And why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and you shall seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.
All Commentaries on Job 7:21 Go To Job 7
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
56. By which same words, what else is intimated but the desire of the expected Mediator, concerning Whom John saith, Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world. [John 1, 29] Or rather sin is then completely taken away from mankind, when our corruption is changed in the glory of incorruption. For we can never be free from sin so long as we are held fast in a body of mortality, and therefore he longs for the grace of the Redeemer, i.e. for the wholeness [soliditatem] of the Resurrection, who is looking to have his iniquity entirely ‘taken away.’ Hence immediately after adding both the punishment which was his due by birth, and the Judgment which he dreads in consequence of his own doings, he proceeds,
For now shall I sleep in the dust, and if Thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide.
57. It was said to the first man on his sinning, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. [Gen. 3, 19] Now by the ‘morning,’ is meant that manifestation of souls, which, when the thoughts are laid bare at the coming of the Judge, is as it were brought to light after the darkness of night. Of which same morning, it is said by the Psalmist, In the morning I shall stand before Thee and shall see [i]. [Ps. 5, 3. Vulg.] Now God's ‘seeking’ is His searching man with a minute inquest, and, in searching, judging him with rigorous strictness. Therefore let blessed Job, surveying the miseries of man's fallen condition, see how that he is both already closely pressed by a present punishment, and in yet worse plight as concerns the future, and let him say, For now shall I sleep in the dust, and if Thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide. As if he openly lamented, saying, ‘In the present life indeed I already undergo the death of the flesh, and yet still further from the Judgment to come I dread a worse death, even the doom of Thy severity. I suffer destruction for sin, yet further on coming to Judgment I dread my sins being brought up again even after my dissolution. Therefore looking at the external death, let him say, For now shall I sleep in the dust, and dreading the interior let him add, And if Thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not abide. For however strong in righteousness, even the very Elect by no means suffice to themselves for innocency, if they be strictly examined in Judgment. But they find it now for an alleviation of their withdrawal hence, that they know in their humility that they never can suffice. Therefore they shelter themselves under the covering of humility from the sword of such a grievous visitation, and in proportion as awaiting the terribleness of the Judge to come, they tremble with continual alarm, so there is an unceasing progress in their becoming better prepared.
