The Right of Reply and the Divine Awakening

He did not rebuke, but instead took up his defense; in doing so, he requested his right, being persuaded by the word that with the measure you measure, it shall be measured to you. He asks: Who will provide a judge? And when did you preserve the right of equal speech for a slave? Listen to him as he enumerates his virtues, and this is not out of mere zeal, but out of malice, for he says: I have not refused the judgment of my servant and my handmaid, even though they judge toward me. I will give an answer to God. Is it not as I was made? Having understood these things, he granted the common right of equal speech to the commonality of nature.

But we, brothers, are not such. Do you marvel at the righteous? Know yourself. For often when someone is accused, I do not speak of a slave, but of one who has risen slightly; if he answers justly, he rebukes as one who is being corrected and dares to speak from a position of equality. He says, do you dare to speak from equality of status? Do you demand what is right? Then receive the just equal speech. The arrogant man accuses, yet he neither accepts a defense nor is shamed by silence. If the accused remains silent, he is found out, for he did not loosen his lips; if he speaks, he has dared, as it is said, to cast his voice toward the master.

Then another, full of pride, if he is persuaded on behalf of the righteous or a noble man, requesting that a word be exchanged to bring about peace and to cease malice through love, is immediately carried away by pride and says: Do I come down to this one? O, the pride! Where have you stood that you should come down? Do I come down to this one? He speaks as if treading upon the heavens and the clouds. You tread the same earth, you are fed from the same source, to it you return, and in it you are buried; so where do you come down? Will you not be ashamed, will you not be shamed by the passion of the Lord? Will you not be ashamed to say to your equal: Do I come down to this one? Will you not be ashamed to say these things, thinking that Jesus came down through you? Toward such opinions and such pride it is proper to always cry out with Isaiah: Why does the earth and the dust swagger?

Nevertheless, let us return to what is before us. Who will give a judge between me and you? The righteous judge appears at the end, appearing to him from the whirlwind and the clouds. Job appears from the clouds, he who is about to pour out the rain of blessing. He appears to him from the clouds, he who is about to water the seed being trodden, and he awakens Job, soothing the passions and scattering them; he only soothes and raises up the fallen. He says to him: Arise, and live as a man girds his loins. And I will ask you, and you shall answer me. Since you have called me to judgment and said, Who will give a judge between me and you? Arise, brave combatant, he who has not fallen by the blow of affliction; arise. For if anyone, having been disciplined, bravely endures affliction and discipline, he hears from God, 'Arise,' just as He says to Jerusalem: 'Arise, Jerusalem, you who have drunk the cup of my wrath. Gird yourself as a man girds his loins.' And I will ask you, and you shall answer me. He did not say: I will need you, and you shall answer me.