約伯倫理 第 1296 章

The vanquished foes take refuge in guiles, but in vain. — In Holy Scripture, by the name of the quiver is sometimes designated the just and hidden counsel of God, and sometimes the clandestine machination of the wicked. By the quiver is expressed the just and hidden counsel of God, as the same blessed Job testifies in an earlier part, saying: For he hath opened his quiver, and hath afflicted me (Job 30:11). That is, he has laid bare his hidden counsel, and has wounded me with a public blow. For as arrows in the quiver, so in the hidden counsel of God lie the sentences; and as an arrow is drawn from the quiver, so, when out of His hidden counsel God hurls forth an open sentence.

By the name of the quiver also the machination of the wicked is designated, as it is said through the prophet: They have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may shoot in the dark at the upright of heart (Ps. 11:2). For the wicked, when they conceal in secret machinations the guiles which they devise against the good, prepare, as it were, arrows in the quiver, and in this darkness of the present life, as in the dark, they strike the upright of heart, because their malicious darts can both be felt through the wound, and yet, as they come, cannot be detected.

Therefore, because the horse of God is terrified by no adversity, and the more he is met, the more fervently he is borne by the force of his intention against the armed foes, his persecutors, who feel themselves vanquished even while striking, are troubled and turn back to counsel, prepare guiles, and conceal their wounds by shooting, as it were, from afar. Whence it is now rightly said: Over him shall the quiver rattle; so that from hidden machination they may strike from afar him whom in open encounters they approach in vain. This quiver had then rattled over the horse of God, when the forty men who had conspired for his death sought to have Paul brought out of prison (Acts 23).

(Job 23:16), so that by the blows of their counsels they might slay, as it were secretly and by the treachery of arrows, the one whom they could in no way overcome in the encounter of open persecution. The quiver therefore sounded, because the plot of a hidden machination reached Paul. — 65. Their arts they sometimes conceal, and sometimes, to strike terror, they display them. — Yet if we seek with vigilance, we still find something more subtle in the sounding of the quiver.

For often adversaries enter upon plans against the good, relying on wicked devices, and betake themselves to contriving deceits; yet those very men who ought to betray the same deceits to the good, they themselves appoint, and they themselves secretly transmit them, so that when the preparation of tortures becomes known, as if by stealth, to the credulous, it may be the more dreaded, and so that suspected wounds may disturb the hearer's mind more than those actually inflicted.

For in the quiver the arrows, while they lie hidden and yet sound, announce death even when unseen. The quiver therefore returns a sound against the horse, when against the holy preacher the hidden machination of the wicked more deceitfully reveals its plan, which it deceitfully conceals, so that by threats sent ahead it may terrify, as it were by the sounding of the quiver — while God's preacher does not dread open insults as though they were javelins striking close at hand. But when he is in no way terrified by these threats, then the cruelty of the persecutors is soon brought to open torments. Whence fittingly, after it was said, 'Upon him shall the quiver rattle,' it is at once added: