VERSE 16. — 'Job therefore opens his mouth in vain, and multiplies words without knowledge.' 40. The vices of the proud are talkativeness and impatience in listening. — Bringing forward these things, does he not assert that blessed Job knew nothing, and yet said much; and while he himself talkatively brings forward what he feels, he accuses Job of the vice of talkativeness? But this too is wont to be a vice proper to the arrogant, that they both count as few the things they themselves have said many, and count as many the things that are said few to them. For because they always wish to say their own things, they cannot hear the things of others; they reckon it a violence suffered, if they do not more immoderately pour out those things which they immoderately feel.
And although blessed Job kept silent at his words, Elihu nevertheless found a cause for invective from that speech of his by which he had answered his friends, so that he might be able to display his silence more at length, and so that, in order that he himself might answer much, he affirms that Job had multiplied words. For indeed he immediately begins the outset of a lengthy discourse; and as though he had as yet said nothing, he attempts to make a beginning. Whence it is subjoined: