Chapter 28 of Sefer Iyov opens with what appears to be a lesson in geology: Iyov describes the precious metals and gemstones hidden in the belly of the earth, listing five ways in which they are revealed to man. Yet this entire description is merely a preamble to the core of his message: if man, through his ingenuity, has managed to uncover gold and sapphires hidden in the depths of the earth - wisdom, the most precious thing of all, he has neither found nor even known where to seek. Let us follow the order of the pesukim.
כִּי יֵשׁ לַכֶּסֶף מוֹצָא וּמָקוֹם לַזָּהָב יָזֹקּוּ׃ בַּרְזֶל מֵעָפָר יֻקָּח וְאֶבֶן יָצוּק נְחוּשָׁה׃ - For there is a source for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from stone.
Iyov opens by saying: even the most precious and rare things in nature, even the hidden things - precious types of gold, diamonds, gemstones - there is a way to reach them. "For there is a source for silver": people investigated, searched, and found its place, the location where they dig into the earth to extract silver. "And a place where gold is refined": we also have a way of knowing the place of gold, the location where gold is refined from the earth. Likewise, iron is taken from the dust, and there is stone that is smelted to yield copper - and "stone" here is not mere dust or an ordinary rock, but copper ore.
קֵץ שָׂם לַחֹשֶׁךְ וּלְכָל־תַּכְלִית הוּא חוֹקֵר אֶבֶן אֹפֶל וְצַלְמָוֶת׃ - He sets an end to darkness, and probes to every limit, the stone of gloom and deep darkness.
After explaining that the metals precious to mankind have a known place and source in the earth, Iyov proceeds to explain the methods used to find them. Even though they lie in a place of darkness, deep within the earth, in those days they had a "stone of darkness and shadow of death." This was a stone which, when placed in certain locations, would indicate where precious metals lay hidden in the depths of the earth - similar to a magnet used to detect iron. Whoever carried this stone could sense through it where precious metals were located. It is called "darkness and the shadow of death" because its color was black, and some say because it originated in a desolate place known as the valley of the shadow of death, a dark and uninhabited wasteland.
Therefore, "He sets an end to darkness": something that was buried in darkness and gloom, those precious metals hidden from us - the darkness comes to an end, there is no more obscurity, and they are brought to light. "And probes to every limit" - through what does he probe? Through the stone of darkness and the shadow of death. This is one method for discovering those precious metals.
פָּרַץ נַחַל מֵעִם־גָּר הַנִּשְׁכָּחִים מִנִּי־רָגֶל דַּלּוּ מֵאֱנוֹשׁ נָעוּ׃ - A stream bursts forth from where it flowed; forgotten by foot, they are raised up, removed from man.
Where did the American "gold rush" come from? From streams. Gold is found in stream beds, mixed with the sand at the bottom of the water, where prospectors would pan the sediment to extract the gold. Iyov says: "A stream bursts forth from where it flowed" - *gar* stems from the root of *nigar*, flowing water. Sometimes a stream breaks away from the channel through which it flowed and carves a new path, and the bed where the water had run until now dries up. A deep place that had previously been inaccessible is now exposed.
"Forgotten by foot" - a place where no one could tread, as it was a riverbed untrodden by foot; or from the root *rogel*, the prospectors and scouts searching for gold, from whom this place was forgotten because they had no access to it. And now that the stream has burst its banks and shifted elsewhere - "they are raised up, removed from man": those places that had been hidden from human eyes and separated from them have "risen up," meaning they have become exposed. This is the second way in which precious metals are brought to light.
אֶרֶץ מִמֶּנָּה יֵצֵא־לָחֶם וְתַחְתֶּיהָ נֶהְפַּךְ כְּמוֹ־אֵשׁ׃ מְקוֹם־סַפִּיר אֲבָנֶיהָ וְעַפְרֹת זָהָב לוֹ׃ - "A land from which bread emerges, underneath it is overturned as by fire. A place whose stones are sapphire, and it has dust of gold."
At times metal is revealed through an earthquake - "the foundations of the mountains tremble." The fire situated deep down in the belly of the earth creates tremors, and through this what was below ascends to the top and what was above descends below. The earth is overturned, akin to a volcano or an earthquake where subterranean parts become uppermost, and the earth, as it were, vomits out the gold ore and sapphire stones.
This is what the verse is saying: "A land from which bread emerges" - land that was naturally fit for planting, a land of grain; "underneath it is overturned as by fire" - deep in the ground there is volcanic activity. Through that upheaval, where the bottom rises to the top and the top sinks below, instead of a grain field there is "a place whose stones are sapphire": sapphires and precious gems that were deep in the earth are suddenly revealed; "and it has dust of gold" - those gold ores are now placed into the hands of man.
נָתִיב לֹא־יְדָעוֹ עָיִט וְלֹא שְׁזָפַתּוּ עֵין אַיָּה׃ לֹא־הִדְרִיכוּהוּ בְנֵי־שָׁחַץ לֹא־עָדָה עָלָיו שָׁחַל׃ בַּחַלָּמִישׁ שָׁלַח יָדוֹ הָפַךְ מִשֹּׁרֶשׁ הָרִים׃ - "A path no bird of prey knows, nor has the falcon's eye glimpsed it. The proud beasts have not trodden it, nor has the lion passed over it. He sent his hand against the flint; he overturned mountains from the roots."
Sometimes there is a hidden path, a place where water descends from the top of a mountain into an underground channel on the side of an adjacent mountain. Imagine two mountains, one high and one low. The rains fall from the high mountain and enter a fissure between the mountains, disappearing into the ground, and the water gathers below. According to the law of communicating vessels, if a large volume of water fills that space - suppose the water weighs one hundred tons and the smaller mountain weighs fifty tons - and the water enters beneath it, the mountain will simply be overturned. The power of the descending water is immense, and as it penetrates underneath, it possesses the force to push the adjacent mountain and overturn it. Whoever consults the classic commentary of the Malbim, in the older printings, will find a diagram at the back of the book illustrating how this process unfolds. The Malbim notes that such natural phenomena were already known in his day.
With this, the verses become clear. "A path no bird of prey knows": a "path" refers to a conduit, a kind of water channel descending from the mountain peak into the cavity beneath the smaller mountain in order to overturn it. This place is so hidden and concealed that even the birds of the sky are unaware of it - "nor has the falcon's eye glimpsed it," the ayah being a species of bird. "The proud beasts have not trodden it": even the most fearsome and imposing creatures do not know it. "Nor has the lion passed over it": shachal means a lion, and adah is related to prey, as in the phrase "in the morning he consumes prey (ad)" - not even the lion reaches that hidden place in search of its prey.
And into that hidden place the water enters, and through this, "he sent his hand against the flint; he overturned mountains from the roots": that channel pouring water stretches forth, as it were, its hand against the flinty rock and uproots the mountains from their base, as we have explained.
בַּצּוּרוֹת יְאֹרִים בִּקֵּעַ וְכָל־יְקָר רָאֲתָה עֵינוֹ׃ - "He cleaved rivers through the rocks, and his eye saw every precious thing."
Through this, it bursts through what was fortified over the subterranean streams. The stream enters beneath the mountain, and the fortified mountain above it had until now prevented the water from breaking out. "He cleaved rivers through the rocks" - what cleaved the fortified rocks? The stream. The streams cleaved through the fortified mountain. Consequently, when the mountain is overturned - "and his eye saw every precious thing": lying below are the precious treasures, those metals and gemstones that had been buried in the deep belly of the earth, which are now brought to light.
מִבְּכִי נְהָרוֹת חִבֵּשׁ וְתַעֲלֻמָהּ יֹצִא אוֹר׃ - He binds the trickling rivers, and hidden things He brings to light.
At times, the Holy One, Blessed be He, restrains the flow of rivers, causing the river to carve out a new path where it had never previously flowed. Earlier, he taught us that in the old, dried-up riverbed, hidden treasures are uncovered; here he teaches that in the new path treasures are also revealed, for as the river rushes and floods, it sweeps away everything in its path, exposing the things buried deep within the earth.
"He binds the trickling rivers" - chibeish comes from the language of binding, like a bandage (tachboshet) that binds something, or like being imprisoned (lachbosh beveit ha'asurim). Hashem binds the course of the rivers, compelling and forcing the river to take a specific path. Through this, "and hidden things He brings to light" - the Holy One, Blessed be He, brings what was concealed into the light. What is this hidden thing? Those things in the new paths that were beneath the surface of the earth, unknown and unrecognized by us. The river begins to surge, and suddenly all kinds of precious metals, gems, and pearls buried deep within the belly of the earth are revealed to us.
וְהַחָכְמָה מֵאַיִן תִּמָּצֵא וְאֵי זֶה מְקוֹם בִּינָה׃ - But wisdom, where can it be found? And where is the place of understanding?
Here Iyov arrives at the core of his argument. Wisdom is the most precious thing in the world, regarding which it is said, "If you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures" - yet even so, "where can it be found?" In simple terms: we have found everything else, but wisdom we have not found.
There are two questions here. The first is, "wisdom, where can it be found?" - we do not know the methods through which wisdom can be found and revealed, or through what stratagem the mysteries of wisdom might be uncovered. The second is, "and where is the place of understanding?" - it would be one thing if we knew where it was located and merely did not know how to extract it; but we do not even know where it is, which is far worse. For had we known its location, perhaps we could search for ways to reach it; but now we have no basis to even devise stratagems, since we have no idea where the place of understanding is.
We know that the place of wisdom is with Hashem, and that wisdom cannot be attained through research, through deep analysis, or through human intellect, but only from Hashem alone, and it is received solely from Him. For this reason, the holy Arizal writes that one should not rely on the writings of the early Kabbalists, with the exception of a few whom he explicitly enumerated by name - such as the Recanati, the Ramban, and a few others - and aside from these, he stated that one should not delve into the earlier Kabbalistic works. Why? Because their tradition was not received directly from Eliyahu HaNavi. In matters of Kabbalah, one must receive a tradition; Kabbalah is not a field where one can say, "It seems to me," and express personal opinions. What could a person say: "It seems to me that there are such-and-such sefirot"? If you have not been taught which sefirot exist, how could you possibly know? Therefore, we must receive it from a master. And why was the teaching of the Arizal so universally accepted? Because his entire teaching was received from Eliyahu HaNavi, and consequently, it is an authentic tradition in our hands that originates from Hashem.
This is what the verse tells us: "Wisdom, where can it be found? And where is the place of understanding?" - man has no grasp of this whatsoever, unless Hashem pours out a spirit upon him from on high and grants him wisdom from the Source of Wisdom. But on our own, we have no way of knowing how to attain it.
Chochmah is knowing, understanding, and investigating a subject, grasping its fundamental principles - ko'ach mah, what the active force is within each thing. Binah is what follows once these fundamentals are in hand, deducing one concept from another based upon them. For example: once a person has learned the rules of mathematics, you can present him with complex problems to solve, even though he never studied that specific problem before - because he understands one thing from another: if in that scenario one acts this way, then here in this scenario the calculation must follow accordingly. And the entire Gemara is built upon binah, upon deducing one matter from another.
Iyov says: Not only is the place of understanding unknown to us, but we do not even know its root and foundation from which it takes its first premises. For it is impossible to give someone a complex algebraic problem with unknown variables when he has never studied algebra at all. And if you say: but one deduces one thing from another - true, but give me a foundational premise, and from it I can deduce one thing from another; if you do not even give me a foundation, from what can I begin the analogy? This is the meaning of "Where is the place of understanding?": we do not even possess the starting points from which to begin inferring and comparing.
This is like what was discussed regarding people who experienced clinical death and reported having a body - a spiritual body. When asked if they could describe this body, one said "it is like a cloud," another said "like smoke," having no real definition. And one gave the most accurate definition: I cannot, I have no words to describe it. This is because every description requires providing an analogy from things and facts known to you. If one says: "This thing is hard." Hard like what? Hard like plywood. You know what plywood is, and now you understand that this binder is as hard as plywood - an analogy was given to something you comprehend, something you can grasp. But when one cannot say "it is similar to...", because there is no frame of reference, the matter remains an abstract concept, and no help or progress was made. It is comparable to someone trying to explain the color white to a blind person who has never seen color in his life. How would you explain it - "white like milk"? He will say: "Ah, so it is something wet." He does not know what it is; he knows nothing of colors. This is "Where is the place of understanding?": What are the foundations from which one can begin to understand one thing from another? Even this is beyond our comprehension.
לֹא־יָדַע אֱנוֹשׁ עֶרְכָּהּ וְלֹא תִמָּצֵא בְּאֶרֶץ הַחַיִּים׃ - "Man knows not its value, nor is it found in the land of the living."
There are two disadvantages in attaining wisdom compared to obtaining gold and those precious things we mentioned that are accessible to us. With precious metals, everyone knows their value: they have value on the commodities exchange, and whoever owns a gold bullion is wealthy. A person knows the value of gold, knows why he needs it, knows what he can buy with it; everyone knows how much gold could fulfill his needs and set him up for life. But with wisdom - "Man knows not its value." A person thinks: If I become wiser, what good will it do me? He does not appreciate the supreme quality of wisdom. Consequently, because one knows the value of gold, he pursues it - what does a person do all day? Pursues money, because he knows its value. But people do not know the value of wisdom, and therefore those who seek it are few. This is a major disadvantage compared to silver and gold, whose value people grasp very well, leading them to at least pursue them.
And furthermore: even if one knew its value and even if one sought it - metals and pearls are located in a specific place, whereas wisdom "is not found in the land of the living"; it does not exist here in the physical, material realm.
תְּהוֹם אָמַר לֹא בִי־הִיא וְיָם אָמַר אֵין עִמָּדִי׃ - "The abyss said, 'It is not in me,' and the sea said, 'It is not with me.'"
Precious metals are found in the deep abyss, deep within the earth, and five ways have already been described in which they are revealed to us. But when one goes searching for wisdom, "it is not found in the land of the living": the deep abyss says, "It is not in me," it is not here. And while metals and pearls are also found in the depths of seas and rivers, when one asks the sea, the sea says, "It is not with me" - it is not found with me.
לֹא־יֻתַּן סְגוֹר תַּחְתֶּיהָ וְלֹא יִשָּׁקֵל כֶּסֶף מְחִירָהּ׃ - "Fine gold cannot be given in exchange for it, nor can silver be weighed as its price."
Nor can it be acquired through exchange: neither by barter nor by commercial transaction.
Iyov enumerates five ways in which the treasures of the earth are uncovered: a stone of darkness and shadow of death that, like a magnet, reveals metals; a stream that carves out a new path and leaves its old bed exposed; an earthquake and the overturning of the depths to the surface; water that penetrates beneath a mountain and uproots it from its base; and a river dammed into a new course, revealing hidden depths in its wake. Through all of these, man has succeeded in discovering what was concealed. From this, he arrives at his question: "And wisdom, whence shall it be found, and where is the place of understanding?" - wisdom cannot be discovered through human contrivances; we know neither the means to attain it nor its location, nor even the foundational premises from which to deduce one thing from another. Wisdom is not acquired through human research and speculation, but through tradition received from Hashem. For this reason, its true value is not recognized by mankind as is the value of gold, and those who seek it are few. Neither the deep nor the sea, neither barter nor commerce - none of these offer a path to wisdom.