17. The Lord ‘filleth the houses of the wicked with good things,’ in that even to the unthankful He refuses not His gifts, that either they may blush at the loving-kindness of their Creator and be brought back to goodness, or altogether despising to return thereto, may from the same cause be there worse punished, that here they rendered an evil return for God’s more bounteous good, so that severer woes should there chastise those whose wickedness here not even gifts overcame. It goes on;
But let their sentence be far from me.
This too was expressed by blessed Job. For he says, Whose counsel be far from me. [Job 21, 16] Though ‘sentence’ may be taken for one thing and ‘counsel’ for another; for ‘sentence’ is in the mouth, ‘counsel’ in the thoughts. And so whereas Eliphaz wished himself far from the ‘sentence’ of the wicked, and blessed Job from the ‘counsel,’ it is plain without denial, that the first desires to be unlike the words of the wicked, but the other unlike their way of thinking even.
These words mean, “You imitate the actions of the ancestors.” [The author] is alluding to the Cainites, those who lived at the time of the deluge, to the Sodomites, etc.; these are those whom he calls “the way of the world.”
[AD 604] Gregory the Dialogist on Job 22:18
But let their sentence be far from me.
This too was expressed by blessed Job. For he says, Whose counsel be far from me. [Job 21, 16] Though ‘sentence’ may be taken for one thing and ‘counsel’ for another; for ‘sentence’ is in the mouth, ‘counsel’ in the thoughts. And so whereas Eliphaz wished himself far from the ‘sentence’ of the wicked, and blessed Job from the ‘counsel,’ it is plain without denial, that the first desires to be unlike the words of the wicked, but the other unlike their way of thinking even.