And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
All Commentaries on Job 30:16 Go To Job 30
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
56. Since ‘the soul’ of the Elect ‘withers now,’ because it is afterwards made green in that eternal triumphing. ‘Now, the days of affliction take hold upon them,’ because the days of joy follow afterwards. As it is written, To him that feareth God it shall go well at the last. [Ecclus. 1, 13. 19.] And again it is delivered touching the Church, And she shall laugh in the last day. [Prov. 31, 25] For now is the time of affliction to the good, that one day exulting may follow them apart from tears. Hence it is elsewhere said by those, Thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction. [Ps. 44, 19] Since ‘the place of affliction’ is the present life, so the righteous here below, i.e. ‘in the place of affliction,’ are ‘humbled,’ because in the eternal life, i.e. in the place of delight, they are elevated. But when he said that ‘the soul was withered,’ he rightly put before too, in mine own self; because in our own selves, indeed, our soul is afflicted, but in God refreshed, and it is become far removed from the greenness of joy, in proportion as still being withheld from the light of the Creator, it draws back to itself. But then it attains to the greenness of true joy, when being lifted up by the grace of eternal contemplation it even transcends its very self. Now these particulars which we have run through by allegorical investigating, it is requisite that we hold in all points after the history as well. Which particulars however I now for this reason pass over, because I am not unaware that they are plain to those that read them. Now in the days of final persecution, because there are many that are lost and a small number that are saved, for this reason the holy man, in the time of his suffering, both utters few particulars touching the good, and a great many touching the wicked. And hence he directly turns his words to the person of those who are brought to the ground, and so conveys his own circumstances, that the things he relates may accord with those that fall.
