Creation and Providence through Hands and Spirit

It is eternal; for it is said, 'For you are the same, and your years will not fail' (Job 14:5). And again, 'In generation of generations the years' (Job 14:18). The existence of God is uncircumscribable, for He is eternal. Therefore, Job would say, 'You know nothing of what is concerning me,' meaning, 'You have searched out my iniquity and traced my sins.'

He says this while reproaching them again, that the calamity concerning me is the result of many having sinned. Since the friends reckoned him as suffering through sin, he shows them abruptly that it is not so, by saying, 'O God, your years are not like a man's, for you have searched out my iniquity' (Job 9:33). For according to these words, he suggests that you do not punish me as a sinner, and you do not seek out our iniquity or sin through inductions against those disposed in this way.

'For you know that I have not been impious' (Job 27:5). He reveals the knowledge of the matter to them by saying to God, 'You know that I have not been impious.' But these friends think that the things coming upon me have been brought about because of an impious man. But who is the one being taken out from your hands? He again suggests the idea that it is possible for one who has not sinned to fall into afflictions; for God knows that Job did not act impiously.

And the question, 'But who is the one being taken out from your hands?' brings on the instruction of the friends, showing that the one who has not sinned and has not acted impiously comes under the hand of God into afflictions through struggle and the demonstration of endurance. For those who are afflicted, yet do not fall because of the tribulations, say, 'In all things being afflicted, but not in anguish' (2 Cor 4:8). And again it is said, 'Many are the tribulations of the righteous, and out of all of them He will rescue them' (Ps 34:19).

But to be rescued from tribulations is not to not be afflicted at all, but to not have been previously defeated by them, to not have been trapped by the nets of the tribulations being brought forward. 'Your hands made me and fashioned me' (Job 10:8). And this came across naturally; for so that no one might conceive of God as a brute and a necessity.

To say, through the phrase 'but who is the one being removed from your hands' Job 5:9, the expression 'your hands made me and formed me' Job 10:8 is brought forward, saying that even if he brings tribulations, he spares his own handiwork; for it is written: 'but he spares all, because he is merciful, O Lord, lover of souls' Ps 145:9. And good is the 'your hands made me and formed me', so that the 'made' is applied to the soul, while the 'formed' is applied to the body; for 'formed me' signifies the opposite, which is appropriate for the body.

And in Genesis it is said: 'God made man, according to the image of God he made him' Gen 1:27; for not the body is according to the image, but the soul, for God is not anthropomorphic. And elsewhere it is said: 'God formed man, dust from the earth' Gen 2:7, taking the body, so that, as we say, we may receive the making regarding the soul, and the forming regarding the flesh. And if even the making lies regarding the flesh, it is not to be treated as strange; for to form is to make according to a kind.

But someone, speaking in opposition, says that the being formed lies regarding the soul, and this is signified from: 'He who formed them, according to their hearts alone.' Toward which one should also wisely consider the things concerning the hands of God. And one says simply that the hands, in the plural, are the power of God's active agency; but it is also possible to take 'hand' more precisely as the Son—for it is said: 'My hand made all these things'—and the Spirit, as it is said: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their power' Ps 33:6. And it is also said: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, therefore the one being born in you will be called a holy Son of God' Luke 1:35. For so that the temple of the Savior may be established, there has been a descent of the Holy Spirit and of the power of the Most High, which is the Son.

After these things, changing, you mocked me. The creative and also the providential aspects of God through these things.