Behold, my belly [is] as wine [which] hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles.
Ver. 19. Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent] By this elegant similitude Elihu illustrateth what he had said before; wherein (as Merlin well observeth) he compareth words shut up in the mind of him that would fain utter them to new wine, not yet throughly purged, the soul to bottles, silence to the stopple, which keeps in the wine, grief hereupon to the breaking of those bottles, speech to the opening of them, by taking away the stopple of silence. And although in this discourse Elihu may seem to lay on more words than the matter requireth, yet he doth not; for he saith no more than the psalmist doth, Psalms 45:1, and Jeremiah, Jeremiah 6:11, and the apostles, Acts 4:20, "We cannot but speak," &c. And whereas Gregory saith that all this came from pride in Elihu, Chrysostom praiseth him rather (and therein he is in the right) for his zeal, which will have a vent, or the heart will cleave; as the waters undermine when they cannot overflow. As for that which is urged against Elihu, that God saith of him, as of a reprobate and one whom he knew not, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" Job 38:2, it is plain that God speaketh there, not of Elihu, but of Job, and so Job understood and applied it, Job 42:2; and that God speaketh not of Job's sacrificing for him, as for the other three, makes more for his praise than else; and shows that he had spoken of God the thing that was right, which they had not done, Job 42:7 .