^13:1 Behold, my eye has seen all these things, and my ear has heard, and I have understood each one.
^13:2 According to your knowledge, I also know, nor am I inferior to you.
^13:3 Yet nevertheless I will speak to the Almighty, and I desire to dispute with God,
^13:4 first showing you to be fabricators of lies and worshipers of perverse doctrines.
^13:5 And would that you were silent, so that you might be thought wise!
^13:6 Therefore hear my correction, and attend to the judgment of my lips.
^13:7 Does God need your lie, that you should speak deceits for him?
^13:8 Do you show partiality to his person and strive to judge for God?
^13:9 Or will it please him, from whom nothing can be hidden? Or will he be deceived like a man by your frauds?
^13:10 He himself will rebuke you, because in secret you show partiality to his person.
^13:11 As soon as he stirs himself, he will disturb you, and his terror will rush upon you.
^13:12 Your remembrance will be compared to ashes, and your necks will be reduced to clay.

217. Behold, my eye has seen all these things, etc. After Job had shown that the excellence of divine power could be known through experience, as though concluding, he adds: Behold, my eye has seen all these things, and my ear has heard, as if to say: I have known the aforesaid effects, by which divine strength and wisdom are shown, partly by sight and partly by hearing; nor did my knowledge rest in these sensible effects, but from them I ascended to the understanding of truth, whence he adds: and I have understood each one, namely, what each individual effect demonstrated concerning God, whether his wisdom, or understanding, or counsel, or strength. Hence, excluding their boasting, by which, in proposing magnificent things about God, they seemed to prefer themselves to Job, he adds: According to your knowledge, I also know, namely, those things that pertain to God’s magnificence, nor am I inferior to you, as though knowing them either less or more imperfectly, or as though now learning them from you.

218. But because Zophar had proposed the divine excellence in order to rebuke Job for attempting to dispute with God, he adds: Yet nevertheless I will speak to the Almighty, as if to say: although I understand, from his various effects, the excellence of divine wisdom and power no less than you do, nevertheless through this I am not reasonably turned from my purpose, so that I should not wish to address God, by opening the movements of my heart to him who searches and judges hearts, and by seeking the truth from him who is the teacher of all truth; whence he adds: and I desire to dispute with God, not indeed because I wish to disapprove his judgments, but so that I may destroy your errors, which, if supposed, would entail that there is injustice with God. Whence he adds: first showing you to be fabricators of lies, because they had invented this lie, that Job had led an iniquitous life. But they had come to this lie because they erred concerning the faith by which God is worshiped, believing that the recompense of merits and punishments takes place only in this life, and therefore he adds: and worshipers of perverse doctrines; for whoever departs from true knowledge of God worships not God but his own false doctrines. Now what he says, first showing you, is not to be understood as though first, in the order of the following teaching, he is going to destroy their depraved doctrines and afterward dispute with God, but because, while he intends to dispute with God, this is first in his intention: to destroy their doctrines.

219. Now it sometimes happens that some propose things that are plausible, though false; but when they do not know how to defend or prove them plausibly, they manifest their foolishness in speaking, which was happening to Job’s friends, and therefore he adds: And would that you were silent, so that you might be thought wise! For the very fact that you defend and prove your false doctrines unfittingly demonstrates that you are foolish. Therefore, because you propose false doctrines and take up unfitting means for making them manifest, you need correction, and this is what he concludes, adding: Therefore hear my correction, by which I will correct your procedure, and attend to the judgment of my lips, by which I will condemn your false doctrines.

220. First, then, he intends to correct their unfitting procedure. For because they held that the rewards and punishments of good and evil works are repaid in this life, to defend the justice of God it was necessary that they take up certain lies: for since it is manifest that some innocent and just persons are pressed down by adversities in this life, it was necessary for them, in order to defend God’s justice, to charge crimes against the just; and thus they accused Job, whom they saw afflicted, of impiety. But one does not use a suitable means who defends truth by lies, and therefore he says: Does God need your lie? As if to say: is it necessary that lies be taken up to defend divine justice? For what cannot be defended except by lies cannot possibly be true. But when someone strives to lie against manifest truth, he is compelled to devise certain deceitful and fraudulent ways, so that he may give color to the lie by some fraud; so also these men, when they tried to lie against the justice of Job, which was manifest to all, used certain deceits, namely, by showing human frailty, which easily slips into sin, and comparing it with divine excellence, so that it might be judged more probable that Job had been iniquitous than that God was unjust. And therefore he adds: that you should speak deceits for him? For they were speaking deceits, as it were, for God, while they were deceitfully trying to impose impiety on Job in order to defend that God is just.

221. But they could say that they were not speaking anything deceitfully against Job, but were saying only what they thought. Therefore Job shows that, if this were true, while excused from deceitfulness, they were slipping into another vice, namely, respect of persons, which excludes the justice of one who judges. For it is respect of persons if someone despises or denies the justice of one person, which is apparent, on account of the greatness of another, although he does not know that other’s justice. Therefore, if Job’s friends judged him to be iniquitous, seeing in him manifest justice, and did so solely from consideration of divine greatness, although according to their doctrines they could not understand how Job was justly punished by God, in their judgment by which they condemned Job they seemed, as it were, to show partiality to the person of God. And therefore he adds: Do you show partiality to his person and strive to judge for God? He says this pointedly, because one strives to judge for someone when he does not know his justice and yet tries to devise any ways whatever to show that his cause is just.

222. Now it sometimes happens that someone defending another’s cause fraudulently pleases him, even if that other is just, and this can happen in two ways: in one way, because he does not know that his cause is unjust, and therefore it pleases him that it is defended by someone; and Job excludes this from God, saying: Or will it please him, namely God, that you should strive to judge unjustly for him, since this cannot be unknown to him? On account of this he adds: from whom nothing can be hidden? In another way, when the one whose cause is defended by fraud is deceived by the frauds of the defender, so that he regards his defense as just; and this too he excludes from God, adding: Or will he be deceived like a man by your frauds? Thus, therefore, it is manifest that divine goodness and justice do not need a lie for their defense, because truth can be defended without a lie; from this it is also clear that, if once their doctrines are posited, this unfitting consequence follows, that God’s justice needs a lie for its defense, then it becomes manifest that the doctrines proposed are false.

223. But further it must be considered that one who uses a lie to show God’s justice or goodness not only does something God does not need, but by this very fact also goes against God: for since God is truth, and every lie is contrary to truth, whoever uses a lie to show God’s magnificence by this very fact acts against God. And this is plainly clear through the Apostle to the Corinthians, where he says: We are found also to be false witnesses of God, because we have given testimony against God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up, if the dead do not rise. Therefore to say that God raised up a dead man, if it is not true, is against God, although it seems to show divine power, because it is against God’s truth. Thus, therefore, those who take up a lie to defend God not only do not receive a reward as though pleasing him, but also deserve punishment as acting against God, and therefore he adds: He himself will rebuke you, because in secret you show partiality to his person. And he says in secret because, although outwardly they seemed to be acting the cause of God, as though knowing God’s justice, nevertheless in their consciences this was present: that they did not know by what justice Job had been punished; and thus, with respect to the hiddenness of their heart, they were showing partiality to the person of God while they tried to defend his justice falsely.

224. But how he will rebuke them, he shows by adding: As soon as he stirs himself, he will disturb you, as if to say: because you now do not suffer adversity, you dispute about God’s justice with a tranquil mind; but if tribulation should come upon you—which he names a stirring of God, in that manner of speaking by which punishment is called the wrath of God in Scripture—your mind will be disturbed, especially since it has not been grounded in truth. And because they considered no goods or evils except these temporal ones, while they guarded themselves from sins lest evils should come upon them, they seemed to wish to serve God solely from fear of present evils, and therefore he adds: and his terror will rush upon you, as if to say: that on account of which alone you fear God will come upon you, namely, present adversity, according to what is said in Proverbs 10:24: what the impious man fears will come upon him. And because they had vainly promised Job that he would remain in the memory of men even after death, he promises the contrary to them, as though mocking them, saying: Your remembrance will be compared to ashes; for just as ashes endure only a little while after the consumption of wood, so the fame of a man after death quickly passes by, whence to expect fame after death seems vain. They had also promised him immunity and a certain reverence to be had at his sepulcher after death, but, considering this too as nothing, he promises the contrary to them, saying: and your necks will be reduced to clay, designating by their necks their power and dignity, which he says are to be reduced to clay, that is, to a contemptible and weak thing.