As is our practice, let us first outline the general approach Iyov adopts here, and afterward proceed according to the order of the verses. The chapter before us is the seventh response, in which Iyov replies to Tzofar the Na'amathite.
Tzofar argued that all our perception is mediated through the senses, and sensory perception always grasps only the exterior of things. Our senses lack the power to perceive their interior, their essence, the true depth of a matter. Consequently, it is entirely possible that someone who appears to our senses as a tzaddik is not truly one. This is not necessarily because he commits sins in secret, but rather because he fails to achieve the spiritual level he was capable of reaching. Thus, even if he seems to us to be righteous, our senses deceive us.
Iyov pours scorn and mockery upon this claim. Could such a reality exist, where a person who appears free of any blemish or fault is told: Know that you do not truly know yourself, and perhaps you are not such a tzaddik after all? Could it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, would create man in a reality where he walks about feeling righteous while in truth he does not know himself, and might actually be a transgressor without realizing it? Could it be that relative to what was expected of me that I failed to fulfill, I am considered wicked and unaware of it? Could the Creator fashion man in such a state?
There is a story told of one of the great Torah leaders to whom a Jewish girl was brought after she had decided to convert out of the faith, so that he might speak with her. He asked her: What brought you to this? She replied: I see my father toiling, straining, and laboring through his days; his livelihood is meager and his financial state is dire. I thought, well, even if he has no Olam HaZeh (This World), at least he will have Olam HaBa (the World to Come). But I hear him constantly lamenting that he has no Olam HaBa either, because despite all his efforts, how much time does he have to learn Torah, how much time to perform mitzvos and serve Hashem? He has neither This World nor the World to Come! On the other hand, I look at our non-Jewish neighbor: he earns a handsome living, an honorable income, and regarding the afterlife, he says his priest promised him that he is destined for the World to Come, and if he happens to commit some sins, he can just go to the priest, confess, and the priest will take care of matters. He gets both This World and the World to Come! If so, what is the value of being a Jew?
The Rav said to her: Let me explain. When Esav and Yaakov emerged from their mother's womb, they divided the worlds between them: Yaakov would take the World to Come, and Esav would take This World. Esav then came and complained that this was unfair. Why? Because although Yaakov has no This World - he walks amidst persecution, hardship, financial struggles, and poverty - the very thought that he knows at any moment he will arrive in the World to Come, and the World to Come is an eternity of endless joy and bliss, itself makes him feel good here. It is like someone who in one week is leaving for a two-year trip around the world, and faces a grueling week of work beforehand: Is he broken by that week, or is he filled with anticipation and good cheer? Surely he is cheered, knowing that in just one more week it is over. And here, we are not speaking of two years, but of an absolute eternity, and what are seventy years compared to eternity? Thus, it turns out that Israel received This World as well! By contrast, regarding the Gentile, what did You give him? This World, but he knows he has no World to Come - he has lost eternity. If so, how can he live here? If a person is told: Come, there is a feast, eat and drink, but it is your final meal - will he enjoy eating and drinking? He knows that in moments the story ends, followed by an eternity of doom. So while he received This World, he actually received Gehinnom here, for he lives constantly with the feeling that he is about to lose everything forever.
The Holy One, blessed be He, said: You are right. Therefore, I will ensure that the Jew walks through This World feeling that he has no World to Come, and then he will truly have no This World, because he lives here with the anguish of 'Woe is me, what will become of me, I will not merit the World to Come!' He will experience real suffering here in This World because he feels he has no World to Come. And what of the Gentile - where is the This World promised to him? The Gentile will walk about feeling that he has the World to Come, that when he arrives on High they will sing for him, roll out a red carpet, and usher him into Gan Eden, and this feeling will make This World complete for him. It is a clear and absolute feeling that he is all set up Above through his priest. He will actually sit in the furnace without knowing it, yet he remains confident that the priest will bring him along to Gan Eden. The Rav said to her: The Jew walks here feeling destitute, yet what an eternity is stored away for him; while the foolish Gentile walks here feeling happy, successful, and prosperous, unaware of the bitter end awaiting him. Hashem arranged it this way so that the Gentile would truly have This World, and the Jew would truly have only the World to Come and not This World.
Iyov argues something similar: Could it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, created man in a reality where he walks about tranquil, thinking, 'I have the World to Come, I am all set,' confident that he is righteous, scrupulous and meticulous in mitzvos, cautious with minor matters as with major ones, yet in reality this is not so? Could it be that he is truly a transgressor, unrighteous in his conduct, and will be brought to a place he never imagined he was destined for?
In truth, however, on this point Tzofar the Na'amathite is correct, and what Iyov says is not. For we frequently observe that a person lives here feeling confident that he is destined for the World to Come, yet in reality he misjudges himself and does not realize how demanding the Heavenly reckoning is. Who truly understood this? The great leaders of the generations. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai would say: 'I do not know along which path they are leading me.' Indeed, if one had even one percent of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai's stature, one would be certain of possessing the World to Come for all eternity. Just one percent! And this was said of the one about whom it was taught that he did not leave unstudied Midrash, Sifra, Sifrei, Yerushalmi, Bavli, Aggados, Halachos, Ma'aseh Merkavah, and what not - yet he was still in doubt: 'I do not know along which path they are leading me.' It emerges that a person can live here in This World and feel certain that he is fine and all set, unaware of the immense standard demanded in Heaven according to his capacities and the tools he was given with which to serve Hashem. Therefore, Iyov's claim here cannot be accepted as true.
Iyov also disagrees with the very premise of Tzofar's approach - that man cannot grasp the true essence of things and that what he sees may not be the true reality. A person's knowledge consists of what he perceives through his senses, and it is not mistaken knowledge. The proof of this is that everyone perceives the same thing. If I was mistaken, how could it be that this person also erred, and that person erred, and the other person as well? Rather, what a person sees and perceives with his eyes, our sensory perception, is the truth. If we see a person as a tzaddik, he truly is one. The senses are the tools given to us by the Creator of the world through which to perceive, and if I perceived a certain thing through them, that is the truth. Do not say that the senses are deceptive and that everything you see is nothing but imagination and error; rather, the senses show us things as they truly are.
Another point: Tzofar argued that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows every detail with clear, absolute knowledge of everything man will do in the future, yet despite this, man still possesses free will, because His knowledge is entirely unlike our knowledge. This is the argument of the Rambam: the knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He, is fundamentally different from human knowledge, and therefore one cannot extrapolate from my knowledge to His knowledge, as they are not the same category or kind of knowledge at all.
Iyov disputes this as well, contending that Hashem's knowledge is similar to our knowledge, and there is no vast qualitative difference between them other than that His knowledge is complete whereas ours is incomplete; it is not inherently different in essence. Consequently, if Hashem knows that I am going to sin, it is just like me knowing that you are going to sin. If it is one hundred percent clear to me that you will sin, is there any possibility that you will not sin? Surely you will sin. And Hashem's knowledge is even clearer than mine; therefore, I must inevitably sin, and I have no free choice not to sin. Why, then, should the Holy One, blessed be He, punish me after I have sinned? This was Iyov's original claim, and he reasserts it even after Tzofar's distinction - that Hashem's knowledge does not compel a person's actions, unlike my knowledge regarding another person which would effectively compel him so that he could not act otherwise.
To illustrate this: suppose there is a robot that performs ten functions and another robot that performs five thousand functions. One costs one hundred shekels and the other five million dollars, yet they are not fundamentally different in essence - each is a robot. But if there is a robot that performs five thousand functions and a human being who performs five thousand functions, to whom is the robot closer: to the human being, or to the simple robot that performs only ten functions? Surely to the simple robot, because they are of the same kind. We do not look at functions, but at category: would you classify the robot under human beings or under machines? Tzofar argues that Hashem's knowledge and human knowledge are two entirely different essences, like a robot and a human being; even if the robot performs ten thousand actions and I perform five thousand, man will always exist on an entirely higher plane, because the robot is merely a device with more functions. Therefore, Hashem's knowledge can be absolute without compelling you to act according to that knowledge. Iyov, on the other hand, claims that there is no difference in essence here, only in degree - like a robot with ten functions and a robot with a thousand functions; both are of the same kind, only one is on a higher level and the other on a lower level. If so, Hashem's knowledge is deterministic, and man has no free choice.
Iyov brings further proofs that man is compelled in his actions. Behold, you see that often many people act with foolishness. Look at the leadership of communities, nations, and peoples - at the conduct of entire nations, where at times their wise men lead the people on a corrupted path, and everyone follows after them into that chaos and all perish. Is it not clear that the Holy One, blessed be He, deprived them of their free will? For if not, how could it be that collectively they all commit such foolishness? There must inevitably be a Higher Power that frustrates their counsel and confounds their thoughts, and from this you can understand that man is compelled in his actions.
From here Iyov continues: If there is no free will, it follows that even if you say I committed improper deeds, I do not deserve to be punished for them. And if you say that there is free will, why am I not receiving reward for the good deeds I performed? Master of the Universe, if I receive no reward because there is no free will, then do not give me punishment either! But to say that there is no free will, and therefore no reward, yet there is punishment - that is unthinkable. If there is no free choice, leave me to the realm of chance - neither one nor the other. And if there is free choice, and You wish to punish me for bad deeds, give me reward for good deeds as well. One cannot hold only one end of the rope and say: you will receive punishment, but you will not receive reward; punishment because you exercised free choice, but no reward because you were compelled. If I am compelled regarding bad deeds, I am compelled regarding good ones too; and if I am not compelled regarding bad deeds, neither am I compelled regarding good ones. One cannot hold me accountable solely for my bad deeds.
Regarding Tzofar's claim that man's primary success and reward come after death, and therefore, even though your life right now is not a good life, know that the Holy One, blessed be He, will yet grant you additional reward in the future - Iyov poured great scorn upon this, as we will see in the chapter, because Iyov denied the resurrection of the dead. As we have mentioned previously, Iyov did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and therefore any argument that one suffers in this world for the sake of the World to Come was completely unacceptable to him.
Another point Iyov raised is not so much an argument as an expression of bitterness against his friends, whose mouths do not match their hearts. They know full well that there is no substance to their words, yet they continue to hold onto their claims with all their might even though there is no justice in them. All of you claim that I am wicked, but deep down you know this is not true; you know that I did no wrong, and on the contrary, I did only good deeds. Nonetheless, simply to emerge victorious in the debate, you insist that I must be wicked and that this is why I am suffering.
Furthermore, he demands of them: You claim that I am wicked? Bring documents, proofs, evidence! Speak about specifics and do not speak to me in generalities. Tell me which sins I committed, how many, to what extent, and when! Speak with precision. Merely saying "you are wicked" just to win an argument is a terrible injustice, for you condemn me and paint me as a dishonest man who suffers because of his misdeeds, and this is not true. It is bad enough that you do not encourage a person in his distress, but this also falls under the category of pushing a stone after one who is falling: you see a man in dire straits, and you come to him and say that he deserves it, that he is wicked, and that it is right that this befell him. This is what the Gemara means when it says that a person should not be like the friends of Iyov, who said to him, "Is not your fear your foolishness?" That is, Iyov's friends told him that he suffers because of his deeds, that it is good that he suffers, and that he deserves it - and this is a terrible thing to say to a suffering person. On the contrary, a suffering person needs encouragement. While it is appropriate to hint gently that he should awaken somewhat and examine his deeds, coming at him with an attack and telling him that he is suffering for his evil deeds breaks the person completely.
Here, Iyov opens a new front that he had not addressed until now, and in it he scores, as it were, a points victory over his friends. Until now, Iyov argued: I am righteous, so why is it bad for me? To this they replied that he is not so righteous, that what is perceived by the senses is not the reality, and that perhaps he harbors secret sins. Iyov says to them: Set that aside; let me ask you a different question. Do you know wicked people? Baruch Hashem, plenty, there is no shortage! And are there among them people who enjoy this world, who have it good and are happy? No shortage at all! Wealth and riches are in their homes, every goodness, blessing, and success, and whatever they touch turns to gold. Regarding the righteous person, you told me that perhaps he is not such a tzaddik, and who knows what he does in secret, or perhaps he did not reach the level he was meant to reach. But what will you answer me regarding a wicked person who prospers? You see a man desecrating Shabbat, eating non-kosher food, violating Yom Kippur, everything - will you say that perhaps he is a tzaddik in secret? Such an answer is unacceptable! Regarding the righteous, you can still claim that he only appears righteous to us and it is all an act; but regarding someone who desecrates Shabbat and eats non-kosher, will you say that he only appears wicked to us, while in truth he is a tzaddik? Clearly, all his deeds are wicked. Even if you have some explanation for why the righteous suffer, though I do not accept it, what will you answer regarding the wicked who prospers? From here on, the friends will shift to discussing this new question, moving away from the issue of the righteous who suffers, and each will offer an answer according to his approach.
(א) וַיַּעַן אִיּוֹב וַיֹּאמַר׃ (ב) אָמְנָם כִּי אַתֶּם־עָם וְעִמָּכֶם תָּמוּת חָכְמָה׃ (ג) גַּם־לִי לֵבָב כְּמוֹכֶם לֹא־נֹפֵל אָנֹכִי מִכֶּם וְאֶת־מִי־אֵין כְּמוֹ־אֵלֶּה׃ - (1) And Iyov answered and said: (2) Truly, you are the entire nation, and with you wisdom will die! (3) I too have understanding like you; I do not fall short of you, and with whom are there not such things?
Iyov opens with mockery: Are you indeed the entire people, and will wisdom die with you? I too have understanding like you and am not inferior to you, and the things you say contain no novelty - who does not know things like these? All this is in response to what Tzofar told him: "A hollow man will gain heart, though man is born a wild donkey's colt" - meaning that a hollow person, devoid of knowledge, will acquire understanding, and that man is born like a wild donkey.
(ז) וְאוּלָם שְׁאַל־נָא בְהֵמוֹת וְתֹרֶךָּ וְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וְיַגֶּד־לָךְ׃ - (7) But ask now the beasts, and they will teach you, and the bird of the heavens, and it will tell you.
Iyov says: What I am telling you, you can ask even the beasts and the birds of the heavens, and they too will teach you this - that everything that happens to a person in the world happens to him out of necessity according to Hashem's decree, and there is no free will, and man cannot act according to his own choice. Just as the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth act out of compulsion, and no one punishes an animal for what it did, nor does anyone punish a dog for stealing, because a dog is compelled in its actions and a beast is compelled in its actions. Even a lion that preys on a human being is not called cruel, for that is its nature. On the other hand, when we see a dog caring lovingly for its puppies or its master, we do not call it kindhearted, for that is its nature and that is how the Holy One, blessed be He, created it. From this you can learn about man as well: just as they have no free will, so too man has no free will.
(ח) אוֹ שִׂיחַ לָאָרֶץ וְתֹרֶךָּ וִיסַפְּרוּ לְךָ דְּגֵי הַיָּם׃ - (8) Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, and the fish of the sea will tell you.
"Speak to the earth" [שיח לארץ] is an expression of speech, meaning: speak with the earth's creatures that are lower than the beasts and the birds - the creeping things and crawling insects - and also with the fish of the sea, which are even lower in the order of creation. The intention is not that you should literally speak with them, but that you should contemplate them. After all, it is written of Shlomo that he spoke about the beasts of the earth and the birds of the heavens, and the Midrash states that he knew the language of animals, but that is not the plain meaning [peshat]. The peshat is that he spoke about them, meaning he expounded upon their essence and nature and knew all their characteristics down to the finest detail. So too here: observe the lowly creatures of the earth and the fish of the sea, and from this draw your conclusion, as if they had spoken with you. Just as we say, "The heavens declare the glory of God" - has anyone ever heard a story told by the heavens? At most, falling meteors! Rather, look at the heavens and they tell you, as it were: look, contemplate who created these, see the beauty of creation, and through this acquire fear of Heaven. But there is no literal speech here like a man speaking to his fellow. The same applies to "and the fish of the sea will tell you": observe them, and through contemplation you will see their story.
(ט) מִי לֹא־יָדַע בְּכָל־אֵלֶּה כִּי יַד־יְהֹוָה עָשְׂתָה זֹּאת׃ (י) אֲשֶׁר בְּיָדוֹ נֶפֶשׁ כָּל־חָי וְרוּחַ כָּל־בְּשַׂר־אִישׁ׃ - (9) "Who does not know through all these that the hand of Hashem has done this? (10) In Whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all human flesh."
Who does not know through all these - through the beasts and the lower creatures - that the hand of Hashem has made this, that all their actions are attributed to Hashem and all their movements are according to what He implanted in their nature? They have no free will and do not decide to do things according to their own intellect. And just as the soul of every living thing is in Hashem's hand, and they do nothing except by the compulsion of the nature He instilled within them, so too "the breath of all human flesh" is in His hand: the spirit within human flesh is also in Hashem's hand. Man does not have the freedom to act as he pleases; just like the other living creatures, man is limited in his actions according to what the Creator, blessed be He, ingrained within him, and beyond that, he has no free will to do as he desires.
(יא) הֲלֹא־אֹזֶן מִלִּין תִּבְחָן וְחֵךְ אֹכֶל יִטְעַם־לוֹ׃ - (11) "Does not the ear test words, just as the palate tastes food for itself?"
And as an aside: the cantillation mark on the word ochel is placed on the alef, meaning food, rather than with stress on the chaf, which would mean the act of eating. As for the verse itself: regarding Tzofar's assertion that we cannot grasp the true essence of things but only their outer appearances, Iyov responds that he does not accept this claim. Know that the senses are precisely what guide a person, and they provide him with the genuine internal understanding to grasp things in their true essence. Just as the palate tastes food - and how does the palate know what is sour, bitter, or sweet? It tastes, it takes the food inside, and through this it receives an indication. In the same way, "the ear tests words" - the ear discerns whether a statement is true or false. The Holy One, blessed be He, ingrained these senses within the human soul to recognize things as they truly are. If so, how can you claim that because we perceive things through our senses, this is not their true essence and that their inner reality is entirely different? The palate senses the flavor of the food, and the ear and intellect sense whether something is true or false, and whether a given path is right or wrong.
(יב) בִּישִׁישִׁים חָכְמָה וְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים תְּבוּנָה׃ - (12) "With the aged is wisdom, and in length of days is understanding."
The knowledge that a person attains through experience and through examining things is genuine knowledge, and therefore "with the aged is wisdom." Why? Because they have lived long lives and examined things over an extended period. A young person, as the contemporary expression goes, learns the hard way through personal experience, but a wise man learns from the experience of others: he does not need to start testing everything from scratch, but rather learns from this one's experience and that one's experience and from what befell someone else, and from that he draws conclusions. And who truly possesses life experience? The aged. They inherited wisdom from their ancestors, and in addition, "in length of days is understanding" - the very length of their days gives them ample time to contemplate. When one is given only a short time to contemplate something, he cannot grasp its depth, but when given extensive time, he can grasp its depth. Length of days provided them with time to reflect, and they deduced one concept from another through deep study and contemplation. Here we see that man indeed has the capacity to contemplate and grasp the essence of things, contrary to Tzofar's claim that we can understand things only superficially.
(יג) עִמּוֹ חָכְמָה וּגְבוּרָה לוֹ עֵצָה וּתְבוּנָה׃ - (13) "With Him are wisdom and might; to Him belong counsel and understanding."
Knowledge is granted to man from Him, blessed be He. Where does human knowledge originate? From Hashem's knowledge, for Hashem's knowledge is the primal knowledge of everything, and it is part of His very essence. "With Him are wisdom and might": wisdom, might, and ability reside with Hashem. When we possess wisdom, might, or ability, we received it from someone else; but when Hashem possesses it, it is from Himself - "with Him." He is the source of wisdom, and from Him wisdom descends to man. If so, our knowledge is derived from His knowledge, and consequently is not fundamentally different from it. Likewise, "to Him belong counsel and understanding": all counsel and understanding found in man are attributed to Hashem, blessed be He. And since it is from Him that I received my counsel, wisdom, and understanding, then just as Hashem possesses it, so do I. With this, Iyov comes to refute the claim of Tzofar the Na'amathite that Hashem's knowledge is unlike our knowledge and that it is qualitatively different in its essence - a premise through which Tzofar sought to resolve the paradox of omniscience and free will: that Hashem knows a person will become wicked, yet he still retains free choice, because Hashem's foreknowledge does not compel. Iyov argues that our knowledge is derived from His knowledge, and as such, it is essentially of the same nature as Hashem's knowledge; and although Hashem's knowledge is far more sublime and on a much higher plane, it is not intrinsically different from it.
In chapter 12, Iyov opens his seventh response with mockery directed at Tzofar: wisdom will not die with you, and I too have an understanding heart like you. He rejects the two foundational premises of Tzofar's position: first, that the senses perceive only superficial external reality - to which he replies, "Does not the ear test words, just as the palate tastes food for itself?" and "With the aged is wisdom," demonstrating that the senses and experience are the tools given to us by the Creator to perceive things in their true essence. Second, that His knowledge, blessed be He, bears no resemblance to our knowledge - to which he replies, "With Him are wisdom and might," showing that our knowledge is derived from His and differs only in degree, not in nature. From this, he builds his contention that man possesses no free choice, just like the beasts, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, for "in Whose hand is the soul of every living thing" - and if so, if there is no reward, there should also be no punishment. However, we must recognize that on this point Tzofar was correct: a person can easily be overly confident in himself, unaware of the immense exacting standards of Heaven, to the point that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said, "I do not know along which path they are leading me." From this point forward, Iyov opens a new front - the problem of the wicked who prosper - and his companions will respond to it, each according to his own approach.