And you shall be secure, because there is hope; yea, you shall dig about you, and take your rest in safety.
All Commentaries on Job 11:18 Go To Job 11
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
36. For hope lifts itself the more firmly rooted in God, in proportion as a man has suffered harder things for His sake, since the joy of the recompensing is never gathered in eternity, which is not first sown here below in religious sorrowing, Hence the Psalmist saith, They went forth and wept as they went, bearing precious seed, but they shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them. [Ps. 126, 6] Hence Paul saith, If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. [2 Tim. 2, 11. 12.] Hence he warns his disciples, saying, And that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. [Acts 14, 22] Hence the Angel, shewing the glory of the Saints to John, saith, These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. [Rev. 7, 14] Therefore because we now sow in tribulation that we may afterwards reap the fruit of joy, the heart is strengthened with the larger measure of confidence in proportion as it is pressed with the heavier weight of affliction for the Truth's sake. Whence it is therefore fitly added,
Yea, being dug to the bottom [V. defossus], thou shalt rest secure.
37. For just as present security begets toil to the wicked, so present toil begets perpetual security to the good. Hence he already knew that it was his ‘to rest secure after he had been dug to the bottom,’ who said, For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course: I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day. [2 Tim. 4, 6. 8.] For as he had striven without giving over against transitory ills, doubtless he reckoned without misgiving on enduring joys.
38. Not but that the expression, ‘been dug to the bottom,’ may be understood in another sense also: for oftentimes being busied with transitory matters, we neglect to consider in what great things we go wrong; but if the eye of reflection being brought in, the pile of earthly thoughts be discharged from the recesses of the heart, what lay hid from sight within is disclosed to view; whence holy men never cease to explore the secret hiding places of their souls; minutely searching themselves, they throw off the cares of earthly things, and their thoughts being thoroughly dug up from the bottom [effossis], when they find that they are not cankered in any wise by the guilt of sin, they rest secure in themselves as upon the bed of the heart. For they desire to be hid apart from the courses of this world. They are always thinking on their own concerns, and when they are not at all tied by the harness of government, they decline to pass judgment on what concerns others. Therefore ‘having been dug to the bottom they rest secure,’ in that whilst with wakeful eye they dive into their inmost recesses, they withdraw themselves from the toilsome burthens of this world under the disengagement of repose.
