Chapter VIII.
How Job indicated the future resurrection and wrath of the Lord in the consummation; and how he desired to escape from this life, where deceit prevails.
26. So having heard what God had said in it, and knowing through the Holy Spirit that the Son of God would not only come to earth, but would also descend to the underworld to raise the dead (which indeed happened at that time as a witness to those present, and an example for the future), he turned to the Lord and said, 'I wish you would keep me in the underworld, but hide me until your anger ceases, and establish for me a time in which you will remember me.' For if a man die, shall he live again, all the days in which I am now in warfare, I will wait until my change come. Thou shalt call me, and I will answer thee: to the work of thy hands thou shalt reach out thy right hand. And I shall be consumed and be changed, while thou shalt look after me. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: to the works of thy hands thou shalt reach out thy right hand. For now thou numberest my steps, but dost thou not watch over my sin? My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up my iniquity (Job 14:13-17). How sweet is the place that confirms resurrection to us; and it seems to agree with the words of the Lord, which are read in the Gospel, where He says: Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us (Luke 23:30). For in the end of the age there will be the wrath of the Lord. Therefore, the Holy One prefers to rise for judgment rather than in the time of divine anger, which is even terrible for the innocent.
27. Moreover, he is also understood to prophesy by saying: Appoint for me a time when you will remember me; which is demonstrated at the end of this book that he would be raised in the passion of the Lord; and yet he does not cease to lament: and the more he understands that resurrection is proposed to him, the more he desires to flee from this life, seeing himself handed over to the hands of his adversaries, cast into the power of the wicked, to whom even his friends have turned into enemies, who, when they should be offering consolation, inflict one ruin upon another; still, mindful of his pure conscience and pure prayer, he says: Let not the earth cover my blood (Job 16:19); so that his prayer, like incense, may be directed to the Lord and not be scattered on the earth. For the prayer of the holy penetrates the clouds; opening his mouth, the prayer of the sinner, as it was said by God to Cain the parricide, hides the earth in the blood of flesh. Cursed, he says, is the earth that opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother from your hand; for you will till the land. (Gen. IV, 11).