^14:13 Who will grant me this, that you would protect me in the lower regions and hide me until your fury passes, and establish for me a time in which you will remember me?
^14:14 Do you think a dead man will live again? All the days in which I now serve as a soldier, I wait until my change comes.
^14:15 You will call, and I will answer you; to the work of your hands you will stretch out your right hand.
^14:16 You indeed have numbered my steps, but you will spare my sins.
^14:17 You have sealed my offenses, as in a little bag, but you have healed my iniquity.

242. Who will grant me this, that you would protect me in the lower regions, etc. After Job had shown what can be conjectured about the resurrection of man from the things that appear sensibly, here he sets down his own judgment concerning the resurrection. Now it would be very horrifying and miserable if man were so to fail through death that he would never be restored to life, because each thing naturally desires to exist. Hence Job shows his desire for the future resurrection, saying: Who will grant me this, that even after death you would protect me in the lower regions, that is, that you would keep me under the special care by which you protect men, until your fury passes, that is, the time of death—because, as was said above, the death of man happens by the withdrawal of the divine operation that preserves life, whence he had said: Withdraw a little from him. For God seems to be angry with man when he withdraws from him the benefit of life, especially since we believe that death has come from the sin of the first man. But how he wishes to be protected even in the lower regions, he explains, adding: and establish for me a time in which you will remember me? For God seems to have forgotten man when he withdraws from him the benefit of life; therefore he remembers him when he leads him back to life. Therefore, to establish a time in which God remembers a dead man is nothing other than to establish the time of resurrection. And he quite fittingly calls this protection: for when an artisan, after the work has been dissolved, does not intend to restore the building again from the same matter, as for example a house or something of this kind, he seems to have no care for the matter of the dissolved building; but when he intends to restore the building from it, he carefully guards it lest it perish. Therefore he calls this guardianship protection.

243. Therefore, after he has expressed his desire for rising again, since desires are sometimes even for impossible things, he consequently sets forth under a question whether this which he desired will ever be, whence he adds: Do you think a dead man will live again? And concerning this he shows what he himself thinks, saying: All the days in which I now serve as a soldier, I wait until my change comes. Here it must be considered that above he had compared the life of man upon earth to warfare and to the days of a hired hand, because both soldiers and hired hands expect something after the present state; and therefore, just as above he expressed the state of resurrection by the desired day of a hired hand, so also now he shows the same under the likeness of a soldier. And it should be noted that he does not expect the desired end in any part of the time of this life, because he assigns all the days of this life to the state of warfare, saying: All the days in which I now serve as a soldier. Likewise it should be noted that he does not expect another life similar to this one, because then that also would be warfare; rather, he expects a life in which he does not serve as a soldier but triumphs and reigns, and therefore he says: I wait until my change comes, as if to say: throughout this whole life I serve as a soldier, subject to changeability, labors, and straits, but I wait to be changed into the state of another life, which is without labor and straitness. And of this change the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:51: We indeed shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed.

244. And lest someone believe that man is changed into the state of another life by natural power, he excludes this, adding: You will call me, and I will answer you, as if to say: the future change will proceed from the power of your voice or from your command, according to John 5:28: all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live; for to call pertains to command, but to answer pertains to the obedience by which the creature obeys the Creator. But because, at God’s command, the dead will not only rise again to life but will be changed into a higher state, and this by divine power, on account of this he adds: to the work of your hands you will stretch out your right hand, as if to say: man rising again will not be the work of nature but the work of your power, and to this work you will stretch out your helping right hand when, by the help of your grace, he will be exalted into the glory of newness. Or what he says, You will call me, and I will answer you, can be referred to the restoration of the body, while what he adds, to the work of your hands you will stretch out your right hand, can be referred to the soul, which naturally desires to be united to its body; God will stretch out his helping right hand to it when, by divine power, it obtains what it cannot obtain by its own power.

245. Therefore, having set down his judgment concerning the future resurrection of the dead, he returns to what he had wondered at above, that God so solicitously considers the works of men, when he said: You have watched all my paths and considered the footprints of my feet. Whence he adds: You indeed have numbered my steps, as if to say: it is no longer marvelous if you examine the deeds of men so diligently, since you reserve him for another life.

Now it must be considered that divine providence is attended to in two ways concerning human acts:

first indeed, according as it examines and investigates them, which is signified in what he says: You indeed have numbered my steps; for we number those things about which we have diligence. And lest it should seem to someone to be of great severity that God should examine with such diligence the deeds of fragile man, he consequently suggests God’s readiness to spare when he says: but spare my sins, as if to say: although you number them, nevertheless I retain this hope, that you will spare.

Second, however, according as it preserves the good or evil deeds of men in his memory, so as to repay good or evil for them, whence he adds: You have sealed my offenses, as in a little bag; for things that are sealed in a little bag are diligently preserved. And lest this sealing should exclude divine mercy, he adds: but you have healed my iniquity, as if to say: you reserve punishment for sins in such a way that nevertheless, through repentance, you heal offenses.