Verses 2-3. — Hear my words, you wise men, and you learned ones, hearken to me. For the ear tries words, and the palate judges of meats by taste. Proud teachers do not seek to make their hearers wise, but to display their own wisdom. — As if he were saying: Just as neither the ear knows meats, nor the palate words, so neither does any foolish man understand the sentence of the wise. Hear, therefore, you wise and learned men, what I say, you who are able to know the things that shall be spoken. Let us see, then, how swollen he is, who deems that his words are fittingly to be heard only by the wise. But the true preacher of wisdom says: To the wise and to the unwise I am a debtor (Rom. 1:14).
But on the contrary, the arrogant man in his preaching awaits only the ears of the wise, because he does not preach in order that he may be able to make anyone wise, but he seeks the wise for this reason: that he may be able, by pride, to show what he has perceived. For, as was said above, he desires not to instruct them, but to show himself off; nor does he regard how righteous those who hear may become, but how learned he himself may appear when he is heard by the learned. But because no one would admit the preaching of the arrogant, if they did not also mingle in something of the image of humility, well does Elihu, after he had exalted himself through swelling words, again as it were condescend to the concord of equality, saying: