In this part of Chapter 36, Elihu arrives at the stage of drawing conclusions. After all his introductory premises, he turns to Iyov and says: Know that this is precisely what happened to you. This was the reason for your suffering - a matter of testing. And see, Hashem's judgment was just, and you indeed failed the test. Through the trial and suffering you underwent, it became clear that you did not serve Hashem out of love, but out of fear. Afterward, Elihu moves on to another section: a rebuke to Iyov for raising questions about the ways of divine providence, showing him that man cannot even comprehend nature itself, illustrating this through the mystery of rainfall.
וְאַף הֲסִיתְךָ מִפִּי צָר רַחַב לֹא מוּצָק תַּחְתֶּיהָ וְנַחַת שֻׁלְחָנְךָ מָלֵא דָשֶׁן׃ - And He also enticed you from the mouth of distress into a broad expanse without constraint beneath it, and the comfort of your table was full of richness.
"And also" - that is, this happened to you as well. "He enticed you from the mouth of distress" - Hashem drew you away from the adversary's mouth. Why? "Broadness, with no distress beneath it." You had everything in abundance, which is the opposite of distress (tzarah): one who is constricted (tzar) suffers hardship, while one who has breadth (rachav) sees everything go smoothly. And what is "no distress beneath it" (lo mutzak tachteha)? Mutzak comes from metzukah, inner anguish or distress. Sometimes a person has broad abundance on the outside, but distress beneath it: outwardly you see someone wealthy or famous, driving a luxury car, millions in the bank, yet his soul is in turmoil and anguish. This is true of most wealthy and famous people: many need psychological counseling, live on medications, and time and again one hears about the emotional crises of such prominent figures. In your case, Elihu says, it was not so. The Holy One, blessed be He, gave you breadth, wealth, and every external blessing, as well as "no distress beneath it" - inside, beneath the surface, there was no anguish or misery either.
The Malbim emphasizes that there is a distinction between tzarah (trouble) and tzukah (distress): tzarah is external, whereas metzukah is internal - anguish of the soul. Sometimes a person enjoys external abundance, a house filled with every good thing, yet suffers inner distress: his spirit is depressed and he is filled with sorrow. But you possessed both external prosperity and inner joy and serenity - "and the comfort of your table was full of richness." You had peace of mind, your table was laden with bounty, and you lacked nothing at all.
And here lies the crux: precisely because you had it so good, that itself gave rise to "enticing you from the mouth of distress [the adversary]." The adversary, the foe - Satan - came and incited against you. He argued: Master of the Universe, "Does Iyov fear God for nothing?" What provoked Satan's incitement? The fact that you served God out of expansive prosperity without anguish, out of wealth, tranquility, and a table full of richness. Satan claimed: It is no great feat to serve God amidst endless bounty. Therefore, he incited the Master of the Universe to test you under different circumstances, to see whether you would remain God-fearing even then.
וְדִין רָשָׁע מָלֵאתָ דִּין וּמִשְׁפָּט יִתְמֹכוּ׃ - But you have fulfilled the judgment of the wicked; judgment and justice take hold.
When the heavenly beings and Satan came to present themselves before Hashem, you fulfilled the judgment of the wicked. Who is the "wicked one"? It is Satan the accuser, who is the yetzer hara (evil inclination). He argued against you that if Hashem were to afflict you, you would no longer be such a tzaddik; you would complain and cease serving Hashem through distress and anguish. In practice, you validated his words: Hashem brought suffering upon you, and you began opening your mouth against Hashem, blessed be He. "Judgment and justice take hold" - the attributes of strict law and justice on high, whose role is to judge everything righteously and hear both the prosecution and the defense, supported the wicked one's judgment, the accusation of Satan who had claimed: perhaps if he suffers, he will no longer serve God.
כִּי חֵמָה פֶּן יְסִיתְךָ בְסָפֶק וְרֹב כֹּפֶר אַל יַטֶּךָּ׃ - For beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing, and let not the abundance of ransom turn you aside.
Elihu tells him: Even though you withstood the test of wealth, wrath may still incite you to doubt Hashem's ways, to deny His Divine Providence, to challenge His governance, and to lodge grievances. How? By Hashem causing you to drink a cup of wrath, which stirs up anger within you, and that anger leads you to doubt: perhaps there is no Creator to the world, and even if there is, perhaps His Providence does not extend to individuals. "And let not a great ransom turn you aside" - the wealth Hashem gave you was also like a ransom, so to speak, like a bribe given to you so that you would serve Him. As long as Hashem, as it were, bribed you with an abundant ransom, you did not deviate from the good path. But in the test of poverty, you might not endure. What caused you to serve Hashem until now? Abundant wealth and success. And now that times are hard, it becomes clear that you rebel against Hashem.
הֲיַעֲרֹךְ שׁוּעֲךָ לֹא בְצָר וְכֹל מַאֲמַצֵּי כֹחַ׃ - Will He value your nobility when not in distress, or all the exertings of power?
Can you really claim that Hashem should "value" - meaning look upon and measure - your "nobility" (*shua*)? The word *shua* means a generous noble: the fact that you were generous, good, and decent. It can also be understood as a cry (*shav'ah*): the fact that you cried out to Him, turning and praying to Him. Do you expect Hashem to evaluate your spiritual standing based on your condition back then, "when not in distress," when you suffered no afflictions and everything went well for you? "And all the exertings of power" - you possessed every factor that strengthens and fortifies human power: sustenance, children, wealth, and honor, everything. Is it right, then, that Hashem should evaluate your righteousness specifically when everything was bolstering and reinforcing your strength?
אַל תִּשְׁאַף הַלָּיְלָה לַעֲלוֹת עַמִּים תַּחְתָּם׃ - Do not long for the night, when nations are cut off in their place.
When everything was good, when you enjoyed the status of a noble and wealthy man, you did not long or yearn for night to fall upon the nations. That is, regarding those nations deemed wicked and corrupt, about whom you now ask why the Holy One, blessed be He, does not overthrow them and exact retribution from them - back then, you never asked this. You did not yearn for "nations to be cut off in their place" in a single night. When things were good for you, you had no such demands. And when did you begin to make such requests? Only when misfortune struck. Does this not show that your entire service of Hashem was based solely on your prosperity, and only when things went badly did you begin raising questions and grievances against Hashem's governance?
הִשָּׁמֶר אַל תֵּפֶן אֶל אָוֶן כִּי עַל זֶה בָּחַרְתָּ מֵעֹנִי׃ - Take heed, do not turn to iniquity, for this you have chosen rather than affliction.
When you were at ease, when you were a nobleman of means, you guarded yourself against distorted views, guarded yourself against iniquity and heresy, and stood firm in your trial. How, then, can you expect Hashem to judge you as a righteous man based on your status back then? For "this you have chosen rather than affliction" - I see that now, on account of affliction, what have you chosen? Iniquity. You chose baseless claims and heresy against the Holy One, blessed be He: you chose to deny Divine Providence, claiming that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not watch over the world, that the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer, and that the heavenly system does not observe human deeds. And all this on account of what? On account of affliction. Not merely financial poverty, but affliction in every sense: physical suffering, the loss of family, and everything Iyov endured. Therefore, Elihu argues, it turns out that the Satan was right: when things go well for you, you behave properly toward the Creator of the world, but when things turn bad, you begin raising objections and speaking ill against Hashem.
הֶן אֵל יַשְׂגִּיב בְּכֹחוֹ מִי כָמֹהוּ מוֹרֶה׃ - Behold, God is exalted in His power; who is a teacher like Him?
After explaining to him that all suffering is merely a trial, he tells him: "Behold, God is exalted in His power." The Holy One, blessed be He, wishes to strengthen man, to elevate him and bring him to a lofty spiritual level, until everything in this world plays no role for him - all these are material, physical matters that do not concern him, and his entire focus lies in intellectual contemplation, in spirituality, and in advancing in the service of Hashem. "Who is a teacher like Him?" - who is like the Holy One, blessed be He, to instruct man in the path toward elevation and His service. And how does He do this? By bringing afflictions upon a person, through which man abandons material pursuits, and it becomes clear to him that neither wealth nor health nor any of these things are of true worth; rather, where should one's primary investment be? In serving Hashem and fulfilling His will. In this way, Hashem elevates man. Thus, the suffering you received is guidance from Hashem to draw closer and cling to Him, blessed be He.
מִי פָקַד עָלָיו דַּרְכּוֹ וּמִי אָמַר פָּעַלְתָּ עַוְלָה׃ - Who appointed His way for Him, and who can say, "You have done injustice"?
The way in which Hashem conducts the guidance of creation - no one assigned or appointed it to Him; rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, of His own accord conducts the world in this manner according to His wisdom and understanding. And this is a path that does not follow the natural order or the astrological alignments, but the way of the Creator of the universe, a way that He Himself determined. If so, who can come and say, "You have done injustice"? Do you know the way of Hashem, such that you can raise objections and say: Master of the Universe, You have treated me unfairly?
זְכֹר כִּי תַשְׂגִּיא פָעֳלוֹ אֲשֶׁר שֹׁרְרוּ אֲנָשִׁים׃ - Remember that you magnify His work, of which men have sung.
From here on, this serves as a sort of conclusion to the entire debate, in which Elihu comes to rebuke Iyov for beginning to raise questions about the ways of divine providence. He had inquiries into all kinds of matters that lie beyond nature: the immortality of the soul, reward and punishment, divine foreknowledge and free will - all the questions discussed at the beginning and middle of the book. To this Elihu now comes to reply, and the answer does not address the question directly, but rather says: You do not even understand nature. If you do not understand what you see with your own eyes, how can you have questions about things you cannot see at all and that are beyond your comprehension?
"Tashgia" is an expression of exaltation, and "po'alo" refers to the deeds of the Holy One, blessed be He. "Asher shoreru anashim" can be interpreted in two ways: from the root *shur* - to stand, look, and see, as in "daughters tread upon the wall [shur]" who would stand and gaze upon Yosef (where "shur" also carries the meaning of a wall). Alternatively, it can be interpreted from the word for songs (*shirim*) - for the ancients used to compose songs about the wonders of nature. For example, *Keter Malchut*, which is customarily recited on Rosh Hashanah and appears in the prayer books: it is entirely a song of praise for the awesome marvels of nature created by the Holy One, blessed be He, the celestial spheres and all that accompanies them - the first sphere, the second sphere. Thus, Elihu says: Even that which exists in nature, which is constant and present, seen by all mankind and beheld or sung of by men - even that is "tashgia po'alo", exalted and far beyond what you can comprehend. How, then, can you come to question things that you cannot see at all and that lie entirely beyond your grasp?
כׇּל אָדָם חָזוּ בוֹ אֱנוֹשׁ יַבִּיט מֵרָחוֹק׃ - All men have looked upon it; mortal man beholds it from afar.
I will show you that even things revealed to all mankind - "all men have looked upon it" - nevertheless, "mortal man beholds it from afar." Although everyone sees it, they have not succeeded in penetrating its depths. You see, but only from afar, so to speak: we have not managed to plumb its depths and understand it thoroughly. And if that is so regarding things that every person has witnessed, then regarding things that a person does not witness at all, you cannot even understand them from afar. How, then, can you question deep, sublime spiritual matters?
הֶן אֵל שַׂגִּיא וְלֹא נֵדָע מִסְפַּר שָׁנָיו וְלֹא חֵקֶר׃ - Behold, God is exalted, and we know Him not; the number of His years cannot be searched out.
From the actions of the Holy One, blessed be He, you can see that He is great and exalted, high and lofty. That is one aspect, and even that we do not truly grasp: it is clear to us that He is vast, but "we cannot know" - one cannot comprehend Him enough to know how great He truly is. And furthermore: "the number of His years cannot be searched out." That the Holy One, blessed be He, has long, countless years - this we know. But how many? "Cannot be searched out." And why? Because He is not subject to time at all. That which is subject to time, one can say of it a hundred years, a million years, a billion years. But that which is not subject to time at all cannot be counted in years whatsoever. This is "cannot be searched out": we do not even have the power to investigate the matter, nor do we possess the faculties to comprehend it, for He is beyond time while we exist within a framework of time.
כִּי יְגָרַע נִטְפֵי מָיִם יָזֹקּוּ מָטָר לְאֵדוֹ׃ - For He draws up drops of water; they distill rain from its vapor.
Here Elihu gives him an example, and in the coming verses he focuses on falling rain, demonstrating how much boundless wisdom the Creator, blessed be He, displays even in a physical phenomenon like rain - and even this you do not fully understand. How, then, do you seek to comprehend spiritual matters that transcend our intellect? "For He draws up drops of water" - from where does rain form? From the vapor rising from the water, gathering above into clouds, and from there that vapor condenses and falls as rain. Hashem draws up from the earth "drops of water", that is, the vapor, which is like dripping water. On days of high humidity, anyone can readily appreciate this: moisture is drawn from the sea and from bodies of water and ascends upward.
"They distill rain from its vapor" - from those very drops of water, the Holy One, blessed be He, refines, purifies, and filters rain from the vapor floating in the sky. Note the wonderful precision of the wording: why is this called yazoku ("they distill")? What do raindrops taste like? Sweet, fresh water. And from what are they formed? From saltwater. And that is precisely distillation: the Holy One, blessed be He, distills seawater, puts it through a refining process, and then brings it down as pure water. Therefore Scripture states, "They distill rain from its vapor."
אֲשֶׁר יִזְּלוּ שְׁחָקִים יִרְעֲפוּ עֲלֵי אָדָם רָב׃ - Which the skies pour down, dripping abundantly upon mankind.
The vapor ascends all the way to the skies, and at times it pours down abundantly from there, while at other times in small measure. "Dripping abundantly upon mankind" - that plentiful vapor divides into small droplets and showers down upon many people.
אַף אִם יָבִין מִפְרְשֵׂי עָב תְּשֻׁאוֹת סֻכָּתוֹ׃ - Can anyone even understand the spreading of the cloud, the thunderous rumblings of His pavilion?
What is the difference between summer and winter? Why does rain not fall in the summer yet falls in the winter, when simple logic would suggest the opposite? We are all familiar with the water cycle and know that rain comes from the evaporation of water from the Mediterranean Sea, the Kinneret, and all the rivers and oceans of the world; that evaporation forms cloud cover, and the clouds descend as rain. If so, there ought to be far more rain in the summer than in the winter, for evaporation from seas and rivers in the winter is minimal compared to its rate in the summer. Why, then, is there no rain in summer, but in winter there is?
The answer is simple: in the summer, all the clouds remain down below. Step outside and feel eighty percent humidity - that is where the clouds are; they never form into clouds up above. The sea evaporates, but due to the intense heat, the evaporated moisture disperses right here as humidity. In winter, by contrast, there is cold, and the cold causes that vapor to condense and fall down as droplets. Thus, if a person takes a bottle of ice and places it on a table, within two minutes a puddle of water forms around it. A child might ask: Where did the water on the outside come from? Rather, all the humidity in the air, upon meeting a bit of cold, condenses - and when condensation occurs, water begins to fall. For that, cold is required.
And this is what the verse means: "Can anyone even understand the spreading of the cloud, the thunderous rumblings of His pavilion?" Vapor traps heat, and the heat on earth in places experiencing summer causes the moisture to stay down here rather than ascend high above, so it remains spread out and dispersed in the air - which is why you see no clouds in the sky, for the heat scatters the fine particles so they never reach high into the heavens. Mifresei av ("the spreading of the cloud") refers to the cloud spread out down here, which is the humidity in the air. Teshuit sukato ("the rumblings of His pavilion") is related to she'on mayim rabim, the roaring noise of mighty waters: even though the cloud seems invisible, know that it exists, and all that turbulent volume of water is spread down here, having neither ascended above nor materialized into rainfall. And even if a person understands and knows that humidity exists in the air, he still cannot fathom the underlying secret of the matter.
הֵן פָּרַשׂ עָלָיו אוֹרוֹ וְשׇׁרְשֵׁי הַיָּם כִּסָּה׃ - "Behold, He spreads His light upon it, and covers the roots of the sea."
When Hashem spreads light over the cloud - light being heat, like a fire that illuminates and warms - the cloud remains as moisture, like a low cloud spread out in the air, and does not turn into rain. "And covers the roots of the sea": the droplets and vapor that rose from the sea into the air are called "the roots of the sea," and the light - that is, the heat - covered them. Through this light and heat, they are concealed and hidden, unable to coalesce into thick clouds because they remain dispersed. Thus, those very droplets that rose from the sea and were meant to form clouds become covered, remaining not as clouds in the heavens, but as spread-out humidity in the air.
כִּי בָם יָדִין עַמִּים יִתֶּן אֹכֶל לְמַכְבִּיר׃ - "For by them He judges peoples; He gives food in abundance."
Through this natural law that Hashem embedded in vapor - that sometimes it remains dispersed in the air due to light and heat, and sometimes it condenses into droplets and falls as rain - through them Hashem judges the nations. For when rain falls, is it beneficial or not? It depends. Torrential rains and floods, like monsoons that devastate entire countries, are a severe blow and a grave danger. On the other hand, when there is no rain, there is drought: dryness and drought cause wildfires and drive up the price of wheat. Thus, sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, withholds rain and famine ensues; sometimes He sends too much rain, causing floods; and sometimes He provides rain in just the right measure and dosage - and then "He gives food in abundance," producing sufficient sustenance for the entire world. It turns out that through the rain itself, which depends solely on His divine will - when it remains vapor and when it turns into rainclouds - the Holy One, blessed be He, judges the nations.
This is precisely what the Holy One, blessed be He, tells the Jewish people in the Shema: if we do not walk in Hashem's ways or listen to His voice, "He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain"; but if "you diligently obey My commandments," then "I will give the rain of your land in its season." "For by them He judges peoples": through the condensation of raindrops, the Holy One, blessed be He, judges the nations.
עַל כַּפַּיִם כִּסָּה אוֹר וַיְצַו עָלֶיהָ בְמַפְגִּיעַ׃ - "Upon the clouds He covers the light, and commands it as they collide."
Now he describes what happens when Hashem desires rain to fall and for that vapor to condense into droplets. Hashem covers the light over the clouds - meaning that the heat within the vapor is concealed from them, rising and separating from them. And what happens to the vapor? It begins to coalesce into drops, for as we noted, cold causes condensation. When the heat departs, it turns cold, and when it turns cold, droplets form. Kapayim refers to clouds, just as we saw with Eliyahu, when his servant went up to look and saw "a small cloud like the palm of a hand (ch'chaf)." Thus, "Upon the clouds He covers the light" means that Hashem conceals the heat and elevates it above the clouds. "And commands it as they collide" (veytzav aleha bemafgi'a) - Hashem then commands the vapors to gather, collide with one another, and coalesce, thereby forming a droplet; and as soon as droplets form, rain falls. Bemafgi'a, the Malbim explains, is related to encountering or striking someone, as in "he met (paga) him on the road." The vapors assemble and collide with one another, and when numerous vapors strike each other, droplets are formed and rain descends. Similarly, when two clouds collide, thunder and lightning are produced.
יַגִּיד עָלָיו רֵעוֹ מִקְנֶה אַף עַל עוֹלֶה׃ - "Its thunder tells of Him, the roar of wrath against what ascends."
When clouds meet in collision (bemafgi'a) and strike one another, thunder and lightning are produced, followed by a cloudburst - for thunder and lightning are typically followed immediately by torrential, driving rain. "Its thunder tells concerning Him" (yagid alav re'o) - a blast sounds forth, re'o being related to ra'am (thunder); the sound of thunder is heard. "A blast of anger" (mikneh af) - the blast ascends upward, resembling a blast issuing from the hollow passage of the nose, like one sounding an alarm through a hollow pipe, symbolizing fury and wrath (af vechemah). The thunder thus sounds, as it were, like the wrath of the Holy One, blessed be He. Indeed, the ancients famously described thunder as a sign of anger in heaven, a celestial wrath. Our Sages teach that thunder was created only to straighten the crookedness of the heart. In any event, this is what the verse conveys: a sounding blast, mikneh af, like wrath issuing from the nostril, "against what ascends" (al oleh) - rising all the way up.
In this section, Elihu reaches his conclusion regarding Iyov: the afflictions that befell him were a trial, and through them it became clear that his entire divine service had been performed from a state of prosperity. "A broad expanse with no constraints beneath it" - he enjoyed every outward blessing as well as inner peace of mind, and precisely this gave opening to the adversary's accusation. When suffering arrived, "you chose iniquity over affliction," lapsing into transgression and denial of Divine providence, and thereby fulfilling the verdict of the wicked. Yet Elihu adds that suffering itself is a path of elevation: "Behold, God is exalted in His power; who is a teacher like Him?" - afflictions serve as guidance for detaching from physical indulgence and cleaving to the Creator. To conclude the debate, he resolves all of Iyov's questions with a single answer: you do not even comprehend visible nature. "All men have beheld it, man gazes from afar" - even what everyone sees cannot be fully investigated and understood. He demonstrates this through the mystery of rainfall: the distillation of saltwater into sweet rainwater, the moisture spread out in summer by the heat, condensation in the cold, the gathering of vapors upon prayer, and the sound of thunder. If this is so in visible nature, how much more so must man not lodge complaints against a Divine governance that is far beyond his grasp - against "God, Who is exalted beyond our knowledge," Whose number of years cannot be searched out, for He transcends time.