^9:1 And Job, answering, said:
^9:2 Truly I know that it is so, and that man, compared with God, will not be justified.
^9:3 If he should wish to contend with him, he will not be able to answer him one for a thousand.
^9:4 He is wise in heart and strong in might: who has resisted him and had peace?
^9:5 He who has moved mountains, and those whom he overturned in his fury did not know it.
^9:6 He who moves the earth from its place, and its pillars are shaken.
^9:7 He who commands the sun, and it does not rise, and shuts up the stars as under a seal.

152. And Job, answering, said: Truly I know that it is so, etc. In the preceding response by which he had answered the words of Eliphaz, blessed Job seemed to have passed over one thing that Eliphaz had proposed concerning the justice of God, when he had said: Will man be justified in comparison with God? Indeed, by a sort of contentious disputation, he seemed to have spoken to God when he said: Am I the sea or a whale, etc., and again: How long will you not spare me?, and the rest. And therefore Bildad the Shuhite, replying against the response of blessed Job, began from the defense of divine justice, saying: Does God supplant judgment?, etc., and he also ended his speech on this same point when he said: God will not cast away the simple, and the rest. And therefore blessed Job in this response first shows that he does not wish to contradict divine justice or to contend against God, as they suspected; and this is what is said: And Job, answering, said: Truly I know that it is so, namely, that God does not supplant judgment and that he will not cast away the simple, which Bildad proposed; and I also know that man, compared with God, will not be justified, that is, when compared to him, and he says this in answer to what Eliphaz had said above: Will man be justified in comparison with God?

153. And whence he knows this he consequently shows from a certain sign. For when someone is just in comparison with another, he can contend with him freely and securely, because through mutual discussion justice and truth are made manifest; but it is safe for no man to contend with God, and therefore he adds: If he should wish to contend with him, namely, man with God, he will not be able to answer him, namely, man will not be able to answer God, one for a thousand. Indeed it must be known that the greatest of the numbers that has a proper name among us is a thousand, for all greater numbers are named by a repetition of lower numbers, for example, ten thousand, a hundred thousand; and this happens reasonably, for according to certain of the ancients, the species of numbers extend up to ten, and afterwards the earlier numbers are repeated—which is indeed manifest according to naming, whatever may be the truth of the matter in reality. Now the cube arising from ten is a thousand: for ten times ten times ten is a thousand. Therefore he took the number one thousand, as the greatest of the named numbers among us, for any great determinate number whatsoever. Therefore what he says, that man cannot answer God one for a thousand, is the same as if he were saying that no determinate measure of number can measure how much divine justice exceeds human justice, since the latter is finite, but the former infinite.

154. But that man, in contending, can by no proportion approach God, he consequently shows when he says: He is wise in heart and strong in might, namely, God. For there is a twofold contention: one by which one contends by disputing, and this is through wisdom; another by which one contends by fighting, and this is through strength. In both, however, God surpasses, because in both strength and wisdom he exceeds every strength and wisdom. And he consequently shows both of these excesses,

and first the excess of strength. He begins to show this with regard to men when he says: Who has resisted him and had peace? As if to say: no one. Indeed, it must be known that in one way a man obtains peace from one more powerful, and in another way from one less powerful or equally powerful. For it is manifest that one more powerful acquires peace from one less powerful by fighting against him, as when a powerful king moves war against some rebel in his kingdom and, obtaining victory, restores the peace of the kingdom;

similarly also, someone sometimes obtains peace from one equally powerful by fighting: for although he cannot overcome him, nevertheless by the persistence of fighting he wearies him so that he is brought back to peace. But from one more powerful no one ever obtains peace by resisting or fighting, but by humbly subjecting himself to him. This, therefore, is an evident sign that the strength of God exceeds every human strength: that no one can have peace with him by resisting, but only by humbly obeying; whence it is said in Isaiah 26:3: You will preserve peace, peace, because we have hoped in you. But the impious who resist God cannot have peace, according to what is said in Isaiah 57:21: There is no peace for the impious, says the Lord; and this is what is said here: Who has resisted him and had peace?

155. Then he shows that the strength of God exceeds every strength of natural things, and he shows this both in the higher bodies and in the lower bodies. Indeed, in the lower bodies he shows this from the fact that those things which seem most stable and firm among lower bodies he moves according to his will. Therefore, among mixed bodies, to which he makes the transition after men, mountains seem most firm and stable, and in the Scriptures the stability of the Saints is compared to their stability, according to that saying of the Psalm: Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Sion; and yet God moves mountains by his power, and this is what is added: He who has moved mountains. This, indeed, although it could happen miraculously by divine power—since this seems promised to the firmness of faith, according to Matthew 21:21: If you have faith and do not hesitate, if you say to this mountain: Lift yourself up and cast yourself into the sea, it will be done, and 1 Corinthians 13:2: If I should have all faith, so that I could move mountains—nevertheless seems more fittingly to be referred to the natural course of things. For the order of nature has this: that everything naturally generated is also corrupted at a determined time. Hence, since the generation of mountains is natural, it is necessary that at some time mountains be naturally destroyed;

and this natural corruption of mountains he calls a moving, because the dissolution and ruin of mountains happen with a certain displacement of their parts. Nor is it irrational that he attributes to divine power those things that happen naturally: for since nature acts for an end, and everything that is ordered to a definite end either directs itself to the end or is ordered to the end by another directing it, it is necessary that a natural thing, which does not have knowledge of the end so that it could direct itself to it, be ordered to the end by some higher intelligence. Therefore the whole operation of nature is compared to the intellect directing natural things to their end, whom we call God, as the movement of an arrow is compared to the archer; hence, just as the movement of the arrow is fittingly attributed to the archer, so the whole operation of nature is fittingly attributed to divine power. Hence, if mountains are overthrown by the operation of nature, it is manifest that the stability of mountains is overcome by divine power. Now it sometimes happens among men that some king by his power storms a strong city; the more swiftly and imperceptibly this happens, the more the power of the king is demonstrated. Therefore this, that mountains are moved, bears the greatest witness to divine power, since it happens, as it were, suddenly and imperceptibly, so that it cannot be foreknown even by those who dwell around the mountains and perish through the overthrow of the mountains,

and this is what is added: and those whom he overturned in his fury did not know it, as if to say: God performs so great a thing so suddenly that even those who dwell around the mountains cannot know it beforehand, which becomes evident from this, that if they foreknew it, they would take care for themselves so as not to be overthrown. But he adds in his fury to show that God sometimes moderates natural operations according to the order of his providence, as is necessary for punishing the sins of men; and he is said metaphorically to be angry with them when he exercises vengeance upon them, which among us is customarily the effect of anger.

156. From mixed bodies he then passes to the elements, among which the earth seems most firm and stable, since it is unmoved like the center of the motion of the whole; and yet sometimes, according to some of its parts, it is moved naturally by enclosed vapor, as the philosophers teach, and this is what he adds: He who moves the earth from its place, not, indeed, totally according to its whole self, but when some of its parts are shaken, as happens in an earthquake. In this motion even the mountains are shaken, which are like pillars founded upon the earth, whence there follows: and its pillars will be shaken. By pillars one can also understand, according to the letter, pillars and any other buildings that seem to adhere to the earth, which are shaken in an earthquake; or by the pillars of the earth one can understand the lower and innermost parts of the earth, because just as the stability of a house is made firm upon pillars, so the stability of the earth proceeds from the center, to which all parts of the earth naturally tend, and consequently all the lower parts of the earth are supports of the upper parts and, as it were, pillars. And thus, since an earthquake proceeds from the deep parts of the earth, it seems to be caused, as it were, by the shaking of the pillars of the earth.

157. Last, he proceeds to the heavenly bodies, which also yield to divine power. Now it must be considered that, just as immobility and rest belong to the nature of the earth, so it belongs to the nature of the heaven that it always be moved. Therefore, just as the power of the earth is shown to be overcome by divine power through the motion that appears in it, so the power of the heavenly body is shown to be overcome by divine power by the fact that its motion is impeded, through which the rising and setting of the sun and of the other stars take place; and therefore he adds: He who commands the sun, and it does not rise. This indeed is not said because the rising of the sun is impeded according to the truth of the matter, since the motion of the heaven is continuous, but because according to appearance it sometimes does not seem to rise, for example, when the air has been so cloudy that the rising of the sun cannot appear to those dwelling on earth in its accustomed brightness. But cloudiness of this sort, since it comes about through the operation of nature, is fittingly attributed to the divine command, by which all nature is regulated in its operation, as was said. And that he understands the sun not to rise in this way, insofar as the sun’s rising is hidden, is manifestly apparent from what is added: and shuts up the stars as under a seal; for the stars seem, as it were, to be shut up when the sky is covered with clouds so that the stars cannot be seen.