When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
All Commentaries on Job 29:5 Go To Job 29
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
21. Now all that stand in awe of the divine precepts become God’s ‘tabernacle.’ Hence as we have already said above, ‘Truth’ saith by Himself of the man that keeps His commandments, I and My Father will come and make Our abode with him. [John 14, 23] Contrariwise the wicked severally, whereas they do not aim at the things within, pour themselves forth without in the thoughts of their hearts. Whence it is said to them by the Prophet, Turn back to the heart within, O ye transgressors. [Is. 46, 8] And again, Woe to you that devise a vain thing. [Mic. 2, 1] Since in their actions they are afraid of men, whom they see with bodily sight, and God, Whom they do not see, they do not account to be present to them. Contrary whereunto it is said in commendation of a righteous person, seeing that he disregarded the king of Egypt, and obeyed the commandments of God, For he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible. [Heb. 11, 27] For the wicked ruler of the earth he as it were saw not, in that he banished him from the eyes of the heart. But the King Invisible ‘as seeing,’ ‘he endured,’ because from the regarding of His fear he turned not aside the eye of the soul. So Holy Church being taken then in great tribulations, when she sees many by evil imagining depart from God, surely she sees the tabernacle of their mind on God’s departing to remain empty, and justly lamenting, she says, When God was secretly in my tabernacle. By which words, and not inappropriately, the feigning of religion is likewise bewailed, because there are those even now that aim not to be, but to seem Christians. These without question have God in public, not ‘in secret.’ But Holy Church desires to have God ‘in secret,’ because He regards those really faithful ones, whom He knows to be holding on to the life of faith with complete affection. Which same, as well also with reference to the external uprightness of her activity, saith, When the Almighty was yet with me: when my servants were about me. ‘Servants’ surely those are called, who do the bidding of the heavenly precepts. Whence the Lord saith by the Prophet, Behold I, and my servants which the Lord hath given me. [Is. 8, 18] And again in the Gospel, Servants [Pueri Vulg. The Greek diminutive hardly bears this.], have ye any meat? [John 21, 5] And so now ‘the servants are round about her,’ because in all nations almost there are found those that keep the commandments of heaven, and obey the rules of spiritual discipline. Which servants, too truly, shall then be lacking to do her service, when the wicked doers, that shall be found, despise her spiritual precepts.
