Fathers

Job 8

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Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, “How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind? Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness? If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience. If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty. If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you, and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase. “Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers. (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.) Shall they not teach you, tell you, and utter words out of their heart? “Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water? While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed. So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man will perish, Whose confidence will break apart, Whose trust is a spider’s web. He will lean on his house, but it will not stand. He will cling to it, but it will not endure. He is green before the sun. His shoots go out along his garden. His roots are wrapped around the rock pile. He sees the place of stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’ Behold, this is the joy of his way: out of the earth, others will spring. “Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evildoers. He will still fill your mouth with laughter, your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame. The tent of the wicked will be no more.”

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What the Fathers say

Job 8:15

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

He leaneth upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall prop it, but it shall not rise up. As the house of our exterior life is the building which the body lives in, so the house of our thought is any thing whatever that the mind is centered in by affection. For every thing that we love, we as it were make our dwelling-place by reposing in it. Whence Paul, because he had fixed his heart in things above, being still upon earth indeed, yet a stranger to earth, said, Our conversation is in heaven. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIII ↗

Thomas Aquinas

For he did not confide in God's help, but in the strength of his house, i.e. his great wealth, his many relatives and things like this. But these easily fail him. So he continues, "He will put his trust in the stability of his own house," for he placed the confidence of his stability in the prosperity of his own house, "and" yet "he will not stand firm," because when divine help is no longer given him, these goods too will fail. …

Commentary on Job ↗