Until My Change Come: Job's Hireling and Paul's Crown
Old Testament: Job 7:1-2
The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling. As a servant longeth for the shade, as the hireling looketh for the end of his work;
Old Testament, also: Job 14:14
Shall man that is dead, thinkest thou, live again? all the days in which I am now in warfare, I expect until my change come.
New Testament: Matthew 20:8; 2 Timothy 4:7-8
And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the labourers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first. ... I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming.
The connection
Job, sitting in his sores, says what every man comes to feel: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare, and his days are like the days of a hireling" (Job 7:1). The hireling works through the heat and waits for evening; in the Greek he is waiting for his wage. Job has no hope of it. Job has "numbered to myself wearisome nights", and his days "are consumed without any hope" (7:3, 6). Seven chapters later Job answers himself. "All the days in which I am now in warfare, I expect until my change come" (14:14). The Hebrew word for his warfare is the same as in 7:1, so the soldier is still at his post, but now he is waiting for something. The Latin calls it his immutatio, his change, the word St Paul uses for the resurrection: "at the last trumpet... we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). Rufinus says that in this chapter Job, "who abounds in mystical language, plainly predicts the resurrection of the dead." The Law commanded that a hireling be paid "the same day, before the going down of the sun" (Deuteronomy 24:15). Christ tells the same evening in His parable: "when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the labourers and pay them their hire" (Matthew 20:8). An old commentary on the parable says plainly, "Know then that we are the hired labourers", and Origen suggests that the last labourer, who worked one hour and was paid with the first, was "the Apostle Paul". St Paul, at his own evening, writes as Job's soldier come to the end of his service: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day" (2 Timothy 4:7-8). In the Greek, "will render" is the verb of "pay them their hire" in the parable. St Jerome had already joined Job's warfare to that crown: "It is for this end that we labour, it is for this end that we risk our lives in the warfare of this world, that we may be crowned in the world to come."
Moral sense
Job counts his bad nights. Paul refuses to: "forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before" (Philippians 3:13). The warfare is the same; what changes is where the soldier is looking. And the wage is not earned the way a hireling earns. The labourers of the eleventh hour received the same penny as those who worked all day, and St Augustine explains why: in giving the reward of immortality God "crowns His own gifts, not thy merits." No one has come too late to be paid. What is asked is only to stay at the post until evening: "we are made partakers of Christ: yet so, if we hold the beginning of his substance firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3:14).
Anagogical sense
The evening of the parable is the day of the Lord, when the just Judge pays. St Jerome says the penny bears the king's figure: "You have therefore received the reward which I promised you, that is, my image and likeness". The hireling is given back the image of God he was made in. Job's change will come at the last trumpet, when "the dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). And the crown is not Paul's alone, but laid up for "them also that love his coming" (2 Timothy 4:8).
The Fathers
St Jerome, Letter to Demetrias, on Job 7:1: "It is for this end that we labour, it is for this end that we risk our lives in the warfare of this world, that we may be crowned in the world to come." Origen, in the Catena on Matthew 20: "this last was the Apostle Paul, who wrought but one hour, and was made equal with all who had been before him." St Augustine, Tractates on John (on John 1:15-18): "in afterwards bestowing the reward of immortality, He crowns His own gifts, not thy merits."
Warrant
Patristic in its parts, with the whole line the site's own. St Jerome (Letter to Demetrias) reads Job 7:1 as the warfare of this world that ends in a crown in the world to come. Rufinus (Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 44) reads Job 14 as a prophecy of the resurrection. In the Catena on Matthew 20, Origen names Paul as the last labourer paid with the first, St Jerome reads the penny as God's image and likeness, and the Opus Imperfectum (once credited to St John Chrysostom, not his) says that we are the hired labourers. No Father in the site's corpora joins Job's hireling directly to Paul's crown; that step is the site's own, resting on the Greek. Checked in the languages. The Septuagint of Job 7:2 has the hireling awaiting his wage (misthotos anamenon ton misthon autou). Matthew 20:8 has apodos autois ton misthon, pay them their hire, and 2 Timothy 4:8 has apodosei, will render, the same verb. The Hebrew of Job 14:14 says the days of my warfare (tseva'i), the word of 7:1. The Latin of Job 14:14 has milito and immutatio mea; 1 Corinthians 15:52 has immutabimur. The Septuagint of Job 14:14 reads differently, so the change rests on the Hebrew and the Latin. The lead was Dunk's, from setting Job 7:2 beside Hebrews 3:14, Philippians 3:13-14 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2009.
The verses
Job 7:1 · Job 7:2 · Job 14:14 · Matthew 20:8 · 2 Timothy 4:7 · 2 Timothy 4:8
