Does the wild donkey bray when it has grass? or the ox lows over its fodder?
All Commentaries on Job 6:5 Go To Job 6
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
7. For what is denoted by ‘the onager,’ that is, the wild ass, saving the Gentile people, which, as nature has produced it without the stalls of training, so has continued roaming abroad in the field of its pleasures? What is represented by ‘the ox,’ saving the Jewish people, which being bowed down to the yoke of the dominion above, in gathering together proselytes unto hope, drew the ploughshare of the Law through all the hearts that it was able? But we learn from the witness of blessed Job's life to believe, that many even of the Gentiles looked for the coming of the Redeemer. And at the birth of the Lord, we have learnt by Simeon's coming in the spirit into the Temple, with what longing desire holy men of the Israelitish people coveted to behold the mystery of His Incarnation. Whence too the same Redeemer saith to His Disciples, For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them. [Luke 10, 24] The ‘grass’ of the wild ass then, and the ox's ‘fodder,’ is this very Incarnation of the Mediator, by which both the Gentile world and Judaea are together filled to the full. For because it is said by the Prophet, All flesh is grass [Is. 40, 6]; the Creator of the universe taking flesh of our substance, willed to be made ‘grass,’ that our flesh might not remain grass for ever; and so ‘the wild ass’ then found ‘grass,’ when the Gentile people received the grace of the Divine Incarnation. Then ‘the ox’ had not an empty manger, when to the Jewish people, looking for His Flesh, the Law shewed Him forth, Whom it prophesied to them whilst long kept in expectation of Him. Whence too the Lord, when He was born, is placed in a manger, that it might be signified, that the holy animals, which under the Law had long been found an hungred, are filled with ‘the fodder’ of His Incarnation. For at His birth He filled a manger, Who gave Himself for food to the souls of mortal beings, saying, He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. [John 5, 56] But because both the longings of the Elect from among the Gentiles were for long deferred, and the holy men severally of the Hebrew people groaned long while in expectation of their redemption, blessed Job, in giving forth the mysteries of prophecy, rightly implies the causes of distress in the case of either people, by saying, Will the wild ass bray while he hath grass? Or will the ox low over his full manger? As though it were in plain speech, ‘The Gentile world for this reason groans, because the grace of the Redeemer does not yet yield it refreshment, and Judaea on this account draws out her lowings, for that in holding the Law, but not seeing the author of the Law, standing before the manger she goes hungering. And because this same Law, before the coming of our Mediator, was held not in a spiritual but in a carnal manner.
