Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound [that] goeth out of his mouth.
Ver. 2. Hear attentively the noise of his voice] Coniunctam commotione vocem eius, the great thunder crack that now is; that angry noise, as the word signifieth. Hear in hearing; you cannot but hear it with the ears of your bodies, hear it also with the ears of your minds; tremble and sin not; contrary to the course of most men, who sin and tremble not, drowning the noise of their consciences, as the old Italians did the thunder, by ringing their greatest bells, discharging their Roaring Megs, a huge piece of ordnance. &c. But what saith Elihu here to his hearers? Audite, audite, audite etiam atque etiam, contremiscetis et vos, vos testes adhibeo, as Mercer paraphraseth it out of Kimchi: Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye again and again, and then ye also will tremble. I take you to witness; whether ye consider his greater thunder claps ringing and roaring in your ears, see Psalms 29:4; Psalms 87:7, or the lesser rumblings, called here Murmur vel mussitationem, vel habitum, citra quem sermo non profertur; the sound, or breath, that goeth out of his mouth. All is ascribed to God; though naturalists tell us, and truly, that there are second causes of thunder and lightning (Aristot. Pliny); wherein, nevertheless, we must not stick, but give God the glory of his majesty, as David teacheth, Psalms 29:1,3, and as blind heathens did, when they called their Iove Altitonantem, the high thunderer. The best philosophy in this point is to hear God Almighty by his thunder speaking to us from heaven as if he were present; and to see him in his lightnings, as if he cast his eyes upon us to see what we had been doing. His eyes are as a flaming fire, Revelation 1:14, and the school of nature teacheth, that the fiery eye seeth extra mittendo, by sending out a ray.