Moralia in Job 1174

VERSE 13. — 'Whether in one tribe, or in His own land, or in whatsoever place of His mercy He shall command them to be found.' 58. The preaching of the Gospel granted not to the Jews only, but also to the Gentiles. — By 'one tribe' assuredly Judah is understood, which in Holy Scripture is remembered as illustrious and manifold above the rest. Which, in that from itself it brought forth the flesh of our Redeemer, received a special gift above all. And by 'His own land' the whole of Judea together is named, because it then brought forth to Him the fruit of its faith, when the whole world went astray under the worship of idols, the nations having fallen away. But the 'place of God's mercy' is the Gentile world itself, whose faults, if the strict Judge should justly regard them, it would never come to the reconciliation of grace.

But this Gentile world, though it had no merits with God, nevertheless received the grace of reconciliation from mercy alone. Whence it is well said through Paul: 'But the Gentiles glorify God for His mercy' (Rom. XV, 9). Whence again it is written: 'Who in time past had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy' (1 Pet. II, 10). God, therefore, leads His clouds, whether in one tribe, or in His own land, or in whatsoever place of His mercy He shall command them to be found, because He sometimes conferred the preachers of the Old and New Testament upon the tribe of Judah alone, and reprobated almost all Israel on account of the depraved government of its kings.

Sometimes He makes these clouds rain also in His own land, because He recalled that same Israelite people to the ancient grace after chastisement and captivity. Sometimes He willed them to shine forth from the place of His mercy, because through the holy preachers He showed the miracles of virtues even to the Gentiles, that by mercy alone He might loose from the yoke of error those whom the wrath of inborn perfidy was pressing down. [Sect. XXIII.] But behold, Elihu, because he perceived future things through the prophetic spirit, because he uttered many things sublimely, being an arrogant man wearied by the weight of his own elation, is not able to bear what he says. For through boastfulness he straightway adds: