Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 34:21

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

For His eyes are over the ways of men, and He considers all their steps. For He was then believed not to observe them, while this man of violence was committing, unpunished, all the wickedness he could. God was supposed not to behold the deeds of the ungodly, because He was delaying to condemn them justly; and His great forbearance was regarded as a kind of carelessness. The wicked also himself believed that he was not observed by God in the commission of sin, as often as he sinned without being punished. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXV ↗

Thomas Aquinas

He shows that punishments like this are caused by divine judgment when he says, "For his eye," which is the foresight of divine providence, "is on the ways of men," on their works. He then expresses the idea that God knows each and every one of the particular details of human actions saying, "and all their steps," all the processes of human works, "he considers," not just in general but individually.

Commentary on Job ↗