Job 2:13
And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no man spoke to him a word: for they saw that his grief was very great.
Open Job 2:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et sederunt cum eo in terra septem diebus et septem noctibus : et nemo loquebatur ei verbum : videbant enim dolorem esse vehementem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- παρεκάθισαν αὐτῷ ἑπτὰ ἡμέρας καὶ ἑπτὰ νύκτας, καὶ οὐδεὶς αὐτῶν ἐλάλησεν· ἑώρων γὰρ τὴν πληγὴν δεινὴν οὖσαν καὶ μεγάλην σφόδρα.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֵּשְׁב֤וּ אִתּוֹ֙ לָאָ֔רֶץ שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִ֖ים וְשִׁבְעַ֣ת לֵיל֑וֹת וְאֵין דֹּבֵ֤ר אֵלָיו֙ דָּבָ֔ר כִּ֣י רָא֔וּ כִּֽי גָדַ֥ל הַכְּאֵ֖ב מְאֹֽד
Haydock's commentary
Seven days, &c. They sat with him for a good part of the day, and of the night, during seven days: and spoke nothing all that time that could give him any uneasiness. (Challoner) (Menochius) (Olympiad.)
They mourned for him as if he had been dead. Their mutual grief was too great for utterance. But the text seems to intimate that they remained with Job, all this time. (Scultet.) (Calmet)
Their design in coming was really to afford him consolation; but being under a mistake, respecting the conduct of Providence towards mankind, (Calmet) they erred involuntarily, (Tirinus) and by attempting to prove their assertions, as if none but criminals could be so grievously afflicted, they eventually insulted the holy man, Tobias ii. 15.
They argued on the principle, "that under a just God no one is miserable, unless he have deserved it;" not reflecting that God sometimes puts his best servants to the trial, that their merit and glory may increase. Notwithstanding their piety and learning, they became therefore the devil's most powerful agents unawares: (Calmet) and though they were not properly heretics, as they acquiesced when better informed, they were a figure of them, by drawing from many undeniable truths false inferences, and by a parade of learning, and of new things. (St. Gregory, Mor. iii. 24., and v. 18.)
They also judged rashly of Job's secret behaviour. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily II
1. What shall I say, or what shall I speak of? The present season is one for tears, and not for words; for lamentation, not for discourse; for prayer, not for preaching. Such is the magnitude of the deeds daringly done; so incurable is the wound, so deep the blow, even beyond the power of all treatment, and craving assistance from above. Thus it was that Job, when he had lost all, sat himself down upon a dunghill; and his friends heard of it, and came, and seeing him, while yet afar off, they rent their garments, and sprinkled themselves with ashes, and made great lamentation. The same thing now ought all the cities around to do, to come to our city and to lament with all sympathy what has befallen us. He then sat down on his dunghill; she is now seated in the midst of a great snare. …