He draws also the mighty with his power: he rises up, but no man is sure of life.
All Commentaries on Job 24:22 Go To Job 24
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
6. Since in the might of his wickedness the mighty he severally takes away, whilst by the craftiness of his error he carries off the great ones of this world. In opposition to whom it is said by Paul, God hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. [1 Cor. 1, 27] Now the ‘might’ of the corrupt preacher is the high-flown science of his speaking, puffed up with which he despises all the rest of the world, and in contempt of all men, as being preeminently proficient in himself, he swells big. Who whilst thinking what is great of himself, and not knowing what is true of God, is parted far from knowledge of the faith, and yet endeavours to make himself appear a preacher thereof. Whence it is further added;
And when he standeth, he will not believe his like.
7. Every evil preacher ‘standeth’ in this world, so long as he lives in an earthly body. But he refuses to ‘believe his life,’ because he is too proud to open his eyes to what is true relating to God. For he would ‘believe his life,’ if he had right notions concerning the Substance of his Creator. These things, then, we were describing above as spoken of every bad man, but we suddenly made the meaning turn to the preacher of error. Whence it is to be noted, that we are so drawn on to the special case as not yet in any wise to be quite taken off from the general. For every bad man, even if he seem to maintain the faith in the bosom of the Church Universal, ‘standeth and believeth not his life,’ because they are right things indeed which by faith he understands of his Creator, yet the works of faith he cares not to maintain; and he is convicted of unbelief, in that, even from that which he sets forth as his creed, by his way of living he is condemned. For hence it is said by John, He that saith he knoweth God, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar. [1 John 2, 4] Hence Paul saith, They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him. [Tit. 1, 16] Hence James saith, Faith without works is dead. [Jam. 2, 20. 26.] But amidst all this the Creator by a wonderful economy of counsel at once has an eye to offences, and bestows periods of living, that the lengthened portions of temporal life may to the person either being converted be turned into the furtherance of reward, or not being converted to the heightening of condemnation.
