Then let my arm fall from my shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from its socket.
All Commentaries on Job 31:22 Go To Job 31
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
33. Because bodily action is carried on by the shoulder and the arm, if the good things which he put forth with the lips he did not fulfil in deed, he wishes to himself ‘the shoulder to fall,’ and ‘the arm to be broken in pieces.’ As though he said in plain words, ‘If the things that I said I refused to do, this very member of my body, which was given to me for working withal, may I lose, that surely that may fall from the body which I would not exercise to advantage.’ But if this sentence of a curse is to be referred to a spiritual meaning, it is doubtless plain that the arm is joined to the body by the shoulders, and as by the arm good practice, so by the shoulder the knitting together of social life, is denoted. Whence too the Prophet, regarding the holy peoples of the Church universal, that should serve God in concord, says, And they shall serve Him with one shoulder. [Zeph. 3, 9] Herein then that he says, If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw myself above in the gate. He declares that he had preserved a wonderful force of patience, who declined not the being borne hard upon by the least considerable persons, no not when it was contrary to that which might justly be open to him. Which thing if he had not done, he adds, May my shoulder fall from its joint. Because, undoubtedly, he who is indifferent to observe patience, soon gives up a social life from impatience. For ‘the shoulder falls from its joining,’ when the mind, not being able to bear aught of contradiction, abandons brotherly concord, and it is as if a member were severed from the body, when he who might do what is good is cut off from the general unity of all the good. For never can concord be preserved excepting through patience only. For frequently there arises in human conduct occasion whereby the minds of men are liable to be reciprocally separated from their union and affection. And except the mind prepare itself for the undergoing things that are contrary, surely the shoulder does not hold fast to the body. Thus hence it is that Paul says, Bear ye one another’s burthens, and so ye shall fulfil the law of Christ. [Gal. 6, 9] Hence Truth says by Itself, In your patience ye shall possess your souls. [Luke, 21, 19]
34. Now upon the ‘shoulder falling,’ it is rightly subjoined, Let mine arm be broken in pieces with its bones; because without doubt all our practice, with whatsoever virtues it may seem to be accompanied, is undone, except that through the bond of brotherly love patience be preserved safe. For he foregoes to do good deeds of his own, who refuses to bear evil deeds of others. Since on being wounded by the heat of an angry spirit, a person recoils from loving, and when he does endure to be borne hard upon outwardly, he darkens himself inwardly by the light of charity being lost; nor does he now see where to stretch out the foot of good practice, who has lost the eye of love. But ‘the shoulder of the holy man does not fall from its joining,’ in this way, because his loving affection does not depart from the concord of social life through impatience. And his arm is not broken, because all his practice is preserved in the joining of the shoulder, i.e. in the binding together of charity. Now with what thought present to him he did these good things of such great magnitude, and kept himself from all bad ones.
