If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: speak, for I desire to justify thee.
Ver. 32. If thou hast anything to say, answer me] Heb. If thou hast words, yet not empty words, but such as may bear weight, and make for thy defence. Some men's discourses are nothing else but words. Hermodorus of old was said to sell words for want of better commodities. Dογους εμπορευεται Eσυοδωπος. Erasmus was noted for a very wordy man, Verba habet sine rebus Erasmus. Turrian for a great trifler, Cornicutas citius in Africa, quam res rationesque solidas in eius scriptis reperias, saith one. Elihu would have no such words, nor any wise man else; for they are very irksome, yea, vexatious.
Speak, for I desire to justify thee] Not to condemn thee, as these three have done; but to hear thee and clear thee as much as may be. This was fair dealing. Some are so eristical and testy, that they will not hear the adverse party, or bear with any that dissent; as the Jesuits, many fierce Lutherans, yea, Luther himself, as appeareth by his bitter invectives against Carolostadius, Zuinglius, all the Helvetian Churches, that would not receive the doctrine of consubstantiation. Tantaene animis coelestibus irae? He would not once hear the contrary party, nor read their books, but called them arch devils, and all that ever was naught, as he doth in his Epistle to the Senate of Frankfort.