Comprehensive commentary to Job by R. Simhah Arye b. Ephraim Fishel ha-Levi of Hurbisov. The Author published an earier commentary in 1824, and later reprinted this commentary in 1838 where he state in the introduction: I still have 800 copies at home of the 1834 edition. However as the authorities will not allow me to transport them to another country - I am forced to reprint them.

 

The Book of Job contains a prologue on earth shows the righteous Job blessed with wealth and sons and daughters. The scene shifts to heaven, where God asks Satan for his opinion of Job's piety. Satan answers that Job is pious only because God has blessed him; if God were to take away everything that Job had, then he would surely curse God. God gives Satan permission to take Job's wealth and kill all of his children and servants, but Job nonetheless praises God: "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." God allows Satan to afflict his body with boils. Job sits in ashes, and his wife prompts him to "curse God, and die," but Job answers: "Shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?"

Job's opening monologue and dialogues between Job and his three friends

Job laments the day of his birth; he would like to die, but even that is denied to him. His three friends Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, console him. The friends do not waver in their belief that Job's suffering is a punishment for sin, for God causes no one to suffer innocently, and they advise him to repent and seek God's mercy. Job responds with scorn: a just God would not treat him so harshly, patience in suffering is impossible, and the Creator should not take his creatures so lightly, to come against them with such force.

Three monologues: Poem to Wisdom, Job's closing monologue, and Elihu's speeche

The dialogues of Job and his friends are followed by a poem (the "hymn to wisdom") on the inaccessibility of wisdom: "Where is wisdom to be found?" it asks, and concludes that it has been hidden from man (chapter 28). Job contrasts his previous fortune with his present plight, an outcast, mocked and in pain. He protests his innocence, lists the principles he has lived by, and demands that God answer him. Elihu (a character not previously mentioned) intervenes to state that wisdom comes from God, who reveals it through dreams and visions to those who will then declare their knowledge.

Two speeches by God

God speaks from a whirlwind. His speeches neither explain Job's suffering, nor defend divine justice, nor enter into the courtroom confrontation that Job has demanded, nor respond to his oath of innocence. Instead they contrast Job's weakness with divine wisdom and omnipotence: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Job makes a brief response, but God's monologue resumes, never addressing Job directly. In 42:1–6 Job makes his final response, confessing God's power and his own lack of knowledge "of things beyond me which I did not know". Previously he has only heard, but now his eyes have seen God, and "therefore I retract/ And repent in dust and ashes."

Epilogue

God tells Eliphaz that he and his three friends "have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has done". The three (Elihu, the fourth friend introduced in chapter 32 is not mentioned here) are told to make a burnt offering with Job as their intercessor, "for only to him will I show favour". Job is restored to health, riches and family, and lives to see his children to the fourth generation.