Lecture 4 — Waiting for darkness and hope of resurrection

^14:13^ Who will grant that you will protect me and hide me in Sheol until your anger passes, and that you will determine a time for me when you will remember me?

^14:14^ Do you think a dead man can live again? For all the days during which I have now struggled, I await the time when my transformation will come.

^14:15^ You will call me and I will answer you; you will present your right hand to the work of your hands.

^14:16^ You have numbered my steps, but spare my sins.

^14:17^ You have sealed my faults in a little sack, but you cured my iniquity.

242. Who will grant that you will protect me and hide me in Sheol. After Job had shown what one can conclude about the resurrection of the dead from things which are apparent to the senses, he posits here his own opinion about the resurrection. It would be a horrendous and unhappy thing if man should so disappear after death that he could never be brought back to life again. This is because everything naturally desires its own existence. So Job shows his own desire for the future resurrection, saying, who will grant, even after death, that you will protect me in Sheol, for you will preserve me with the special care with which you protect man, until your anger passes, at the hour of death. The death of man is caused by the removal of the divine action which conserves life, and so he said before, go away from him for a little (Job 14:6). God seems angry with men when he takes his gift of life away, especially for us who believe that death comes from the sin of the first man. He explains how he wishes to be protected even in Sheol when he says, and will you determine a time for me when you will remember me? For God seems to have forgotten men when he takes the gift of life away from them. Then he remembers man when he leads him back to life. Therefore, to determine the time in which God remembers the dead man is nothing else than to determine the time of the resurrection. It is fittingly termed protection (Job 14:13). For when an artist does not want to repair his damaged work with the same material, like a house or something of the sort, he seems to have no care for the material of the house which is falling into ruin. But when he intends to repair the building from this material, he guards it diligently, so that it does not perish. He calls this care protection.

243. After he expresses his desire to rise again, he next asks if his desire could ever be realized, because it is possible for someone to desire something which is impossible. He then says, do you think a dead man can live again? He shows what he means by this, saying, for all the days during which I have now struggled, I await the time when my transformation will come. We should note here that he had compared the life of man on earth to a soldier’s (Job 7:1), and to the days of a hired man in another place (Job 7:6), because both soldiers and hired men await something after their present state at the end of their service. Therefore, just as he had expressed before that the state of the resurrection is like payday for the hired man, so he now shows the same concept using the image of the soldier. Note that he does not await the desired end in any time in the present life, because he likens all the days of this life to the military life, saying, for all the days during which I have now struggled. One should also note that man does not await another life like this one, because then that one would be like a warfare also. But he awaits a life in which he will not struggle like a soldier, but will triumph and reign. So he says, I await the time when my transformation will come. He means here, “For my whole life I have been struggling like a soldier, changeable and subject to labors and anguish. But I wait to be transformed in the state of the other life, which is without labors and anguish.” The Apostle Paul expresses the same theme of transformation in Corinthians when he says, we shall all arise but we shall not all be changed (1 Cor 15:51).

244. He excludes man being transformed in the state of the other life with respect to natural virtue, saying, you will call me and I will answer you, because the future transformation proceeds from the power of your voice or your command, as John says, all those who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear it will live (John 5:28). Calling is characteristic of commanding, but answering is the obedience by which the creature obeys the Creator. Since the dead rise not only according to the command of God to live, but also will be changed to some other state by divine power, he then says, you will present your right hand to the work of your hands, for the man who rises will not be the work of nature, but of your power, and you will offer the assistance of your right hand to this work when he is elevated to the glory of the new state by the help of your grace. Or his statement, you will call and I will answer you, can be referred to the renewal of the body. When he adds, you will present your right hand to the work of your hands, this can be referred to the soul, which naturally desires to be united with the body. God presents his right hand as a helper when man attains by divine power what he cannot attain by his own power.

245. Now that he has posited his opinion about the resurrection, he returns to the subject of his wonder at how much careful attention God gives to the works of man. He expressed this when he said, you observed all my paths and considered the traces of my footsteps (Job 13:27). Here then he says, you have numbered my steps, for now it is no wonder you so diligently examine the deeds of man, since you reserve him for another life.

Note, however, that God in his providence tries human acts in two ways.

First, in the fact that he examines and discusses them. He clarifies this when he says, you have numbered my steps. One numbers things which one cares about. Someone might object that it is very severe for God to examine the deeds of frail man with such great care. Job consequently emphasizes the tendency of God to pardon us when he says, but spare my sins. He means, “Although you number these things, still I am filled with hope that you will spare me.”

Second, God keeps the good and wicked deeds of men in his memory to repay them with good or evil, and so he continues, you have sealed my faults in a little sack. For what one seals in a sack is carefully kept. To preclude this sealing of God excluding divine mercy, he then says, but you cured my iniquity, since you lay up punishments for sins, but you nevertheless cure my faults by penance.