I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.
Ver. 7. I said, Days should speak] This seems to have been a proverb in those days; and it ran much in Elihu's mind. We use to say, that at meetings young men should be mutes, and old men vowels. Of Arsatius, who succeeded Chrysostom in the see of Constantinople, it is recorded (but nothing to his commendation) that at eighty years of age he was as eloquent as a fish and as nimble as a frog.
And multitude of years should teach wisdom] Heb. Should make known wisdom; sc. such as consisteth in the knowledge of God and of his will, of ourselves and of our duties. This is far beyond all that of the heathen sages, of the seven wise men of Greece, of Archimedes of Syracuse, who had a name in fame, saith Plutarch, not of human, but of a kind of divine wisdom. So had Socrates, so had Apollonius, of whom Philostratus saith, that he was non doctus, sed natus sapiens, not taught, but born a wise man, ουκ ανθρωπινης αλλα δαιμονιου τινος συνεσεως (Plut.). These all were the world's wizards; and what they came, to see Romans 1:21,23 1Co 1:11 Lactantius truly telleth us (Instit. 1. 3, c. 30), in the name of the whole community of Christians, that all the wisdom of a man consisteth in this, to know God and worship him aright. And that these seniors should have taught and notified such wisdom Elihu had well hoped: but it proved otherwise.