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 8:17

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

His roots will be wrapped about the heap of rocks, and he will dwell among the stones. For what do we understand by the name of 'roots' save the hidden thoughts, which issue forth out of sight, but rise up in the display of works in open day? as it is also said by the Prophet concerning the seed of the Word, And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIII ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Second, confidence may be placed in the rush in other ways, i.e. either from being rooted bunched together with many others or from the firmness of the place where it grows when it is born in a rocky place. So he consequently says, "its roots," of the rushes, "were crowded together on a heap of stones," as the roots of many papyrus are intertwined together. He expresses the first idea with this. …

Commentary on Job ↗