Verse 5. — 'Attend to me, and be astonished.' 43. From Job's chastisements we must learn what we ought to dread. — That is, consider what I have done, and marvel in this affliction which I suffer. And still rightly he subjoins, saying: 'And lay your finger upon your mouth.' As if he plainly said: Knowing the good things I have done, and considering the evils I suffer, restrain yourselves also from the guilt of words, and in my chastisements dread your own losses. Or certainly, because we discern things by our fingers, not inaptly discretion is signified by the finger. Whence also it is said through the Psalmist: 'Blessed be the Lord my God, who teaches my hands to fight, and my fingers to war' (Psalm 143).
By the hands signifying action, but by the fingers discretion. The finger therefore is laid upon the mouth when the tongue is restrained by discretion, lest through what it utters it fall into the guilt of folly. He says therefore: 'Lay your finger upon your mouth,' that is, join to your speech the virtue of discretion, that through these right things which you say against the hypocrite you may see to whom they ought to be said. There follows: