約伯倫理 第 1102 章

Verses 34, 35. — Let men of understanding speak to me, and let a wise man hearken to me. But Job hath spoken foolishly, and his words sound not of instruction. 5. It is not lawful to lie for the sake of humility. — Behold, while he grants as it were humbly that blessed Job should speak, he shows what he inwardly harbored, saying: Let men of understanding speak to me; disdaining, of course, that blessed Job should presume to speak, as one who could not, as it were, understand his words. And because he judged blessed Job unworthy not only to speak but even to hear, he immediately added: Let a wise man hearken to me. As if he said: To this man leave to speak is unjustly granted, who does not even deserve to hear the words of the wise.

And then openly he makes manifest how despised his opinion of him is, saying: But Job hath spoken foolishly, and his words sound not of instruction. He believed that blessed Job had spoken without instruction, because he had recorded that he had been just in his works. But perhaps Elihu would have said this, had he not himself, as an author of instruction, reckoned these same things which blessed Job had related about himself. For Job asserted that he had been innocently scourged, whom God also testified to have been smitten in vain (Job ii, 3). Why then did the voice of the smitten sound proud, which in no way differed from the sentence of the Smiter? Incautious are the humble who ensnare themselves with a lie while they shun arrogance;

nay rather, by lying they grow proud, because they set themselves up against the truth which they forsake. For he who, compelled by necessity, speaks true good things of himself, is so much the more joined to humility, the more he is also allied to truth. Was not Paul humble, when out of zeal for truth against the false apostles he related to his disciples so many brave deeds of himself (2 Cor. xii; Acts xx, 18, 19)? He would surely have been an enemy to truth, if by hiding his own virtues he had allowed the preachers of errors to prevail. But because arrogant men, in this that they proudly examine the sayings of the good, weigh rather the surface of words than the order of things, Elihu believed that blessed Job's sentiments sounded not of instruction.

But because often the harshness of the proud is stretched even to the hardness of cursing, immediately against blessed Job, as though directing his words to God, he subjoins: