But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
All Commentaries on Job 36:12 Go To Job 36
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
“If they hear and observe him, they shall fulfill their days in good and their years in glory; but if they do not hear, they shall pass away by the sword and shall be consumed with folly.” By “good” is designated right conduct, but by “glory” heavenly recompense. They, then, who study to obey the divine commands fulfill their days in good and their years in glory. Because they pass the course of this life in right deeds, they perfect their consummation by a blessed retribution. “But if they do not hear, they shall pass away by the sword and shall be consumed with folly.” Vengeance smites them in tribulation, and the end shuts them up in folly. For there are some whom not even torments keep back from their loose habits. Of them it is said by the prophet, “You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; you have scourged them, and they have refused to receive correction.” And of them it is said under the figure of Babylon, “We have cured Babylon, and she is not healed.” Of them it is said again, “I have slain and destroyed my people, and yet they have not returned from their ways.” These sometimes become worse by the scourge, because, when attacked by pain, they are either more hardened in their contumacious obstinacy or, what is worse, launch out into even the exasperation of blasphemy. It is well said then that they pass away by the sword and are consumed with folly; for through their scourges, they increase those sins that they ought, in consequence of them, to correct. And they both feel even here the punishment of the blow and do not escape there the sufferings of righteous retribution. It is the infatuation of folly that iniquity so fetters them and that not even punishment keeps them from offending.
