Main news for 17 February 2025

So where is the source of wisdom? The question is not idle: for an Old Testament Jew, wisdom was not merely contemplation of abstract truth, but practice. The practice of righteous life. That which brought a person closer to God and opened God to him. For among other things, wisdom was also the practice of building relationships. Relationships between people first of all, but also between God and man. The very relationships that Job, in this case and at this very moment, so lacked and that were absolutely, vitally necessary to him.

One can turn again and again to the writings of the sages, going over them in memory. One can remember the fear of God as the source of all wisdom. A commonplace? Generally, yes. But still an answer, is it not? Which means what? In what sense can the fear of God be the source of wisdom? Is it the fear of violating the commandments given by God? Yes, and that too. And what else?

There is also fear of God in another sense: one cannot help fearing a force from which one does not know what to expect. Or from which one knows one can expect nothing good. But this is plainly not the fear that is the source of all wisdom. At least because it certainly does not help establish any relationship with God. Rather the opposite: it paralyzes a person.

Worse still, it disorients. When one is dealing with a completely unpredictable and irresistible force, disorientation is inevitable. Wisdom presupposes precisely the opposite: it includes an ascetic aspect, the conscious ordering of one's life in accordance with God's will and His commandments, what in the Second Temple period came to be called the inner Torah. But for such a thing to become possible, conscious relations with God as a Person are needed, not merely attempts to adapt to some impersonal force from which one does not know what to expect in the next moment.

Job 28:12-14

NOTES

Continuing his speech, Job composes a true hymn to wisdom, which, however...

Continuing his speech, Job composes a true hymn to wisdom, which, however, cannot be acquired by human effort. He speaks of the capacities of the human mind, which penetrates the mysteries of nature (vv. 1-11). But Job, as we can see, understands perfectly well that even after knowing everything that is open to a person in the world created by God, the one who knows will not acquire wisdom (vv. 12-19). For him, wisdom is not reduced simply to the sum of knowledge about the world, even if that sum embraces everything accessible to reason. True wisdom, as we can see, is known to God alone; only He is its source and keeper (vv. 23-28). Clearly, Job here returns once again to what his friends have already spoken of more than once: to what later theologians will call natural revelation, the revelation of God's power and wisdom manifested in creation. Job neither before nor now denies natural revelation. But he understands that, if it is possible to see wisdom through creation, it is not because this wisdom is part of creation. There is no wisdom in the world; it is with God. And if it is revealed through creation, it is only because creation itself bears the imprint of the wisdom of its Creator.

But such wisdom turns out to be foreign to the human being, to whom God has given another path of knowledge: the fear of God and the right spiritual and moral choice (v. 28). As we can see, Job has become finally convinced that natural revelation is not enough, that what matters is God's relationship with humanity, without which knowledge of wisdom is impossible. This is not surprising if we remember that in post-exilic Judaism wisdom was understood primarily as the art of righteousness, a kind of skill in righteous living. And here, in questions concerning the Torah, spiritual life, and the choice between good and evil, nature, even bearing the Creator's seal, turned out to be a poor adviser for a person. Nature is nonmoral; in essence, it knows neither good nor evil. That is why Job says that no scientific knowledge or technical achievements in themselves bring a person closer to the knowledge of wisdom. Relations with God are another matter: the holy awe that seizes a person in God's presence, and the experience of following God's commandment spiritually, give a person more than any scientific knowledge. And this is not surprising: for in this case we are speaking of relations with God, which can be established only by standing face to face with Him. This is precisely the meeting Job seeks.

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