Job 29:21

Unto me [men] gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.

Ver. 21. Unto me men gave ear, and waited] i.e. Such a gift I had in flexanimous oratory, that my auditors were held, as it were, by the ears in great attention to my speeches; as Lucian saith of Alcibiades, and Cicero of Crassus; and as the poets fable of their Hercules, that he had the ears of his hearers chained to his tongue, as being,

Aμφοτερος ρητηρ τ αγαθος, κρατερος τ αιχημτης .

And kept silence at my counsel] Received it as an oracle from heaven with all humble submission and plenary satisfaction; so great was the force of his wisdom, the weight of his counsel, and the authority of his person, tanquam ex tripode dictum. Erant κυριαι και αμυμονες δοξαι (Lavat.). In some men's discourses a man shall have satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parum, much eloquence, little enough wisdom. But where there is a concurrence of these two, as was in Job, much may be done. This great men are not ignorant of, and do therefore greatly covet eloquence, Non phaleratam illam sed fortem; non effeminatum sed virilem, not a pedantic style or phrase, but majestic; such as was that of Phocion, a great orator, but one that could speak much in few, as Plutarch reporteth, πλειστον εν ελαχιστη λεξει νουν ειχε; or that of Julius Caesar, who wrote as he fought; and whom a man might know to be a soldier by his words, had he never heard of his noble achievements.