The trap shall take him by the heel, and a snare shall lay hold of him.
All Commentaries on Job 18:9 Go To Job 18
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
13. n that the end shall be made fast in sin. And because the enemy of mankind, when he binds up in sin the life of each individual, eagerly pants after his death, it is rightly added;
And thirst shall burn furiously against him.
14. For our old enemy, when he ensnares the life in sin, thirsts that he may drink the death of the sinner. Which however may also be understood in another sense. For the evil mind when it sees that it has been brought into sin, seeks with a certain superficialness of thought to escape out of the snares of sin; but fearing either the threats or reproaches of men, it chooses rather to die for ever, than to undergo a little of adversity for a season, whence it abandons itself wholly to evil ways, in which it perceives itself to be already once bound. And so he whose life is bound fast in sin even to the end, has his ‘heel held by the gin.’ But forasmuch as in the same degree that he minds that he is tied and bound with evil habits, he is in despair of his return, by that very despairing he henceforth kindles more fiercely to the lusts of this world, the heat of desire arises within him, and the mind having been ensnared by previous sins, is inflamed to even worse transgressions. And hence it is added; And thirst shall burn furiously against him. For in his mind there is a ‘thirst that burns out against him,’ in that in proportion as he is used to do wicked things, he is the more vehemently on fire to drink down evil. Since for the ungodly man to ‘thirst’ is to lust after the good things of this world. And hence our Redeemer cures the man with the dropsy before the Pharisee’s house, and when he was arguing against avarice, it is written, And the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all things; and they derided Him. [Luke 16, 14] What does it mean then that the man with the dropsy is cured before the house of the Pharisee, but that by the sickness of one man’s body the sickness of heart in another is represented? For one sick of a dropsy, the more he drinks, thirsts the more, and every covetous person redoubles his thirst by drinking, in that when he has got the things he desires, he pants the more in desiring others. For he that by getting is made to long for more, has his thirst increased by drinking.
