as an error which proceedeth from the ruler The last word serves as a link connecting this verse with the preceding. It might be wise at times to bow to the temper of a despotic ruler, but the ruler was not always right. What the Debater had seen was to him a blot upon the government of him who allowed it. There lies below the surface the half-suppressed thought that this anomaly, stated in the next verse, was as a blot in the government of the supreme Ruler of the Universe. Technically the word was used in the Mosaic Law of the involuntary sins of ignorance (Leviticus 4:22; Leviticus 4:27; Leviticus 5:18). The unequal distribution of honours seemed to men as a blunder of Providence.

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