Have the gates of death been revealed unto you? or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
All Commentaries on Job 38:17 Go To Job 38
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
“Have you entered into the depth of the sea?” The “sea” is the mind of humankind, and God enters its depths when it is roused from its inmost thoughts to lamentations of penitence through its knowledge of itself, and when he calls to its memory the wickedness of its former life and rouses the mind, which is agitated by its own confusion. God penetrates the depth of the sea when he changes hearts that are in despair. For he goes into the sea when he humbles a worldly heart. He enters the depth of the sea when he does not disdain to visit minds that are even overwhelmed with sins. Hence it is rightly added in a question, “And have you walked in the recesses of the deep?” What deep is there but the human mind, which while unable to comprehend itself is like an obscure deep, hid from itself, in everything that it is.… “Have the gates of death been opened to you?” From the gates of death are wicked thoughts that we open to God when we confess them with weeping in penitence. He beholds them even when not confessed, but he enters into them when confessed. He then in truth opens a way for himself in the gates of death when we have put aside evil thoughts, and he comes to us after confession. They are called the gates of death for this reason, because the way to death is always opened through evil thoughts. Which is again repeated when it is subjoined, “And have you seen the gloomy doors?” For the gloomy doors are the lurking evils of the mind that can exist within and yet not be observed by another; the Lord beholds when he destroys them by the secret look of grace.
