“By changing the speech of those who speak truly.” He is not referring here to those who speak truly, so much as to those who believe they speak truly. He convinces them of their falsehood when he makes what they had predicted happen in a different way.“By taking away the doctrine of the elders,” Job shows them that the frustration of their projects occurs without any consideration for their authority. “He pours contempt on princes,” both those who are entrusted with teaching and the leaders who take care of the administration of common goods. When God opposes them, they lose completely the high position they previously had where they stood. “He lifts up those who were oppressed.” After showing what God can do to these people, who are considered to be illustrious, he includes the wealth and protection he can grant to the humble, so that the divine power may be known by both these classes of people.
25. For whilst the Jewish people continued in the precept of the Law, and the whole Gentile world knew nothing of the precepts of God, both the former seemed to be as ‘Princes’ by faith, and the latter lay borne down in the depth by unbelief. But when Judaea denied the mystery of our Lord’s Incarnation, and the Gentile world believed it, both ‘the princes’ fell into contempt, and they that had been borne down in the sin of unbelief, were ‘lifted up’ in the liberty of true faith. But Jeremiah seeing this fall of the Israelites long before, says, The Lord is become as it were an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel; He hath thrown down all his palaces; He hath destroyed his bulwarks. [Lam. 2, 5] Now ‘palaces’ in cities are for ornaments, but the ‘bulwarks’ are for defence. And the gifts that keep us safe are one thing, those that ornament us are another. For prophetical teaching, different kinds of tongues, the power of working cures, are a kind of ‘palaces’ of the mind, which though a man have not, yet he is able to stand fast defended by faith and righteousness, though he does not show himself at all adorned with the towering height of the gifts of virtue; but faith, hope, and charity, are not our ‘palaces,’ but our ‘bulwarks,’ which, if we neglect to possess ourselves of, we lie exposed to the snares of the enemy. In the case of Judaea, therefore, seeing that He took away from her prophecy, and teaching, and miraculous signs, ‘He overthrows all her palaces.’ And because, for her hardness of heart, He let faith, hope, and charity, be taken away from her, He was bent to ‘destroy her bulwarks.’ Now we have the right order observed, in that the ‘palaces’ first, and then the ‘bulwarks,’ are described as destroyed, because, when the sinful soul is forsaken, first the gifts of miraculous powers, which were given in manifestation of the Spirit, are destroyed, and afterwards the foundations of faith, hope, and charity. All which, being taken away from the unfaithful, the Lord bestowed upon the Gentile world, and by the things, which He took from the unbelievers, He adorned the believers’ minds. Whence it is written, And to divide the spoils of the beauty of the house. [Ps. 68, 12] For when He took away from the Jews the spoils of the powers of virtue, He imparted the beauty of His gifts to the house of the heart of the Gentiles, which He deigned to dwell in by faith. Which same was brought to pass, when the words of God were on the one hand interpreted by the Jewish people after the mere ‘letter,’ which ‘killeth,’ and on the other, by the converted Gentiles penetrated in the ‘spirit, which maketh alive.’ [2 Cor. 3, 6]
[AD 455] Julian of Eclanum on Job 12:20-21