He has made me also a byword of the people; and I was as one before whom men spit.
All Commentaries on Job 17:6 Go To Job 17
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
40. This let blessed Job say in his own person, yea and in the voice of all of the Elect. For everyone that is stricken with the rod, is, as it were, ‘made a byword of the people,’ in that every fool, when he desires to curse anyone, takes up his cursing in a likeness to him, whom he sees stricken with a temporal stroke, and wishes that punishment for his adversary, which he sees to have befallen the righteous man. And so it comes to pass that with persons not endowed with a right perception, the uptight man is brought into an example, while both the punishment of the just passes current for the condemnation of him, and the glory that is in store for him is not foreseen by any expectance of faith.