Job — Chapter 3

Post haec aperuit Job os suum

On "After these things Job opened his mouth": Corderius praises the profound silence which Job maintained all through the seven days and nights. This silence is itself a high virtue. Ambrosius observes that after such a prolonged silence Job deserved to speak mysteries: "what else do the words 'after these things' mean, than after receiving the blows, after the arrival of friends, after the seven days spent in silence, after the worms' hunger was satisfied?" Corderius cites Origen (Lib. 1 in cap. 1 Job) marveling at Job's patience: "Jacob, having lost merely one of his many sons, could not be consoled by the others and said 'I will go down to my son mourning into sheol.' But the magnanimous Job, after hearing at once the most miserable death of all his children together with the loss of all his goods, did not sigh, did not groan, did not curse, did not blaspheme, did not accuse." And Chrysostom (In Job III) exclaims: "Not only all men, but I believe even the angels and all the demons were terrified at the endurance and constancy of Job." The silence before lament is itself the highest pedagogy: Isaiah 30:15 reads "In silence and hope shall your strength be." To await the proper time for speech in affliction is to imitate God's own patient governance.

Pereat dies in qua natus sum

On the imprecation of Job against the day of his birth: Job curses the day of his birth and the night of his conception in passionate poetic rhetoric. Corderius is careful to distinguish this from sin: Job is speaking in the person of the afflicted according to the sentiments that sadness supplies, not expressing a theological judgment but an emotional outcry. He cites Gregory (Moral. IV.1-2), who allegorizes: Job cursing his nativity signifies the Church cursing original sin and the works of darkness into which she was born. St. Thomas (Quodlib. VII, q. 2, a. 1) and the majority of exegetes agree that such expressions of extreme anguish, common to saints under trial, are not sins provided they fall short of blasphemy or despair. Corderius compares Jeremiah's similar lament (Jer. 20:14-18). He notes the literary parallelism between "the day in which I was born" and "the night in which it was said 'a man is conceived'" — day and night, both existence-conditions of Job, are the objects of his malediction, because existence itself has become painful. On verse 8 ("let those curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up Leviathan"): the "cursers of the day" are interpreted as those skilled in imprecations and as a figure of penitents who curse the sins of their past life.

Pereat dies in qua natus sum

On the poetic structure of Job's curse: Corderius analyzes the literary architecture of ch. 3 as a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry. The curse proceeds through three stages: (1) the curse of the day of birth (vv. 3-5); (2) the curse of the night of conception (vv. 6-9); (3) the complaint about continuing life instead of death (vv. 11-26). He notes the use of merismus (totality by opposites — day and night, sun and stars) to achieve rhetorical completeness. On v. 8: "Let those curse it who curse the day, those who are ready to rouse up Leviathan" — the "rousers of Leviathan" are interpreted by some as enchanters who claimed power over the cosmic chaos-monster; by Corderius more safely as those who can perfectly curse, whose malediction has full force. He reads the Leviathan connection (curse → Leviathan) as pointing forward to the book's climax in chs. 40-41, where God demonstrates his absolute sovereignty over Leviathan — and therefore over all the forces of chaos and evil that Leviathan represents.

Quare non in vulva mortuus sum

On Job's wish that he had died in the womb or at birth: "Why did I not die in the womb? Why did I not perish as soon as I came out of the womb?" Corderius treats this as an expression not of despair but of the extremity of suffering. He cites Gregory extensively: death is here desired not because life itself is evil, but because in this condition it has been reduced to such misery that the soul sees no further possibility of good. Corderius introduces the classical trope of the felix qui non natus, citing Theognis, Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus), and Euripides. He then corrects these pagan views with Christian theology: death is not an escape from suffering but a transition; only the resurrection of the body and eternal life give ultimate meaning to suffering. On verses 13-19 (the realm of the dead where kings, counselors, princes, captives and servants rest together in equality): Corderius finds here a preparation for the hope of resurrection — Job speaks of Sheol as a place of rest, which the Christian reads as the limbo of the fathers awaiting redemption. The equality of great and small, bond and free, in death (v. 19) is noted as a powerful statement against human pride.

Quare non in vulva mortuus sum

On the desire for the peace of Sheol: Job asks why he was not stillborn or why he did not die immediately at birth — for then "I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver." Corderius explores the democratizing vision of death: in Sheol the mighty and the humble are equal; the king who commanded armies and the slave who obeyed them rest side by side. He draws on classical parallels (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura; Horace, Odes II.14) and corrects them: the pagan vision of death as equalizer leads to nihilism; the Job/Hebrew vision opens to resurrection — the equality of death is provisional, not final. On v. 17: "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest" — the rest of Sheol is real but incomplete; it awaits the resurrection, when the fullness of either beatitude or damnation will be revealed.

Quare misero data est lux

On "Why is light given to the wretched, and life to those who are bitter in soul?": Corderius interprets this as Job's great theological question about suffering and providence. Why does God maintain in life those who can find no reason to live? Corderius explains with Gregory (Moral. IV.27-28): God preserves life even when the sufferer desires death, because divine purposes extend beyond what the sufferer can see — suffering is a pedagogy, not a punishment. On "they long for death, but it does not come" (v. 21): Corderius notes that even the desire for death as an escape from suffering is not sinful when it arises from the excess of pain, provided it is not accompanied by a rejection of God's will. The great spiritual lesson: Job's cry "is not the groan of despair but the sigh of one who knows that God hears." He closes with Gregory's famous saying: "What Job desired to die, he showed that the saints do not flee death but fear sin more than death" — death would be preferable to any falling away from God.

Quare misero data est lux vita

On "Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul?" (v. 20): Corderius discusses the theological problem of why God sustains life in those who suffer to the point of desiring death. He draws on Gregory (Moral. IV.27): God preserves the living because even in the greatest suffering the soul retains its capacity for virtue and merit; the desire for death in extremity is not suicidal will but the natural longing of a burdened nature for release. On vv. 21-22: those who "long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave" — Corderius notes the paradox: the grave as treasure, death as gift. This is the language of total exhaustion, not of despair, analogous to Paul's "I desire to depart and be with Christ" (Phil. 1:23). Job's ultimate resignation is expressed in v. 26: "I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes" — a naked statement of his condition, laying it before God without complaint but also without pretense.