Malbim on Job 38:1

פתיחה למענה התשעה עשר מענה ה' בסערה The Nineteenth Oration - God’s Answer to Job

אחר כל הויכוח הזה שהתווכחו על־פי השכל והסברה, התגלה ה' אל איוב מן הסערה, ויצו שיאזור חלציו ושיחלוף כח ויסורו ממנו הייסורים ויתווכח איתו. בהתגלות ה' בעצמו כבר נשלם כל הויכוח, כי מזה הראה לדעת: At the close of the symposium, which had been based on thought and reasoning, the Lord appears to Job out of the tempest (Job 38:1), commanding that he be restored to himself (Job 38:3) and regain his strength, and that the afflictions be lifted from upon him and he join the Lord in debate. The appearance of God Himself effectively brings the whole argument to a close, for it patently proves that (Deuteronomy 4:35):

• א] שה' משגיח על פרטי בני אדם, עד שהיטה אוזן אל כל מה שדיבר איוב, ובא להוכיחו וללמדו דעת, שזה מעיד על השגחה פרטיית על כל מצעדי גבר, ונסתר דעת איוב שאין ה' משגיח; 1. God’s Providence extends over mankind severally, in as much as He had listened attentively (Psalms 116:2) to everything Job had said and had now come to argue with him and teach him some sense (Ecclesiastes 12:9). This testifies to the existence of individual Providence over all the steps a man takes (Psalms 37:23, Proverbs 20:24). Thus, Job’s thesis that God does not administer the world is refuted.

• ב] מזה מבואר שנפש האדם היא בת אלהים בלתי בת תמותה, חיה ורבת פעלים, שרק באופן זה יצוייר שידבר ה' עם האדם, מצד שנפשו הוא חלק ממנו, ובעת תפשיט בגדי הגוויה, היא צופה במראית אלהים שהיא חלק מעצמותו ית', ונסתרו כל הספקות שהיה מסופק בעניין הישארות הנפש וגמול עולם הבא, אחר שראה זה בחיים איך תתפשט הנפש מן הגויה בעת החזון והדיבוק באלהים, ואיך תתענג בנועם רוחני על מחזות קדשו. 2. Man’s soul is divine¹בת אלוהים - a daughter of God. and immortal, alive and protean. For the only way we can conceive of God speaking with man is by virtue of his soul being a part of Him. And when the soul sheds its bodily coat, it perceives with that Divine Perception which is an integral part of the Selfhood of the Blessed One.²The actuality of the Revelation is more significant than its content: the medium is indeed the message. The metaphysical is made physical through revelation. Instead of the Neoplatonist postulate of a Logos, viz. a transcendental intellect standing between God and man to whom knowledge and Providence is ascribed rather than to God himself, Malbim postulates that man's soul is a 'piece of God'. When God speaks to man He is in fact speaking to his soul - to the 'piece of God' that is clothed in man. The soul's divinity is only manifest when it is separated from the body, i.e., during a prophetic experience or in the Hereafter. Thus, all the doubts Job had expressed concerning the immortality of the soul and the concept of redress in the world to come are shown to be unfounded. For he now has a living experience of how the soul separates from the body during a vision or an encounter with God and of the spiritual bliss it enjoys from glimpses of His Holiness.

ובזה כבר השיב לו על כל השאלות אשר שאל על ייסורי הצדיקים, אחר שראה שעיקר האדם הוא הנפש אשר היא תיפרד מן הגויה ותדבק באלהים לחזות בנועם ה' ולשמוע קולו מתוך האש, והוא עיקר השכר המקווה לצדיקים אחר כלות החומר, בעת תשוב הרוח אל האלהים אשר נתנה. With this, God directly answers all the questions Job had asked concerning the suffering of the righteous. For it makes him realize that man’s essence is his soul. which is distinct from the body and cleaves to God; to gaze upon the pleasure of the Lord (Psalms 27:4) and to hear His voice from the fire (Deuteronomy 5:20); And this is the essential reward that awaits the righteous after the wasting of the body, when the spirit returns to the Lord who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).

ועם זה דיבר עמו באורך בפרט זה, והודיע איך השגחתו הפרטית משתרע על כל מעשיו, בין בבריאת המציאות בכלל, בין על כל בריה בייחוד, שישגיח על כל ענייניו להמציא לו המזון והמעון, ולהשגיח על קיום מינו, הן בעניין לידתו, הן בפרנסת ילדיו, וכל שכן שהשגחה זו תתפשט על האדם מבחר היצורים. God addresses him at length on this point, elaborating on how His Providence extends severally over everything He created; over the totality of existence as well as each individual creature. How He concerns Himself with the needs of each creature, availing it of food and shelter, and providing for the survival of its species, both in the matter of its birth and the sustenance of its offspring; and all the more must this Providence extend over man, the chosen-one of the creatures.

ואחר שביאר לו כל זה, הוסיף לדבר עמו דיבור שני, להשיב לו על השאלה השניה ששאל מהצלחת הרשעים, ומדוע אין ה' מאבד את הרשעים שדומים כחיות הטורפות שמחריבים את היישוב, השיב ששאלה כזאת הלא תשאל גם כן על שברא בין בעלי החיים, בע"ח חלושים ובע"ח חזקים הטורפים את החלשים, ולדבריך היה ראוי שיברא רק רמשים חלשים חסרי כוח, ואין זה מגדלות הבורא, שמגדולתו הוא שיברא ברואים נוראים ואיומים, ובכ"ז ערך בהשגחתו שיתקיימו, על־ידי מה שעשאו מדיני בטבע ונטע בו הכוח לעשות משפט ומישרים, וכמו שביאר כבר אליהוא בסימן ל"ה. After explaining all of this, God goes on to deliver a second lecture to Job, in which He replies to the question he had asked concerning the prosperity of the wicked, namely, why God does not wipe out the wicked who ravage civilization like beasts of prey. In His response, God points out that a similar question can also be asked concerning the animal world: why He created both weak and strong animals that live alongside one another, the strong preying on the weak. According to Job, He should only have created weak and powerless creepy-things! But that would not have befitted the greatness of the Creator. His stature requires that He create awesome and terrifying creatures whilst providing, through His Providence, for the weaker species to survive, thereby demonstrating that from on most high, a guardian, (Ecclesiastes 5:7) a Single One, rules over all of them. Likewise, there are fierce, tyrannical and powerful individuals amongst mankind, but He has nevertheless provided, through His Providence, for the survival of humanity by making it societal by nature, endowing it with the power to do justice and act with probity (Proverbs 1:3, 2:9) as Elihu has already clarified in Chapter 35.³It might well be asked why God did not take the opportunity of revealing to Job the simple truth, that we the readers have known all along, namely, that his suffering and the loss of his family and all his possessions occurred within the setting of a contest between God and Satan as to whose evaluation of his integrity was correct. That God does not do so is perhaps of no lesser significance; there are some things that a person just does not have to know.

ואז הודה איוב כי לא השכיל בכל ויכוחו, אבל גילה דעתו כי לא ליבו הלך אחר דברי פיו בכל זמן הויכוח, שבאמת בלבבו היה מאמין בהשגחה ובהישארות הנפש, וכל ויכוחו היה רק לנסות למצוא בזה דרך על־פי העיון והשכל, והיה דרך החיפוש לבד, כמו שאמר אדון הנביאים (שמות לג יח): "הראני נא את כבודך", שהוא גם כן חקר על זה מתחילה בדרך השכל, והוא התעסק בספר איוב שכולל חקירותיו ועיוניו בפרטים אלה, וכאשר ראה שאי אפשר להשיג מענה על פי השכל, ביקש שיודיעהו ה' בעצמו את כבוד משפטיו והנהגתו, כמו שהראה לאיוב, ויורהו ויאמר לו, ואז ניחם על עפר ואפר. At this point, Job confesses that he had not spoken sense (Job 34:35) in all his arguments. He reveals that throughout the entire debate his mind had not been at one (2Kings 5:26) with the words in his mouth (Psalms 36:4). For in truth, in his heart, he had believed all along in Providence and the immortality of the soul. His whole polemic was just an attempt to find a way to this end through the medium of study and thought: it was all by way of being a search. As the master of the prophets [Moses] had said, Show me Thy Glory. (Exodus 33:18) He too had first investigated this subject by the use of reason and had worked on composing the Book of Job, in which he recorded all his investigations and insights in these matters. But when he saw that no solution could be found by the use of reason, he had asked that God Himself make the glory of His judgments and Governance known to him, as He had to Job,⁴Carried away by his faithfulness to the rabbinical tradition, namely, that Moses was the author of Job, Malbim is driven into contradiction. If Moses wrote the Book of Job before the Exodus, as Malbim postulates, he must have known the truth concerning the workings of Providence that Job is about to learn from God before the revelation at Mount Sinai and the sin of the golden-calf. Consistency requires that Moses must have been asking for something else when, following these events, he asks of God: 'Show me Thy Glory'.
Alternatively, perhaps Malbim is suggesting that Job and Moses are one, and God's lectures here in the Book of Job were His reply to the request made by Moses, and He showed him... and told him; (Deuteronomy 34:1) and he was then comforted for being dust and ashes (Job 42:6).