Chapter XXXVI.
Also adding to this, Elihu spoke these words: Bear with me a little longer and I will show you. For I still have something to speak for God. That is, for the righteousness and cause of God.
I will repeat my knowledge from the beginning, and I will prove my operator is just. Truly, without a lie in my words, and with perfect knowledge, it will be proven to you. And in this fourth discourse of his, he continues with a profound and abundant speech about the singular justice of the Lord: where he seems to say many hidden secrets and far remote mysteries in obscure sacraments.
God does not reject the powerful, since you yourself are powerful; but He does not save the wicked. This is the immensity of His justice and the goodwill of His nature, that He does not envy anyone, because no one, however powerful they may be, can equal Him.
And He gives judgment to the poor. According to the most just measure of justice. However, sacred Scripture is accustomed to calling poor men holy and innocent.
He will not take his eyes off the just. This is what he says, and blessed David: The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, etc.
And he establishes kings on the throne forever, and they are raised up there. These kings can be understood not only as the rulers of this world, but also as the rulers and leaders of the Church. And figuratively, kings can also refer to the human intellects that rule over the bodies correctly, as it is said in the psalm. And now, you kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth. In this way, these kings are raised up by God to sit with the princes.
And if they are in chains and bound with the ropes of poverty, their works and crimes will be revealed, because they were violent. Therefore, they will be bound in strong chains, namely the judgment of God, and tied with the ropes of poverty; that is, lacking the help of divine aid, they will be constrained by temporal punishments like fetters, rendered destitute of all good things according to the quality of their merits.
He will also open their ears to discipline and correction, so that they turn away from iniquity. 'God will open the ear of the heart,' he says, 'to obey him through punishments and secret inspirations.'
If they hear and observe, they will fulfill their days in good, and their years in glory. This is what Solomon says: The memory of the just with praises.
But if they do not listen, they will pass through the sword and be consumed in folly. That is, if they have despised listening to God, who teaches knowledge to man, they will pass through the sword, that is, through this mortality from this world, so that in folly, that is, in those places where fools will be assigned, they will be consumed by eternal torments.
Simulators and clever ones provoke the wrath of God, and they will not cry out when they are bound. The holy Job himself seems to openly strike out at Elihu, as if he were acting cleverly and wickedly: he also simulated being an outstanding man. And when he was bound with the chains of this affliction, he least cared to cry out to God and invoke him, so that he would be released from the bonds of punishment, which he surely did out of either despair or contempt. The same can also be understood of other sinners, who, when they have fallen into the depths of evil, despise it; and of the Jews and heretics, who, cloaking themselves with the veil of a false teaching, persist in their perfidiousness with a stubborn and hardened heart.
Their souls will perish in the storm, and their lives among the effeminate. We know that vices and wickedness have nothing in them that is calm, manly, and virtuous, but rather everything is turbulent, indulgent, and fragile. Therefore, it is necessary that they continually disturb the soul with their allurements, not allowing the person to grasp the haven of virtues, and the person becomes, in these storms, as Solomon says, like a soul lying in the heart of the sea, and like a sailor in a great storm. Or else, the coming of a storm and the judgment of God is as he says, 'Around him is a mighty tempest.'
He shall deliver the poor from his distress. By the poor, we understand our Savior, who became poor for us, who in the days of his flesh offered prayers and supplications to the Father, that he might save the poor from death, the humble people of God with a humble spirit. He will also deliver any righteous person from the distress of afflictions, as we read in the divine Scriptures in various ways.
And he will reveal his ear in tribulation. That is, let each one of them be strong in tribulation, with the divine visitation strengthening, when man is allowed by God to be troubled, he will perceive consolation in the ear of the Lord, by hearing it there.
Therefore, it will save you from the wide mouth to the widest part, and not having a foundation underneath. In this place, the dwelling places of the underworld are described by Heliu, which, with their immense capacity, do not have a foundation. However, we read in the prophets about the foundations of these, where Lucifer, who rose in the morning, was cast down, as well as the multitudes of kings and countless populations of nations. The underworld is called a narrow mouth because it is spacious to receive, but narrow to release, since it keeps the dead within itself and does not allow them to exit to life. David also said to God: Deliver me from those who hate me, and from the depths of the waters. Let not the waterstorm drown me, nor let the deep swallow me up; nor let the pit close its mouth upon me. Therefore, let us know that according to the faith of the Scriptures, the places of infernal prisons are established among the boundless waters of the abyss: from those abode of the underworld, no man has been freed by his own merit, except by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And not only, says Heliu, will you be freed from the narrow confines of Tartarus, but you will also walk freely in the widest forest of refreshment, as if in spacious fields.
But the rest of your table will be full of fatness. It signified the delightfulness of paradise and pleasure, by calling it rest. But it wished to demonstrate the immense abundance of a blessed life, which would be full of fertility and fatness, and filled with the delights of that happy place, whose holy land the meek will possess according to the promise of the Lord.
Your case has been judged as that of an impious person, and you shall receive judgment. By the judgment of God, you have been found guilty as an impious person and a debtor of punishments, and therefore, according to the merit of your case, you have received the severest judgment. And where it is said, 'you shall receive judgment,' others have said, because of the impiety of the gifts they received, where under the plural form of expression, Job seems to strike Elihu with his words.
Therefore, do not let anger overcome you, so that you oppress someone; nor let a multitude of gifts sway you. Learned from Eli is a man with the virtue of patience and integrity, the strongest. The best judge is one who is not held captive by these two vices, anger and greed, which in this place the holy man Eli reproaches.
Put aside your greatness without affliction, and strengthen all the strong in strength. That is, neither oppress the small nor the great with your unjust rule, nor let pride-based arrogance overpower all movements of strength.
Do not prolong the night so that people rise up for you. It is enough to have lived in this blindness until now. Now strive to come to the light of prudence and justice: whether it is the darkness that you have woven for yourself with various sins, so that you walk in it as if in continuous and perpetual darkness: I beg you, he says, do not prolong it further, and do not delight in extending the sins by adding sins like a rope: therefore, put an end to such sins with the light of this correction: for by prolonging it, your life will become irredeemable, and prayers from the people will rise up to God for all your evil deeds: those whom you have most unjustly oppressed, who have called out against you and laid their own miseries inflicted by you before the judgment seat of divine justice.
Beware of turning to wickedness: for you have begun to follow it after your misfortune. Do not, says Elihu, turn to despair, I beg you, and be cautious of the wickedness of blasphemy, but hurry to return to God. For I see that after your terrible affliction, you desire to follow this impious destruction to your own ruin, and you are sending your will and thought to the adversary, weakened by cowardice.
Behold God, high in his strength, and none is like him among the lawmakers. If anyone can be like him in power and virtue, they can also be found alike in justice and wisdom, and in the multiplication of laws, and in his judgments. And therefore, he says, know that no one can be unjustly condemned by God, who alone is both strong and wise.
Who can scrutinize his ways? Who indeed, unless impious, arrogant, or sacrilegious, would presume to scrutinize the ways of divine works? This is not allowed; and yet, no matter how great the intention of the mind, they will not be able to find them.
But who dares say to him: You have worked iniquity? Who, therefore, is so rash, and unjust and unrighteous, that he dares to speak this? All these things are said against Job in bitterness.
Remember that you are unaware of his work, about which men have sung. Either all of his general work, or certainly his specific work. For above all great and marvelous are his works, it is the mystery of the dispensation of Christ, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. Others have said: Remember, for his works are great, which men have praised. He speaks of all the works of God, which holy men have rightly praised in honor of divine worship.
All men see him, each one looks from afar. By the goodness of nature, the knowledge of the creator is in the hearts of men; and although someone may be so small and cold as to strive to be alienated from his creator God, there is no one who hides himself from his warmth. And therefore, every mortal, though from afar, feels and understands, in a completely different way indeed, not as a body or as any created spirit, but in another much more ineffable way, in which God is to be seen by the eye of the mind. Where in the very gaze of the understanding heart, man sees that above him there is that divine name which he strives to contemplate.
Behold the great God surpassing our knowledge. The number of His years is immeasurable. He surpasses our knowledge with the magnitude of His wisdom and the loftiness of His judgments.
He takes away the drops of rain, and pours out showers like torrents. Therefore, let us understand this rain as the law of Moses, which comes from heaven like rain to the people of the Jews. And it is called rain because of the multitude of commandments, as Moses himself says about the same people of the Jews, saying: Let my speech be waited for like rain. Therefore, God took away the drops of this rain from that people, as in the incarnation or passion, or in the resurrection of Christ, which the Jews, with blinded hearts, refused to believe, which are indeed small legal commandments, in order to transfer them to the faith of the Gospel, as the Apostle says: For he is finishing and curtailing the word in iniquity, and so on. And from these drops, and from small drops, with the thundering Gospel, the showers of Christ's preaching were poured out upon the earth. And these showers are said to be like whirlpools: which certainly, when they descend abundantly onto the earth, contain the depth and darkness of the mysteries, which were spoken in the Law and the Prophets through figures and similitudes, in the revelation of the Lord's coming, the obscurity of themselves and the depth of the mysteries, as if closed signs, were found. Indeed, we know that the grace of the Holy Spirit has been poured out abundantly, as the Apostle says, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ.
Those that flow from the clouds, which cover everything from above. We know that clouds are often called saints in the Scriptures, as it is also clear in a certain place, when the Lord says: 'And I will command the clouds, that they rain not upon it: that is, the vineyard, which is the sinful nation of the Jews: so that the rains of salvation may not be poured forth by their words.' Therefore, from these clouds, namely the apostles and the apostolic men, the preachers of truth, rain those showers, that have in themselves a likeness to torrents, because of the opacity of heavenly mysteries: where fittingly it is said in the Psalms: 'Dark water in the clouds of the air.' Therefore, these clouds, I say, through which rains flow into the earth's streams, cover everything from above. For they contain within them the waters of the Gospel, so that living waters flow from their womb, from the higher mysteries, as if by a certain pretext and the obscuring of the waters, they create an obstacle for the fleshly and earthly things.
If he should wish to spread out the clouds as his tent, and to flash forth his lightning with his own light, he will also cover the hinges of the sea from above. For he stretches out the aforementioned clouds so that their sound goes out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world: just as he spoke afterwards to his disciples, that is, his clouds, saying; And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth: through which indeed his clouds shone forth with the lightning of preaching, and the fame of the name of Christ shone forth from heaven like light. The sea, too, has occupied the hinges of this world: or by hinges of the world we can understand the princes and heads of various nations: by whose errors and wicked persuasions of doctrines the world was turned in the place of superstition of demons as if on a hinge.
For through these things, God judges the peoples and gives food to many mortals. For by these aforementioned sacraments, God, in His mercy, decrees to show compassion to all peoples and give nourishment of His word, or rather, of His mysteries, to all mortals, as He himself says: I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
In his hands he hides the light, and commands it to come forth again. By the power of his righteous judgment, he hides the light of his knowledge from sinners who do evil, and commands it to come to the illumination of the mind; if anyone faithfully seeks God as his helper.
He informs his friend about his possession, and that he can come to it. God, through the light of his revelation, teaches and instructs his faithful friend in his heart. He also enlightens him, telling him that the light, or rather, the grace of enlightenment and the possession of divine promises, is his, and that he can daily progress towards it by making progress in his heart.