Fathers

Job 24

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“Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know him see his days? There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them. They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves. Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children. They cut their food in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked. They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter. There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor, So that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves. They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst. From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly. “These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths. The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light. For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness. “They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned. The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree. He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow. Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life. God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways. They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain. If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”

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What the Fathers say

Job 24:19

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

Let him pass to excessive heat from the snow waters. And his sin even to hell. Iniquity is on this account likened to cold, because the mind that sins it binds up with insensibility. Hence it is written; As a fountain has made her waters cold, so she has made her wickedness cold. Contrariwise charity is 'heat,' in this respect that it fires the soul it fills. Of which 'heat' is written, Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XVI ↗

Thomas Aquinas

And to express this he then says, "let him pass over to great heat from freezing waters," as though changing from one vice to a contrary vice because he does not remain in the mean of virtue. All wicked men suffer this punishment because, "the inordinate soul is a punishment unto itself," as Augustine says in the Confessions. …

Commentary on Job ↗