They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.
All Commentaries on Job 17:12 Go To Job 17
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
It is to the elect that Job frames these words, whom he calls to the eternal world. They are exhorted in two ways, namely, that they should “turn” and that they should “come” (meaning “turn” by faith and “come” by practice), that is, “turn” by abandoning evil deeds and “come” by doing good. As it is written, “Depart from evil, and do good.” But Job amazingly adds, “I shall not find a sensible person among you.” What does it mean that Job bids them to wisdom and yet wishes that he may not find them wise? Concerning them it is written, “Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes and prudent in your own sight;” and to whom it is said again, “Be not wise with your own selves.” Hence that same great preacher desired that those whom he found carnally wise, in order that they might attain true wisdom, should first become foolish, saying, “If anyone among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” And the living Truth said elsewhere, “I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” And so because they that are wise in themselves cannot come to true wisdom, blessed Job, being anxious for the conversion of his hearers, rightly desires that he may not “find any wise man among them.” It is as if Job said to them in plain speech, “Learn to be foolish in your own selves, that you may be truly wise in God.” … The holy church of the elect perceives that the spaces of its life pass in periods of day and night. This suggests that the church in adversity is experiencing a night to be followed by a day of prosperity. For there rises, as it were, light on it from the tranquility of peace and night from the grief of persecution. Now after each pause of rest [the church] returns to the labor of persecution, growing to a head against it. [The church] testifies that “its days have past.” In these days, however, it is accustomed to be weighed down proportionally with so many heavier cares. As [the church] things of the true tranquility of rest, a more exact reckoning is required of it by the Judge.… Hence blessed Job, whether in his own voice or the voice of the universal church, after testifying that “his days were past,” thereupon added, “My thoughts are scattered, racking my heart.”
