Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and went not out of the door?
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Have not. Hebrew, "that I kept silence, not going out of doors "to defend the innocent. (Haydock)
Moses commands judges to do their duty without fear, Exodus xxiii. 2. People in such situations ought to be uninfluenced by hatred, love Cæsar says, justly, (in Sallust) "qui de rebus dubiis consultant, ab odio, amicitia, ira atque misericordia vacuos esse decet. Haud facile animus verum providet, ubi illa officiunt. "(Haydock)
35. It is great assuredness of heart to have nought of worldly concupiscence. For if the heart pants after attaining earthly things, it can never be secure and tranquil, because either things not possessed it desires, in order that it may possess them, or things obtained it is afraid for lest it should lose them, and whilst in adverse circumstances he dreads prosperous ones, so in prosperous circumstances he dreads such as are adverse, and he is tossed hither and thither as it were by a kind of waves, and is hurried about in various fashions by the changeableness of shifting affairs. But if once the mind is fixed with strong stedfastness in the longing after the Country Above, it is less distressed by the annoyance of earthly things. For from all outward commotions it seeks that its aim, like a kind of most secret retreat, and there attaching itself to the Unchangeable, [al. ‘Unchangeably attached,’ which however would be a hyperbolic expression.] and mounting above all changeable thin...
“Because I did not turn away,” he says, “from the great multitude of my people,” that is, away from my subjects, from those who were aware, who knew even the character itself of my fault. This is real wisdom. “First of all confess spontaneously your sins in order to be justified.” So I took nobody as a witness of my good works, because I wanted everybody to be aware of my faults and errors. That is the summit of wisdom, that is the rule of virtue: to hide one’s good work and to expose one’s faults in public. But the people of today just do the opposite. - "Commentary on Job 31.32–34a"
