OLD TESTAMENTNEW TESTAMENT

Job 27:23

Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.
All Commentaries on Job 27:23 Go To Job 27

Gregory The Dialogist

AD 604
“The scorching wind shall carry him off and take him away.” Who is it that is here called the “scorching wind”? None other than the evil spirit who stirs up the flames of diverse lusts in the heart that he may drag it to an eternity of punishments. And so “the scorching wind” is said to “carry off” the bad people, because the plotter, the evil spirit, inflames a person who is drawn toward evil and drags him when dying to torments.… “And as a whirlwind shall carry him out of his place.” “The place” of the wicked is the gratification of the temporal life and the enjoyment of the flesh. Therefore, every single individual is in a sense “carried out of his place by a whirlwind.” He is overwhelmed with terror on the last day, severed from all gratifications. Regarding this same last day, it is immediately added, and rightly, “For he shall let loose upon him and not spare.” God, as often as he chastises the sinner by smiting him, “lets loose” the scourge, precisely that he may “spare” him. But when, by punishing him, he brings his life to an end while remaining in sin, he “lets loose” the scourge and does not “spare.” For the same one who “lets loose” the scourge in order that he might “spare” will one day “let it loose” with this in view—that he may not spare. For in this life the Lord is able more to spare in proportion as he scourges those who are in waiting. This is what he himself said to John by the voice of the angel, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chastise;” and as it is elsewhere spoken, “For whom the Lord loves, he chastises.” But, in reverse, it is written of the scourge of condemnation, “The wicked is trapped in the work of his own hands.” According to Jeremiah, when the Lord sees the multitude transgressing irreclaimably, whom he now no longer regards as sons under discipline but as enemies under unmitigated scourging, he says:“For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with a cruel chastisement.” … Then he says, “He shall bind up his hands over him.” To “bind up the hands” is to establish the practices of his life in uprightness. Hence Paul also says, “Therefore lift up the loosed hands and the unstrung knees.” While, then, they behold the destruction of another, they are made to turn back to the conscience. There they are to remind themselves of their own acts, by which one person is carried to torments and another is freed from torments. And so “he binds up his hands over him,” because he observes in the punishment of another what to be afraid of. While he sees one living in transgression as smitten, he binds fast with the sinews of righteousness his own loose practices. And so it is brought to pass that he who, being a bad person while living, had drawn numbers into transgression by the seductiveness of sin, may in dying recover some from transgression by the terribleness of their torments.… “And he shall hiss upon him, beholding his place.” What is expressed in the hissing other than the wrenching of wonder? But if in the hissing there is some other meaning sought, when the sinner dies, those who witness his death draw tight the mouth in hissing, in the sense that they are converted to those spiritual words that they themselves had condemned, so that they henceforth begin to believe and to teach that which before, while they perceived the wicked person thriving, they earlier had not believed. For it very often happens that the mind of the weak is the more unsteadied from the hearing of the truth precisely by seeing the despisers of the truth flourishing. But when just punishment takes away the unjust, it keeps others away from wickedness.
3 mins

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20

App Store LogoPlay Store Logo