His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
All Commentaries on Job 20:11 Go To Job 20
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
11. The origin of a bad beginning by preoccupying further multiplies the causes of sin. For when a man has begun to do evil, by custom he now grows to a worse height in that which he had begun. What then is the ‘youth’ of this hypocrite, but the beginning of wickedness, since in youth passion now begins to kindle? And the hypocrite then has youth, when he begins to long for and to embrace the passion for glory. Which same, whilst the soft salves of flatterers redouble it, they give strength to, and as it were turn it into bones. For what he begins badly, he is daily strengthening for the worse by custom. Therefore let it be said; His bones shall be full of the sin of his youth; in that the rigid habits of evil practices in him are taken from the sin of an ill beginning. Hence it is written in the Proverbs, The young man according to his own way, when he is old, will never depart therefrom. [Prov. 22, 6] Which same ‘bones’ truly ‘will sleep with him in the dust,’ for so long do evil practices endure in him, until they drag him to the dust of death. Since for his ‘bones,’ or evil habits, to ‘sleep with him in the dust’ is for these never to quit him even to the very dust, that is, never to cease from sin even until death. Therefore bad habits, which are once begun, keep hold of him, and daily become more hardened. And they ‘sleep with him in the dust,’ because they are never ended but with his life. But this may be taken in another sense also.
12. For the hypocrite occasionally has something in practice that is strong and vigorous, but whilst he makes believe to have many good points that he is without, he loses even these which he has. Whence it is well said now; His bones shall be full of the sin of his youth. For whereas in his levity and fickleness he does many things like a child, even in strong ones which he may do he is enervated in sin. Which same ‘bones shall sleep with him in the dust,’ because as all that hypocrisy which he carries on is dust, so too whatever he has in him that is strong is robbed of all its solidity, so that by pretension to virtue he loses that also which there might have been in him of a virtuous nature. And so for ‘his bones’ to ‘sleep with him in the dust’ is even if there be things done well, for them to come to nought together with his evil deeds.
