No doubt you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
Read Chapter 12
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
You. Hebrew, "Truly you are the people, and wisdom will die with you! "This irony is very sharp. (Calmet)
"Are you alone men? or shall? "(Septuagint; Syriac)
44. Whosoever reckons himself to excel all men in the faculty of reason, what else does such a man but exult that he is the ‘only Man?’ And it often happens that when the mind is borne on high through pride, it is uplifted in contempt of all men, and in admiration of self. For self-applause springs up in the imagination, and folly is itself its own flatterer for singularity of wisdom. It ponders all that it has heard, and considers the words that it utters; and it admires its own, and scoffs at those of others. He then, who thinks that he only is wise, what else is this but that he believes that that same ‘wisdom dies with him?’ For what he denies to be with others, ascribing to himself alone, he doth, in truth, confine within the period of his brief span. But we are to consider what exact discretion the holy man employs, in order that the arrogance of his friends in the fulness of pride might be brought within bounds.
Job speaks in an admirable way. Instead of briefly saying, “You would not be able to be men,” he questions them, and what does he ask? “So are you really men, and shall wisdom die with you?” This means, “Is the honor of rational beings really intact within you? Do you know the decisions that God forms with regard to sinners and righteous people?” It is convenient, in fact, that people are aware of this. Know that God tests the righteous and shows tolerance with sinners. That is why the latter are wealthy and the former in the ordeal, because for sinners God’s long tolerance will be the reason for a return to repentance, while to the righteous the long battle will offer the occasion to be crowned. If you knew that, you would not condemn the righteous person who is in the ordeal, and you would not consider the sinner who is wealthy, as the righteous. - "Homilies on Job 15.12.2"
