And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 32:17 Go To Isaiah 32
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
It is the practice of the impertinent ever to answer by the opposite to what is said rightly, lest if they assent to the things asserted, they should seem inferior.… When wisdom reprimands sins by the mouth of the righteous, it sounds like superfluity of talkativeness to the ears of the foolish. For assertive people deem nothing right except what they themselves think, and they consider the words of the righteous to be idle to the degree that they find them to be different from their own notions.… As long as any one lets himself go in words, the gravity of silence being gone, he parts with the safekeeping of the soul. For this reason it is written, “And the work of righteousness, silence.” So Solomon says, “He who has no rule over his own spirit in talking is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” And he says again, “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking.” … the value of a true sentence is lost when it is not delivered under the keeping of discretion.… A true sentence against the wicked, if it is aimed at the virtue of the good, loses its own virtue and bounds back with blunted point.… But the wicked cannot hear good words with patience, and, neglecting to amend their life, they brace themselves up with words of rejoinder.
