Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 36:16

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

He will therefore bring thee safely from a narrow opening into a broad place. Every one who forsakes the way of life, and casts himself down into the darkness of sins, plunges himself, as it were, into a well or pitfall. But if, through long commission he is also so weighed down by a habit of sin, as to be unable to rise upward, he is pent in, as it were, in the narrow opening of a well. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXVI ↗

Thomas Aquinas

He applies what he has said already in general to the person of Job (vv.5-12). First, since he has said that God brings salvation to both the poor and the powerful in tribulation (vv. 8 and 15), he concludes that even Job can hope for such salvation from God when he says, "Thus he will save you most amply from the narrow and gaping mouth," from the tribulation which is a narrow hole by which man enters into a wide range of different miseries. …

Commentary on Job ↗