Think you this to be right, that you said, My righteousness is more than God's?
Read Chapter 35
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
God. Eliu being greatly mortified at Job's silence, uses still more provoking expressions, and pretends to refute one of the holy man's assertions, which never escaped his lips, though he had complained that God treated him as an enemy, and with more severity than his sins deserved; (chap. vi. 2.; Calmet) or, that his affliction was greater than his sin, chap. xxiii. 7. Eliu therefore calumniates him. (Worthington)
“Elihu therefore spoke these words again.” Everyone who says many things is always anxious to begin his speech once again, in order … to keep his hearers in suspense, so that they may be the more attentively silent, the more they expect, as it were, to hear some new thing. But Elihu, finishing one subject, begins another without delay, in order that his loquacity may be continued without limit by beginnings being constantly joined. It follows, “Does your thought seem right to you, that you said, I am more righteous than God?” Everyone observes, who reads the text of the history, that blessed Job did not say that he was more righteous than God. But he says, “Let him put forth equity against me, and my judgment shall come to victory.” Examining his life without knowing the reasons of his smiting, as has been often observed, Job believed that he was scourged for the sake of washing away his sins and not the increasing of his merits. He was therefore confident that his judgment would come ...
15. Every one observes, who reads the text of the history, that blessed Job did not say that he was more righteous than God. But he says, Let Him put forth equity against me, and my judgment shall come to victory. [Job 23, 7. Vulg.] Examining namely his life, and not knowing the reasons of his smiting, as has been often observed, he believed that he was scourged for the sake of washing away his sins, and not of increasing his merits. And he was therefore confident, that his judgment would come to victory, because he found in himself no fault, for which he deserved to be smitten. Which thing indeed the Lord also said of him to the devil; Thou hast moved Me against him, to afflict him without cause. [Job 2, 3] What had he sinned then, by speaking thus, who, unknowingly, agreed, in these words, with the divine and secret sentence upon himself? Or what harm is there, if, in the judgment of men, our words differ, on the surface, from the exactness of truth, when, in that on which they turn ...
