約伯倫理 第 1163 章

Verse 5. — 'God shall thunder marvellously with his voice.' 42. God sounds marvellously, because silently and by a hidden force he at once refreshes with heavenly food. — God thunders marvellously with his voice, because by a hidden force he penetrates our hearts incomprehensibly. And while by latent motions he presses them in fear and forms them in love, he cries out in a certain silent way with how great ardor he is to be followed, and there arises a certain excess of impulse in the mind, though nothing sounds in the voice. Which resounds among us the more mightily, the more it also makes the ear of our heart grow deaf to every outward din. Whence also the soul, being at once gathered to itself by this inward cry, marvels at what it hears, because it perceives the force of an unknown compunction.

Which very admiration is well signified in Moses by the manna coming down from above (Exodus 16:15). For the sweet food which is received from supernal things is called 'Manhu.' For 'Manhu' means 'What is this?' And we say 'What is this?' when we admire, not knowing, that which we behold. The soul, therefore, perceives the supernal manna, when, lifted up by the voice of compunction, it is astounded at the new appearance of inward refreshment, so that, filled with divine sweetness, it rightly responds, 'What is this?' — because, while it is suspended from lowest thinking, it marvels in unwonted fashion at those things which it beholds from supernal regions.

And because, when by this voice the deafness of our torpor is broken, the use of the old life is forthwith changed, so that the soul, breathed upon by the supernal Spirit, both longs in the highest things for what it had despised, and despises in the lowest things what it had longed for, rightly is it subjoined: