He builds his house like a moth, and like a booth that the keeper makes.
All Commentaries on Job 27:18 Go To Job 27
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Silver used to be interpreted as the clarity of sacred Scripture. As it is elsewhere said, “The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth.” And because there are those who long to have the Word of God not inwardly in the exemplifying of it, but externally in the displaying of it, therefore it is said by the prophet, “All those who are clothed in silver are cut off,” referring to those who by the word of God do not fill themselves with the interior refreshment but array themselves in the outward exhibition. Hence their “silver,” that is, the word of heretics, is compared with “dust,” because on matters touching the holy Scripture, there may be something that they know, but they toil and strain from the coveting of earthly applause. And these also “pile up clothing like clay,” because they loosely make up testimonies of holy Scripture in a dabbling way, where they are able to defend themselves. The oppressors shall “pile up” silver indeed, “but the just will wear it,” because the person who is full of right faith, which used to be accounted to the saints for righteousness, cohesively gathers together those self-same testimonies of holy Scripture that the heretic piles up deductively. And from there, the just strikes home at the obstinacy of the other’s error.
