The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part II, Chapter V. Scripture Types of the Second Sorrowful Mystery: Job Smitten by Satan; The Rainbow the Sign of Mercy
1. Job struck by Satan with an ulcer all over his body.
The narrative of Job’s suffering occurs in the Sacred Scripture as follows:—“And it came to pass, when on a certain day the sons of God came and stood before the Lord, and Satan came among them, and stood in His sight, that the Lord said to Satan: Whence comest thou? And he answered and said: I have gone round about the earth and walked through it. And the Lord said to Satan: Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a man simple and upright, and fearing God and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence? But thou hast moved me against him, that I should afflict him without cause. And Satan answered, and said: Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his life; but put forth thy hand, and touch his bone and his flesh, and then thou shalt see that he will bless thee to thy face. And the Lord said to Satan: Behold he is in thy hand, but yet save his life. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with a very grievous ulcer, from the sole of the foot even to the top of his head: and he took a potsherd and scraped the corrupt matter, sitting on a dunghill.” (Job ii. 1–8).
The better to appreciate the proofs of Divine forethought which will appear in the foreshadowing of the humiliation which Jesus underwent in His public scourging at the pillar, by the person of the holy patriarch Job struck by Satan with a grievous ulcer, an introductory word or two on the general bearing of the parallel between the great example of patience in the old law and the Man of Sorrows of the new law will not be thrown away.
Job, then, has Satan in person for his adversary, and Jesus is pursued by the more than Satanic malice of the Jews, for they are His own people who have turned against Him. Satan, again, has no direct power in his own hands to maltreat Job, but is obliged to appear as a suitor before the higher court to obtain the requisite power to act against him; and the Jews in like manner are without the power to wreak their malice against Jesus, and are obliged to appear as suitors before the court of Pontius Pilate. For when Pilate says to them, “Take ye Him and judge Him according to your law,” they reply, “We have not the power to put any man to death.” Satan, moreover, is moved to pursue Job for exactly the same reason for which the Jews hate Jesus, because He is a just and upright man. “Hast thou considered my servant Job,” said the Lord to him, “that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, fearing God and avoiding evil?” The Jews, in like manner, were continually in the habit of observing Jesus to see what He would do (Mark iii. 2), and finding Him to be a Man to whom none was like on the earth, they hated Him and sought how they might put Him to death.
Satan, also, it is further to be observed, at the particular time in which we are to look for our parallel, is by no means described as being just at the commencement of his persecutions against Job; on the contrary, he has had his eye upon him for some considerable time, and at the moment that our parallel begins, he has actually succeeded in depriving him of all his substance; he has broken up his family, and has driven all his friends and acquaintances away from him, so that Job is now desolate and forsaken, and he is waiting to be as it were the helpless victim of the next turn or assault of Satan’s malice. In the same way, the Jews are by no means now for the first time venting their hatred and rage against Jesus. They have long ago spread evil reports of Him, and sought occasion against Him; and they have now so far actually succeeded, that they have dispersed all His followers and adherents, and driven away from Him all His chosen friends. He is in consequence now bodily in their hands, desolate and alone, waiting patiently to know what the next turn of their malice will be able to do against Him.
At the moment, then, that our parallel with the subject of the Second Mystery of the Holy Rosary begins, Satan has now gone to the utmost extent of the power that had been given to him against Job, and his malice being still unsatisfied, he appears, as we learn from the scripture narrative above quoted, before the Lord and His court to sue for further powers to torment him. The chief priests and the principal Jews appear with precisely the same end in view before the court of the Roman Governor, to sue for the grant of further powers to proceed against Jesus in order to put Him to death.
Satan having succeeded in obtaining a hearing, proceeds to press his petition for the grant of further powers against Job, but his suit does not find favour. The Lord answers him, “Hast thou not seen that he still keepeth his innocence? Thou hast moved me against him that I should afflict him without a cause.” The Jews, in a precisely similar manner press their suit before Pontius Pilate and his court, and it fails to find favour. They are met by a perfectly similar remonstrance, “Why, what evil hath He done? I find no cause in Him.”
However, notwithstanding all Job’s exemplary patience under his former trials, by which he has merited the testimony “that he still keepeth his innocence,” he is nevertheless to be called upon to give a further proof of his patient endurance of evil. Jesus, in like manner, is to be called upon to give a further proof of His patient endurance, which is, moreover, to be proclaimed to all generations of the faithful as the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary. Satan pleads in reply to the Lord’s remonstrance, “Skin for skin, all that a man hath he will give for his life; but put forth Thy hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and then Thou shalt see that he will bless Thee to Thy face.” The Lord answers Satan’s suit by granting him the power he asked, but with the limitation annexed not to touch Job’s life. “Behold he is in thy hand, yet save his life.” This is precisely Pilate’s answer to the importunity of the Jews, “I will not give you His life, but I will chastise Him, and then I will let Him go free.”
Satan, on receiving the power he had sued for, immediately goes forth from the presence of the Lord, and loses no time “in striking Job with a very grievous ulcer from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head.” Jesus in like manner is forthwith hurried away to the pillar, and subjected to the scourges of the Roman soldiers; the Jews, according to the revelations made to St Bridget, giving them money to inflict the scourging in the most cruel manner they were able; and in the words of the prophet Isaias we have the parallel of the two sufferers completed, “From the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness in Him, wounds and bruises and swelling sores; they are not bound up or dressed or fomented with oil” (Isa. i. 6).
Job remains perfectly patient, as previously, under this fresh infliction of the wrath of his relentless adversary; and Jesus, in like manner, in the hands of his tormentors, fulfils the Scripture which says of Him, “He shall not cry nor strive, neither shall His voice be heard in the streets” (Isa. xlii. 2). Job retires from the tents of the people to a dunghill, where his wife comes to him and says, “Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? bless God and die.” Job justifies his patience by an appeal to God: “Shall we not also receive evil from the hand of the Lord?” Pilate comes to Jesus after He has suffered the scourging, and says to Him, “Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify Thee and have power to release Thee?” and Jesus in a similar manner justifies His own patience by the appeal to God, “Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above.” Jesus had before said, “The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” as Job, the wonderful figure of His patience and endurance, had said, “Shall we not also receive evil from the hand of the Lord?” Such, then, is the remarkable correspondence between the great sufferer of the old law and the Man of Sorrows of the new.
2. The rainbow of many colours the sign of God’s mercy to a guilty world.
Every type or shadow, by an imperfection inherent in its nature, cannot fail to fall short of the Divine original which it prefigures. Wonderful, then, as we have found the parallel to be between the sufferings of Job with those of Jesus, there is a healing virtue for the whole world in the wounds of Jesus, which no one has ever thought of claiming for those of Job. Jesus “was wounded for our iniquities,” says the prophet, “and was bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our peace fell upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed” (Isa. liii. 5).
We have now briefly to study another type, in which Jesus, submitting Himself to be scourged at the pillar, is foreshadowed as the sign of the mercy and reconciliation of God with a guilty world. This figure is the rainbow of many colours—the sign of His covenant which God Himself has set in the heavens: “And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I will give between Me and you, and to every living soul that is with you for perpetual generations; I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, My bow shall appear in the clouds, and My bow shall be in the clouds and I shall see it, and shall remember the everlasting covenant which was made between God and every living soul of all flesh which is on the earth” (Gen. ix. 12).
The true sign of the everlasting covenant between God and every living soul of all flesh is Jesus Christ, in whom God is well pleased. In Him alone has the Eternal Father found the acceptable sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour. Look at Jesus, bent down to the pillar, livid with blows, the fresh blood streaming under the lashes of the soldiers over the delicate hue of His virgin flesh; and behold, the bow of many colours, the sign of the Son of Man, in the Christian heavens, the token of the everlasting covenant between God and all flesh, when “it is in a cloud on a rainy day” (Ezech. i. 28).
“Look at the rainbow,” says the son of Sirach, and “bless Him that made it. It is very beautiful in its brightness. It encompasseth the heaven about with the circle of its glory; the hands of the Most High have displayed it (Ecclus. xlviii. 12). Look at Jesus bent down to the pillar, and bless Him who hath made Him thus to suffer for us. He is very lovely in His humiliation, for He suffers out of love for those who are to be healed by His wounds. Though He is in the hands of men, yet He encompasses the heavens in the brightness of His glory, and the hands of the Eternal Father have thus displayed Him.”