Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
Job had but one answer to make to these questions: man cannot
comprehend Divine wisdom, whether it reveal itself in inanimate and
brute nature or in relation to human beings. "But," continued Job, "to
prove to you that I am in my right mind, listen to the question I shall
put to you. Solid food and liquids combine inside of man, and they
separate again when they leave his body. Who effects the separation?"
And when Bildad conceded that he could not answer the question, Job
said, "If thou canst not comprehend the changes in thy body, how canst
thou hope to comprehend the movements of the planets?"
Zophar, after Job had spoken thus to Bildad, was convinced that his
suffering had had no effect upon his mind, and he asked him whether he
would permit himself to be treated by the physicians of the three
kings, his friends. But Job rejected the offer, saying, "My healing and
my restoration come from God, the Creator of all physicians."
While the three kings were conversing thus with Job, his wife Zitidos
made her appearance clad in rags, and she threw herself at the feet of
her husband's friends, and amid tears she spoke, saying: "O Eliphaz,
and ye other friends of Job, remember what I was in other days, and how
I am now changed, coming before you in rags and tatters." The sight of
the unhappy woman touched them so deeply that they could only weep, and
not a word could they force out of their mouths. Eliphaz, however, took
his royal mantle of purple, and laid it about the shoulders of the poor
woman. Zitidos asked only one favor, that the three kings should order
their soldiers to clear away the ruins of the building under which her
children lay entombed, that she might give their remains decent burial.
The command was issued to the soldiers accordingly, but Job said, "Do
not put yourselves to trouble for naught. My children will not be
found, for they are safely bestowed with their Lord and Creator." Again
his friends were sure that Job was bereft of his senses. He arose,
however, prayed to God, and at the end of his devotions, he bade his
friends look eastward, and when they did his bidding, they beheld his
children next to the Ruler of heaven, with crowns of glory upon their
heads. Zitidos prostrated herself, and said, "Now I know that my
memorial resides with the Lord." And she returned to the house of her
master, whence she had absented herself for some time against his will.
He had forbidden her to leave it, because he had feared that the three
kings would take her with them.
In the evening she lay down to sleep next to the manger for the cattle,
but she never rose again, she died there of exhaustion. The people of
the city made a great mourning for her, and the elegy composed in her
honor was set down in writing and recorded.
JOB RESTORED
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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