They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Read Chapter 21
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Moment. Septuagint, "in the rest of the lower region, adou, they shall be laid "(Haydock) in the grave. (Menochius)
A sudden death, without agony or sickness, (Haydock) was the choice of Julius Cæsar, the night before he was slain. Repentinum inopinatumque prætulerat. (Suetonius)
But the enlightened servant of God would rather desire time to do penance, and to prepare for death. For who shall presume that he has that charity which banisheth fear? (Calmet)
Hell. The same term is used for the place where the damned are tormented, as for that where the souls of the just waited (chap. vii., and xvii.) for their Redeemer's coming. But here Job is speaking of the apparent happiness of the wicked; (Haycock) and only alludes to the grave, (Calmet; Menochius) or comfortable death and burial of the reprobate: though, at the same time, he may declare that their souls are buried in hell. (Haydock)
49. Yes, O blessed man, thou hadst for long dilated on their joys, how dost thou now declare that ‘in a point of time they go down to the lower parts,’ saving that all length of time of the present life is then known to be but a ‘point,’ when it is cut short by the end? For when a person is brought to the last end, he no longer keeps aught of the past, seeing that all the periods of time have elapsed, he has nought in the future, in that there remain not to him the moments of a single hour. So the life, which could be thus narrowed, was but a ‘point’ of time. For as we have before said, we set down the style in a point, and lift it up; and so he as it were touched life by a point who received and lost it. By a ‘point’ it is possible that this also may be understood, that it often happens that they that were long borne with in wickedness, are seized by sudden death, that it should not even be granted them to bewail before death the things they have done wrong, but seeing that occasi...
