Though it be given him to be in safety, he rests; yet his eyes are upon their ways.
All Commentaries on Job 24:23 Go To Job 24
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
8. Whosoever commits sin and lives, such a person Divine Appointment for this reason bears with in iniquity, that it may withhold him from iniquity. But he that is borne with for a longer time, and yet is not withholden from iniquity, is vouchsafed indeed the benefit of the patience Above, yet with the chains of his guilt is by that very benefit binding himself the tighter. For because the times of repentance vouchsafed he diverts to sin, the strict Judge in the end converts the instances of mercy bestowed into punishment. Hence it is said by Paul; Or knowest thou not that the longsuffering of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. [Rom. 2, 4.5.] Hence Isaiah saith, For the child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. [Is. 65, 20] As though he deterred us in plain words, saying, ‘The life of a child indeed is drawn to a great length, in order that he may be corrected of childish doings, but if he be not even by length of time restrained from the commission of sin, this very length of life, which he received in pitifulness, is made to grow to him into an aggravation of cursing.’ Whence it is necessary that the longer time that we see ourselves to be waited for, we fear the very seasons of pitifulness before granted [praerogatae] as the grounds of condemnation, lest by the clemency of the Judge the punishment of the sinner should be heightened, and by the same means whereby anyone might have been rescued from death, he should tend to death in a manner the more disastrous. Which is for this reason very often brought to pass, because the eye of the mind is not in the least degree weaned from things present. For the sinner is careless to regard the ways of the Redeemer, and so he grows old in his own paths without stopping. Hence it is added;
For his eyes are upon his ways.
9. For the sinner ‘regards his own ways,’ because he sets himself to mind only, to have an eye only for, things which may stand him in stead for temporal advantage. Thus it is hence Paul saith, All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s. [Phil. 2, 21] For the way of the highminded is pride; the way of the robber, avarice; the way of the lecherous, carnal concupiscence. Thus every bad man bends his eyes down on his own ways, in that he is intent on vicious pursuits alone, that by these he may satisfy his mind. Whence it is said by Solomon, The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth; because that only they regard with the whole bent of the heart, whereby they may attain to the end of earthly desire. Now the sinner would never fix the gaze of his looking on earth, if he lifted up the eyes of the mind to the holy paths of his Redeemer. Whence it is again said by Solomon, The wise man’s eyes are in his head; [Eccl. 2, 14] in this way, viz. that with undivided intentness the wise man regards Him, of Whom he reflects by faith that he is a member. For these ways of man’s walk and conversation, he had deemed it little worth to have in his eye, who said, I will meditate in Thy statutes, and have respect unto Thy ways. [Ps. 119, 15] As if he gave his word in plain terms, saying, ‘The things which are mine own I henceforth eschew the seeing of, in that by the path of the imitating of Thee I burn to go on in the steps of behaviour.’ For he who henceforth withstands the present world, by the continual inciting of love presents the ways of his Redeemer to the eyes of the heart, that so the mind may eschew what is prosperous, be in readiness for what is adverse, desire nought that soothes down, dread nought that is supposed to dismay, account sorrow joy, estimate the delights of the present life as the ills of woe, not fear the diminutions of a state of scorn, but thereby-seek room for enduring glory. For these ways Truth shewed to the eyes of those that were following Him, when He said, If any man serve Me, let him follow Me. [John 12, 26] To these ways he recalled the swelling hearts of the Disciples, when they were already seeking room for glory, but knew not the pathway of that glory, saying, Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? For they had been seeking the height of that session with Him on the right hand and on the left hand, but how great the narrowness of the pathway thereunto they did not see; and hence the cup of the Passion is at once presented to their eyes as a thing for them to imitate, that, surely, if they were making for the joys of exaltedness, they should first find the way of humility. And therefore because the sinner is careless to have an eye to the ways of God, but is bent on those only wherein he may be made to delight in a carnal manner, it is rightly said in this place, For his eyes are upon his ways.
