NOTES for Job 39:19-35

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.