Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you set a watch over me?
All Commentaries on Job 7:12 Go To Job 7
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
39. Man is ‘compassed about with a prison,’ in that he very often both strives to mount on high by the strides of virtuous attainments, and yet is impeded by the corruption of his fleshly part. Of which same the Psalmist rightly prays that he might be divested, saying, Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy Name. [Ps. 142, 7] But what have we set forth by the designation of ‘the sea,’ saving the hearts of carnal men tossed with swelling thoughts? and what by the name of ‘a whale,’ except our old enemy? who when in taking possession of the hearts of the children of this world he makes his way into them, does in a certain sort swim about in their slippery thoughts. But the whale is made fast in prison, in that the evil Spirit, being cast down below, is kept under by the weight of his own punishment, that he should have no power to fly up to the heavenly realms, as Peter testifies, who saith, God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. [2 Pet. 2, 4] ‘The whale’ is fast bound in prison, in that he is prevented from tempting the good as much as he desires. The sea too is ‘compassed about with a prison,’ in that the swelling and raging desires of carnal minds, for the doing of the evil that they long for, are clogged by the straitness of their inability. For they often long to have power over their betters, yet by the Divine ordering, that regulates all things marvellously, they are made to bow beneath them. They desire, being exalted high, to injure the good, yet being brought under their power, they look for consolation from them. For the sake of fulfilling the gratification of the flesh, they covet length of years in the present life, yet they are carried off from it with haste. Concerning such it is well said by the Psalmist, And He put the waters as it were in a skin. [Ps. 78, 13. V. thus] For ‘the waters are in a skin’ when their loose desires, in that they find not the execution in deed, are kept down under a carnal heart. Therefore the whale and the sea are hemmed in by the close pressure of a prison, in that whether as regards the evil spirit or his followers, in whose minds he gathers himself and sets rolling therein the waves of tumultuous thoughts, the rigour of the Most High confines them, that they should have no power to accomplish the evil things that they are set upon.
40. But holy men, in proportion as they contemplate the Mysteries of heavenly truths with more perfect purity of heart, pant after them with daily increased ardour of affection. They long to be henceforth filled to the full at that fountain head, whence they as yet taste but a little drop with the mouth of contemplation. They long entirely to subdue the promptings of the flesh, no longer to be subject to any thing unlawful in the imaginations of the heart springing from the corruption thereof. But because it is written, For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things, [Wisd. 9, 15] therefore they henceforth rise above themselves in purpose of mind, but being still subject to the capricious motions of their imperfect nature, they lament that they are confined in the prison-house of corruption. Am I a sea or a whale, that Thou dost compass me about with a prison? As if it were in plain words; ‘The sea or the whale, i.e. the wicked and their prime mover, the Evil Spirit, because they desire to have a loose given them for the mere liberty of committing iniquity alone, are justly held bound in the prison of the punishment inflicted on them. But I, that already long for the liberty of Thine eternal state, why am I still enclosed in the prison of mine own corruption?’ Not that this is either demanded in pride by the righteous, in that being inflamed with the love of the Truth they desire completely to surmount the narrow compass of their imperfect condition; nor yet that it is unjustly ordered by the Author of the just, in that in delaying the wishes of His Elect, He puts them to pain, and in paining purifies, that they may one day be the better enabled by that delay, for the receiving that they desire. But the Elect, so long as they are kept away from the interior rest, turn back into their own hearts, and being there buried from the tumults of the flesh, as it were seek a retreat of infinite delight. But therein they often feel the stings of temptation, and are subject to the goadings of the flesh, and there they meet with the hardest toils, where they had looked for perfect rest from toil. Hence the holy man after the prison of his state of corruption that he told of, hastening to return to the tranquil regions of the heart, seeing that he experienced in the interior also all that same strife, to escape which he fled from things without.
