Job 35:10

"And no one said, Where is the God who created me? That is why they suffer, in order to seek God without uttering unnecessary complaints. These words, "He who created me," are proof that he does not abandon his creature, when it seeks it. "Who orders the watches of the night? The different epochs of this life are subject to powers which he has designated. He who has made man can not leave him without a guide in the night of error.

These words mean, do you not see that everything is set in good order, as in a field, and that with an even greater precision each object is in the most convenient place? [Do you not see] that no object exceeds its own limit or steps on the area reserved to another? It is as if the night watches control everything; during the sleep of mortals nobody tries to attack. Observe wild animals. When they move around, that is the time when human beings sleep. They must not invade cities; people must not perish, because they sleep being conquered by sleep.

And He said not, Where is God, Who made me? It is the practice of Holy Scripture, to pass suddenly from the singular to the plural, and to turn itself from the plural to the singular. Whence Eliu, when saying, They will cry and wail, did not subjoin, They said not, Where is God? but, He said not, Where is God? For, coming from the plural to the singular, he suddenly passed over to the person of each of the weak. Perhaps because that is better discerned by individuals, which is heard spoken of them individually: so that each of them returns to his own heart, and blames in himself that, which is stated of each man one by one. He, therefore, retained the singular number, saying, He said not, Where is God, Who hath made me? For, whoever is crushed by the tribulation of adversities, does not look at Him, by Whom He was made. For He, Who made that, which was not, leaves it not, when made, without guidance: and He Who made man mercifully, does not permit him to be tormented unjustly. Nor does He carelessly suffer that, which is, to perish, Who also created that which was not, that it might be. When we ask, then, the cause of our tribulation, and perhaps too slowly discover it; there is this consideration, we can suffer nothing unjustly, because if, God being our Creator, we exist, who before were not, God being our Ruler, we, who are, are not unjustly afflicted. It follows, Who hath given songs in the night. A 'song in the night' is joy in tribulation; because, though afflicted with worldly oppressions, we yet now rejoice in the hope of eternity. Paul was announcing songs in the night, saying, Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. [Rom. 12, 12] David had taken up his song in the night, who was saying, Thou art my hope from the oppression which hath surrounded me, my Exultation, deliver me from those who surround me. [Ps. 32, 7] Lo! he calls oppression 'night,' and yet amidst his straitnesses, he calls his Deliverer, his Exultation. There was 'night' indeed without, in the encompassing of oppressions, but 'songs' were resounding within, from the consolation of joy. For, because we cannot return to eternal joys, except through temporal losses, it is the whole object of Scripture, that the hope of the joys, which will abide, should strengthen us, amid these passing adversities. Whence also the Prophet Ezekiel witnesses, that he had received a book, in which were…