And it is from the elegance of the language that any place where it mentions good and evil and it means absolute good and evil – the good will precede the evil. And when it is writtenלהרע או להיטיב (to do evil, or to do good)⁴⁶⁹, we learn that it is speaking about relative good and evil.

footnotes: ⁴⁶⁹ Leviticus 5:4.

And it is the custom of the language when mentioning two conditions to mention first the condition which it is desired in His eyes, that it should be so.

As an example of relative evil, in HaTorah v’HaMitzvah the Malbim talks about fasting – relative to a person, it is not necessarily evil, but relative to a person’s body, it is evil⁴⁷⁰.

footnotes: ⁴⁷⁰ Malbim, HaTorah v’HaMitzvah Vayikra 312.