In the same place. — 'And they shall take away the violent one without a hand.' The hand of God, unforeseen by the wicked, snatches him to punishment. You are to understand the divine judgements: 'Without a hand indeed they shall take away' him who was violent with his hand. 'Without a hand they shall take him away,' because plainly, driven by a sudden departure, he is snatched invisibly who was snatching visibly. He himself saw those whom he seized, but he does not see who seizes him in death. 'Without a hand,' therefore, the violent one is taken away, because he neither beholds his own ravisher and yet is led off. Him a stricter sentence follows in proportion as great patience was extended to him in his sinning, because the divine severity punishes the wicked man the more sharply the longer it has borne with him.
But it often happens that, while the supreme clemency waits for sinners, they leap forth into a greater blindness of heart. Whence it is written: 'Or dost thou not know that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thyself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgement of God' (Rom. 2:4). And behold, while the violent man seizes whatever he can, while he oppresses the weak, and while for a long time he pursues all that he wickedly covets—because he is not struck at once, but his punishment is deferred to the end—his most wicked action is not believed to be seen by God. Whence fittingly, after he has told of his destruction, he at once adds concerning the Lord, saying: