Job 2:10

This text means that if we actually experienced only misfortunes, we would still need to bear them. God is Master and Lord. Does he not possess the power to send us anything? Why did God provide us with our goods? He did not do so because we deserved them. God was absolutely free to send us only afflictions. If he has also granted us goods, why do we complain? Notice how [Job] does not speak anywhere about faults or good actions but only says that God has the power to do whatever he wants. Recall your former happiness, and you will have no problem in bearing the present difficulties. It is sufficient, as our consolation, to know that it is the Lord who sends them to us. Let us not speak about justice and injustice. - "Commentary on Job 2.10c"

MORAL INTERPRETATION. Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? For it is meet that the holy mind restrain by spiritual correction whatever of a carnal nature within it utters rebellious muttering, that the flesh whether by speaking severe things may not draw it into impatience, nor yet by speaking smooth ones melt it to the looseness of lust.

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION. Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? See the enemy is every where broken, every where overcome, in all his appliances of temptation he has been brought to the ground, in that he has even lost that accustomed consolation which he derived from the woman. Amid these circumstances it is good to contemplate the holy man, without, void of goods, within, filled with God. When Paul viewed in himself the riches of internal wisdom, yet saw himself outwardly a corruptible body, he says, We have this treasure in earthen vessels. You see, the earthen vessel in blessed Job felt those gaping sores without, but this treasure remained entire within. For without he cracked in his wounds, but the treasure of wisdom unfailingly springing up within issued forth in words of holy instruction, saying, If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not receive evil? meaning by the good, either the temporal or the eternal gifts of God, and by the evil, denoting the strokes of the present time, of which the Lord saith by the Prophet, I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. Not that evil, which does not subsist by its own nature, is created by the Lord, but the Lord shews Himself as creating evil, when He turns into a scourge the things that have been created good for us, upon our doing evil, that the very same things should at the same time both by the pain which they inflict be to transgressors evil, and yet good by the nature whereby they have their being. And hence poison is to man indeed death, but life to the serpent. […]

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil? Holy men, when fastened upon by the war of afflictions, when at one and the same moment they are exposed to this party dealing them blows and to that urging persuasions, present to the one sort the shield of patience, at the other they launch the darts of instruction, and lift themselves up to either mode of warfare with a wonderful skill in virtue, so that they should at the same time both instruct with wisdom the froward counsels within, and contemn with courage the adverse events without; that by their instructions they may amend the one sort, and by their endurance put down the other. For the assailing foes they contemn by bearing them, and the crippled citizens they recover to a state of soundness, by sympathizing with them. Those they resist, that they may not draw off others also; they alarm themselves for these, lest they should wholly lose the life of righteousness. Let us view the soldier of God's camp fighting against either sort. He says, Without were fightings, within were fears. He reckons up the wars, which he underwent externally, in these words, In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. Now in this war, what were those darts which he sent against the foe, let him add, In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. And let him say, when caught amidst such numerous assaults, with what a watchful defence he at the same time guarded the camp too. […]

The holy man who had born his troubles patiently, could not bear the injury done to God, for there follows, "But he said to her: You have spoken like one of the foolish women speaks." He rightly accuses of foolishness one speaking against the divine …