Then let my wife grind for another, and let others bow down upon her.
Read Chapter 31
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Let. Hebrew, "Let my wife grind for another, and let others bend over her "urging her to work like the meanest slave. (Calmet)
Septuagint, "Let my wife please (Grabe substitutes l for r, and reads alesai, grind for) another, and my little children be brought low. "(Haydock)
Yet the sense of the Vulgate is most followed, Ecclesiasticus xlvii. 21., and Lamentations v. 13. Ausonius (epig. 5) says, molitur per utramque cavern am. (Calmet) Ver. 11. This adultery, to which I might have given way, and that of others with my wife, (Haydock) which would have been a requital, of which I could not indeed have complained, (Menochius) but which is nevertheless a most heinous offence. (Haydock)
Iniquity. Hebrew, "a crime of judgment "or capital, Genesis xxxviii. 24. (Calmet)
The canons of the Church (Haydock) have ranked adultery with murder and idolatry, which shows the horror in which it is held. (Calmet)
19. And because it is generally the case that that thing which in the doing of, we do not well consider how heinous it is, in the suffering it we do consider this; the force of that atrocity which, if he were guilty, he declares that he himself ought to undergo, he makes plain by expressing it.
He did not say, my eyes, but, my heart; I never allowed, he says, my thoughts to become corrupted, or my body either. This is exactly what Christ says: “He who has cast his glance upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery in his heart.” - "Commentary on Job 31.8–10"
