You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation upon me; changes and war are ever with me.
All Commentaries on Job 10:17 Go To Job 10
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
89. For ‘God's witnesses’ are they, who bear witness by the practice of holy works, what are the rewards of Truth that shall overtake the Elect. Hence too those, whom we see to have suffered for the sake of the Truth, we style in the Greek tongue, ‘Martyrs,’ i.e. witnesses. And the Lord says by John in the Angel’s voice, Even in those days, wherein Antipas was my faithful witness, who was slain among you. Now the Lord ‘renews His witnesses against us’ when He multiplies the lives of the Elect to confront our wickedness, for the purpose of convicting and of instructing us. And so His ‘witnesses are renewed against us,’ in that all things that they do are opposed to the ends and aims of our wickedness. Hence too the word of Truth is called ‘an adversary,’ where it is said by the voice of the Mediator in the Gospel, Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him. [Matt. 5, 25] And the sons of perdition in their persecutions say concerning that same Redeemer, And He is clean contrary to our doings; and soon afterwards, For His life is not like other men’s. [Wisd. 2, 12. 15] Thus the Lord ‘renews His witnesses against us,’ in that the good things which we neglect to do ourselves, He shews us to be done by others to our upbraiding, that we who are not inflamed by precepts, may at least be stirred up by examples, and that in longing after righteousness, our mind may account nothing to be difficult to itself, that it sees to be done perfectly by others; and it is very commonly brought to pass, that while we behold the good actions of another man's life, we are more anxiously afraid of the deficiencies of our own, and it is made appear the plainer by what a weight of judgment we are afterwards assailed, in proportion as we are now widely at variance with the ways of the good.
90. Hence after the renewal of the witnesses has been mentioned it is thereupon fitly added, And multipliest Thy wrath upon me. God's wrath is said to be ‘multiplied upon us,’ in proportion as it is shewn to be manifold, since by the very lives and labours of the good we are instructed, if, whilst we have time, we will not amend our ways now, what a terrible visitation shall be dealt us hereafter. For we see the Elect of God at one and the same time leading godly lives and undergoing numberless sore hardships. And therefore we collect from hence with what rigour the strict Judge will There smite those whom He condemns, if he so torments here below those whom He loves; as Peter witnesses, who says, For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? [1 Peter 4, 17] Therefore Almighty God, when He ‘renews His witnesses’ against us, ‘multiplies His wrath,’ in that in proportion as He sets before our eyes the life of the good, He shews with what severity He will smite obduracy in the commission of sin at the Judgment. Now whereas He multiplies His gifts to those alone that follow Him, He shews that He has already forsaken those that go on in sloth. Thus when we see good things in others, it is very necessary to mix exultation with the dread that we feel, and dread with our exultation, that both charity may rejoice for the proficiencies of other men, and conscience tremble for its own frailties. But when we are gladdened with the proficiency of a brother, when we calculate the severity of the interior Judge against us for our mere slothfulness by itself, what is there left but that the mind turn back to search into itself, and that whatever it meets with in itself, that is blameworthy, whatever that is bad, it should chastise? Hence it is fitly subjoined, Pains fight in me. For upon considering the witnesses of God, ‘pains fight in us,’ in that whilst we behold their deeds, that command our admiration, our own life, which by comparison with theirs is displeasing in our eyes, we visit with serious self-chastening, that whatever pollution our deeds may have caused in us, our tears may wash clean, and if the guilt of taking pleasure therein still somewhat defiles us, the chastening of a sorrowful heart may cleanse away the stain. Therefore because blessed Job has his eye fixed on the life of the fathers of old time, he ascertains more exactly what he ought to bewail in himself. And by the preceptorship of extraordinary sorrow, whilst he bewails his own case, he instructs us to lamentation, that in proportion as we perceive excellencies in other men, we may anxiously fear for our own offences in the sight of the strict Judge.
