Fathers

Job 12

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Then Job answered, “No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these? I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke. In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips. The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands. “But ask the animals, now, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. The fish of the sea will declare to you. Who doesn’t know that in all these, Yahweh’s hand has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind? Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food? With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding. “With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding. Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release. Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth. With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his. He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools. He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt. He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty. He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders. He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong. He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death. He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive. He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.

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What the Fathers say

Job 12:23

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

Who multiplieth the nations and destroyeth them, and them that are overturned He restoreth entire. We may understand it, viz. that 'the Lord multiplieth the nations and destroyeth them,' in this way, that day by day men are born destined to die, and that 'them, that be overturned, He restoreth entire,' in that they, who were dead, shall rise again; which however we shall interpret in a better sense, if we think how it is that this is done in their souls. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XI ↗

Thomas Aquinas

As he had said that such alternation of sublimity and dejection happens among particular persons from God, he shows this same thing among all men saying of them, "who brings growth to the races," so that they increase in the great number of men, "and ruin to them," when he destroys them either by wars or pestilence. "And when they have been overturned," either by these things or from the oppression of one or of many who preside unfairly, "he restores them to integrity," for he returns it to a good condition.

Commentary on Job ↗