How long will you torment my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
All Commentaries on Job 19:2 Go To Job 19
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
The sayings of the holy man, as we have already often said, are to be understood as spoken sometimes in his own person, as sometimes in the voice of the Head and sometimes as a prefigurement of the universal church. Now the soul of the righteous is deeply distressed when people launch severe sentences against the good; they have not learned to lead good lives. By their words they claim righteousness for themselves, while in their actions they prove to be its enemies. To the friends of blessed Job, who bear the type of heretics, he rightly answers, “How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?” For good people are “broken into pieces” by the words of the wicked. They come out against them with words of the lips while they lie low either in a corrupt faith or in bad habits.
