NOTES for Job 39:19-30

To a person standing on the ground, a war horse looks like an indestructible monster. Of course, skilled riders have often mastered horses, but here the point is something quite different: it was not you, man, who gave the horse strength; you are not the source of what you habitually use throughout your life. Man is used to taking pride in his many inventions, but everything he has created is based on the use of natural forces and patterns created by God. Man created devices that allowed him, after the birds, to rise above the earth, but the birds themselves, created by God, need no technical devices in order to fly.

So what is wisdom? The human answer is clear: wisdom is the practice of righteous life. And what is God's answer? Here is His world; in it forces unknown to man act, and beings dwell that have absolutely nothing to do with man. They simply exist, and that is all. Do they live and act by human wisdom? At first glance, such an answer has no relation to righteous life. Nor, for that matter, to human life at all. But that is only at first glance. If one thinks about it... If righteousness were only a human matter, and the Torah only a moral code, then perhaps it would be so.

But in fact everything is different. The Torah is not merely a moral code. It is a moral code only in the last place. In the first place, it is a description of the laws of spiritual life, the very laws that determine a person's relations with God and people's relations with one another. But these laws cannot fail to be connected with others, with those that determine the life and existence of the universe itself.

They come from one Source: the laws of the universe and the laws of human relationships. And if a person claims the right to give a final evaluation of human relations, and of people themselves too, claims that he is righteous and that his righteousness is complete and beyond question, then he must also know everything about the universe. The world must submit to him as willingly as his own judgments about his righteousness. And if it is not so, then at minimum a person's assessment of his own righteousness is not final. Nor is his assessment of other people's righteousness. Then it is better not to claim the role of judge in this regard at all, leaving final evaluations to God.

In the end, God makes righteousness possible for man, not man for himself. Of course, given the limitation of every human view, this is not easy to understand.

Among His other creatures, God points Job to the war horse (vv. 19-25). Unlike the ostrich or the wild donkey, the war horse is not only God's creature but also the work of human hands. Yet even the horse is not truly subject to a person unless God makes it subject to him. The power a person needs from the horse was placed in the horse by God; it is the same natural power that exists in the wild ox. And by itself it is just as little subject to a person. If God had not made the horse obedient to the rider, the rider would never have become a rider. It turns out that even what appears to have been created by God directly for human beings can be used by a person only with God's help. A person can do nothing by himself; he always needs the Creator's help. Otherwise he is powerless even where he would seem to feel at home. This human powerlessness is the answer to Job's question about righteousness and about the rights the righteous person has before the face of God.

Righteousness is unquestionably important to God; for Him, the righteous person and the sinner are not the same. But human righteousness is only a reflection of God's righteousness. And even the reflection becomes possible only because God Himself polishes the human being, making him a mirror of His righteousness. Righteousness does not belong to the person; he does not make himself righteous. Therefore no one can present his righteousness to God as a claim to certain special rights or a special position before God. Righteousness may be characteristic of a person, but a person does not belong to himself. Everything best in him, including righteousness itself, is God's gift, just as the ability to use everything in the world that God has prepared there for humanity is God's gift. Religious consciousness does not understand this. A religious person is sincerely convinced that he can become righteous, even if with God's help, and then present himself to God as a kind of gift that God will receive with joy. But God wants to explain to Job that a person can do nothing by himself, that righteousness is a path shared with God and a work shared with Him for the transformation of human nature, which a person cannot direct in any way. Righteousness is not a person's gift to God, but a task given by God to a person and freely accepted by that person. And all a person's deeds and actions, his whole life and death, and even the whole world, are only an instrument given by God to the person for solving the task set before him.

At first glance it may seem that God is merely demonstrating His power to Job. And in demonstrating it, He says: can you do that? No? Then do not meddle in what is not your business. In fact, however, everything is not so simple. Job is already, in essence, ready to humble himself for real, to acknowledge God's complete authority over him and His absolute sovereignty in the world. This is no longer religiosity; it is real acceptance of the authority over oneself of the real God who enters a person's life.

The true path of righteousness begins with such complete and unconditional surrender of oneself to God. And Job is finally ready to take the first step on this path. He refuses to answer not because he has become afraid of God in the way a person may be afraid of someone infinitely stronger than himself. He has simply understood that a person has nothing to say to God. Of course, communion between a person and God is entirely possible. But not the kind Job was seeking and wanted.

He wanted to meet God in order to inform Him of his righteousness. To tell Him that he, Job, had not received from Him, from the God on whom he had so hoped, the expected reward. He wanted to remind God of the rules of the game. But it turned out that God does not need to be reminded of anything. Not because God knows the rules by which people play. And not even because God Himself establishes those rules. It is because God does not play human games at all. He solves His own tasks, and they are far larger than anything people can tell Him about.

God is ready to commune with a person, but about what is real, not about games invented by people. Even if they are religious games and God is the chief figure in them. Righteousness won in such a game remains toy righteousness. And Job seems already to be beginning to understand this. But the question of evil in the world is by no means a toy question. It is completely real. And very real. So what then? What is to be done with it? Is there an answer? God appears not to give an answer. But only appears so. Yes, the picture of a grazing Behemoth seems, at first glance, to have nothing to do with the matter.

But Behemoth is only the occasion. A starting point for awareness. And this awareness is connected with the understanding that there is no force in the world that is not subject to God. He truly is King. Sovereign. The absolute Monarch of the universe. And its supreme Judge. He knows what to do with the wicked and with all the evil of the world in general. And if a person can know anything about this, it is no more than he knows about the strength of Behemoth. A person has no more chance of solving the problem of evil in the world than of moving that very Behemoth from the place where it lies. The image is impressive and entirely clear.