things patiently in expectation of the future, he accordingly shows what seems to him to remain for the future concerning temporal things, whence he says if I endure, that is, if I patiently bear such sorrows, nothing remains to me except the dwelling of the grave, and this is what he says, hell is my house; he calls the grave hell according to the opinion of those against whom he was disputing, who did not believe that the soul of man remained after death but only the body in the grave, which they called hell because it is situated beneath the earth. Now a man lying in the grave suffers darkness both on account of the failure of sense and also on account of the failure of external light, and therefore he adds in darkness I have spread my couch. But just as a man being born takes his origin from his parents, from which he contracts kinship with them, so after death, lying in the grave, he is dissolved into rottenness and worms, which are generated from his body, and therefore he adds I have said to rottenness, you are my father; my mother and my sister, to the worms, as if to say: since no other temporal thing will remain to me, kinship in the grave will remain to me only with rottenness and worms. From these things, then, drawing as it were to an absurdity, he concludes, saying where then is now my expectation? As if he were to say: if I should be consoled on account of the expectation of temporal prosperity, my expectation would be vain. And again he draws to a greater absurdity, adding and who considers my patience? As if to say: if I shall have endured through patience, nonetheless nothing remains but the grave and its darknesses, rottennesses and worms; if therefore I should have patience in order to merit temporal goods from God, it would follow that God does not consider patience, which is to deny providence. And lest perhaps someone should say that even in the grave temporal prosperity would be given to him by God, therefore, as though mocking this, he adds all that is mine shall go down into the deepest hell, that is, whatever is mine will be brought down to the grave, which alone remains to me; do you think that there at least there will be rest for me? That is, must I expect earthly prosperity even there? It is plain that this is ridiculous.”

“Job's friends had pretended to comfort him with the hopes of his return to a prosperous estate again; now he here shows, I. That it was their folly to talk so (Job 17:10): "Return, and come now, be convinced that you are in an error, and let me persuade you to be of my mind; for I cannot find one wise man among you, that knows how to explain the difficulties of God's providence or how to apply the consolations of his promises." Those do not go wisely about the work of comforting the afflicted who fetch their comforts from the possibility of their recovery and enlargement in this world; though that is not to be despaired of, it is at the best uncertain; and if it should fail, as perhaps it may, the comfort built upon it will fail too. It is therefore our wisdom to comfort ourselves, and others, in distress, with that which will not fail, the promise of God, his love and grace, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. II. That it would he much more his folly to heed them; for, 1. All his measures were already broken and he was full of confusion, Job 17:11, Job 17:12. He owns he had, in his prosperity, often pleased himself both with projects of what he should do and prospects of what he should enjoy; but now he looked upon his days as past, or drawing towards a period; all those purposes were broken off and those expectations dashed. He had had thoughts about enlarging his border, increasing his stock, and settling his children, and many pious thoughts, it is likely, of promoting religion in his country, redressing grievances, reforming the profane, relieving the poor, and raising funds perhaps for charitable uses; but he concluded that all these thoughts of his heart were now at an end, and that he should never have the satisfaction of seeing his designs effected. Note, The period of our days will be the period of all our contrivances and hopes for this world; but, if with full purpose of heart we cleave to the Lord, death will not break off that purpose. Job, being thus put upon new counsels, was under a constant uneasiness (Job 17:12): The thoughts of his heart being broken, they changed the night into day and shortened the light. Some, in their vanity and riot, turn night into day and day into night; but Job did so through trouble and anguish of spirit, which were a hindrance, (1.) To the repose of the night, keeping his eyes waking, so that the night was as wearisome to him as the day, and the tossings of the night tired him as much as the toils of the day. (2.) To the entertainments of the day. "The light of the morning is welcome, but, by reason of this inward darkness, the comfort of it is soon gone, and the day is to me as dismal as the black and dark night," Deu 28:67. See what reason we have to be thankful for the health and ease which enable us to welcome both the shadows of the evening and the light of the morning. 2. All his expectations from this world would very shortly be buried in the grave with him; so that it was a jest for him to think of such mighty things as they had flattered him with the hopes of, Job 5:19; Job 8:21; Job 11:17. "Alas! you do but make a fool of me." (1.) He saw himself just dropping into the grave. A convenient house, an easy bed, and agreeable relations, are some of those things in which we take satisfaction in this world: Job expected not any of these above ground; all he felt, and all he had in view, was unpleasing and disagreeable, but under ground he expected them. [1.] He counted upon no house but the grave (Job 17:13): "If I wait, if there be any place where I shall ever be easy again, it must be in the grave. I should deceive myself if I should count upon any out-let from my trouble but what death will give me. Nothing is so sure as that." Note, In all our prosperity it is good to keep death in prospect. Whatever we expect, let us be sure to expect that; for that may prevent other things which we expect, but nothing will prevent that. But see how he endeavours not only to reconcile himself to the grave, but to recommend it to himself: "It is my house." The grave is a house; to the wicked it is a prison-house (Job 24:19, Job 24:20); to the godly it is Bethabara, a passage-house in their way home. "It is my house, mine by descent, I am born to it; it is my father's house. It is mine by purchase. I have made myself obnoxious to it." We must everyone of us shortly remove to this house, and it is our wisdom to provide accordingly; let us think of removing, and send before to our long home. [2.] He counted upon no quiet bed but in the darkness: "There," says he, "I have made my bed. It is made, for it is ready, and I am just going to it." The grave is a bed, for we shall rest in it in the evening of our day on earth, and rise from it in the morning of our everlasting day, Isa 57:2. Let this make good people willing to die; it is but going to bed; they are weary and sleepy, and it is time that they were in their beds. Why should they not go willingly, when their father calls? "Nay, I have made my bed, by preparation for it, have endeavoured to make it easy, by keeping conscience pure, by seeing Christ lying in this bed, and so turning it into a bed of spices, and by looking beyond it to the resurrection." [3.] He counted upon no agreeable relations but what he had in the grave (Job 17:14): I have cried to corruption (that is, to the grave, where the body will corrupt), Thou art my father (for our bodies were formed out of the earth), and to the worms there, You are my mother and my sister, to whom I am allied (for man is a worm) and with whom I must be conversant, for the worms shall cover us, Job 21:26. Job complained that his kindred were estranged from him (Job 19:13, Job 19:14); therefore here he claims acquaintance with other relations that would cleave to him when those disowned him. Note, First, We are all of us near akin to corruption and the worms. Secondly, It is therefore good to make ourselves familiar with them, by conversing much with them in our thoughts and meditations, which would very much help us above the inordinate love of life and fear of death. (2.) He saw all his hopes from this world dropping into the grave with him (Job 17:15, Job 17:16): "Seeing I must shortly leave the world, where is now my hope? How can I expect to prosper who do not expect to live?" He is not hopeless, but his hope is not where they would have it be. If in this life only he had hope, he was of all men most miserable. "No, as for my hope, that hope which I comfort and support myself with, who shall see it? It is something out of sight that I hope for, not things that are seen, that are temporal, but things not seen, that are eternal." What is his hope he will tell us (Job 19:25), Non est mortale quod opto, immortale peto - I seek not for that which perishes, but for that which abides for ever. "But, as for the hopes you would buoy me up with, they shall go down with me to the bars of the pit. You are dying men, and cannot make good your promises. I am a dying man, and cannot enjoy the good you promise. Since, therefore, our rest will be together in the dust, let us all lay aside the thoughts of this world and set our hearts upon another." We must shortly be in the dust, for dust we are, dust and ashes in the pit, under the bars of the pit, held fast there, never to loose the bands of death till the general resurrection. But we shall rest there; we shall rest together there. Job and his friends could not agree now, but they will both be quiet in the grave; the dust of that will shortly stop their mouths and put an end to the controversy. Let the foresight of this cool the heat of all contenders and moderate the disputers of this world.”

“But as for you all, do ye return, and come now,.... This is an address to his three friends, all and everyone of them, who he perceived were nettled with his reply, and were either departing, or preparing for a rejoinder; and being conscious of his innocence, and satisfied of the goodness of his cause, and having nothing to fear from them, boldly challenges them to go on with the dispute; for though they were three to one, he was a match for them all; or else he calls upon them to turn and repent of what they had said to him, to relinquish the bad notions and ill opinion they had of him, and to retract their hard speeches and unjust censures, and return to a friendly and amicable conversation; or however, that they would come and sit down quietly, and patiently hear what he had further to say to them for their information and instruction, which they stood in great need of: for I cannot find one wise man among you; that took his case right, was capable of judging of it, and speaking pertinently to it, and of administering comfort to him in it; they were physicians, but not skilful ones; comforters, but miserable ones; had not the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season; disputants, but wranglers, and knew not where the pinch of the controversy lay; and their arguments were weak and worthless, and their judgment and sense of things not deserving any regard, see Co1 6:5.”

“10 But only come again all of you! I shall not find a wise man among you. - 11 My days are past, My purposes cut off, The cherished thoughts of my heart, - 12 Ye explain night as day, Light is near when darkness sets in. The truly righteous man, even if in the midst of his affliction he should see destruction before him, does not however forsake God. But (nevertheless) ye - he exclaims to the friends, who promise him a long and prosperous life if he will only humble himself as a sinner who is receiving punishment - repeat again and again your hortatory words on penitence! a wise man who might be able to see into my real condition, I shall not find among you. He means that they deceive themselves concerning the actual state of the case before them; for in reality he is meeting death without being deceived, or allowing himself to be deceived, about the matter. His appeal is similar to Job 6:29. Carey translates correctly: Attack me again with another round of arguments, etc. Instead of ואוּלם, as it is written everywhere else (generally when the speech is drawing to a close), we find ואלּם (as the form of writing אלם, אלּם occurs also in the subst. אוּלם), perh. in order to harmonize with כּלּם, which is here according to rule instead of כּלּכם, which corresponds more to our form of a vocative clause, just as in Kg1 22:28; Mic 1:2 (Ewald, 327, a). (Note: Comp. my Anekdota zur Gesch. der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen (1841), S. 380.) In וּבאוּ תּשׁוּבוּ the jussive and imper. (for the Chethib יבאי, which occurs in some Codd. and editions, is meaningless) are united, the former being occasioned by the arrangement of the words, which is unfavourable to the imper. (comp. Ew. 229); moreover, the first verb gives the adverbial notion iterum, denuo to the second, according to Ges. 142, 3, a. What follows, Job 17:11, is the confirmation of the fact that there is no wise man among them who might be able to give him efficient solace by a right estimate of the magnitude and undeservedness of his suffering. His life is indeed run out; and the most cherished plans and hopes which he had hedged in and fostered for the future in his heart, he has utterly and long since given up. The plur. (occurring only here) of זמּה, which occurs also sensu malo, signifies projects, as מזמות, Job 21:27; Job 42:2, from זמם, to tie; Aben-Ezra refers to the Arab. zamâm (a thread, band, esp. a rein). These plans which are now become useless, these cherished thoughts, he calls מורשׁי, peculia (from ירשׁ, to take possession of) of his heart. Thus, after Obad. Oba 1:17, Gecatilia (in Aben-Ezra) also explains, while, according to Ewald, Beitrge, S. 98, he understands the heart-strings, i.e., the trunks of the arteries (for thus is Arab. n't to be explained), and consequently, as Ewald himself, and even Farisol, most improbably combines מורשׁ with מותר (יתר). Similarly the lxx τὰ ἄρθρα τῆς καρδίας, as though the joints (instead of the valves) of the heart were intended; probably with Middeldorpf, after the Syriac Hexapla, ἄκρα is to be read instead of ἄρθρα; this, however, rests upon a mistaking of מורשׁי for ראשׁי. While he is now almost dead, and his life-plans of the future are torn away (נתּקוּ), the friends turn night into day (שׂים, as Isa 5:20); light is (i.e., according to their opinion) nearer than the face of darkness, i.e., than the darkness which is in reality turned to him, and which is as though it stared at him from the immediate future. Thus Nolde explains it as comparative, but connecting Job 17:12 with ישׂימו, and considering פני (which is impossible by this compar. rendering) as meaningless: lucem magis propinquam quam tenebras. It is however possible that מפני is used the same as in Job 23:17 : light is, as they think near before darkness, i.e., while darkness sets in (ingruentibus tenebris), according to which we have translated. If we understand Job 23:12 from Job's standpoint, and not from that of the friends, מן קרוב is to be explained according to the Arab. qrı̂b mn, prope abest ab, as the lxx even translatesφῶς ἐγγὺς ἀπὸ προσώπου σκότους, which Olympiodorus interprets by ου ̓ μακρὰν σκότους. But by this rendering פני makes the expression, which really needs investigation, only still lamer. Renderings, however, like Renan's Ah! votre lumire resemble aux tenbres, are removed from all criticism. The subjective rendering, by which Job 17:12 is under the government of ישׂימו, is after all the most natural. That he has darkness before him, while the friends present to him the approach of light on condition of penitence, is the thought that is developed in the next strophe.”