Fathers

Job 15

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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, “Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good? Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God. For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you. “Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought out before the hills? Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself? What do you know that we don’t know? What do you understand which is not in us? With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father. Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you? Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash, That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth? What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water! “I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare (which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it; to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them): the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor. A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer will come on him. He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword. He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty, he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers, because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs. He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps. He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue, neither will their possessions be extended on the earth. He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth. Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his reward. It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green. He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree. For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery. They conceive mischief, and produce iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit.”

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What the Fathers say

Job 15:22

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

Ver. 22. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. For because he believes himself to be on all sides stricken from ambush, despairing of salvation, he is ever growing on in wickedness. Now there are times too when this ungodly man turns his eyes to judgments from above as well, and dreads their coming upon him. But whilst he seeks the wages of the present life, these same judgments which he had begun to fear, being conquered by the madness of avarice, he sets at nought. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XII ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Now when one has fears about some of his enemies, he can hope to escape even if he is defeated for a while with the help of his friends. But one who confides in no one and fears everyone cannot hope for deliverance after he is oppressed, and so he next says, "He does not believe that he can return from darkness to light," from a state of adversity to a state of prosperity, "when he sees the sword everywhere around him," when he sees enemies threatening him on all sides. …

Commentary on Job ↗