Verse 6.—'He hath made me as it were a byword of the vulgar, and I am an example before them.' 40. The foolish opinion of the crowd concerning the scourges of the elect.—These things blessed Job may say of himself, and may say in the voice of all the elect. For everyone who is smitten with a scourge is set, as it were, as a byword of the crowd, because whenever some foolish person wishes to curse another, he takes his curse from the likeness of him whom he sees temporally afflicted, and wishes upon his adversary that punishment which he beholds to have befallen the just. And so it comes to pass that the upright man is held up as an example to those who are not rightly wise, since the punishment of the just is believed to be a condemnation, while the glory that awaits him is foreseen by no hope of faith. There follows: