I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; show me why you contend with me.
All Commentaries on Job 10:2 Go To Job 10
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
68. Whereas he declares himself a sinner ‘in the bitterness of his soul,’ what else does he say to God, but that he may not be condemned, in that the bitterness of his present penance does away with the pains of ensuing wrath? Now God judgeth man in this life in two ways, seeing that either by present ills He is already beginning to bring upon him the torments to come, or else by present scourges He does away with the torments to come. For except there were some whom the just Judge, as the due of their sins, did both now and hereafter visit, Jude would never have said, The Lord afterwards destroyed them that believed not. [Jude 5] And the Psalmist would not say of the wicked, Let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a lined cloak [diploide]. [Ps. 109, 29] For we mean by ‘a lined cloak’ a double garment. And so they are ‘clothed with confusion as with a double garment,’ who according to the due reward of their sin are at once visited with both a temporal and an everlasting judgment. For chastisement delivers those alone from woe, whom it alters. For those whom present evils do not amend, they conduct to those which are to ensue. But if there were not some whom present punishment preserves from eternal woe, Paul would never have said, But when we are Judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. [1 Cor. 11, 32] Hence it is spoken to John by the voice of the Angel, As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. [Rev. 3, 19] Hence also it is written, For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. [Heb. 12, 6]
69. Therefore it often happens that the mind of the righteous man, in order to be made more secure, is the more penetrated with fear, and when he is beset with scourges, he is troubled with misgivings about the Judgment of the Most High. He fears lest all that he suffers should be the forerunner of the doom to ensue, and in his heart he questions the Judge, in that under His visitation he is full of doubts about the merit of his life. But when the goodness of his life is brought before the eyes of the mind, it is as if comfort were given in answer by the Judge, in that He never strikes to destroy him, whom by so striking He keeps in innocency of life and conduct. Therefore it is justly said here, Shew me wherefore Thou so judgest me. As if it were expressed in plain words, ‘Whereas Thou exercisest judgment upon me by scourging me, shew me that by these scourges Thou art making me secure against the Judgment.’ Which same however may also be understood in another sense. For very often the righteous man receives scourges for trial, and examining his life with the keenest eye of enquiry, though he both feel and own himself to be a sinner, yet for what particular sin he is smitten he cannot at all make out, and he trembles the more under the rod, in proportion as he knows nothing the reasons of his being smitten. He prays that the Judge would shew him to himself, that what He in striking aims at, he may himself also chastise in himself by weeping. For he is well assured that That most just Avenger never afflicts anyone of us unjustly, and he is moved with excessive alarm, in that he is both put to pain under the lash, and cannot entirely discover in himself what there is for him to lament.
