Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
All Commentaries on Job 4:15 Go To Job 4
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Whoever is inclined to do worldly things is, as it were, awake, but he who seeks inward rest eschews the riot of this world and is, as it were, asleep. Yet first we must know that when sleep is described figuratively in holy Scripture, it is understood in three senses. Sometimes we have used “sleep” to express the death of the body; sometimes “sleep” represents the grogginess of neglect; and sometimes “sleep” signifies tranquility of life. Earthly desires have been tramped underfoot.… What is denoted by the word bones but strong deeds? The prophet refers to the same thing when he writes, “He keeps all their bones.” In addition, it often happens that the things that people do are often reckoned to be of some account, largely because they do not realize how keen is God’s inward discernment. However, when transported on the wings of contemplation, they behold things above. Somehow, they melt away from the security they felt in their presumption and quake all the more in the sight of God, a response proportionate to their awareness that whatever is excellent in them will not stand up to the searching eye of him whom they behold.… To “stand,” then, is the attribute of the Creator alone, through whom all things pass away, though he himself never passes away, and in whom some things are held fast so that they might not pass away. Hence, our Redeemer, because the fixed state of his divine nature cannot be comprehended by the human mind, showed this to us as it were in passing, by coming to us, by being created, born, dead, buried, by rising again and returning to the heavenly realms. Christ foreshadowed this well in the gospel by enlightening the blind man, to whom Jesus promised hearing as he passed by, but he stood still as he healed his eyes. For in the economy of his human nature he passed by, but in the power of his divine nature he stood still, demonstrating that he is present everywhere.
