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decision of a final judgment which sets all contradictions right, - that, however, neither Zophar nor Job know anything of a decision beyond death, but regard death as the end whither human destiny and divine retribution tend, without being capable of any further distinction: we cannot deny that Job is most in the right in placing the prosperous life and death of the godless as based upon the incontrovertible facts of experience, in opposition to Zophar's primeval exceptionless law of the terrible end of the godless. The speeches of Zophar and of Job are both true and false, - both one-sided, and therefore mutually supplementary. The real final end of the evil-doer is indeed none other than Zophar describes; and the temporal prosperity of the evil-doer, lasting often until death, is really a frequent phenomenon. If, however, we consider further, that Job is not able to deny the occurrence of such examples of punishment, such revelations of the retributive justice of God, as those which Zophar represents as occurring regularly and without exception; that, however, on the other hand, exceptional instances undeniably do exist, and the friends are obliged to be blind to them, because otherwise the whole structure of their opposition would fall in, - it is manifest that Job is nearer to the truth than Zophar. For it is truer that the retributive justice of God is often, but by far not always, revealed in the present world and outwardly, than that it never becomes manifest.
Wherein, then, does Job's sin in this speech consist? Herein, that he altogether ignores the palpably just distribution of human destinies, which does occur frequently enough. In this he becomes unjust towards his opponent, and incapable of convincing him. From it, it appears as though in the divine government there is not merely a preponderance of what is mysterious, of what is irreconcilable with divine justice, but as though justice were altogether contradicted.