Job 1:6

Was there ever a time when the angels did not stand before the Lord? Was it not written about them that "a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him"? But this coming, in our opinion, is that of the …

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION It is first to be made out, wherefore any thing is said to be done on a particular day before the Lord, whereas with Him the progress of time is never marked by the variation of day and night. For neither does that light, which without coming enlighteneth whatsoever it chooseth, and without going forsaketh those things which it rejects, admit any imperfection of mutability; for, while it abideth unchangeable in itself, it orders all things that are subject to change, and has in such sort created all transient beings in itself, that in it they are incapable of transition, nor is there inwardly in His sight any lapse of time, which with us, without Him, has its course. Whence it comes to pass that those revolutions of the world remain fixed in His eternity, which, having no fixedness out of Him issue into existence. Why then in relation to Him is it said, one day, in that His one day is His eternity? Which same the Psalmist perceived to be closed by no ending, and to open with no beginning, where he says, One day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. But as Holy Scripture speaks to those who are brought forth in time, it is meet that it should use words significant of time, in order that it may lift us up by so condescending, and that while it relates something that belongs to eternity after the manner of time, it may gradually transfer to the eternal world those who are habituated to the things of time, and that that eternity, which is unknown, while it amuses us with words that are known, may successfully impart itself to our minds. And what wonder is it, if in Holy Writ God is not overhasty to disclose the unchangeableness of His Nature to the mind of man, since after He had celebrated the triumph of His Resurrection, it was by certain progressive steps that He made known the incorruptibility of the Body which He resumed again. […]

MORAL INTERPRETATION We have briefly gone through these particulars, regarded under the view of representing our Head. Now, as they tend to the edification of His Body, let us explain them to be considered in a moral aspect; that we may learn how that, which is described to have been done in outward deed, is acted inwardly in our mind. Now when the sons of God present themselves before God, Satan also presents himself among them, in that it very often happens that that old enemy craftily blends and unites himself with those good thoughts, which are sown in our hearts through the instrumentality of the coming of the Holy Spirit, to disorder all that is rightly conceived, and tear in pieces what is once wrongly disordered. But He, Who created us, does not forsake us in our temptation. For our enemy, who hid himself in ambush against us, He makes easy to be discovered by us, through the illumination of His light. Wherefore He saith to him immediately, Whence comest thou? For His interrogating the crafty foe is the discovering to us his ambush, that where we see him steal into the heart, we may watch against him with resolution and with caution.

After Blessed Job's prosperity has been enumerated, his adversity is placed. First, their cause is introduced. Lest anyone think that the adversities of just men happen apart from divine providence and that because of this might think human affairs are not subject to divine providence, …

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION It is interesting to observe the method followed by Holy Writ in delineating, at the commencement of its relations, the qualities and the issues of the particular cases.