Fathers

Job 7

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“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand? As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good. The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be. As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more. He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more. “Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint;’ then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions: so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”

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What the Fathers say

Job 7:8

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

The eye of man shall not see me. For 'the eye of Man' is the pity of the Redeemer, which softens the hardness of our insensibility, when it looks upon us. Hence, as the Gospel witnesses, it is said, And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord. And he went out, and wept bitterly. But the soul when divested of the flesh 'the eye of Man' doth not henceforth at all regard, in that it never delivers him after death, whom grace doth not restore to pardon before death. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIII ↗

Thomas Aquinas

In the same way that when my life has passed I will return to see earthly goods, so I will not be seen by any eyes on earth. So he goes on, "Nor will the eye of man look on me." He posits these two things to show that he will not return to human association which consists chiefly in seeing and being seen. Since sight is the most acute of the senses, it holds a position of authority in sensitive life. …

Commentary on Job ↗