Job 39:34
What can I answer, who hath spoken inconsiderately? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Qui leviter locutus sum, respondere quid possum ? manum meam ponam super os meum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Τί ἔτι ἐγὼ κρίνομαι, νουθετούμενος καὶ ἐλέγχων Κύριον, ἀκούων τοιαῦτα οὐθὲν ὤν; ἐγὼ δὲ τίνα ἀπόκρισιν δώσω πρὸς ταῦτα; χεῖρα θήσω ἐπὶ στόματί μου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Job 40:4
- הֵ֣ן קַ֭לֹּתִי מָ֣ה אֲשִׁיבֶ֑ךָּ יָ֝דִ֗י שַׂ֣מְתִּי לְמוֹ פִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Spoken inconsiderately. If we discuss all Job's words, (saith St. Gregory) we shall find nothing impious spoken; as may be gathered from the words of the Lord himself; (chap. xlii. ver. 7, 8.) but what was reprehensible in him was the manner of expressing himself at times, speaking too much of his own affliction, and too little of God's goodness towards him, which here he acknowledges as inconsiderate, (Challoner) or rather as the effect of inculpable ignorance; (Haydock) as the present order of things being then novel, confounded the sagacity both of Job and of his friends. The wicked had formerly been the victims of justice, but henceforth, says Job, (Hebrew) "if it shall not be so, who can convince me of lying?" (Chap. xxiv. 25.) Yet he did not perfectly discern the intention of God, in abandoning his servants to the power of satan, till the Lord himself had explained it in the parables of behemoth and leviathan. Then Job testified his conviction and entire submission, chap. xlii. 5. Houbigant observes that the Vulgate is perhaps less accurate here, and [in] chap. xlii. 3., as God exculpates Job, ver. 8. Yet the latter might entertain fear at least, of having exceeded in words, after such pungent questions. We may translate, (Haydock) Hebrew, "Behold I am vile, (Calmet) what shall I answer thee?" (Protestant) or Septuagint, "Why am I still judged, being admonished and rebuke by the Lord, hearing such things?" (Grabe, after Origen, marks with an obel what follows, as not found in Hebrew) "I, who am nothing, what answer shall I then give to these things?" (Haydock)
Read on
If we discuss all Job's speeches, we find nothing spoken wickedly, but only a species of pride, in talking too much of his sufferings, and too little of God's goodness and justice, which he ought to have confessed. (St. Gregory xxxii. 3.) (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine A Treatise on Nature and Grace, He Meets Pelagius with Another Passage from Hilary
Now even Job himself is not silent respecting his own sins; and your friend, of course, is justly of opinion that humility must not by any means “be put on the side of falsehood.” Whatever confession, therefore, Job makes, inasmuch as he is a true worshipper of God, he undoubtedly makes it in truth. Hilary, likewise, while expounding that passage of the psalm in which it is written, “Thou hast despised all those who turn aside from Thy commandments,” says: “If God were to despise sinners, He would despise indeed all men, because no man is without sin; but it is those who turn away from Him, whom they call apostates , that He despises.” You observe his statement: it is not to the effect that no man was without sin, as if he spoke of the past; but no man is without sin; and on this point, as I have already remarked, I have no contention with him. …
St John Chrysostom Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons, Homily III. On the Power of Man to Resist the Devil
5. On both sides, beloved, reap the utmost gain, and avoid the imitation of Adam knowing how many ills are begotten of indolence: and imitate the piety of Job, learning how many glorious things spring from earnestness. Consider him, the conqueror throughout, and thou shalt have much consolation in all pain and peril. For as it were in the common theatre of the world that blessed and noble man stands forth, and by means of the sufferings which happened to him discourses to all to bear all things which befal them nobly, and never give in to the troubles which come upon them. For verily, there is no human suffering which cannot receive consolation from thence. For the sufferings which are scattered over the whole world, these came together, and bore down upon one body, even his. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew X. 16
I admire again the three children, for that they dared the furnace, that they stood up against a tyrant. But hear what they say, “We serve not thy Gods, nor worship the image which thou hast set up.” A thing which was the greatest encouragement to them, to know of a certainty that for God they are suffering all whatsoever they suffer. But this man knew not that it was all conflicts, and a wrestling; for had he known it, he would not have felt what was happening. …
St Gregory Nazianzen On the Death of His Father
38. Another of his excellences I must not leave unnoticed. In general, he was a man of great endurance, and superior to his robe of flesh: but during the pain of his last sickness, a serious addition to the risks and burdens of old age, his weakness was common to him and all other men; but this fitting sequel to the other marvels, so far from being common, was peculiarly his own. He was at no time free from the anguish of pain, but often in the day, sometimes in the hour, his only relief was the liturgy, to which the pain yielded, as if to an edict of banishment. At last, after a life of almost a hundred years, exceeding David’s limit of our age, forty-five of these, the average life of man, having been spent in the priesthood, he brought it to a close in a good old age. …