מי יורש קנייני אלוה ה׳Who is the Heir of Divine Things 5
א׳
1[16] And he that seemed to be feeble of speech and slow of tongue and wordless is found to be so loquacious, that in one place he is represented as not only speaking, but shouting, and in another as pouring forth a stream of words without cessation or pause.
ב׳
2[17] For “Moses,” we read, “was talking to God, and God was answering him with a voice” (Ex. 19:19). We do not have the tense of completed action “he talked,” but the tense of prolonged and continuous action “he was talking”; and similarly God did not teach him (as a complete action) but was answering him always and uninterruptedly.
ג׳
3[18] Now an answer always pre-supposes a question; and everyone asks what he does not know, because he thinks it good to learn and is aware that of all the steps which he can take to get knowledge, the most profitable is to seek, to ask questions, to think that he has no knowledge, and not to imagine that he has a firm apprehension of anything.
ד׳
4[19] Now wise men take God for their guide and teacher, but the less perfect take the wise man; and therefore the Children of Israel say “Talk thou to us, and let not God talk to us lest we die” (Ex. 20:19).
ה׳
5But the man of worth has such courage of speech, that he is bold not only to speak and cry aloud, but actually to make an outcry of reproach, wrung from him by real conviction, and expressing true emotion.
ו׳
6[20] Take the words “if Thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive them; but if not, blot me out of the book which Thou hast written” (Ex. 32:32); and “Did I conceive all this people in the womb, or did I bring them forth, because Thou sayest unto me, ‘take them to thy bosom, as a nurse lifts the suckling’?” (Num. 11:12); or again “Whence shall I get flesh to give to this people, because they weep against me? Shall sheep and oxen be slaughtered, or all the meat that is in the sea be collected and suffice?” (Num. 11:13, 22). Or “Lord, why hast Thou afflicted this people and why hast Thou sent me? And ever since I went to Pharoah to speak in Thy name, he has afflicted the people, and Thou hast not saved Thy people” (Ex. 5:22, 23). Anyone would have feared to say these or like words, even to one of the kings of particular kingdoms; yet he had the courage to utter these thoughts to God.
ז׳
7[21] He reached this limit, I will not say of daring in general but of good daring, because all the wise are friends of God, and particularly so in the judgement of the most holy lawgiver. Frankness of speech is akin to friendship. For to whom should a man speak with frankness but to his friend? And so most excellent is it, that in the oracles Moses is proclaimed the friend of God (Ex. 33:11), to shew that all the audacities of his bold discourse were uttered in friendship, rather than in presumption. For the audacity of rashness belongs to the presumptuous, the audacity of courage or confidence to a friend.
