For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison thereof drinks up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
All Commentaries on Job 6:4 Go To Job 6
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
4. For by the epithet of ‘arrows’ sometimes the utterances of preaching, sometimes the arrows of visitation are denoted. Now the utterances of preaching are represented by ‘arrows;’ for in this, that they smite men's vices, they pierce the hearts of evil doers. Concerning which arrows it is said to the Redeemer at His coming, Thine arrows are sharp, O Thou Most Mighty; the people shall fall under Thee in the heart. [Ps. 45, 5. lxx.] Of Him Isaiah saith, I will send those that escape of them to the nations, into the sea, into Africa, and into Lydia, holding the arrow, into Italy, and into Greece. [Is. 66, 19] Again by ‘arrows’ is represented the stroke of visitation, as where Elisha bids king Joash, ‘shoot an arrow,’ and when he shoots, says, For thou shalt smite the Syrians, till thou hast consumed them. [2 Kings 13, 17] Whereas then the holy man surveys the sorrows of his pilgrimage, because he groans under the strokes of the visitation of the Lord, let him say, Therefore my words are filled with grief. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. As though he said in plain words, ‘I being under curse of exile have no joy, but as laid under the Judgment, I am full of pain, for I see and know the force of the stroke.’ But there are a great number that are chastised with tortures, but not amended. Contrary to which it is fitly subjoined,
The indignation whereof drinketh up my spirit.
5. For what else is the ‘spirit of man,’ but the spirit of pride? Now ‘the arrows of the Lord drink up the spirit of man,’ when the awards of heavenly visitation keep back the chastened soul from self-elation. ‘The arrows of the Lord drink up the spirit of man,’ in that, when he is intent upon outward things, they draw him within. For the spirit of David was drunk up when he said, When my spirit failed within me, Thou knewest my ways. [Ps. 142, 3] And again, My soul refused to be comforted, I remembered God and was troubled, I complained and my spirit failed. Therefore ‘the indignation of the arrows drinketh up the spirit’ of the righteous, for the decrees from above, in wounding, work a change in the Elect, whom they find in any sins; so that the soul being pierced, quits its hardness or heart, and the blood of confession runs down from the wound that brings health. For they consider whence and whereunto they have been cast down, they consider from how high bliss they have fallen, and to what miseries of their corrupt condition, and they not only groan in the midst of the things which they are suffering, but furthermore dread that which the strict Judge threatens sinners with concerning the fires of hell. Whence the words are rightly subjoined;
And the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
6. The mind of the righteous not only considers well what it is now undergoing, but also dreads what is in store. It sees all that it suffers in this life, and fears lest hereafter it suffer still worse things. It mourns that it has fallen into the exile of this blind state away from the joys of Paradise; it fears, lest, when this exile is quitted, eternal death succeed. And thus it already undergoes sentence in suffering chastisement, yet still dreads the threats of the Judge to come as the consequence of sin. Hence the Psalmist says, Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; Thy terrors cut me off. [Ps. 88, 16] For after that ‘the fierce wrath of the Internal Judge goeth over, His terrors still do cut us off,’ in that we already suffer one evil by condemnation, and still dread another from everlasting vengeance. Let the holy man then, weighing well the ills that he is subject to, exclaim, The arrows of the Lord are within me, the indignation whereof drinketh up my spirit. But being in dread of worse things to last for ever, let him add, The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. As if he said in plain words, ‘Being stricken indeed I feel grief for my present circumstances, but this is the worst feature in my grief, that even in the midst of punishment I still fear eternal woes.’ But forasmuch as he already longs for the bringing in of the balances, he already weighs the evils into which the human race has fallen, though he was placed among a Gentile people, yet because he was full of the gift of prophetic inspiration, in the following words he shews with what ardent desire the coming of the Redeemer is thirsted for, whether by the Gentile world or by Judaea.
