1 Times are not hid from the Almighty: but they that know him, know not his days.
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VERS. 1.-- « But they who. » Because although we already know God through faith, yet how his eternity is without past or future, we do not see. Blessed Job, that he may not be wise more than it behoves to be wise, testifying that the days of the Lord cannot be comprehended, presently turns the regard of his mind to the pride of heretics, who desire to be wise in high things, concerning whom there follows:
2 Some have removed landmarks, have taken away flocks by force, and fed them.
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VERS. 2.-- « Others the bounds. » Whom, under the name of others, etc., *as far as* and with pestilent teachings they nourish them for the slaying.
3 They have driven away the ass of the fatherless, and have taken away the widow's ox for a pledge.
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VERS. 3.-- « The ass of the fatherless. » By the fatherless he means the elect, etc., *as far as* they drive them back from the ministry of the good. « And they have taken away. » The Church is called a widow, etc., *as far as* that they may draw away their followers also, whence he adds:
4 They have overturned the way of the poor, and have oppressed together the meek of the earth.
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VERS. 4.-- « They have overthrown of the poor. » Not seldom those who seem meek and humble, if they know not how to keep discretion, fall by the examples of others.
5 Others like wild asses in the desert go forth to their work: by watching for a prey they get bread for their children.
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VERS. 5.-- « Others like onagers. » For there are heretics who shun to be mingled with the peoples, but seek the retirement of a more secret life, and infect the more with the plague of their persuasion in proportion as they seem, from the merits of their life as it were, the more worthy of reverence. And they are compared to onagers, who, let loose in their own pleasures, are strangers to the bond of the faith of reason. « They go forth. » For they accomplish not God's work but their own, while they follow not right teachings but their own desires. « And watching for the prey. » They watch for the prey who always endeavour to wrest the words of the just to their own meaning, that through this they may prepare the bread of error for perverse sons.
6 They reap the field that is not their own, and gather the vintage of his vineyard whom by violence they have oppressed.
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VERS. 6.-- « A field not his own. » By the name of field or of vineyard the Church is signified, whom perverse preachers reap, and whose Author they vintage by oppressing him in his members: who, persecuting the grace of the Creator, while they snatch away certain out of her who seemed upright, what else do they carry off than the ears or the clusters of souls?
7 They send men away naked, taking away their clothes who have no covering in the cold:
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VERS. 7.-- « They send men away naked. » As garments protect the body, so good works protect the soul. And so heretics, when they destroy the good works of certain men, take away their garments. « To whom not. » The covering pertains to justice, etc., *as far as* they may die without the garment of good work. « Whom the showers of the mountains water. » That is, the streams of the preachers satisfy them. « And having not. » By stones he means strong men, etc., *as far as* they embrace stones?
8 Who are wet, with the showers of the mountains, and having no covering embrace the stones.
9 They have violently robbed the fatherless, and stripped the poor common people.
10 From the naked and them that go without clothing, and from the hungry they have taken away the ears of corn.
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VERS. 10.-- « To the naked and to those going about without clothing. » He who works neither good things nor evil, etc., *as far as* we withdraw as it were the chaff of the ears, that we may be refreshed by the marrow of the spirit.
11 They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them, who after having trodden the winepresses suffer thirst.
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VERS. 11.-- « Who having trodden the winepresses. » They who persecute the Church, etc., *as far as* they rest in their own deeds as though at noonday. »
12 Out of the cities they have made men to groan, and the soul of the wounded hath cried out, and God doth not suffer it to pass unrevenged.
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VERS. 12.-- « Out of the cities they have made [them] groan by force. » Because cities, from the peoples living together, etc., *as far as* those who run by the way of God not loosely but manfully.
13 They have been rebellious to the light, they have not known his ways, neither have they returned by his paths.
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VERS. 13.-- « And the soul of the wounded hath cried out. » The soul of the just is wounded when the faith of the weak is troubled; and it cries out while it wastes away at another's fall. « They themselves were rebels against the light. » They are rebels against the light who, by following their own desires, despise the good which they have known. « They knew not his ways. » For they who are rebels first by knowing are afterward blinded, so that they know not. « Nor have they returned. » A path is narrower than a way. But they who despise to do the more manifest things do not attain to the understanding of the more subtle; and God waited that they should go forward by his paths; but would that they had at least been willing to return by them, that the roads of life which they knew through innocence they might at least hold through penitence.
14 The murderer riseth at the very break of day, he killeth the needy, and the poor man: but in the night he will be as a thief.
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VERS. 14.-- « Very early in the morning the murderer riseth up. » Because every perverse man, in the prosperity of the present life (which is designated by the morning), slays the life of the humble by pressing it down, and, set in adversity and dejection (which is designated by the night), secretly wounds by wicked counsels, like a thief.
15 The eye of the adulterer observeth darkness, saying: No eye shall see me: and he will cover his face.
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VERS. 15.-- « The eye of the adulterer. » This is said of heretics: for as he who commits adultery unlawfully joins to himself the flesh of another man's wife, so the heretics, when they snatch away a faithful soul into their own error, take another man's wife as it were. « And he will cover his face. » The face of the human heart is the likeness of God, which the perverse man covers, that he may not be able to be known by the strict judge, when he confounds his own life with evil deeds; whence he shall say: « I never knew you. »
16 He diggeth through houses in the dark, as in the day they had appointed for themselves, and they have not known the light.
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VERS. 16.-- « He diggeth through. » By the name of houses, etc., *as far as* they by no means dared to speak perverse things « As in. » Because when they beheld the just in prosperity, since they could not speak, they will give themselves to malignant counsels against them.
17 If the morning suddenly appear, it is to them the shadow of death: and they walk in darkness as if it were in light.
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VERS. 17.-- « If suddenly. » For when they see the just break forth to the summit of governing power, they are troubled. These rejoice at the casting down of the good, but « if suddenly the dawn appear, » that is, if good men come to rule, « they think it the shadow of death, » because they fear that the things they have done perversely be punished; they will not be corrected, but choose to go loosely and to rejoice in fault, whence he says « And thus in. » Because they so rejoice in the night of sin as though the light of justice poured itself around them; or, in the present blindness they are as glad as though they already enjoyed to the full the light of the eternal country.
18 He is light upon the face of the water: cursed be his portion on the earth, let him not walk by the way of the vineyards.
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VERS. 18.-- « He is light upon the face of the water. » The surface of the water hither and thither, etc., *as far as* whence the sentence often returns to him who is the author of evil. « Cursed be the portion. » Whosoever in the present life does right things, etc., *as far as* yet he is held in the guilt of eternal malediction. « Nor let him walk by the way of the vineyards. » He walks by the way of the vineyards who, weighing the preacher of the universal Church, turns aside neither from the rectitude of faith nor from that of good deeds.
19 Let him pass from the snow waters to excessive heat, and his sin even to hell.
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VERS. 19.-- « He shall pass over to excessive heat. » Iniquity is compared to cold, etc., *as far as* that he may believe those who preach right things, he adds:
20 Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness: let him be remembered no more, but be broken in pieces as an unfruitful tree.
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VERS. 20.-- « And even unto hell his sin. » That sin is brought down even unto hell which is not amended before the end of life.
21 For he hath fed the barren that beareth not, and to the widow he hath done no good.
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VERS. 21.-- « His sweetness. » Because it belongs to the nature of worms, etc., *as far as* the corruption and stench of rottenness is loved. « Let him not be in remembrance. » God beholds the life of the depraved and forgets it, because what he judges by the strictness of his sentence, so far as pertains to the memory of mercy he knows not.
22 He hath pulled down the strong by his might: and when he standeth up, he shall not trust to his life.
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VERS. 22.-- « For he hath fed the barren. » In this place the flesh is named barren: which, while it desires present things alone, knows not how to beget good thoughts: « And to the widow. » The soul is called a widow, etc., *as far as* it scorns to serve.
23 God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride: but his eyes are upon his ways.
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VERS. 23.-- « He hath drawn down the strong. » In the strength of his own depravity he draws down the strong, when through the cunning of his error he snatches away the powerful of this world. « And when he shall have stood. » The perverse preacher stands in this world so long as he lives in an earthly body, but he refuses to believe in his own life, because he scorns to know true things concerning God. « But his eyes. » The sinner beholds his own ways, because he strives to think on those things only, to discern those things only, which may help him to temporal advantage.
24 They are lifted up for a little while and shall not stand, and shall be brought down as all things, and shall be taken away, and as the tops of the ears of corn they shall be broken.
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VERS. 24.-- « They are lifted up for a little while. » For they cannot subsist who are divided from eternal solidity. « And they shall be humbled like all things. » All earthly things, assuredly. And the sense is: They can in no wise stand, because the very things on which they lean flee away also: and while they love temporal things, they run their course together with these and with the rolling of time. « And like the tops of the ears of corn, » etc. The tops of the ears are the awns, etc., *as far as* it is broken by the force of the last threshing, and the grains appear.
25 And if it be not so, who can convince me that I have lied, and set my words before God?
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VERS. 25.-- « But if it be not so, » etc. The sense is: All things are as I have set forth, etc., *as far as* yet it is not fitting that he be judged by the depraved. « Who can convict me of having lied. » As though he should say: The things which I speak, you are not able to set before the judge, because by sinning you hide his face from yourselves. He sets deceitful words before God who examines them within himself in the sight of truth, who, the inward judge being considered, weighs outward things.