Know now that God has overthrown me, and has compassed me with his net.
All Commentaries on Job 19:6 Go To Job 19
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
36. O, how hard does the voice of the righteous man sound, suffering under the infliction of the rod! Which same, however, not pride, but grief gave vent to! Now he is not righteous, who gives up righteousness under sorrow; and blessed Job, because he had a meek spirit, did not sin even by a hard word. For, if we say that he did err by this voice, we make out that the devil accomplished what he purposed, when he said, Touch his bone and his flesh, and see if he have not blessed Thee to Thy face. [Job 2, 5] Therefore a serious question arises; for if he did not sin in that he says, Know now at least that God has not afflicted me with a just judgment; we agree to God’s having done something unjustly, which it is profane to say; but if he did sin, then the devil made appear concerning him the thing that he promised. And so it must be asserted both that God acted rightly in His dealings with blessed Job, and yet that blessed Job herein, viz. that he says that he ‘was not afflicted by a just judgment of God,’ did not speak an untruth, and that our old enemy in respect of that which he promised of sin in the blessed man did speak an untruth. For sometimes the words of the good are for this reason supposed wrong, because they are not ever considered in their interior signification. Thus blessed Job had turned his eyes to his own life, and he estimated the strokes which he was undergoing, and saw that it was not just that upon such a life such strokes should be dealt. And when he says that he was not afflicted by a just judgment, he spoke that with unreserved voice, which God in His own secresy had said concerning him to his adversary, thou movedst Me against him, to afflict him without cause [v. 3]. For what God expresses, that He ‘had afflicted blessed Job without cause,’ this blessed Job asserts again in the words that he was not ‘afflicted of the Lord by a just judgment?’ Wherein then did he sin, who was in nothing at odds with the sentence of his Maker?
37. But perhaps some one will say, that for us to speak that good concerning ourselves, which the Judge may have said in secret concerning us, cannot be done without sin. For he whom the Judge praises, it cannot be doubted, is justly praiseworthy; but if he in his own person praises himself, his righteousness is henceforth supposed to be no longer deserving of praise; and this is said rightly, if what the just Judge delivers in impartial sentence, the person in question should venture to say afterwards concerning himself in pride of heart. For if he himself too continuing in a humble frame, when the occasion or his grief brings it out, has uttered good that is true in his own praise, he has not departed from the line of righteousness, in so far as he was not at all at variance with truth.
38. Whence Paul the Apostle also related many brave things of himself for the edification of his disciples, but he did not commit sin by relating these things, in that both by an undeniable attestation, and a humble mind, he did not depart from the pathway of truth; and so let blessed Job, conscious of his own life being just, say that he is not afflicted by a just judgment; neither yet does he sin by that voice, wherein he is not at variance with His Maker, in that he whom God ‘smote without cause,’ himself also asserts that he was not ‘afflicted by a just judgment.’ But again there arises another question, which I remember has been already solved in the beginning of this work, viz. whereas Almighty God does nothing without cause, why does He bear witness that He had afflicted blessed Job without cause? For our just Creator by those many strokes inflicted upon blessed Job did not aim to do away with evil qualities in him, but to increase his merits; and so that was just, which He did in the heightening of his good deserts; but it did not seem equitable, because it was thought to be the punishing of instances of sin. Now blessed Job believed that sins of his doing were obliterated by those scourges, not that his merits were added to, and therefore he calls it ‘not a just judgment,’ because he tests his life side by side with the scourges: thus, if the life and the scourges be weighed in the scales, that was not equal dealing, which blessed Job, as I have said, supposed to be done to him in the wrathfulness of severity; but if the mercifulness of the Judge be looked to, seeing that by the punishment of the just man the merits of his life are heightened, it was an equal or rather a merciful judgment: therefore at once Job spoke what was true, so long as he balanced his life with the stroke; and God did not afflict Job with an unjust judgment, in that he heightened his merits by the stroke; and the devil did not achieve what he promised; seeing that blessed Job, amidst words which sound hard, was neither removed from a true sentence nor a humble mind. But perhaps we shall understand these words of blessed Job less well, if we are not acquainted with the sentence of the Judge; Who, when He was delivering sentence between the two parties, says to the friends of Job; Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. [Job 42, 7] Who then is there so foolish [ABCD ‘tam.’] in mind as to own that blessed Job had been guilty in his way of speaking, when he is declared to have spoken rightly by the very voice of the Judge itself? Which same voice, indeed, if we refer to the person of Holy Church, we not unsuitably apply it to her weak members, which while, in the season of her persecution, they weigh both her merits and her scourges, forasmuch as they see that the unjust thrive, and the just perish, have no notion that this is just. Now it is well added by the voice of the blessed man,
And compassed me with his scourges.
39. For it is one thing to be smitten, and another thing to be ‘compassed with scourges.’ Thus, we are smitten with scourges, when even in our sorrows we have a consolation derived from other sources; for when affliction lies so heavy on us that the spirit can no longer take breath by consolation from anyone thing; we are now no longer smitten only, but even ‘compassed with scourges,’ in that we are every way surrounded by the rod of affliction. Thus Paul had been compassed with scourges, when he said, Without were fightings, within were fears. [2 Cor. 7, 5] He had been compassed with scourges, when he said, In perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness [2 Cor. 11, 26], with the other particulars, which he so enumerates, as to shew that he no where had rest. But when Holy Church is ‘compassed with the scourges’ of her tribulation, all the weak in her are brought down in the fall of littleness of mind, so that they now suppose themselves disregarded, in proportion as they see that they are the more slowly heard with effect.
