Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open; they go forth, and return not unto them.
All Commentaries on Job 39:4 Go To Job 39
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
49. Holy Scripture terms ‘pasture’ that food of eternal verdure, where our refreshment will no longer waste away with any dryness of failing. Of which pasture it is said by the Psalmist, The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing; He hath placed me there in a place of pasture. [Ps. 23, 1] And again, But we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. [Ps. 96, 7] And of these pastures, doubtless, the Truth says, by Itself; By Me, if any one hath entered in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture. [John 10, 9] They go therefore to the pasture; because, on going forth from their bodies, they find those refreshments of eternal verdure. They go forth, and return not unto them; because, when they have been caught up in that contemplation of joys, they no longer need to hear the words of teachers. Having gone forth, therefore, they do not return to them; because, escaping the difficulties of this life, they require no longer to receive from teachers the preaching of life. For then that is fulfilled which is written, Each man shall no longer teach his neighbour, and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least of them even unto the greatest, saith the Lord. [Jer. 31, 34] Then is fulfilled that which the Truth says in the Gospel, I shall declare to you plainly of My Father. [John 16, 25] For the Son in truth plainly declares of the Father; because, as we have said before, in that He is the Word, He enlightens us by the nature of the Godhead. For men seek not then for the words of teachers, which are streamlets, as it were, from the tongue of man, when they are themselves already derived from the fount of Truth Itself.
After much then had been said, under the figurative bending down of hinds, concerning the virtue of teachers, His words are now directed to the conduct of those, who seek for the secresy of retired conversation; to whom, since they obtain their very rest of cessation by the Divine aid, and not by their own strength, it is said by the Lord.
