The Lord Gave, and the Lord Took Away; Blessed Be the Name of the Lord
THE LORD GAVE, AND THE LORD TOOK AWAY;
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD213 [IV 9]
JOB 1:20-21
Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshiped, saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord took away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Not only do we call someone a teacher of humankind who by a special stroke of fortune discovered some truth or fathomed it by unflagging toil and thoroughgoing persistence and then left his attainment as learning that subsequent generations strive to understand and in this understanding to appropriate to themselves; but we also call someone—perhaps in an even stricter sense—a teacher of humankind who had no teaching to hand over to others but left humankind only himself as a prototype, his life as a guide for everyone, his name as security for many, his work as an encouragement for those who are being tried.
Such a teacher and guide of humankind is Job,214 whose significance by no means consists in what he said but in what he did. He did indeed leave a statement that by its brevity and beauty has become a proverb preserved from generation to generation, and no one has presumptuously added anything [IV 10] to it or taken anything from it; but the statement itself is not the guide, and Job’s significance consists not in his having said it but in his having acted upon it. The saying itself is certainly beautiful and worth pondering, but if someone else had said it, or if Job had been someone else, or if he had said it on another occasion, the saying itself would also have become something different—meaningful, if it had any meaning at all, as spoken, but not meaningful because he acted by asserting it, because the asserting was itself an action. If Job had applied his whole life to an inculcation of this saying, if he had regarded it as the sum and substance of what a person ought to let life teach him, if he had merely kept on teaching it but had never attempted it himself, had himself never acted in his asserting it, then Job would have been someone different and his significance would have been different. Then Job’s name would have been forgotten, or at least it would not have mattered whether anyone knew it—the important point would be the contents of the words, the richness of the thought that lay in them. If humankind had received this saying, then it would have been this that one generation passed on to the next, whereas now it is Job himself who accompanies the generation. When one generation has finished its service, completed its work, fought through its struggle, Job has accompanied it; when the new generation with its incalculable ranks, each individual in his place, stands ready to begin the pilgrimage, Job is there again, takes his place, which is the outpost of humanity. If the generation sees nothing but happy days in prosperous times, then Job faithfully accompanies it; but if the single individual experiences the terror in thought, is anguished over the thought of what horror and distress life can have in store, over the thought that no one knows when the hour of despair may strike for him, then his troubled thought seeks out Job, rests in him, is calmed by him, for Job faithfully accompanies him and comforts him, not, to be sure, as if he had suffered once and for all what would never be suffered again, but comforts as someone who witnesses that the horror has been suffered, the horror has been experienced, the battle of despair has been fought to the glory of God, for his own rescue, for the benefit and joy of others. In happy days, in prosperous times, Job walks along at the generation’s side and safeguards its happiness, grapples with the anxious dream that some sudden unspeakable horror will assail a person and have the power to murder his soul as its certain prey. Only a light-minded person could wish that Job were not along, that his revered name did not remind him of what he is trying to forget, that life also has terror and anxiety; only a selfish person could wish that Job did not exist so that the idea of his suffering [IV 11] would not disturb his flimsy happiness with its rigorous earnestness and scare him out of a sense of security drunk with callousness and damnation. In tempestuous times, when the foundation of existence is tottering, when the moment shivers in anxious expectancy of what may come, when every explanation falls silent at the spectacle of the wild tumult, when a person’s innermost being groans in despair and “in bitterness of soul”215 cries to heaven, then Job still walks along at the generation’s side and guarantees that there is a victory, guarantees that even if the single individual loses in the struggle, there is still a God who, just as he proportions every temptation humanly, even though a person did not withstand the temptation, will still make its way out such that we can bear it216—yes, even more gloriously than any human expectancy. Only the defiant person could wish that Job did not exist, that he could completely divest his soul of the last love still present in the wail of despair, that he could whine about life, indeed, curse life in such a way that there would not be even an echo of faith and trust and humility in his words, that in his defiance he could stifle the scream in order not to create the impression that there was anyone whom it provoked. Only a soft person could wish that Job did not exist, that he could instead leave off thinking, the sooner the better, could give up all movement in the most disgusting powerlessness, could blot himself out in the most wretched and miserable forgetfulness.
The saying that reminds us of Job as soon as it is spoken, the saying that leaps vividly to everyone’s mind as soon as Job’s name is mentioned, is a plain and simple saying and hides no secret wisdom217 that has to be investigated by the profound. When a child learns this saying, when it is entrusted to him as an endowment, he does not understand how he shall use it; then he understands the saying, understands thereby essentially the same as do the very wise. Yet the child does not understand it, or rather he does not understand Job, since what he does not grasp is all the distress and misery in which Job was tested. Of this the child can have but a faint presentiment, and yet how fortunate the child who understood the saying and received the impression of what he did not grasp, that it was the most terrible of all, who, before sorrow and adversity made his mind subtle, possessed the childishly lively conviction that the saying really was the most terrible of all. When the youth turns his thought to these words, he understands them and understands thereby essentially the same as [IV 12] do the child and the very wise. Yet he may not understand them, or rather he does not understand Job, does not understand the source of all the distress and wretchedness in which Job was tried; and yet how fortunate the youth who understood the saying and humbly bowed under what he did not understand before distress made his thought obstinate, as if he were discovering what no one before had known. When the adult deliberates on this saying, he understands it and understands thereby essentially the same as do the child and the very wise. He also understands the distress and affliction in which Job was tested, and yet he may not understand Job, because he cannot understand how Job was able to say it—and yet how fortunate the adult who understood the saying and admiringly held fast to what he did not understand before affliction and distress made him suspicious also of Job. When the tested person who fought the good fight218 by being mindful of the saying mentions it, he understands the saying and understands thereby essentially the same as do the child and the very wise, he understands Job’s wretchedness, he understands how Job could say it. —He understands the saying, he interprets it, even if he never talked about it, more gloriously than the person who spent his whole life explaining just this one saying.
Only the person who has been tried and who tested the saying in being tested himself, only he rightly interprets the saying; Job desires only that kind of pupil, only that kind of interpreter; he alone learns from him what there is to learn, the most beautiful and the most blessed, compared with which all other art or wisdom is very inessential. Therefore, we quite properly call Job a teacher of humankind and not of individuals, because he presents himself to everyone as his prototype, beckons to everyone with his glorious example, calls everyone in his beautiful saying. Although at times the simpler person, the less gifted, or the less favored by time and circumstances probably wished, if not in envy then in troubled despondency, that he had the capacity and the opportunity to be able to grasp what the wise and learned in various periods have fathomed and to become absorbed in it, and felt in his soul the desire of also being able himself to teach others and not always only to be receiving instruction—Job does not tempt him in that way. What good would human wisdom be here? Would it perhaps try to make more understandable what the simplest person and the child readily understood and understood just as well as the very wise! What good would eloquence and the power of words be here? Would they be able to produce in the speaker or any other person what the simplest person is able to do just as well as the very wise—action! Would not human wisdom rather make everything more difficult! Would not eloquence, which despite all its gloriousness never once manages [IV 13] to articulate simultaneously the variety that simultaneously dwells in a person’s heart, rather anesthetize the energy of the act and let it fall asleep in protracted deliberation! But even if all this is true and as a result the single individual tries to avoid saying anything that would disturbingly intervene between the struggling one and the beautiful prototype, who is equally close to every human being, lest by increasing his wisdom he also increase his grief,219 takes care not to become trapped himself in the fine words of human persuasion, which are exceedingly sterile—it by no means follows that deliberation and elaboration would not have their importance. If the person deliberating were previously unacquainted with the saying, then it would indeed always be beneficial for him to learn to know it; if he did know the saying but had not had occasion to test it in his life, then it would indeed be beneficial for him to learn to understand what he would perhaps apply at some time; if he had tested the saying but betrayed it, even though he thought that it was the saying that had betrayed him, then it would indeed be beneficial for him if he deliberated on it once again before he again took to his heels and ran away from the saying in the excitement of the struggle and the flurry of the battle. Perhaps the deliberation would at some time have its importance for him; perhaps it would happen that the deliberation would become vivid and present in his soul just when he needed it in order to penetrate the confused thoughts of his disquieted heart; perhaps it would happen that what deliberation understood in pieces220 would suddenly come together reborn in the moment of decision, that what deliberation sowed in corruption would rise up on the day of distress in the incorruptible life of action.221
We shall, then, endeavor to understand Job more clearly in his beautiful words: The Lord gave, and the Lord took away; blessed be the name of the Lord!
In a country to the east lived a man whose name was Job; he possessed the blessings of the land, abundant herds and rich pastures. “His words upheld the stumbling and braced the trembling knees.”222 His tent was as blessed to dwell in as the bosom of heaven, and in this tent he lived with seven sons and [IV 14] three daughters, and with him in this tent “lived the friendship of the Lord.”223 Job was an old man; his joy in life was his children’s joy, over which he watched lest it become their ruin. One day, while his children were celebrating together at the house of the firstborn son, Job sat alone by his hearth. When he had offered a burnt sacrifice for each of them, his heart was disposed to rejoice in the thought of his children’s joy. As he sat there in the quiet security of joy, there came a messenger, and before he had finished speaking, there came another, and while this one was still speaking, there came a third messenger, but the fourth emissary came from his sons and daughters, with word that the house had collapsed and had buried them all. “Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and cast himself upon the ground, and worshiped.”224 His sorrow did not make use of many words, or rather he did not say a single one; his appearance alone gave witness that his heart was shattered. Could you want it any other way! Or does not the person who takes pride in not being able to sorrow on the day of sorrow have the shame of not being able to rejoice on the day of joy, either? Or is the sight of such immutability not unpleasant and stultifying, indeed, shocking, even though it is heartwrenching to see the venerable old man, who with his fatherly countenance was just now resting in the joy of the Lord, now cast upon the ground with his robe torn and his hair shaved! Having surrendered to sorrow, not in despair but with human emotions, he was quick to judge between God and himself, and these are the words of judgment: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.”225 With those words, the dispute was settled, and in his soul every demand was silenced that would claim from the Lord something he was unwilling to give or would desire to keep something as if it had not been given. Then comes the confession from the man whom not sorrow alone but also worship had cast to the ground: “The Lord gave, and the Lord took away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”
The Lord gave, and the Lord took away. The first thing here that halts deliberation is that Job said, “The Lord gave.” Are these words not irrelevant to the occasion; do they not contain something extraneous to the event itself? If at one moment a man has lost everything he treasured and has lost the greatest treasure of all, perhaps the loss will overwhelm him in such a way that he does not even dare to say it, even though in his [IV 15] innermost being he is conscious before God that he has lost everything. Or he will not let the crushing weight of the loss rest on his soul, but he will, as it were, detach himself from it and with deep emotion say: The Lord took away. To submit to the Lord in silence and humility in this way is indeed also deserving of praise and emulation, and such a person would also save his soul in the struggle even if he lost all joy.
But Job! The moment the Lord took everything away, he did not first say, “The Lord took away,” but first of all he said, “The Lord gave.” The statement is brief, but in its brevity it effectually points out what it is supposed to point out, that Job’s soul was not squeezed into silent subjection to the sorrow, but that his heart first expanded in thankfulness, that the first thing the loss of everything did was to make him thankful to the Lord that he had given him all the blessings that he now took away from him. With him it was not as Joseph prophesied226—that the seven years of abundance would be totally forgotten in the seven lean years. His thankfulness no doubt was not the same as in those days that already seemed so far away, when he received every good and every perfect gift227 from God’s hand with thankfulness. But his thankfulness was nevertheless honest, just as honest as the idea of God’s goodness that was now so vivid in his soul. Now he recalled everything the Lord had given, some particular thing with perhaps even more thankfulness than when he had received it; it had not become less beautiful because it had been taken away, nor more beautiful, but was just as beautiful as before, beautiful because the Lord had given it, and what might seem more beautiful to him now was not the gift but God’s goodness. He recalled his prosperity; his eye rested again upon the rich pastures and followed the abundant herds. He recalled the joy of having seven sons and three daughters; now there was no need to make any offering for them but the offering of thankfulness for having had them. He recalled those who perhaps still recollected him with thanksgiving, the many he had instructed, “whose weary hands he had strengthened, whose trembling knees he had braced.”228 He recalled his days of glory, when he was powerful and highly regarded among the people, “when the young withdrew out of respect for him, when the old rose and remained standing.”229 He recalled with thankfulness that he had not turned from the path of righteousness, that he had rescued the poor who lamented [IV 16] and the fatherless who had no helper, and therefore even now at this moment “the blessing of the abandoned was upon him”230 as before. The Lord gave—this is a short statement, but for Job it said a great deal, because Job’s memory was not short and his thankfulness was not forgetful. With thankfulness resting in his soul in quiet sadness, he said a gentle and friendly farewell to everything all together, and in this farewell everything vanished like a beautiful recollection—indeed, it was as if it were not the Lord who took it away but Job who gave it back to him. Therefore, when Job had said, “The Lord gave,” his mind was well prepared to please God also with the next words, “The Lord took away.”
Perhaps there was someone who on the day of sorrow also recalled that he had known happy days; then his soul became even more impatient. “If he had never known happiness, then the pain would not have overwhelmed him, for what is pain but an idea that the person who knows nothing else does not have, but now it is precisely joy that has educated and developed him to perceive pain.” Then his joy became his own ruin; it was never lost but only lacking, and in its lack it tempted him more than ever before. What had been his eyes’ delight, his eyes craved to see again, and his ingratitude punished him by inducing him to believe it to be more beautiful than it had ever been. What his soul had delighted in, it now thirsted for, and ingratitude punished him by picturing it to him as more delightful than it had ever been. What he once had been able to do, he now wanted to be able to do again, and ingratitude punished him with fantasies that had never had any truth. Then he condemned his soul, living, to be starved out in the insatiable craving of the lack. —Or there awakened in his soul a consuming passion that he had not even enjoyed the happy days in the right way, had not sucked out all the sweetness of their voluptuous abundance. If only he might be granted one brief hour, if only he might recover his former glory for a short time so that he might satiate himself with happiness and thereby gain indifference to the pain. Then he abandoned his soul to a burning restlessness. He would not admit to himself whether the enjoyment he craved was worthy of a man, whether he might not rather thank God that his soul had not been so frantic in the time of joy as it had now become; he refused to be dismayed by the thought that his craving was the occasion for his perdition; he refused to be concerned that the [IV 17] worm231 of craving that would not die in his soul was more wretched than all his wretchedness.
Perhaps there was someone who in the moment of loss also recalled what he had possessed, but he presumptuously wanted to prevent the loss from becoming comprehensible to him. Even though it was lost, his defiant will was nevertheless able to retain it as if it had not been lost. Instead of trying to bear the loss, he chose to waste his energies in impotent defiance, in losing himself in a demented possession of what had been lost. Or in the same moment he cravenly avoided any humble striving to reconcile himself to the loss. Then forgetfulness opened its abyss, not so much for the loss as for him, and he did not so much evade the loss in forgetfulness as he threw himself away. Or he mendaciously tried to defraud the good once bestowed on him—as if it had never been splendid, had never made him happy; he thought he could strengthen his soul by wretched self-deceit, as if there were strength in falsehood. —Or his soul became utterly wanton, and he convinced himself that life was not as hard as it was imagined to be, that its terribleness was not as described and was not very difficult to bear if one, please note, began, as he had done, with not finding it terrible to become a person like that. Indeed, who would ever finish if he were going to talk about what happens often enough and probably will be repeated often enough in this world; would he not grow weary much sooner than would the passion for changing, with ever new ingenuity, what has been explained and understood into new illusion with which it would deceive itself!
Let us, therefore, rather return to Job. On the day of sorrow, when everything was lost, he first of all thanked God, who gave it, deceived neither God nor himself, and even though everything had been shaken and overthrown, he remained what he was from the beginning, “honest and upright before God.”232 He confessed that the Lord’s blessing had rested mercifully upon him; he gave thanks for it; therefore, it did not remain with him as a nagging memory. He confessed that the Lord had richly blessed his work beyond all measure; he gave thanks; therefore, the memory did not remain as a consuming restlessness. He did not conceal from himself that everything had been taken away from him; therefore, the Lord, who had taken it away, remained in his upright soul. He did not evade the thought that it was lost; therefore, his soul remained quiet until the Lord’s explanation again came to him and found his mind, like good earth, well cultivated in patience.233 [IV 18]
The Lord took away. Did Job not say something here that differed from what was the truth? Did he not use a remote expression for something that could be designated with a more immediate expression? The statement is short and designates the loss of everything. It is natural now for us to repeat it after him, inasmuch as the saying itself has become a sacred proverb; but is it always just as natural for us to associate Job’s thinking with it? Or was it not the Sabeans who raided his peaceful herds and cut down his servants;234 did the messenger who brought the news speak of something else? Or was it not the lightning that consumed the sheep and their shepherds; did the messenger who brought the news speak of something else, even though he called the lightning the fire of God?235 Was it not a storm from the desert yonder that blew down the house and buried his children; did the messenger mention any other perpetrator, or did he mention anyone who had sent the stormy weather? Yet Job said, “The Lord took away,” and at the very moment he received the message he understood that it was the Lord who had taken away everything. Who informed Job of this, or was it a mark of his piety that he shifted everything over to the Lord in this way; or who authorized him to do this, and are we not more devout, we who sometimes hesitate for a long time before speaking this way?
Perhaps there was someone in the world who lost everything. Then he sat down to consider how it had happened. But the whole thing remained inexplicable and obscure to him. His joy vanished as if it were a dream, and the trouble remained with him like a dream, but how he had been ejected from the gloriousness of the one into the wretchedness of the other he never did learn—it was not the Lord who had taken it away; it was an accident. Or he convinced himself that it was the deceit and cunning of people or their open aggression that had wrested it from him, just as the Sabeans had cut down Job’s herds and their keepers. Then his soul revolted against people; he thought that he was doing justice to God by not upbraiding him for it. He understood perfectly well how it had happened, and the more immediate explanation he had was that these people had done it, and the more remote explanation was that the people were evil and their hearts corrupt. He understood that those closest are a detriment to him; [IV 19] perhaps he would have understood it in a similar way if they had benefited him; but that the Lord, who dwells far off in heaven, could be closer to him than the person closest to him, whether this person did good or evil to him—from this conception his thought was very remote. Or he understood perfectly well how it had happened and knew how to describe it with the eloquence of horror. How would he not understand that when the sea is raging wildly, when it heaves itself toward heaven, people and their fragile buildings are then flung about as in a game; that when the storm rages in its fury, human projects are but child’s play; that when the earth quakes in the anguish of the elements and when the mountains sigh, men and their glorious works then sink as a nothingness into the abyss. And this explanation was sufficient for him, and above all sufficient to make his soul indifferent to everything. It is true that whatever is built upon sand236 does not even need a storm to topple it, but was it therefore also true that a person cannot build and live somewhere else and be saved! Or he understood that he himself was to blame, that he had not been prudent; if he had reckoned everything in a timely way, it would not have happened. And this explanation explained everything, after first having explained that he had distorted himself and had made it impossible for himself to learn anything from life and especially impossible to learn anything from God.
But who would ever finish if he were to tell what has happened and what probably will be repeated often enough in life? Would he not grow weary much sooner than the sensate person would grow weary of beguiling himself with specious and disappointing and deceptive explanations? Let us, therefore, leave that from which nothing is to be learned—except what was not unfamiliar to us before—so that we might reject this worldly learning and turn to him from whom we can learn the truth, to Job and to his devout words “the Lord took away.” Job traced everything back to God; he did not detain his soul and quench his spirit with deliberation or explanations that only feed and foster doubt, even though the person suspended in them does not even notice that. The very moment everything was taken away from him, he knew it was the Lord who had taken it away, and therefore in his loss he remained on good terms with the Lord, in his loss maintained intimacy with the Lord; he saw the Lord, and therefore he did not see despair. Or does he alone see God’s hand who sees that he [IV 20] gives, or does not also the one see God’s hand who sees that he takes away? Or does he alone see God who sees God turn his face toward him, or does not also he see God who sees him turn his back, just as Moses continually saw nothing but the Lord’s back?237 But the one who sees God has overcome the world, and therefore Job in his devout words had overcome the world, in those devout words was greater and stronger and more powerful than the whole world, which here certainly did not want to lead him into temptation but to overcome him by its power and bring him to his knees before its boundless might. Indeed, how weak, almost childishly so, is the blustering of the storm when it wants to make a person tremble before it by tearing everything away from him, but he answers: It is not you who are doing it; it is the Lord who takes away! How powerless is the assailant’s arm, how worthless the schemer’s cleverness; how almost pitiable is all human power when it wants to plunge the weak person into despairing submission by wrenching everything from him and in his faith he says: It is not you, you can do nothing; it is the Lord who takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord! So Job not only overcame the world, but he did what Paul desires his struggling congregation to do: he held his ground after having overcome everything (Ephesians 6:13). Alas, perhaps there was someone in the world who overcame everything but fell the moment he won the victory. Blessed be the name of the Lord! So the Lord remained the same,238 and should he not therefore be praised as always? Or had the Lord actually changed? Or did the Lord not remain truly the same, just as Job did? Blessed be the name of the Lord! So the Lord did not take everything away, for he did not take praise away from him, and he did not take away peace in the heart, the bold confidence in faith from which it proceeded, but intimacy with the Lord was still his as before, perhaps more inward than before, for now there was nothing at all in any way capable of drawing his thoughts away from it. The Lord took everything away; then Job collected all his sorrow, as it were, and “cast it upon the Lord,”239 and then the Lord took that away from him also, and only praise was left and in it his heart’s incorruptible joy.
If any house is a house of sorrow, Job’s house is, but where these words are heard, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” [IV 21] there joy also has its home. And Job indeed stands before us with the image of sorrow expressed in his countenance and in his posture, but he who says these words still witnesses to joy, as does Job, even if his witness is addressed not to the happy but to the troubled and still speaks understandably to the many who have ears to hear.240 The ears of the troubled are formed in a special way, and just as the lover’s ears may well hear many voices but nevertheless really only one, namely, the voice of the beloved, so the ears of the troubled may well hear many voices, but they pass by and do not penetrate his heart. Just as faith and hope without love are but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,241 so all the joy proclaimed in the world in which sorrow is not heard along with it is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal that tickle the ears but are repulsive to the soul. But this voice of comfort, this voice that trembles in pain and yet proclaims joy, this is heard by the ears of the troubled one; his heart treasures it, and it strengthens and guides him to find joy even in the depths of sorrow. —My listener, you have understood Job’s praise, have you not—at least it has seemed so beautiful to you in the quiet thought of contemplation that you have forgotten whatever you do not wish me to remind you of, what certainly is sometimes heard in the world in the day of distress instead of praise and benediction. So let it be forgotten; you will not cause, any more than I will, the memory of it to be kept alive.
We have spoken about Job and sought to understand him in his devout words; the discourse, however, has not wanted to impose itself on anyone. But does that mean that it should be utterly devoid of meaning or devoid of application and not pertain to anyone? If you yourself, my listener, were tried as Job was and stood the ordeal as he did, then it would indeed apply precisely to you if what we have said about Job is otherwise correct. If up until now you have not been tried in life, then it indeed applies to you. Are you perhaps thinking that these words are applicable only to the kind of extraordinary situation in which Job was placed? If something similar were to befall you, do you perhaps expect that the terror itself would give you this strength and develop in you this humble courage? Did Job not have a wife—what do we read about her?242 Perhaps you are thinking that the horror itself cannot acquire the same power over a person as the daily bondage to [IV 22] much lesser hardships. Then watch out that you do not become a slave to some hardship any more than to some person, and above all learn from Job to become honest with yourself so that you do not deceive yourself with imagined power, with which you experience imagined victory in imagined struggle.
Perhaps you say: If the Lord had taken it away from me—but nothing was given to me. Perhaps you think that this is by no means as terrible as Job’s suffering but that it is far more exhausting and consequently an even more difficult struggle. We shall not dispute with you, for even if your struggle were that, dispute over it would be useless and would be an intensification of the difficulty. But you do agree with us that you can learn from Job, and if you are honest with yourself and love people, then you cannot wish to avoid Job in order to venture out into new and unfamiliar distress and keep the rest of us unsettled until we learn from your witness that in this difficulty, too, a victory is possible. So, then, learn from Job to say: Blessed be the name of the Lord. This does indeed apply to you, even though the above was less applicable.
Or are you perhaps thinking that something like this could not happen to you? Who taught you this wisdom, or on what do you base this conviction? Are you wise and sensible, and is this your comfort? Job was the teacher of many people. Are you young, and is youth your security? Job, too, was once young. Are you old, on the edge of the grave? Job was an old man when sorrow caught up with him. Are you powerful, and is this the proof of your exemption? Job was highly regarded by the people. Is wealth your security? Job possessed the blessings of the land. Are friends your security? Job was loved by all. Do you trust in God? Job was an intimate of the Lord. Have you really pondered these thoughts, or do you rather avoid them lest they force a confession from you, which you now perhaps call a depressed mood? And yet there is no hiding place in the whole wide world where trouble will not find you, and no one has ever lived who could say more than you can say, that you do not know when sorrow will visit your house. So, then, be earnest with yourself; fix your eyes upon Job. Even if he terrifies you, it is not this that he wants if you yourself do not want it. When you scan your whole life and think of it as finished, you certainly would not wish to have to make this confession: I was a fortunate one who was not like other people, who never suffered anything in the world, and who let every day take care of itself or, rather, let it bring me new joys. You would never wish to make such a [IV 23] confession, even if it were true. Indeed, it would contain your own shame, for even if you were protected more than everyone else, you would still say: It is true that I myself have not been tried, but still my mind has often become grave at the thought of Job and the idea that no one knows the time and the hour when the messages will come to him, the one more terrible than the other.