His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
All Commentaries on Job 18:12 Go To Job 18
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
17. After the manner of Holy Scripture, he has the appearance of wishing that which he foresees will be, not surely in the spirit of one uttering curses, but of one pronouncing prophesies. Thus every man, in that he consists of soul and flesh, is as it were made up of strength and weakness. For by virtue of that part, by which he was created a reasoning spirit, he is not improperly called ‘strong,’ but in respect of that, by which he is of a fleshly substance, he is weak. And so ‘the strength’ of man is the reasoning soul, which is able to resist by reason the tendencies to evil that assail it. And hence it is said again by blessed Job, Thou hast strengthened him for a while, that he might pass through for evermore. [Job 14, 20] Since from a reasoning soul man derives it, that he should live for evermore. And so this wicked man’s ‘strength is hungerbitten,’ in that his soul is not fed by any refreshment of the interior food. Of which same hunger God saith by the Prophet; I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. [Amos 8, 11]
18. And it is well added, And starvation invade his ribs. For the ribs lace in the bowels, that lying out of sight within they should be fortified by their solidity. And so the ‘ribs’ of every one are the senses [Vide b. xi. c. 45. note.] of the mind, which fence the hidden thoughts. Therefore ‘starvation invades the ribs,’ when all spiritual refreshment being removed, the senses of the mind fail, and cannot either rule or guard their thoughts. ‘Starvation invades the ribs’ of the wicked man, in that the interior hunger debilitates the senses of the mind, that they may not rule their thoughts at all. For when the senses of the mind are dulled, the thoughts issue forth to things without, and, as it were, the ribs being weak, the bowels which might have lain in secret in a sound state, are poured forth without. Hence it comes that when the thoughts are spread abroad without, the mind being deceived goes after the image of exterior glory, and is pleased with nothing save what it beholds beautiful without; against whom the words yet further subjoined are fitly directed.
