Shall it be told him that I speak? if a man speaks, surely he shall be swallowed up.
Read Chapter 37
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
He shall be swallowed up. All that man can say, when he speaks of God, is so little and inconsiderable in comparison with the subject, that man is lost, and as it were swallowed up in so immense an ocean. (Challoner)
The man who should dare to mention what I could reprehend in God's works, would soon be overwhelmed with majesty. (Calmet)
Alphonsus IX, king of Leon, (the year of our Lord 1252) surnamed "the wise and the astronomer "said "he could have given some good advice respecting the motions of the stars, if he had been consulted by God "meaning to ridicule some vain systems of philosophers, then in vogue. (Dict. 1774.) (Haydock)
As if he plainly said; The unheard truths which I declare to Him, from an acute sense of His praises, who can repeat, even after he has heard them? But because, when learning and arrogance contend together in the habitation of the same mind, there sounds forth from the mouth of the speaker not merely levity of behaviour, but also gravity of sentiment; after Eliu had been puffed up in levity by arrogance, saying, Who will tell Him the things which I say? he presently subjoined, through his learning,
Even if a man shall speak, he shall he swallowed up.
67. Every thing which devours any thing, draws it inwards, and conceals it from the eyes of beholders, and hurries into the deep an object which could be seen on the surface. A man, therefore, when he is silent about God, seems to be something on account of the reason with which he was made. But if he begins to speak about God, it is at once shewn how nought he is; because he is devoured by the immensity of His greatness, and is hurried,...
