Verses 7, 8: 'Were you the first man born, and were you formed before the hills? Have you heard the counsel of God, and shall His wisdom be inferior to you?' 32. While they seem to defend the divine glory, they look to their own. — As if he said in plainer words: 'You who speak of the Eternal, consider that you are temporal; you who dispute about His wisdom, consider that you are ignorant of His counsel.' But because the heretics take up the words of the Lord's defence for this purpose — that they may seem learned, and while they seem to defend the divine glory may make their own knowledge known to men — these very words subjoined by Eliphaz bear witness, who indeed began to speak concerning the wisdom of God, but straightway fell to his own self-exaltation, saying: Verse 9.
'What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we are ignorant of?' These words indeed plainly show from what exaltation of mind proceeds whatever sounds as if for the Lord's defence. There follows: