That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
All Commentaries on Job 38:13 Go To Job 38
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
20. For by ‘earth’ is designated man, who savours of things below; to whom it was said in his sin; Earth thou art, and to earth shall thou go. [Gen. 3, 19] But because the merciful Creator forsakes not His own work, He both bears with the sins of men, by His wisdom, and at last remits them by their conversion. But, when He beholds hard and insensible minds, He scares them at one time with threats, at another with blows, at another with revelations: in order that those which had become hardened by most fatal security may be softened by wholesome fear, so that they may, though at last, return, and blush at least at this, that they have long been waited for. For thus the Lord, because He judges more severely the ends of our life, therefore purges also His Elect more carefully at the close. For it is written; God shall judge the ends of the earth. [1 Sam. 2, 10] He therefore watches more anxiously over our closing deeds, the more He considers that the beginnings of our coming life depend upon them. And because He does this of His mercy; by bringing forward His tenderness, with which He receives even those sinners who have been converted at the last, He instructs the righteousness of blessed Job, saying; Hast thou held and shaken the ends of the earth, and hast thou shaken the wicked out of it? Thou understandest, As I, Who frequently arouse sinners by alarming them at their last moments, hold them fast by converting them, and pluck from their hearts the wicked motions of their thoughts. And the Lord rightly teaches blessed Job, how He converts sinners at the end. As if He openly said, Observe the power of My mercy, and bring down the pride of thy righteousness. But, that that punishment of former sin accompanies these closing hours of a man, through the death of the flesh, even when he is converted.
