Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 19:17

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

My wife shuddered at my breath. What does the 'wife' of the Lord mean save the Synagogue, subject to Him in the Covenant of the Law with a carnal perception? Now the breath is from the flesh, and the unbelieving people understood the incarnation of the Lord in a carnal manner; in that it took Him for mere man; and so His 'wife shuddered at His breath,' in that the Synagogue was afraid to take Him for God, Whom it saw to be man; and when it heard the words from His mouth by bodily utterance, it refused to perceive in Him the mysteries …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIV ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Then he enumerates the persons most closely joined to him, namely his wife and children. A wife usually especially enjoy the presence of her husband, unless she perhaps comes to detest him because of some serious corruption. He shows this saying, "my wife shuddered at my breath," because of the stench of the sores which made him dreadful to her. The duty of children is to obey the least nod expressing the will of a parent. …

Commentary on Job ↗