Then Job answered,
“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.
But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?
I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.
The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands.
“But ask the animals, now, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. The fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who doesn’t know that in all these, Yahweh’s hand has done this,
in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food?
With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.
“With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.
Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.
Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt.
He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty.
He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.
He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.
He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.
He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.
He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 23 Because you feel not that which you speak, you…
Because you feel not that which you speak, you think the whole standeth in words, and so flatter yourselves as though none knew anything, or could know but you.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–25 Job 12:1 And Job answered and said,
Job 12:1 And Job answered and said,
Ver. 1. And Job answered and said] Being nipped and nettled with his friends’ hard usage of him, and harsh language to him, but especially with Zophar’s arrogant and lofty preface in the former chapter, he begins now to wax warm, and more roughly and roundly to shape them an answer.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Ye are the people; you three, and you only,…
Ye are the people; you three, and you only, are the people, i.e. people of all people for eminency of wisdom, the only company of reasonable creatures; all others are but fools or beasts: you have engrossed all the reason of mankind; and each of you have as much wisdom as a whole people put together. It is an ironical expression, as the next verse showeth.
Wisdom shall die with you; all the wisdom and knowledge of Divine things which is in the world lives in you, and will die and be utterly lost when you die. This you think of yourselves; and this makes you so confidently and peremptorily deliver your opinions, and give laws to me and all mankind, and even to God himself.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 12 The reproofs Job here gives to his friends, whether…
The reproofs Job here gives to his friends, whether they were just or no, were very sharp, and may serve for a rebuke to all that are proud and scornful, and an exposure of their folly.
I. He upbraids them with their conceitedness of themselves, and the good opinion they seemed to have of their own wisdom in comparison with him, than which nothing is more weak and unbecoming, nor better deserves to be ridiculed, as it is here. 1. He represents them as claiming the monopoly of wisdom, Job 12:2. He speaks ironically: "No doubt you are the people; you think yourselves fit to dictate and give law to all mankind, and your own judgment to be the standard by which every man's opinion must be measured and tried, as if nobody could discern between truth and falsehood, good and evil, but you only; and therefore every top-sail must lower to you, and, right or wrong, we must all say as you say, and you three must be the people, the majority, to have the casting vote." Note, It is a very foolish and sinful thing for any to think themselves wiser than all mankind besides, or to speak and act confidently and imperiously, as if they thought so. Nay, he goes further: "You not only think there are none, but that there will be none, as wise as you, and therefore that wisdom must die with you, that all the world must be fools when you are gone, and in the dark when your sun has set." Note, It is folly for us to think that there will be any great irreparable loss of us when we are gone, or that we can be ill spared, since God has the residue of the Spirit, and can raise up others, more fit than we are, to do his work. When wise men and good men die it is a comfort to think that wisdom and goodness shall not die with them. Some think Job here reflects upon Zophar's comparing him (as he thought) and others to the wild ass's colt, Job 11:12. "Yes," says he, "we must be asses; you are the only men." 2. He does himself the justice to put in his claim as a sharer in the gifts of wisdom (Job 12:3): "But I have understanding (a heart) as well as you; nay, I fall not lower than you;" as it is in the margin. "I am as well able to judge of the methods and meanings of the divine providence, and to construe the hard chapters of it, as you are." He says not this to magnify himself. It was no great applause of himself to say, I have understanding as well as you; no, nor to say, "I understand this matter as well as you;" for what reason had either he or they to be proud of understanding that which was obvious and level to the capacity of the meanest? "Yea, who knows not such things as these? What things you have said that are true are plain truths, and common themes, which there are many that can talk as excellently of as either you or I." But he says it to humble them, and check the value they had for themselves as doctors of the chair. Note, (1.) It may justly keep us from being proud of our knowledge to consider how many there are that know as much as we do, and perhaps much more and to better purpose. (2.) When we are tempted to be harsh in our censures of those we differ from and dispute with we ought to consider that they also have understanding as well as we, a capacity of judging, and a right of judging for themselves; nay, perhaps they are not inferior to us, but superior, and it is possible that they may be in the right and we in the wrong; and therefore we ought not to judge or despise them (Rom 14:3), nor pretend to be masters (Jam 3:1), while all we are brethren, Mat 23:8. It is a very reasonable allowance to be made to all we converse with, all we contend with, that they are rational creatures as well as we.
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II. He complains of the great contempt with which they had treated him. Those that are haughty and think too well of themselves are commonly scornful and ready to trample upon all about them. Job found it so, at least he thought he did (Job 12:4): I am as one mocked. I cannot say there was cause for this charge; we will not think Job's friends designed him any abuse, nor aimed at any thing but to convince him, and so, in the right method, to comfort him; yet he cries out, I am as one mocked. Note, We are apt to call reproofs reproaches, and to think ourselves mocked when we are but advised and admonished; this peevishness is our folly, and a great wrong to ourselves and to our friends. Yet we cannot but say there was colour for this charge; they came to comfort him, but they vexed him, gave him counsels and encouragements, but with no great opinion that either the one or the other would take effect; and therefore he thought they mocked him, and this added much to his grief. Nothing is more grievous to those that have fallen from the height of prosperity into the depth of adversity than to be trodden on, and insulted over, when they are down; and on this head they are too apt to be suspicious. Observe,
1. What aggravated this grievance to him. Two things: - (1.) That they were his neighbours, his friends, his companions (so the word signifies), and the scoffs of such are often most spitefully given, and always most indignantly received. Psa 55:12, Psa 55:13, It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I would have slighted it, and so borne it; but it was thou, a man, my equal. (2.) That they were professors of religion, such as called upon God, and said that he answered them: for some understand that of the persons mocking. "They are such as have a regard to heaven, and an interest in heaven, whose prayers I would therefore be glad of and thankful for, whose good opinion I cannot but covet, and therefore whose censures are the more grievous." Note, It is sad that any who call upon God should mock their brethren (Jam 3:9, Jam 3:10), and it cannot but lie heavily on a good man to be thought ill of by those whom he thinks well of, yet this is no new thing.
2. What supported him under it. (1.) That he had a God to go to, with whom he could lodge his appeal; for some understand those words of the person mocked, that he calls upon God and he answers him; and so it agrees with Job 16:20. My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth out tears to God. If our friends be deaf to our complaints, God is not; if they condemn us, God knows our integrity; if they make the worst of us, he will make the best of us; if they give us cross answers, he will give us kind ones. (2.) That his case was not singular, but very common: The just upright man is laughed to scorn. By many he is laughed at even for his justice and his uprightness, his honesty towards men and his piety towards God; these are derided as foolish things, which silly people needlessly hamper themselves with, as if religion were a jest and therefore to be made a jest of. By most he is laughed at for any little infirmity or weakness, notwithstanding his justice and uprightness, without any consideration had of that which is so much his honour. Note, It was of old the lot of honest good people to be despised and derided; we are not therefore to think it strange (Pe1 4:12), no, nor to think it hard, if it be our lot; so persecuted they not only the prophets, but even the saints of the patriarchal age (Mat 5:12), and can we expect to fare better than they?
3. What he suspected to be the true cause of it, and that was, in short, this: they were themselves rich and at ease, and therefore they despised him who had fallen into poverty. It is the way of the world; we see instances of it daily. Those that prosper are praised, but of those that are going down it is said, "Down with them." He that is ready to slip with his feet and fall into trouble, though he has formerly shone as a lamp, is then looked upon as a lamp going out like the snuff of a candle, which we throw to the ground and tread upon, and is accordingly despised in the thought of him that is at ease, Job 12:5. Even the just upright man, that is in his generation as a burning and shining light, if he enter into temptation (Psa 73:2) or come under a cloud, is looked upon with contempt. See here, (1.) What is the common fault of those that live in prosperity. Being full, and easy, and merry themselves, they look scornfully upon those that are in want, pain, and sorrow; they overlook them, take no notice of them, and study to forget them. See Psa 123:4. The chief butler drinks wine in bowls, but makes nothing of the afflictions of Joseph. Wealth without grace often makes men thus haughty, thus careless of their poor neighbours. (2.) What is the common fate of those that fall into adversity. Poverty serves to eclipse all their lustre; though they are lamps, yet, if taken out of golden candlesticks, and put, like Gideon's, into earthen pitchers, nobody values them as formerly, but those that live at ease despise them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–24 And Job answered and said. In reply to Zophar,…
And Job answered and said. In reply to Zophar, and in defence of himself; what is recorded in this and the two following chapters.
And Job answered and said. In reply to Zophar, and in defence of himself; what is recorded in this and the two following chapters.
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Job 12:2
job 12:2
job 12:2
job 12:2No doubt but ye are the people,.... Which is said not seriously, meaning that they were but of the common people, that are generally ignorant, and have but little knowledge, at least of things sublime, especially in matters of religion; wherefore, though they took upon them to be his teachers and dictators to him, and censors of him, they were not above the rank, but in the class of people of low and mean understandings; see Joh 7:49; this sense indeed agrees with what is after said, "who knoweth not such things as these?" but since Job compares himself with them, and asserts he is not inferior to them, it supposes them to have a degree of knowledge and understanding of things somewhat above the common people; wherefore these words are to be taken ironically, exposing their vanity and self-conceit: "ye are the people"; the only, and all the people in the world of importance and consequence for good sense and wisdom; the only wise and knowing folk, the men of reason and understanding; all the rest are but fools and asses, or like the wild ass's colt, as Zophar had said, and which Job took as pointing to him; so the word in the Arabic language (c) signifies the more excellent and better sort of people; or, ye are the only people of God, his covenant people, his servants; that are made acquainted with the secrets of wisdom, as none else are:
and wisdom shall die with you; you have all the wisdom of the world, and when you die it will be all gone; there will be none left in the world: thus he represents them as monopolizers and engrossers of wisdom and knowledge, full of it in their conceit, allowing none to have any share with them: and by all this he not only upbraids them with their vanity and self-conceit, but puts them in mind, that, as wise as they were, they must die; and that, though their wisdom with respect to them, or any use they could make of it in the grave, where there is none, would die too; or that their wisdom was but the wisdom of the world, which comes to nought; yet there would be wisdom still in the world, and that which is true, which God makes known to men, even the wisdom of God in a mystery, the wisdom hid in himself; and who has the residue of the Spirit and his gifts to instruct men in it, and qualify them to be teachers of others; by which means, though men, even the best of men, die, yet the word of God, the means of true wisdom and knowledge, will always abide.
(c) Golii Lex. Ar. Col. 1743. Vid. Lud. Capell. in loc.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25 Job blames his friends for their self-conceit and unkind…
Job blames his friends for their self-conceit and unkind behaviour, ver. 1-5. Shews that the wicked often prosper, ver. 6- 11. Confirms and enlarges upon what had been said, of the wisdom, power and providence of God, ver. 12-25.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Job reproves the boasting of his friends, and shows…
CHAPTER XII
Job reproves the boasting of his friends, and shows their
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uncharitableness towards himself, 1-5;
asserts that even the tabernacles of robbers prosper; and that,
notwithstanding, God is the Governor of the world; a truth
which is proclaimed by all parts of the creation whether
animate or inanimate, and by the revolutions which take place
in states, 6-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 Job 12:1. And Job answered — Greatly vexed that…
Job 12:1. And Job answered — Greatly vexed that his friends should entertain so firm an opinion of his being a wicked man, and that they should press him so hard with their maxim, “that affliction was a demonstration of guilt,” he can no longer refrain from answering them with great sharpness. He taxes them with self-conceit; their maxims he treats as mean and poor, the contrary of which was evident to all observing persons; good men were frequently in distress, while robbers and public plunderers enjoyed their ill-gotten wealth in perfect security, Job 12:2-6. This was so notorious, that it was impossible it could have escaped their observation, Job 12:7. This was indeed the work of Jehovah, who was all-wise and all- powerful, and no one could call him to account. All this he was as sensible of as they could be, for which reason he was the more desirous to argue the point with God, Job 13:1-10. And, as for them, if they would pretend to be judges, they should take great care to be upright ones; since God would by no means excuse corruption of judgment, though it should be in his own behalf; and his all-seeing eye would penetrate their motives, though ever so closely concealed from human view; and in his sight all their maxims of wisdom, on which they seemed so much to value themselves, would be regarded as dross and dung. That he was not in the least apprehensive of bringing his cause to an issue; because he was satisfied that the Almighty, far from oppressing him by dint of power, would rather afford him strength to go through his defence; and he was persuaded the issue would be favourable to him, Job 12:11-19. He, therefore, challenges any one among them to declare himself the accuser; secure enough as to that point, as he was sensible they could not make good their charge. He again ends with a tender expostulation with the Almighty, begging he might have, before his death, an opportunity of publicly vindicating his innocence, since afterward he could have no hope of doing it, Job 12:20 to the end of chap. 14. — Heath.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2–25 No doubt but ye are the people - That…
No doubt but ye are the people - That is, the only wise people. You have engrossed all the wisdom of the world, and all else are to be regarded as fools. This is evidently the language of severe sarcasm; and it shows a spirit fretted and chafed by their reproaches. Job felt contempt for their reasoning. and meant to intimate that their maxims, on which they placed so much reliance, were common-place, and such as every one was familar with.
And wisdom shall die with you - This is ironical, but it is language such as is common perhaps every where. “The people of the East,” says Roberts, “take great pleasure in irony, and some of their satirical sayings are very cutting. When a sage intimates that he has superior wisdom or when he is disposed to rally another for his meagrc attainments, he says, ‘Yes, yes, you are the man! ‘ ‘Your wisdom is like the sea.’ ‘When you die, whither will wisdom go?’” In a serious sense, language like this is used by the Classical writers to describe the death of eminently great or good men. They speak of wisdom, bravery, piety, or music, as dying with them. Thus, Moschus, Idyll. iii. 12.
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Ὅττι βίων τέθνηκεν ὁ βώκολος, ἔττι σὺν αὐτῷ
Καὶ τὸ μέλος τέθνακε, καὶ ὤλετο Δωρίς ἀειδός.
Hotti biōn tethnēken ho bōkolos, esti sun autō
Kai to melos tethnake, kai ōleto Dōris aeidos.
“Bion the swain is dead, and with him song
Has died, and the Doric muse has perished.”
Expressions like these are common. Thus, in the “Pleasures of Hope” it is said:
And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 You. Hebrew, "truly you are the people, and wisdom…
You. Hebrew, "truly you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!" This irony is very sharp. (Calmet) --- "Are you alone men? or shall?" &c. (Septuagint; Syriac)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B.—Job’s Reply: Attack upon his friends, whose wisdom and…
B.—Job’s Reply: Attack upon his friends, whose wisdom and justice he earnestly questions:
Job 12-14
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1. Ridicule of the assumed wisdom of the friends, who can give only a very unsatisfactory de scription of the exalted power and wisdom of the Divine activity:
Job 12
1 And Job answered and said,
2 No doubt but ye are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you.
3 But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you;
yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
4 I am as one mocked of his neighbor,
who calleth upon God, and He answereth him;
the just, upright man is laughed to scorn!
5 He that is ready to slip with his feet
is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
6 The tabernacle of robbers prosper,
and they that provoke God are secure;
into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
7 But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee,
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
8 or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee,
and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
9 Who knoweth not in all these
that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind.
11 Doth not the ear try words,
and the mouth taste his meat?
12 With the ancient is wisdom;
and in length of days understanding.
13 With Him is wisdom and strength,
He hath counsel and understanding.
14 Behold He breaketh down, and it cannot be built again;
He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
15 Behold, He withholdeth the waters, and they dry up;
also He sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth,
16 With Him is strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are His.
17 He leadeth counsellors away spoiled,
and maketh the judges fools.
18 He looseth the bond of kings,
and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
19 He leadeth princes away spoiled,
and overthroweth the mighty.
20 He removeth away the speech of the trusty,
and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
21 He poureth contempt upon princes,
and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.
22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness,
and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
23 He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them;
He enlargeth the nations, and straighteneth them again.
24 He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth,
and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
25 They grope in the dark without light,
and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
2. The resolution to betake himself to God, who, in contrast with the harshness and injustice of the friends will assuredly do him justice:
Job_13:1-22
1 Lo, mine eye hath seen all this,
mine ear hath heard and understood it.
2 What ye know, the same do I know also;
I am not inferior unto you.
3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty,
and I desire to reason with God.
4 But ye are forgers of lies,
ye are all physicians of no value.
5 O that ye would altogether hold your peace,
and it should be your wisdom.
6 Hear now my reasoning,
and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.
7 Will ye speak wickedly for God,
and talk deceitfully for Him?
8 Will ye accept His person?
will ye contend for God?
9 Is it good that He should search you out?
or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock Him?
10 He will surely reprove you,
if ye do secretly accept persons.
11 Shall not His excellency make you afraid?
and His dread fall upon you?
12 Your remembrances are like unto ashes,
your bodies to bodies of clay.
13 Hold your peace, let me alone that I may speak,
and let come on me what will.
14 Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in mine hand?
15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him:
but I will maintain mine own ways before Him.
16 He also shall be my salvation:
for a hypocrite shall not come before Him.
17 Hear diligently my speech,
and my declaration with your ears.
18 Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
19 Who is he that will plead with me?
for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.
20 Only do not two things unto me;
then will I not hide myself from Thee.
21 Withdraw Thine hand far from me;
and let not Thy dread make me afraid.
22 Then call Thou, and I will answer:
or let me speak, and answer Thou me!
3. A vindication of himself, addressed to God, beginning with the haughty asseveration of his own innocence, but relapsing into a despondent cheerless description of the brevity, helplessness, and hopelessness of man’s life:
Job_13:23 to Job_14:22
23 How many are mine iniquities and sins?
make me to know my transgression and my sin.
24 Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face,
and holdest me for Thine enemy?
25 Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?
and wilt Thou pursue the dry stubble?
26 For Thou writest bitter things against me,
and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.
27 Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks,
and lookest narrowly unto all my paths;
Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
28 And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth,
as a garment that is moth-eaten.
Job 14
1 Man that is born of a woman,
is of few days, and full of trouble.
2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down;
he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
3 And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such an one,
and bringest me into judgment with Thee?
4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
not one!
5 Seeing his days are determined,
the number of his months are with Thee,
Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
6 turn from him that he may rest,
till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.
7 For there is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,
and the stock thereof die in the ground;
9 yet through the scent of water it will bud,
and bring forth boughs like a plant.
10 But man dieth, and wasteth away!
yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
11 As the waters fail from the sea,
and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
12 so man lieth down and riseth not:
till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
nor be raised out of their sleep.
13 O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave,
that thou wouldest keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14 If a man die, shall he live again?
all the days of my appointed time will I wait,
till my change come.
15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee;
Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.
16 For now Thou numberest my steps;
dost Thou not watch over my sin?
17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
and Thou sewest up mine iniquity.
18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought,
and the rock is removed out of his place.
19 The waters wear the stones;
Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth;
and Thou destroyest the hope of man.
20 Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth;
Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
21 His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not;
and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain,
and his soul within him shall mourn.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Zophar in Job 11 had specially arrayed against Job the wisdom and omniscience of God, in order to convict him partly of ignorance in Divine things, partly of his sinfulness and need of repentance. Job now meets this attack by strongly doubting the wisdom of his friends, or by representing it as being at least exceedingly ordinary and commonplace, being capable neither of worthily comprehending or describing the Divine wisdom and greatness, nor of demonstrating actual sin and guilt on his part. This demonstration of their incompetency, delivered in an ironical tone, accompanied by a description of the wisdom and strength of God far transcending that of Zophar in energy and inspired elevation of thought, forms the first part of his discourse (Job 12.) This is followed by an emphatic asseveration of his innocence, clothed in the declaration of his purpose to appeal to God, the righteous Judge, and from Him, by means of a formal trial, to which he purposes summoning Him, to obtain testimony in favor of his innocence, which shall effectually dispose of the suspicions of the friends (Job_13:1-22). As though such a trial had already been instituted, he then turns to God with a solemn assertion of his innocence, but failing to meet with a favorable declaration from God in answer to his appeal, he immediately sinks back into his former discouragement and despair, to which he gives characteristic expression in a long description of the shortness of life, the impotence and helplessness of man as opposed to the Divine omnipotence (Job_13:23 to Job_14:22). [Davidson characterizes this discourse as “this last and greatest effort of Job”]. Each of these three parts is subdivided into sections which are distinctly separated, Parts I. and II. into two sections each of about equal length; Part III. into five strophes of 5 to 6 verses each.
2. First Division.—First Section: Sarcasm on the wisdom of Zophar, and the two other speakers, as being quite ordinary and commonplace: Job_12:2-12.
First Strophe: Job_12:2-6. [Sarcasm on the friends (Job_12:2) changing into angry invective (Job_12:3), then into bitter complaint of his own lot (Job_12:4), of the way of the world (Job_12:5), and of the security of the wicked (Job_12:6)].
Job_12:2. Of a truth ye are the people.—אַתֶּם עָם, with the logical accent on the first word, signifies not: “ye are people, the right sort of people,” but: “ye are the people, the totality of all people, the race of men;” עָם, therefore as in Isa_40:7; Isa_42:5. The Cod. Alex. of the LXX. expresses correctly the sense; μὴ ὑμεῖς ἐστέ ἄνθρωποι μόνοι. As to אָמְנָם כִּי, comp. the simple אָמְנָם, Job_9:2.
Job_12:3. I also have a heart as well as you, i.e., I lack understanding no more than you.—לֵבָב therefore as above in Job_8:10; Job_9:4; comp. Job_11:12 [“he also has a heart like them, he is therefore not empty, נבוב,” Del.], and as below in Job_12:24.—I do not stand behind you: lit., “I do not sink down beneath you,” or: “I do not fall away before you;” the מִן in מִכֶּם relates to the stand-point of the friends, from which Job might seem to be a נֹפֵל, one falling below them, meaner than themselves. [Ewald takes מִן in the comparative sense, which however would give an unsuitable rendering, “to fall more than another”].—And to whom are such things not known? Lit., “and with whom is not the like of these things?” viz., the like of your knowledge of Divine things. אֵת, lit. “with,” is used here in the sense of an inward indwelling, as also in Job_14:5 b, and as elsewhere עִם is used: Job_9:35; Job_10:13, etc.
Job_12:4. A mockery (שְׂחק, lit., “a laughing,” laughter, Inf. subst., like מְשֹׁל, Job_17:6) to my own friend must I be.—[Lit., “a mockery to his neighbor, etc.]. Instead of לְרֵעֵהוּone might expect to find לְרֵעִי; an exchange of persons, however, takes place, that the expression may be made as general as possible: “one who is a mockery to his own friend must I be.” Comp. similar examples of the exchange of persons in Psa_91:1 seq.; Isa_2:8. [“Must I become, אֶֽהְיֶה best as exclamation, expressing Job’s sense of indignity: (1) At such treatment from friends; (2) such treatment to such as he,” (Dav.) see remainder of verse].—I who called to Eloah and found a hearing: lit., “one calling [still in 3d person] to Eloah, and He heard him,” in apposition to the subject—I—in אֶֽהְיֶה: which is the case also with צַדִּיק תָּמִים, one who is just, godly (pure, blameless), comp. Pro_11:5 a, these words being placed with emphasis at the end of the whole exclamation. [Zöckler’s rendering of this clause being: “a mockery (am I);—the just, the godly man!” Noyes and Wemyss render the second member: “I who call upon God that He would answer me” (or “to listen to me”). Noyes objects to the other rendering the use of the present participle. This form, however, is used to denote a continuous fact in Job’s life, and a permanent quality grounded thereon, the Vav. consec. then indicating the Divine result consequent on Job’s conduct and character.—E.].
Job_12:5. For misfortune scorn—according to the opinion of the prosperous: i.e., the prosperous (lit. “the secure,” who lives free from care, comp. Isa_33:20) thinks, that contempt is due to the unfortunate. [“It is the ordinary way of the great multitude to over-whelm the unfortunate with contempt, and to give to the tottering still another push.” Dillm.] בּוּז thus = contemptus, as in Job_12:21, and Job_31:34; פִּיד = destruction, ruin, misfortune, as in Job_30:24; Job_31:29; Pro_24:22; and עַשְׁתּוֹת (plur. fem. st. constr. from עֶשֶׁת), or, after a form which is better authorized, עַשְׁתּוּת, signifies an opinion, fancy, thought (from עשת, to fashion, used of the mind’s fashioning its thoughts). This is the interpretation adopted by most of the moderns, since the time of Aben Ezra. The rendering of the Targ., Vulg., [E. V.], Levi b. Gerson, and other Rabbis, preferred also by Luther, De Wette, Rosenm. [Noyes, Carey, Rod.], etc., which takes לַפִּיד in the sense of a torch, yields no tolerable sense, at least no such sense as suits the second member (“a torch of contempt” [Luther: “a despised taper”] in the opinion of the prosperous is he who is ready to totter,” or “to whom it is appointed that his feet slip,” etc.) [Against this rendering, found in E. V., may be urged (1) The expression “a despised torch” is meaningless. As Con. suggests “a consumed or expiring torch would be pertinent, but a torch despised is like anything else that is despised.” (2) נָכוֹן is superfluous and insipid. Why “ready to waver?” (3) This rendering presupposes a noun מוֹעֵד, with the meaning vacillatio, wavering, lit. ready for waverings, for which however there is no authority, and which would require here rather the vowel pointing: מָעֳדֵי.—(4) It destroys the rhythm of the verse. See Con., Dillm., Dav. and Delitzsch. E.]. The rendering of Hitzig (Geschichte des Volkes Israel I., 112) is peculiar; לַפִּיד he takes to mean: “a soothing bandage, a cure” (from the root לפד, “to wind, or bind around,” here the sing. corresponding to the plur. found in Jdg_4:4, which is not a proper name [Lapidoth], but taken in connection with the preceding אֵשֶׁת signifies: “a mistress of healing bandages”), so that the sense would then be: “Healing is a scorn [is scorned] in the opinion of the prosperous” (?).—Ready (is it, the contempt) for those whose foot wavers.—נָכוֹן, Part. Niph. from כּוּן, hence ἕτοιμος, ready, as in Exo_34:2. Comp. below Job_15:23, where may also be found “the wavering of the foot” as a figurative expression of falling into misfortune; Psa_38:17 (16) Ewald (Bibl. Jahrb. IX. p. 38) would instead of נָכוֹן read נִכָּיוֹן, “a stroke,” and Schultens and Dillmann would assign this same meaning of plaga, percussio to this same form נָכוֹן (from הִכָּה ,נָכָה): “a stroke, is due to those whose foot wavers.” As if a new parallelism of thought must of necessity be found between a and b!
Job_12:6. Secure are the tents of the spoilers, lit. to the spoilers; i.e., to powerful tyrants, savage conquerors, and the like. On “tents” comp. Job_5:24; Job_11:14.—יִשְׁלָיוּ is the aramaizing third plur. form of a verb which has for its perf. שָׁלֵו (see Job_3:26), but which derives its imperf. forms from שָׁלָה. Moreover יִשְׁלָיוּ is not merely a pausal form, but stands here removed from the place of the tone: comp. the similar pathetic verbal forms in Psa_36:9; Psa_57:2; Psa_73:2; also Ewald, § 194, a.—And securityבַּטֻּחוֹת, plur. et abstr. from בָּטוּחַ (secure, free from care), have they who defy God [“שורדים denotes the sin of these undeservedly prosperous ones against men, מרגזי אל (lit. those who provoke God, who insolently assail Him) their wickedness against God.” Schlott.] they who carry Eloah in their hand: lit., “he who carries,” (לַאֲשֶׁר..... הֵבִיא); from among those who rage against God and defy Him, one is selected as an example, such an one, viz., as “bears God in his hand,” i.e., recognizes no other God than the one he carries in his hand or fist, to whom therefore his fighting weapon is to be his God; comp. Hab_1:11; Hab_1:16; also the “dextra mihi Deus” of Virg. Aen. 16, 773. [Delitzsch renders הֵבִיא a little more precisely perhaps: “he who causes Eloah to enter into his hand; from which translation it is clear that not the deification of the hand, but of that which is taken into the hand is meant. That which is taken into the hand is not, however, an idol (Abenezra), but the sword; therefore he who thinks after the manner of Lamech, as he takes the iron weapon of attack and defense into his hand, that he needs no other God.” The deification of the weapon which a man wields with the power of his own right hand, and the deification of the power which wields the weapon, as in Hab. l. c. and Mic_2:1, are, however, so nearly identical as descriptive of the character here referred to, that either resolves itself into the other. Conant, who adopts the rendering of E. V.: “he into whose hand God bringeth” (E. V. adds “abundantly”) i.e. whom God prospers, objects that by the other rendering “the thought is expressed very coarsely, as to form, when it might be done in the Hebrew with great felicity.” It is difficult to see, however, how the sentence: “he who takes God in his hand” could be expressed more idiomatically or forcibly than in the words of the passage before us. Wordsworth somewhat differently: “who grasps God in his hand. The wicked, in his impious presumption, imagines that he can take God prisoner and lead Him as a captive by his power.” But this is less natural than the above.—E.]
Second Strophe: Job_12:7-12. [“Return to the thought of Job_12:3—the shallowness of the friends’ wisdom on the Divine. Such knowledge and deeper every one possessed who had eyes and ears. For (1) every creature in earth and sea and air proclaimed it (7–10); and (2) every man of thought and age uttered it in the general ear (11, 12).” Dav.]
Job_12:7. But ask now even the beasts—they can teach thee.—[“וְאוּלָם, recovery from the crushing thought of Job_12:4-6, and strong antithesis to the assumption of the friends.” Dav.] תֹּרֶךָּ, as also יַגֵּד in the second member, voluntative [or, jussive], hence not literally future—“they will teach it to thee”—as commonly rendered. Here the form of address is different from that adopted heretofore in this discourse, being now directed to one only of the friends, viz. to Zophar, to whose eulogy of the absolute wisdom of God (Job_11:7-9) reference is here made, with the accompanying purpose of presenting a still more copious and elaborate description of the same.
Job_12:8. Or think thoughtfully on the earth: lit. “think on the earth,” i.e. direct thoughtfully thy observation to the earth (which comes under consideration here, as is evident from what follows, as the place where the lower order of animals is found, the רֶמֶשׂ, Gen_9:2; 1Ki_5:13), and acquire the instruction which may be derived from her. The rendering of שִׂיחַ as a substantive, in the sense of “shrub” (comp. Job_30:4; Gen_2:5), is on several grounds untenable; for שִׂיחַ, “shrub” is, according to those passages, masculine; the use of the preposition לְ instead of the genit., or instead of על or ב before הארץ, would be singular; and the mention of plants in the midst of the animals (beasts, birds, fishes), would be out of place (against Berleb. Bib., Böttcher, Umbreit, etc.).
Job_12:9. Who would not know in all this, etc.—So is בְּכָל־אֵלֶּה to be rendered, giving to בְּ the instrumental sense, not with Hahn—“who knows not concerning all this,” which would yield too flat a sense, and lead us to over look the retrospective reference which is to be looked for to the various kinds of animals already cited. Neither with Ewald [Hengst., Noyes] is it to be taken in the sense of “among all these,” as if the passage contained a reference to a knowledge possessed by all the creatures of God as their Creator, or possibly to the groaning of the creature after the Godhead, as described in Rom_8:18 sq. This partitive rendering of בְּ (which Renan as well as Ewald adopts: “qui ne saît parmi tous ces étres,” etc.) is at variance with the context, as well as the position of the words (לֹא יָדַע before בְּכָל־אֵלֶּה).—That the hand of Jehovah hath made this.—זֹאת refers essentially to the same object with כָּל־אֵלֶּה, only that it embraces a still wider circle of contemplation than the latter expression, which refers only to the classes of animals afore-mentioned. It denotes “the totality of that which surrounds us,” the visible universe, the whole world (τὰ βλεπόμενα, Heb_11:3); comp. Isa_66:2; Jer_14:22; where כָּל־אֵלֶּה is used in this comprehensive signification; so also above in Job_11:8 seq., to which description of the all-embracing greatness of God there is here a manifest reference. Ewald, Dillmann [Conant, Davidson] translate: “that the hand of Jehovah hath done this.” By זֹאת, “this,” Ewald understands “the decreeing of suffering and pain” (of which also the groaning creation would testify); Dillmann refers it to the mighty and wise administration of God among His creatures; both of which explanations are manifestly more remote than the one given above. [“The meaning of the whole strophe is perverted if זֹאת is, with Ewald, referred to the ‘destiny of severe suffering and pain.’… Since as a glance at what follows shows, Job further on praises God as the governor of the universe, it may be expected that the reference is here to God as the creator and preserver of the world.… Bildad had appealed to the sayings of the ancients, which have the long experience of the past in their favor, to support the justice of the Divine government; Job here appeals to the absoluteness of the Divine rule over creation.” Delitzsch.]—Apart from the Prologue (Job_1:21), the name יְהוָה occurs only here in the mouth of Job, for the reason doubtless that the whole expression here used, which recurs again word for word in Isa_41:20 (Isa_66:2) was one that was everywhere much used, not unfrequently also among the extra-Israelitish monotheists (and the same is true of the expression יִרְאַת אֲדֹנַי, Job_28:28).
Job_12:10. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all the bodies of men.—[“Evidently these words are more naturally referred to the act of preservation than to that of creation.” Schlottm.] Observe the distinction between נֶפֶשׁ, the lower principle of life, which fills all animals, and רוּחַ, the godlike personal spirit of man. Otherwise in Ecc_3:19; Ecc_3:21, where רוּחַ, in a wider sense, is ascribed even to the beasts.
Job_12:11-12. To the knowledge of God which rests on the observation of the external cosmos (notitia Dei naturalis externa s. acquisita), is here added the human wisdom and insight which springs from experience, especially that of the aged, as a second source from which Job might draw (which may be regarded as the equivalent of that which is sometimes called notitia Dei naturalis interna).
Job_12:11. Does not the ear prove sayings, even as [וְadæquationis, as in Job_5:7] the palate tastes food for itself (לֹוDat. commodi). Both comparisons illustrate the power of judicious discrimination possessed by the human spirit, by which it discerns the inner worth of things, especially as it exists in aged persons of large experience. So again later in Elihu’s discourse, Job_34:3. The opinion of Umbreit, Delitzsch, etc., that Job in this verse utters an admonition not to receive without proof the sayings of the ancients, to wit, those of which Bildad had previously spoken, Job_8:10 (“should not the ear prove the sayings?”), lacks proper support. A reference to that remote passage in the discourse of Bildad should have been more clearly indicated than by the accidental circumstance that there as here the word מִלִּין, “sayings, utterances,” is used. Moreover the “aged” who are here mentioned (יְשִׂישִׂים, as in Job_15:10; Job_29:8) are by no means identical with the fathers of former generations, whom Bildad had mentioned there.
Job_12:12. Among the aged is wisdom, and a long life (works, gives) understanding [or lit. “length of days is understanding”]. The verse is related to the preceding as logical consequent to its antecedent: As the ear determines the value of words, or the palate the taste of food, so aged men have been able to acquire for themselves in the course of a long life a true insight into the nature of things, and a truly rational knowledge of the same,—and I have been to school with such men, I have also ventured to draw from this source! This is the meaning of the passage as clearly appears from the context, and it makes it unnecessary to assume: a. with Starke, etc., that Job reckons himself among the aged, and as such sets himself in the fullness of his self-consciousness against, the three friends as being younger than himself (which is distinctly refuted by what we find in Job_5:26; Job_29:8; Job_29:18; Job_15:10); b. with Ewald, to conjecture the loss of a passage after Job_12:12, which would furnish the transition from that verse to Job_12:23; c. with Dillmann, that originally Job_12:12 stood before Job_12:9-10, thus immediately following Job_12:8; d. with Delitzsch, Hengstenberg. etc., that Job_12:23 is to be connected closely and immediately with Job_12:12, so that thus the following order of thought would be expressed: assuredly wisdom is to be found among the aged, but in reality and in full measure it is to be found only with God, etc. [i.e. with Conant, that the verse is to be rendered interrogatively, on the ground that Job would not appeal to tradition in support of his positions; to which Davidson replies that “Job assails tradition only where he has found it false; and here, where he is exposing the vulgarity of the friends’ much-boasted insight, it is quite in place to refer to the facility any one had for coming in contact with such information; and in Job_13:2, where Job recapitulates Job_12:13-25, these two sources of information, sight and hearsay are directly alluded to.”—Besides Delitzsch and Hengstenberg, Schlottmann and Merx connect the verse with the preceding. On the contrary Con., Dav., Dillm., Ren., Good, Wemyss, etc., connect it with the following, and correctly so on account of the strict connection in thought, and especially the resumption of the thought in varying language in Job_12:16.—In answer to the objection of abruptness in the transition if Job_12:13 be detached from the preceding, Davidson says well that “it is quite in place; the whole chapter and speech is abrupt and passionate.”—E.].
First Division: Second Section: An animated description of the exercise of God’s wisdom and power, by way of actual proof that he is by no means wanting in the knowledge of God, which Zophar had denied to him: Job_12:13-25. [It is possible perhaps to exaggerate this idea that Job in the passage following is consciously emulating his opponents. Something there is of this no doubt, but it must not be forgotten that the description here given of the Divine wisdom and omnipotence is an important part of Job’s argument, as tending to show that these attributes so far from being employed by the ends which they had described, are exercised to produce hopeless confusion and ruin in human affairs.—E.].
First double strophe: Job_12:13-18 (consisting of two strophes of 3 verses each).
a. Job_12:13-15. [The theme in its most general statement].
Job_12:13. With Him are wisdom and might, His are counsel and discernment.—The suffixes in עִמּוֹ and לֹו point back to Jehovah, Job_12:9-10, to whom the whole following description to Job_12:25 in general relates. [“With Him, עִמּוֹ, him, doubly, emphatic (a) in opposition to the just mentioned wisdom of men, Job_12:12; (b) with awe-ful omission of Divine name, and significant allusion and intonation in the pronoun.” Dav.]. The verse before us forms as it were the theme of this description, which presents Job’s own personal confession of faith in respect to the nature and wisdom of God. It is therefore neither an expression of the doctrinal views of a “hoary antiquity,” or of the aged sages of Job_12:12 (Umbreit) [Ewald, Schlottm.], nor a statement of that which is alone to be esteemed as genuine Divine wisdom, in antithesis to the more imperfect “wisdom of the aged” (Delitzsch, Hengstenberg). There is to be sure a certain progression of thought from Job_12:11 on: the adaptation to their uses of the organs of hearing and of taste, the wisdom of men of age and experience, and the wisdom of God, transcending all else, and united with the highest power, are related to each other as positive, comparative, and superlative. But there is not the slightest intimation of the thought that the absolute wisdom of God casts into the shade those rudiments of itself which are to be found in the sphere of the creature, or would hold them up as utterly worthless. Rather is what is said of the same in our verse in some measure the fruit, or a specimen of the wisdom of the aged, which Job also claims to possess, as a pupil of such aged men. Comp. below Cocceius, in the Homiletical Remarks on Job_12:10-13. Of the four designations of the absolute Divine intelligence here given, which accord with the language of Isa_11:2, and the accumulation of which intensifies the expression to the utmost, חָכְמָה denotes that side of God’s intelligence which “perceives things in the ground of their being, and in the reality of their existence” [“the general word and idea comprehensive of all others,” Dav.]. גְּבוּרָה that “which is able to carry out the plans, purposes, and decisions of this universal wisdom against all hindrance and opposition” [“virtus, גֶּבֶר, vir.” Dav.]; עֵצָה, that “which is never perplexed as to the best way of reaching its purpose;” תְּבוּנָה, that “which can penetrate to the bottom of what is true and false, sound and corrupt, and distinguish between them:” Delitzsch; [עֹז “actively force, passively strength, firmness:” Dav.].
Job_12:14. Lo, He tears down, and it is not built up (again). This is the first example of the irresistible exercise of this absolute might and wisdom of God. Job describes it as directed above all else to the work of tearing down and destroying, because in his recent mournful experiences he had been led to know it on this side of its activity; comp. Job_9:5 seq., where in like manner the mention of the destructive activities of the Divine omnipotence precedes that of its creative and constructive operation. Whether there is a reference to Zophar’s expression (Job_11:10; so Dillmann) is doubtful. He shuts up a man (lit. “He shuts over a man”), and it cannot be opened. The expression סָגַר עַל, “to shut over any one,” is to be explained from the fact that use was frequently made of pits, perhaps of cisterns, as prisons, or dungeons: comp. Gen_37:24; Jer_38:6; Lam_3:53. Where this species of incarceration is not intended, סָגַר is used either with the accus. or with בְּעַד (comp. Job_3:10; and 1Sa_1:6).
Job_12:15. Lo, He restrains the waters, and they dry up (Is. 50:38); He letteth them forth (again), and they overturn the earth. A remarkable parallel in thought to this description of the operation of the Divine omnipotence in the visible creation, now withdrawing and now giving life, but ever mighty in its agency, may be found in Psa_104:29-30. A reference to Zophar’s comparison of past calamity with vanished waters (Job_11:16) is scarcely to be recognized.
b. Job_12:16-18. [Resumption of the theme—specially of the Divine wisdom bringing confusion and humiliation on earth’s mightiest].
Job_12:16. With Him are strength and true knowledge (תּוּשִׁיָה, precisely as in Job_11:6). His are the deceived and the deceiver [the erring one, and the one who causes to err]: i.e., His intelligence is so far superior to that of man that alike he who abuses his wisdom in leading others astray, and he who uses it for their good, are in His hand, and constrained to serve His purposes. He thus makes evil, moral and intellectual, subservient to the good: Gen_50:20; Psa_18:27. [“שָׁגַג and שגה here are to be understood not so much in the ethical as in the intellectual sense: if a man thinks himself wise because he is superior to another, and can lead him astray, in comparison with God’s wisdom the deceiver is not greater (in understanding) than the deceived; He has them both in his hand, etc.” Dillm.]
Job_12:17. He leads counsellors away stripped: or “who leads counsellors, etc.”—for from this point on to the end of the description (Job_12:24) Job speaking of God uses the present participle. The circumstantial accus. שׁוֹלָל, which here and in Job_12:19 is used in connection with מוֹלִיךְ, (and that in the singular, like עָרוֹם, Job_24:7; Job_24:10), is rendered by the ancient versions “captive,” or “chained” (LXX., Targ. on Job_12:19 : αἰχμαλώτους; Targ. on Job_12:17 : catenis vinctos), whereas etymologically the signification “made naked (exutus), violently stripped” is the only one that is authenticated. The word therefore is equivalent to the expression עָרוֹם וְיָחֵף “naked and barefoot,” Isa_20:4, not to “barefoot” alone, as Oehler, Hitzig, Dillmann, etc., suppose from comparison with the LXX. in Mic_1:8. Naturally we are to understand the description here to be of counsellors led away stripped as captives taken in war: comp. Is. l. c. and 2Ch_28:15, as also what pertains to יֹעֲצִים, “counsellors” in Job_3:14.—And judges He makes fools. יְהוֹלֵל, as in Isa_44:25, to infatuate, to show to be fools. Such an infatuation of judges as would cause the military and political ruin of their country to proceed directly from them (as in the breaking out of great catastrophes over certain kingdoms, e.g. over Egypt, Isa_19:17 seq.; over Israel and Judah, 2Ki_19:26; etc.), is not necessarily to be assumed here (comp. Job_5:20), although catastrophes of that character are here especially prominent in the thought of the speaker.
Job_12:18. He looses the bond of kings; i.e., He looses the bond, or the fetters, with which kings bind their subjects, He breaks the tyrannical yoke of kings, and brings them rather into bondage and captivity, or as the second member expresses this thought more in the concrete: He “binds a girdle on their loins.” It seems that אֵזוֹר lit. “girdle,” in this second member should accord with מוֹסַר in the first. So much the more should the latter be pointed מוֹסַר, and be construed as stat. constr. Comp. מוֹסֵר (= מֹאסֵר, from אָסַר, to bind). Of less authority, etymologically, is the interpretation required by the Masoretic punctuation regarded as st. constr. of מוֹסָר, “discipline, castigatio,” although it gives a sense quite nearly related to the preceding, it being presupposed that “discipline” is to be understood in the sense of “rule, authority” (so among the moderns, Rosenm., Arnh., Vaih., Hahn, Delitzsch [Ges., Carey], etc.). But “discipline” is a different conception from “authority,” and “פַּתֵּחַ can very well take for its object מוֹסְרִים, fetters, Job_39:5; Psa_116:16, but not castigationem.” So Dillmann correctly, who also however rightly rejects the interpretation of Ewald, Hirzel, Heiligst., Welte, etc., according to which מיסר מ׳ denotes “the fetters, with which kings are bound,” so that the relation between a and b would be not that of a logical progression, but of direct antithesis, as in Job_12:15. [Hengstenberg calls attention to the paronomasia of יֶאְסֹר מוֹסַר, and אֵזוֹר].
Second Double Strophe: Job_12:19-25 (divided into one strophe of three, and one of four verses): [The description continued: the agency of the Divine wisdom in confounding the great of earth].
a. Job_12:19-21. [Special classes of leaders brought to shame described].
Job_12:19. He leads priests away spoiled (see on Job_12:17), and those firmly established He overthrows. [כֹּהֲנִים “priests,” not “princes” (E. V.) “In many of the States of antiquity the priests were personages no less important, were indeed even more important and honored than the secular authorities.” Dillm. “The juxtaposition of priests and kings here points to the ancient form of priestly rule, as we encounter the same in the person of Jethro and in part also in Melchizedek.” Schlott.].—All objects are called אֵיתָנִים, “firmly-enduring” [perpetual], which survive the changes of time. Hence the term is applied, e.g., to water which does not become dry (aquæ perennes), or firmly founded rocks (Jer_49:19; Jer_50:44), or mighty, invincible nations (Jer_5:15), or, as here, distinguished and influential persons (Vulg., optimates). [סלף, “slip, in Piel, overthrow, aptly antithetic [to איתן.” Dav.].
Job_12:20. He takes away the speech of the most eloquent: lit. of “the trusted,” of those who have been tried as a people’s orators and counsellors; for they are the נֶאֱמָנִים (from אמן, to make firm, trustworthy, not from נָאַם, to speak, as D. Kimchi thinks, who would explain the word diserti, as though it were punctuated נַאֲמָנִים). On b comp. Hos_4:11; and as regards טעם, “taste, judgment, tact,” see 1Sa_25:33.
Job_12:21. He pours contempt on nobles (exactly the same expression as in Psa_107:40), and looses the girdle of the strong, (אֲפִיקִים lit. “containing of great capacity” [Delitzsch: “to hold together, especially to concentrate strength on anything”] only here and Job_41:7; i.e., He disables them for the contest (by causing the under-garments to hang down loosely, thus proving a hindrance for conflict; comp. Isa_5:27; also below Job_38:3; Job_40:7). The translation of Delitzsch is altogether too forced, and by consequence insipid: “He pours contempt on the rulers of the state, and makes loose the belt of the mighty.”
b. Job_12:22-25. [The Divine energy as especially operative among nations].
Job_12:22. [This verse must naturally form the prelude to the deeper exercise of power and insight among nations, and its highest generalization, comp. 16b.” Dav.].—He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and brings forth to light the shadow of death;i.e., not: “He puts into execution His hidden purposes in the destiny of nations” (Schlottm.), [“for who would call the hidden ground of all appearances in God, צלמוֹת!” Dilllm.], but: “He brings forth into the light all the dark plans and wickedness of men which are hidden in darkness;” comp. 1Co_4:5 : (φωτίσει τὰ κρυπτὰ τοῠ σκότους κ. τ. λ., and the proverb: “There is nothing spun so fine but all comes to the light;” see also Job_24:13 seq.; Isa_29:15; Rom_13:12; 1Th_5:5, etc. [“Deep things out of the darkness, עֲמֻקּוֹת, must mean hidden tendencies and principles, e.g., those running under national life, Job_12:23, naturally more subtle and multiplex than those governing individual manifestation on however elevated a scale) and darkness, and shadow of death, figures (Job_11:8) descriptive of the profoundest secresy. These secret tendencies in national life and thought—never suspected by men who are silently carried on by them—He detects and overmasters either to check or to fulfil.” David. A truth “which brings joy to the good, but terror to all the children of darkness (Job_24:13 seq.), and not without threatening significance even to the friends of Job.” Dillmann].
Job_12:23. He makes nations great, and—destroys them; He spreads nations abroad and—causes them to be carried away (or: “carries them away captive,” comp. הִנְחָה, synonymous with הִגְלָה, abducere in servitutem; also 2Ki_18:11). [Rodwell: “then straitens them: leads them, i.e., back into their former borders”]. Instead of מַשְׂגִּיא the LXX. (πλανῶν) as well as some of the Rabbis read מַשְׁגִּיא, “who infatuates, makes fools.” But the first member of the verse corresponds strictly in sense to the second, on which account the Masoretic reading is to be retained, and to be interpreted of increase in height, even as the parallel שֹׁטֵחַ in b of increase in breadth, or territorial enlargement (not as though it meant a dispersion among other nations, as the Vulg. and Aben Ezra incorrectly interpret this שׁטח). [The לְ in both members, says Schlottmann, is not used Aramaice with the accus., but as sign of the Dat. commodi.]
Job_12:24. He takes away the understanding (לֵב as in Job_12:3) of the chief of the people of the land (עַס־הָאָרֶץ, can certainly signify “the people of the earth, mankind,” [Hirzel], after Isa_42:5; for its use in the more limited sense of the people of a land, comp. below Job_15:19). [“We have intentionally translated גוים “nations,” עם people, for גוי is the mass held together by the ties of a common origin, language, and country; עַם, the people bound together by unity of government.” Delitzsch].—And makes them wander in a pathless waste: (לֹא דֶרֶךְ, synonymous with בְּלֹא־ד׳, or with אֵין־ר׳, comp. לֹא אִֹישׁ Job_38:26; and Ewald, § 286, 8). The whole verse, the second member of which recurs verbatim in Psa_107:40 presents an exact Hebrew equivalent for the Latin proverb: quem Deus perdere vult, prius dementat, a proverb on which the history of many a people and kingdom, from the earliest antiquity down to the present, furnishes an actual commentary that may well make the heart tremble. Concerning the catastrophes of historic nationalities in the most ancient times, which the poet here may not improbably have had before his mind, comp. Introd., § 6, e.
Job_12:25. They grope in darkness without light and He makes them to wander like a drunken man. Comp. Isa_19:14, and especially above in Job_5:13-14, a similar description by Eliphaz, which Job here seems desirous of surpassing, in order to prove that he is in no wise inferior to Eliphaz in experimental knowledge of the righteous judgments of God, the infinitely Wise and Mighty One.
4. Second Division: First Section: Resolution to appeal to the judicial decision of God, before which the harsh, unloving disposition of the friends will assuredly not be able to maintain itself, but will be put to shame: Job_13:1-12.
First Strophe: Job_13:1-6. [Impatience with the friends, and the purpose to appeal to God].
Job_13:1. Behold, mine eye hath seen all (that), mine ear hath heard and perceived for itself.—כֹּל here equivalent to כָּל־אֵלֵּה, “all that has been here set forth,” all that has been stated (from Job_12:13 on) in respect to the evidences of the Divine power and wisdom in the life of nature and men. [לָהּ, dativus commodi, or perhaps only dat. ethicus: and has made it intelligible to itself (sibi); בִּין of the apprehension accompanying perception.” Del.].—On Job_13:2 comp. Job_12:3, the second member of which is here repeated word for word.
Job_13:3. But I will speak to the Almighty. אוּלָם, “but nevertheless,” puts that which now follows in emphatic antithesis to the preceding: “notwithstanding that I know all this, I will still,” etc. [“Three feelings lie at the back of this antithesis: (1) The folly of longer speaking to the friends. (2) The irrelevancy of all such knowledge as they paraded, and which Job had in abundance. (3) Antagonism to the prayer of Zophar that God would appear—Job desires nothing more nor better—but I, to the Almighty will I speak.” Dav.]. Observe also the significantly accented אֲנִי, I (ἐγὼ μὲν), which puts the speaker in definite antithesis to those addressed (אַתֶּם, Job_13:4, ὑμεῐς δὲ), as one who will not follow their advice to make penitent confession of his guilt towards God; who will rather plead against God.—I desire to plead with God. הוֹכֵחַ, Inf. absol. as obj. of the verb; comp. Job_9:18; and for the signification of הוכח, “to plead, to vindicate one’s cause against an accusation,” comp. Amo_5:10; Isa_29:21; also below Job_13:15, Job_19:5. חפץ, to desire, to be inclined, here essentially as in Job_9:3. יֶחְפָּץ always for יַחְפֹּץ in pause]. That passage (Job_9:3) certainly stands in some measure in contradiction to this, implying as it does the impossibility of contending with God; it is however a contest of another sort from that which is intended there that he proposes here, a contest not of one arrogantly taking the offensive, but of one driven by necessity to the defensive.
Job_13:4. But ye are (only) forgers of lies.—וְאוּלָם אַתֶּם puts another antithetic sentence alongside of the first which was introduced by אוּלָם (Job_13:3), without however laying any special stress on אַתֶּם; hence: “and however, but again,” etc.; not: “ye however” (Hirzel).—טֹפְלֵי שֶׁקֶר (from טפל, “to plaster, to smear, to paste together;” comp. טָפֵל, “plaster” Eze_13:10 seq., and Talmudic טְפֵלָה grease) are lit. “daubers of lies,” i.e., inventors of lies, concinnatores s. inventores mendacii; not: “imputers, fasteners of falsehood,” assutores mendacii, as Stickel, Hirzel, Schlottmann, Delitzsch, etc., explain both against philology and the context (neither Job_14:17 nor Psa_119:69 support this definition); nor again: “deceitful patchers,” sarcinatores falsi, i.e., inanes, idutilis, as Hupfeld explains.—Physicians of no value are ye all.—רֹפְאֵי אֱלִיל are not “patchers” [Con. “botchers”] of vanity,” i.e., such as patch together empty unfounded assertions (Vulg., Ew., Olsh., Dillm.), [Good, Con., Dav.], but in accordance with the universal usage of רפא: “worthless, useless physicians,” medici nihili, miserable quacks, who are incapable of applying to Job’s wounds the right medicine to soothe and heal. [“Job calls their false presuppositions regarding his guilt שֶׁקֶר, their vain attempts at a Theodicy and ‘Theory of Providence’ אֱלִיל.” Dav.].
Job_13:5. Oh that ye would be altogether silent—that would be reckoned to you for wisdom.—Comp. Pro_17:28; the Latin proverb: Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses; also the honorable title, “bos mutus,” the mute ox, given to Thomas Aquinas during his student life at Paris, by his fellow-students, as well as by his teacher, Albertus Magnus. The jussive, וּתְהִי, is used in a consecutive sense: “then would it be, prove, pass for;” comp. Ewald, § 347, a, Gesen., § 128, 2.
Job_13:6. Hear now my reproof, and give heed to the charges of my lips.—So correctly Hirzel, Dillm., Del., etc., while several other moderns explain: “Hear my defense [Con., E. V., “reasoning”], and attend to the arguments of my lips.” As if תּוֹכַחַת could signify anything else than ἔλεγγος, correptio (so correctly LXX,, Vulg.—Comp. הוֹכִיחַ in Job_6:25; Job_40:2), and as if רִבוֹת (defectively for רִיבוֹת) could even in one instance sink the meaning of the stern word רִיב, “to strive, to quarrel!” Furthermore it is a long moral reproof and animadversion of the friends which immediately follows, Job_13:7-12. His reply and vindication of himself to God first follows Job_13:13 seq., or indeed properly not before Job_13:17 seq.
Second Strophe: Job_13:7-12. [Scathing rebuke of their dishonesty and presumption in assuming to be God’s advocates (Job_13:7-9), and warning of the consequences to themselves when God shall rebuke them for their conduct].
Job_13:7. Will ye for God [לְאֵל emphatic] speak that which is wrong, will ye for Him speak deceitfully?—The preposition לְ signifies here “for, in favor of any one,” as also in Job_13:8, Jdg_6:31. On עַוְלָה comp. Job_5:16; Job_6:30.
Job_13:8. Will ye show partiality for Him (lit. “lift up His countenance,” i.e. show preference for His person), or will ye take the part of God’s advocates? (lit. “contend for God, comp. רִיב לַבַּעַל, Jdg_6:31). These are the two possible ways in which they could “speak in favor of God:” either as clients, dependents, taking His part slavishly, for mercenary ends, or as patrons or advocates, presumptuously and naively taking Him under their protection. [There thus appears a subtle and very effective irony in these questions of Job’s. His charge of partiality is also, as Davidson says, “a master-stroke of argumentation, effectually debarring the friends from any further defense of God in this direction, or almost at all.”—E.].
Job_13:9. Will it be well [for you] when He searches you out (goes to the bottom of you, חקר as in Pro_28:11; Psa_139:23) or can you deceive Him as a man is deceived?viz. in regard to your real disposition and the sentiment of your heart, of which a more searching investigation must reveal to Him that it by no means corresponds to His holy nature and life.—הֵתֵל, Hiph. from תלל (in Imperf. תְּהָתֵלּוּ, with a non-syncopated ה, for תָּתֵלּוּ, Gesen. § 53 [§ 52] Rem. 7 [Green, § 142, 3]), is lit. “to cause to waver [to hold up anything swaying to and fro], to keep one in suspense, to make sport of any one,” [E. V. “to mock”], hence to deceive; ensnare; comp. Gen_31:7; Jdg_16:10; Jer_9:4.) [Schlott., who renders: “will ye mock him?” explains by quoting from Jarchi: “dicendo: in honorem tuam mendacia nos finximus”].
Job_13:10. Surely He will sorely chastise you (Job_5:17) if ye are secretly partial:i.e. if ye are actuated not by love of the truth and conscientious conviction, but by selfish interest in your relations with Him, as One who is mightier. That with which Job hereby reproaches them is (as Del. rightly observes) a ζῆλος θεοῦ ἀλλ’ οὐ κατ’ επίγνωσιν, Rom_10:2 (comp. Joh_16:2), “an advocacy contrary to one’s better knowledge and conscience, in which the end is thought to sanctify the means.”
Job_13:11. Will not His majesty (שְׂאֵת, as in Job_31:23, exaltation, dignity; not “a kindling of wrath,” or “a lifting up for contention,” as Böttch. renders it after the Vulg.) confound you (Job_3:5), and the dread of Him (פַּחְדּוֹ the dread, the terror which He inspires) fall upon you—then, namely, when He will reveal Himself as your Judge. Job here anticipates what according to Job_42:7 seq. really happened afterwards. [“It is a peculiarity of the author of our book that he drops every now and then hints of how the catastrophe is to turn out, showing unmistakably both the unity of conception and the authorship of the book.” Dav.]
Job_13:12. Your maxims (become) proverbs of ashes: to wit, then when God will judge you. זִכְרֹנִים, “memorable sayings, apothegms, memorabilia [Dav. “old saws”] (comp. Mal_3:16; Est_6:1): so does he name here, not without irony, the admonitions and warnings which they had addressed to him, in part as the Chokmah of the ancients, or even as divinely inspired communications. [“The sarcasm in the word is cutting: comp. זְכָר־נָא of Eliph. Job_4:7; and Job_8:8.” Dav.] He characterizes these maxims as מִשְׁלֵי אֵפֶר, i.e. as empty and unsubstantial like ashes or dust, like ashes (the emblem of nothingness and worthlessness, Isa_44:20) scattered to every wind. The second member is strictly parallel: Your bulwarks become bulwarks of clay. [“While Job_13:12 a says what their speeches, with the weighty nota bene, are, Job_13:12 b says what their גַבִּים become; for לְ always denotes a κίνησις = γένεσις, and is never the exponent of the predicate in a simple clause.” Del.] גב, lit. “back, ridge” (comp. Job_15:26) here equivalent to breastwork, bulwark; so does Job call here the reasonings behind which they sought refuge, the glittering, pathetically urged arguments which they had arrayed against him. Comp. עֲצֻמֹות, Isa_41:21, and ὀχυρώματα, 2Co_10:4. [The rendering of E. V. “your bodies (are like) to bodies of clay,” is evidently taken from the signification “back:” and the whole verse is a reminder of their mortality. But this is much less suited to the language used, less pertinent to the context, and less effective for Job’s purpose than the rendering here given.—E.] For חֹמֶר, mud, potter’s clay, as an emblem of what is frail, easily destroyed, incapable of resistance, comp. Job_38:14; Isa_45:9 seq.
Second Division: Second Section: Declaration of his consciousness of innocence as against God in the form of a solemn confession, in which he boldly challenges Him: Job_13:13-22.
First Strophe: Job_13:13-16. [Turning from the friends, he expresses more emphatically than before his purpose to appeal to God, cost what it may at the first, confident of ultimate acquittal. Dillmann says: “It seems that the poet intentionally cut this strophe short, in order by this very brevity to emphasize more strongly the gravity of these thoughts.”]
Job_13:13. In silence leave me alone: lit. “be silent from me” (מִמֶּנִּי), i.e., desist from me, cease from your injurious assaults, and let me be in peace. [According to Schlott. the preposition here is the מן of source or cause: be silent because of the weight of my words; acc. to the above, a constr. prægnans is assumed. Conant, etc., translate: “Keep silence before me.” Barnes thinks it “possible that Job may have perceived in them some disposition to interrupt him in a rude manner in reply to the severe remarks which he had made.” Comp. on Job_6:29. More probably, however, the verse is, like Job_13:5, an expression of his weariness with their vain platitudes, and unjust accusations, and a demand that they should stand by in silence while he should plead directly with God.—E.]—Then will I speak, or: in order that I may speak. [Conant: “That I now may speak:וַאֲדַבְּרָה־אָֽנִי.” Strong double emphasis in the use of the cohortative future, and the pronoun; the latter emphasizing the first person, the former his strong determination to speak.—E.]—And let come upon me what will.—עבר as in Deu_24:5. מָה here for מָה שֶׁיַּעֲבֹר, a condensed form of expression similar to וִיהִי מָה, 2Sa_18:22; comp. Ewald, § 104, d.
Job_13:14. Wherefore should I take my flesh into my teeth:i.e. be solicitous to save and to preserve my body at any price, like a beast of prey, which drags off its booty with its teeth, and so secures it against other preying animals. This proverbial saying, which does not occur elsewhere, is in itself clear (comp. Jer_38:2). The second member also signifies essentially the same thing: and (wherefore should I) put my soul in my hand:i.e. risk my life, seek to save it by means of a desperate exertion of strength (comp. the same expression in Jdg_12:3; 1Sa_19:5; 1Sa_28:21). [This, says Dillmann, is indeed “scarcely the original meaning of the phrase; nor is it to be understood, as commonly explained, that what one has in the hand easily falls out and is lost. The primary meaning is rather: to commit or entrust the life to the hand in order to bear it through, i.e. to make a desperate effort to save it (see Ewald on the passage): such an attempt is indeed dangerous, because if the hand fails, the life is lost, and so the common explanation attaches itself naturally to the phrase, to expose the life to apparent danger. Here, however, the original meaning is altogether suitable, and indeed necessary, because only so do the first and second members agree: why should I make an extreme effort to save my life?”] Such a desperate effort Job would make, in case he should declare himself guilty of the reproaches brought against him. while at the same time he bore no consciousness of guilt within himself. This, however, would not be of the least avail, for according to Job_13:15 a he has nothing more to hope for, he sees before him nothing but certain death from the hand of God. Hence, therefore, his question: “Wherefore should I seek to save my life at any price—I who have nothing more to hope for?” Compared with this interpretation, which is the only one suited to the context, and which is adopted by Umbreit, Ewald, Vaih., Dillm., etc., the many interpretations which vary from it are to be rejected, especially those according to which the second member is not to be regarded as a continuation of the question, but as an assertion—according to Hirzel in the positive form: “and even my life do I risk”—according to Hahn and Delitzsch in the negative: “nay, I even put my life at stake:” in like manner, that of Böttcher: “wherefore should I seek to preserve my life at any price, seeing that I willingly expose it, etc.”
[Wordsworth agrees in this interpretation of the meaning of each member of the verse, but differs from Zöckler, etc., in the application: “The question (he says) is put hypothetically. You may ask me why I am thus bold to desire to expose myself to a trial before God? The reason is because I am sure that I have a good cause; I know that in the end He will do me right. See what follows.”—The Vulg. renders: “Quare lacero carnes meas dentibus meis, et animam meam porto in manibus meis?” Hengstenberg follows this rendering, explaining the first clause of the wrong, the violence which he would do to his moral personality, if by silence he should plead guilty to the accusations of the friends. Schultens, who is followed in substance by Rosenmüller, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Barnes, Renan, Davidson, Carey, Rodwell, Elzas, regards both members as proverbially expressing the idea of risking life, and the clause עַל־מָה not in its usual interrogative sense, but as equivalent to: “in spite of every thing.” (Schult., super quid, on any account.) מָה is thus a resumption of the מָה in 13b. This rendering gives a consistent and forcible sense throughout: Be silent now, and let me alone, and I for my part will assuredly speak, be the consequence what it may: Cost what it may, I will risk it all, I will risk my person and my life: lo, He will slay me, etc., yet in his very presence, etc, (comp. on Job_9:21-22). The objection to this is of course the unusual rendering of עַל־מָה. On the other hand the objection to the interpretation adopted in our comm. is the unusual sense in which we are constrained to take the proverbial expressions of the verse, particularly the latter—“to take the life in the hand”—which according to this interpretation must mean to seek to save the life, whereas in every other instance it means to risk it. It is thus at best a choice between difficulties, or unusual expressions. And it may fairly be queried whether the difficulty in regard to על־מה is not largely obviated by the close connection in which it stands with the מה just preceding.—E.].
Job_13:15. Lo, He will slay me:viz. through my disease, which will certainly bring about my speedy dissolution (comp. Job_6:13; Job_7:6; Job_9:25; Job_10:20). I have no (more) hope; i.e., I do not direct my thoughts to the future, I am not in a state of waiting, expectation (יִחֵל without an obj., præstolari, exactly as in Job_6:11; Job_14:14), and this indeed is so naturally, because for me there is nothing more to wait for, seeing that my condition is hopeless, and my fate long since decided. So, according to the K’thibh is the phrase לאֹ אֲיַחֵל to be explained, while the K’ri, לוֹ א׳ must signify in accordance with the suffix: “until then, viz., until I am slain, I wait” (so substantially Luther), or again: “I wait for Him, that He may slay me” (Delitzsch) [i.e., “I wait what He may do, even to smite with death”]. The context by no means yields the rendering of the Vulg., which also rests on the K’ri; etiam si occiderit me, in ipso (Deo) sperabo [so also E. V., “though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him”]: an utterance which has acquired a certain celebrity as a favorite sentiment alike of pious Jews and Christians (comp. Delitzsch on the passage), as the funeral text of the Electoress Louise Henriette of Brandenburg, and as the poetic theme of a multitude of popular religious hymns. It scarcely expresses however the meaning here intended by Job, which is far removed from any expression of a hope reaching beyond death.—Only my ways (viz., the innocence of my ways) will I prove in His presence. אַךְ, referring back to the whole preceding sentence, hence the game as “nevertheless, however.” He has already despaired of life, but of one thing he does not despair, freely and openly to prove before God the blamelessness of his life: “physically therefore he can succumb, that he concedes, but morally he cannot” (Del.).
Job_13:16. Even this will be my salvation that the unholy comes not before Him:i.e., does not dare to present himself so confidently before Him. In the fact that He is filled with παῤῥησία towards God he sees accordingly a pledge of salvation, i.e., of victory in the trial in which he is involved. For this sense of יְשׁוּעָה comp. 1Sa_14:45; 2Ch_20:17; Hab_3:8 (not however in Job_30:15, where it signifies rather prosperity, and that of the earthly sort). [“He wavers between two contradictions: on the one side he believes according to an opinion widely prevalent in the Semitic East, that no one can see God without dying; on the other side he reassures himself with the thought that God cannot reveal Himself to the wicked.” Renan]. הוּא is referred by Böttcher, Schlott., [Con., Dav., and so E. V.], etc., to God: “He also ministers to my help, to my deliverance, for, etc. But this does not agree with the contents of the preceding verse. For the neuter rendering of הוּא, which we find already in the LXX., (καὶ τοῠτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρἰαν) comp. Job_15:9; Job_31:28; Job_41:3. [In favor of the personal sense for הוא, referring it to God, Schlottmann argues that it would scarcely be said of a circumstance in Hebrew that it would be anybody’s salvation: and Davidson objects to the neuter rendering that it originates in a cold conception of Job’s mental agitation, and gives to לִישׁוּעָה a sense feeble almost to imbecility. On the other hand Dillmann argues against the masculine sense that in that case the connection between the first and second members of this verse would be imperfect, and that the contrast between what would thus be said of God in this verse and that which has been said in Job_13:15 would be too violent].
Second Strophe: Job_13:17-22. [“Determination to cite God finally reached, with conditions of pleading before Him.”—Dav.].
Job_13:17. Hear, O hear my declaration.—שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמוֹעָ, a strongly emphasized appeal that they should hear him, essentially the same in signification as Isa_6:9, only that here is not intended as there a continued but an attentive hearing for the time being; comp. Job_21:2; Job_37:2.—מִלָּה, here “declaration,” signifies in Arabic confession, religion. Its synonym אַחְוָה in he second member, [and let my utterance sound in your ears], formed from the Hiph. of the verb חוה (Job_15:17; Psa_19:3) signifies here (the only place where it occurs in the O. T.) not “brotherly conduct” as in post-biblical Hebrew, but “utterance.” With וְאַחְוָתִי it is better to supply תְּהִי or תָּבוֹא, “let it enter, let it sound in your ears,” than to repeat שִׁמְעוּ from a.
Job_13:18. Behold now I have made ready the cause. עָרַךְ מִשְׁפָּט, causam instruere, as in Job_23:4; comp. the simple עָרַךְ, Job_33:5. On b comp. Job_11:2.
Job_13:19. Who is he that will contend with me?i.e., attempt with success to prove that I am in the wrong. As to the thought compare the parallel passages, Isa_1:9; Rom_8:34; and as to the lively interrogative מִי חוּא, Job_4:7.—Then indeed (if any one succeeds in that, in convicting me of wrong) I would be silent and die: then, as one defeated within and without, I would without offering further resistance, let death come upon me as merited punishment. The explicitness and calmness with which he makes this declaration shows how impossible it seems to him that he should be proved guilty, how unalterably firm he stands in the consciousness of his innocence. [E. V., “for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost,” is less simple, and less suited to the connection].
Job_13:20. Only two things do not Thou unto me: these are the same two things which he has already deprecated in Job_9:34 in order that he may successfully achieve his vindication, and so, as it is here expressed in b, not be obliged to hide before God. In Job_13:21 we are told wherein they consist, viz., a, in heavy unremitting calamities and chastisements (“Thy hand remove Thou from me”), כַּף here of the hand which punishes, as previously שֵׁבֶט in Job_9:34); and b, in terror, confusion, and trepidation produced by His majesty; comp. above, Job_13:11.
Job_13:22. Then—if these two alleviations are granted to me—call Thou and I will answer:i.e., summon me then to a criminal trial, or which would be eventually still more advantageous to me: “allow me the first word, let me be the questioner.” Obviously it is in this sense that we are to take b, where הֵשִׁיב, “to reply” (supply דָּבָר) is connected transitively with accus. of the person, as elsewhere עָנָה; comp. Job_20:2; Job_32:14; Job_40:4.
6. Third Division. The vindication of himself to God, with a complaint over the vanity and helplessness of human existence: Job_13:23—Job_14:22. [“That Job, lifted up by the proud consciousness of innocence, might really fancy for the moment that God would answer his challenge, is not in itself improbable in view of the present temper of his soul, and the entire plan of the poem, according to which such an intercourse of God with men as may be apprehended by the senses lies within the bounds of possibility (Job 38. seq.), and should not be described (with Schlottm.) as a fanatical thought; although indeed he could not long continue in this fancy; not only the non-appearance of God, but also every consideration of a more particular sort must convince him of the idleness of his wish.” Dillmann. Hence the sudden change of his apology to a lamentation].
First Strophe: Job_13:23-28. Having repeatedly announced his purpose (Job_13:13 seq., 17 seq.), Job now at length passes directly to the demonstration of his innocence, but at once falls from a tone of confident self-justification into one of sorrowful lamentation, and faint-hearted despair, out of which he does not again emerge during this discourse.
Job_13:23. How many are (then) my iniquities and sins; my wickedness and my sin make known to me!—Inasmuch as חַטָּאת denotes sin or moral aberration in general (occasionally also indeed sins of weakness), עָוֹן transgression or evil-doing of a graver sort, פֶשַׁע however flagrant wickedness, open apostasy from God (comp. Hoffmann, Schriftbew. I., 483 seq.), the enumeration which is here given is on the whole neither climactic nor anti-climactic, but alike in a and b the more special and stronger expression precedes, while the more general term follows. Observe still further that the characteristic expression used to denote the smallest and slightest offenses, שְׁגִיאוֹת (Psa_19:13) is not introduced here at all. Of such failures of the most insignificant sort Job would indeed be perfectly well aware that he was guilty; comp. above Job_9:2; Job_9:14 seq.
Job_13:24. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face (a sign of the Divine displeasure, comp. Isa_54:8) and regardest me as Thine enemy?—The question is an expression of impatient wonder at the non-appearance of God.
Job_13:25. A driven leaf wilt Thou terrify?הֶעָלֶה with He interrog. like הֶחָכָם, Job_15:2. Comp. Gesenius § 100 [§ 98], 4 [E. V. “wilt thou break a leaf,” etc. And so Bernard: but against usage]. And pursue the dry chaff? The meaning of this troubled plaintive double question is: How canst Thou, who art Almighty and All-sufficient, find Thy pleasure in persecuting and afflicting a weak and miserable creature like me? It is not with reference to the universal frailty of mankind, of which he partook (Hahn), but with special reference to the fearful visitation which had come on him, and he destruction which had begun in his body, that he compares himself to a “driven leaf,” i. e. one that is tossed to and fro by the wind [comp. Lev_26:36), and to the dry chaff, which is in like manner blown about (comp. Psa_1:4, etc.).
Job_13:26. For Thou decreest for me bitter things (or also with consecutive rendering of כִּי: “that Thou decreest,” etc.). מְרֹרוֹת here is equivalent of course to “bitter painful punishments;” and כּתב, lit. to “write,” refers to a written decree announcing a judicial sentence: comp. Job_31:35; Psa_149:9; Isa_10:1.—And makest me to inherit the iniquities of my youth: the sins of my earlier years, long since forgiven and forgotten, by comparison with which as being the half-conscious misbehaviour of childhood, or the manifestations of youthful thoughtlessness (Psa_25:7), so severe and fearful a penalty would seem to be needless cruelty. [“He can regard his affliction only as the inheritance of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath to reproach himself with.” Del.—E. Ver. “makest me to possess,” etc., not sufficiently expressive. “His old age inherited the accumulated usury and consequence of youthful sins.” Dav.] “To cause one to inherit anything” is the same as causing him to experience the consequences of anything (here the bad consequences, the punishments); comp. Pro_14:18; Ps. 69:37 (Psa_69:36); Mar_10:17; 1Co_6:10, etc.
Job_13:27. And puttest my feet in the block:i. e. treatest me as a prisoner. וְתָשֵׂם, poet. for וַתָּשֶׂם, Ewald, § 443, b. [jussive in form though not in signification; used simply “from the preference of poetry for a short pregnant form.” Del.], comp. Job_15:33; Job_23:9; Job_23:11.—סַד here and Job_33:11 is a wooden block with a contrivance for firmly fastening the feet of a prisoner, the same with the מַהְפֶּכֶת of Jer_20:3, and the ξύλον of Act_16:24, or ποδοκάκη, or the Roman instruments of torture called cippus, codex or nervus. In times still recent wooden blocks of this kind were in use among the Arabians, as Burckhardt had occasion to observe (Travels, p. 420). And watchest all my paths:i. e. does not allow me the slightest freedom of motion: comp. Job_7:12; Job_10:14.—Around the roots of my feet Thou dost set bounds:i. e. around the place where I stand, where the soles of my feet are placed (the soles firmly fixed in one point being compared to the roots of a tree), Thou dost make marks, bounds, lines of demarcation, which Thou dost not permit me to cross. This is the simplest and philologically the most suitable definition of the Hithpael הִתְחַקֶּה (from חקה ,חק); found only here, in which definitions Gesenius, Ewald (1st Ed.), Schlottm., Hahn, Del, Dillm., [Con., Elz.—and see below the rendering of Hirzel, Noyes, etc.], etc., essentially agree. Not essentially different as to the sense, although philologically not so well authenticated are the explanations of Rosenm., Umbreit [Hengst., Merx], etc.: “Thou drawest a circle around my feet;” of Ewald (2d Ed.): “Thou makest sure of my feet” (comp. Peshito and Vulgate: vestigia pedum meorum considerasti); of Hirzel [Fürst]: “Thou dost make Thyself a trench around the roots of my feet” [others, e. g. Noyes, Renan, Davidson, Rödiger, take חקה in this sense of cutting or digging a trench, but regard the Hithpael as indirectly and not directly reflexive, sibi, not se susculpere—“dost dig a trench for thyself”]; of Raschi, Mercier, etc.: “Thou fastenest Thyself to the soles of my feet.” [E. V., Good, Wem., Bernard, etc.: “Thou brandest (settest a print upon, E. V.) the soles of my feet;” evidently supposing the expression to refer to some process of branding criminals in the feet: for which, however, there is no good authority.]—The three parallel figures contained in the verse all find their actual explanation in the fearful disease, with which Job was visited by God, in consequence of which he was doomed to one place, being unable to move on account of the unshapely swelling of his limbs. [“Mercier has already called attention to the gradation which marks the proofs given in these verses of the Divine anger. (1) God hides His face. (2) He shows Himself an enemy. (3) He issues severe decrees against him. (4) He punishes sins long since passed. (5) He throws him into cruel and narrow imprisonment.” Hengst.]
Job_13:28. Although he (the persecuted one) as rottenness wastes away, as a garment which the moth has eaten (comp. Job_4:19). This forcible description of the weakness and perishableness of his condition is given to emphasize the thought, how unacccountably severe is God’s treatment of him (comp. above Job_13:25). It is introduced by וְהוּא (instead of וַֹאֲנִי) objectivizing the subject, and “giving to the discourse a more general application, valid also for other men,” and at the same time providing a transition to the following lament, referring to human misery in general. [“Thou hast set this enclosure around one who does not grow like a tree, but moulders away moth-eaten like a garment. Job looks at himself ab extra; he will hardly own himself; he hardly recognizes himself, so changed is he by affliction and disease, and he speaks of himself in the third person. How natural and touching is this!” Wordsworth.]
Third Division: Second and Third Strophes: The lament over man’s mortality, frailty and vanity continued: Job_14:1-12.
Second Strophe: Job_14:1-6. [Man’s physical frailty and moral impurity by nature made the ground of a complaint against the severity of God’s treatment, and of an appeal for forbearance.]
Job_14:1-2. Man, born of woman, of few days, and full of trouble, cometh up as a flower [and withereth, and fleeth as a shadow, and abideth not].—This is the only right construction of the passage. The first verse contains only the subject, together with three appositional clauses more particularly descriptive of the same. Of these the first, יְלוּר אִשָּׁה (a phrase which is elsewhere exactly synonymous with “man,” e. g.Sir_10:18 : γέννημα γυναικός, and Mat_11:11 : γέννητος γυν.), belongs immediately to the notion contained in the subject, man, whom it characterizes according to his innate quality of weakness (as also in Job_15:14; Job_25:4), while the two following clauses illustrate the shortness of his life, (קְעַר, constr. st. of קָעֵר, comp. Job_10:15), and the trouble which fills it (רֹגֶז, as in Job_3:17; Job_3:26). It is disputed whether the second verb in Job_14:2, וַיִּמָּל means to wither, or to be cut off. Etymologically both these definitions are possible, since יִמָּל may be taken either as Imperf. Niph. of מול = מלל, succidi, or as Imperf. of a secondary Kal. נָמֵל (an alternate form מלל), synonymous with אָמַל, to wither, to become dry, marcescere. The meaning to be cut off, however, is loss suitable to the flower than to fade [the latter, and not the former, being, as Dillmann points out, the natural destiny alike of the flower and of man]; comp. Isa_40:7; Psa_37:2; Psa_90:10; Psa_103:15 seq.; Mat_6:30; 1Pe_1:24; moreover, in the two parallel passages of our book, Job_18:16; and Job_24:24, it is by no means necessary to render יִמָּל in the sense of succidi, præcidi (against Hirzel, Gesenius, Delitzsch [Conant, Dav., E. V.], etc.). On b comp. Job_8:9; Psa_90:5; Psa_90:9-10. [Conant regards the article before צֵל as having a definite signification, “that which marks the passing and declining day.” This, however, would scarcely be in harmony with the verb ברח, which describes rather the fleeting shadow of the cloud, to which the art. would be equally suitable. Merx transposes Job 14:28, of chap. 7., and inserts it here between Job_14:1-2, thus depriving it of the force and beauty which belong to it as the closing verse of that strophe, and as a transition to this, and at the same time weakening the beauty and pathos of this passage by the accumulation of figures.—E.]
Job_14:3. And upon this one dost Thou keep Thine eye open?viz. in order to watch him, and to punish him for his sins, comp. Psa_34:17 [16]. אַף, emphatically connecting something new with what has already been given, like our “over and above.” עַל־זֶה, “upon this one,” i. e. upon such an one as he is here described, upon so wretched a creature (Psa_103:14). [The pronoun here descriptive, “such an one,” talis, rather than demonstrative. By position the phrase is emphatic. E. V., Conant, etc., render the verb simply “to open,”=so much as open the eyes, so much as look upon him. The rendering given in our commy. “to keep the eye open upon” presupposes a double emphasis, the first and principal one on the pronoun, the second on the verb.—E.]—And me ([אֹֽתִי, emphatic, me] this particularly wretched example of the human race), dost thou bring into judgment before Thee?—i. e., to judgment at Thy tribunal, where it is impossible to maintain one’s cause.
Job_14:4. O that a pure one might come forth out of an impure:i. e., would it were only possible that one might remain free from the universal sinfulness of the human race, and from the misery accompanying the same, which is now absolutely universal and without exception, so that it has the appearance of unpitying severity when God visits those belonging to this race with punishment (comp. Job_14:5-6). מִי־יִתֵּן, the customary optative formula (as in Job_14:13; Job_6:8), here connected with an accusative of the object, specifying the contents of the wish (so also in Job_31:31; Job_31:35; Psa_14:7; Deu_28:67). Hence not: “who makes [E. V.: can bring] a pure one out of an impure?” (Rosenm., Arnheim, Welte, [Renan]); nor: “where can a pure one be found among the impure?” as if מִן here could have the partitive sense before the singular טָמֵא. [“The Opt. rendering not only denies the possibility (of a morally clean coming out of a morally unclean), but gives utterance to the desire that it was otherwise.” Dav.]. Not one: to wit, “comes forth.” [Not therefore “can bring forth,” as might be inferred from the literal rendering of מִי־יִתֵּן]. Not one pure will ever come forth in the line of development which has once been contaminated by sin; comp. Psa_51:7 [5]; also the expression אֵין גַּם אֶחָדPsa_14:3, which reminds us very closely of this לֹא אֶחָד. Ewald, with whom Dillmann agrees, punctuates לֻא instead of לֹא, and conforms the second member to the first: “Oh that there were one!” for the reason that a wish does not properly contemplate an answer. But a wish which is in itself incapable of realization is equivalent to a question, the answer to which is a strong negation. Moreover the passage is incomparably stronger and more emphatic according to the common rendering, than according to that of Ewald. [“Moreover, why should he desire one such specimen? Plainly, the desire is nothing to the purpose, except as implying that not one such is to be found; and precisely this is asserted in the proper and usual construction of the words.” Con.]. On the relation of this assertion by Job of the universality of human corruption to the earlier affirmation of Eliphaz in Job_4:17 seq., see the Doc. and Eth. Remarks.
Job_14:5-6, (the former the antecedent, the latter the consequent).—If his days are determined (חֲרוּצִים, lit. cut off [decisi], sharply bounded, defined ἀποτόμως; comp. Isa_10:22; 1Ki_20:40), the number of his months with Thee (viz. “is established, firmly fixed;” אִתָּךְ here equivalent to עִמָּךְ, comp. Job_10:13), and Thou hast made [or set] his limit (read חֻקּוֹ with the K’thibh, not the plural with the K’ri, which is here less suitable, there being but one limit, one terminus to this earthly life)—which he cannot pass (lit. “and he passes it not”) [observe that the particle אִם in the first member of the verse extends its influence over all three members]: then look away from him, (שְׁעֵה מֵעָלָיו the opposite of Job_14:3 a; comp. Job_7:19) that he may rest (חדל here as in 1Sa_2:5 : “to rest, to keep holiday,” to be released from the רֹגֶז of Job_14:1) that he may enjoy as a hireling his day.—The last member literally reads: “until that (to the degree that—עַד as in Job_8:21; 1Sa_2:5; Isa_47:7) he, like a day-laborer, find pleasure in his day,” or, “be satisfied with his day.” This is the meaning of רָצָה with the accus.—(comp. Jer_14:10; Psa_102:15, and often); not “to satisfy,” in the sense of “to discharge, to make good,” [E. V. to accomplish] as Delitzsch explains it, when he translates: “until he discharges [accomplishes] as a hireling his day.” In favor of this latter rendering indeed, Lev_26:34; Lev_26:43, and 2Ch_36:21 may be cited; but the sense thence resulting is in each case harsh and artificial. For just why it should be said of a hireling, that he (in death) “makes complete” his days (comp. ἀνταναπληροῦν, Col_1:24) is not altogether apparent: the comparison of the שָׂכִיר (comp. Job_7:1) seems superfluous, inconsistent indeed, if we have to do simply with the thought: “until the completion of the days of his life.” [It is difficult to see why the definition adopted by the E. V. and Del. is not perfectly suitable to the connection. The objection to it is that it is not supported by usage, רצה means everywhere “to regard favorably, to take pleasure in.” We are not justified in taking it in any other sense here. But the expression “to enjoy as a hireling his day” is variously understood. Some take יוֹמוֹ here in some specific sense; e. g., the day of his discharge, his last day as a hireling (Bernard); his day of rest (Rodwell); and something similar is suggested by Jerome’s optata dies. But this thought would have been more distinctly expressed.—Others (Hengst., Wordsworth, Noyes, Barnes), explain it as a wish that man may enjoy his life at least as much, with the same freedom from care, as the hireling. But to this there are several objections. (1) רצה would scarcely be used to express this idea, least of all, as here, without any qualification. (2) That Job regarded the day or service of a hireling as a term of hardship, from which deliverance was to be sought rather than as affording any measure of satisfaction to be desired, is evident from the parallel passage in Job_7:1-2. Comp. Job_3:19. (3) He has already expressed the burden of his longing in וְיֶהְדָּל. This clause is rather to be regarded as an amplification of that thought: the rest, the enjoyment which the end of the day’s labor brings.—It is unnatural to suppose that having reached in thought the goal of rest, he would go back to the joyless, even though painless toil preceding it. We are thus led to the explanation that the enjoyment hero spoken of is that which succeeds the labors of the day. The hireling’s real enjoyment of his day comes when the “shadow” of evening (Job_7:2) brings with it the rest which he covets, and the wages he has earned. In like manner Job desires for man agitated by unrest (רֹגֶז Job_14:1) a respite, however brief, the satisfaction which the end of toil and sorrow would bring. It is not death however that he here prays may come, for that, as the following verses show, is a hopeless condition. And yet the thought of the end of toil suggests at once the thought of death and that hopeless beyond.—E.].
Third Strophe: Job_14:7-12. The hopelessness of man when his earthly life is ended.
Job_14:7. For there is yet hope for the tree. כִּי, “for” introduces the reason for the request preferred in Job_14:6 in behalf of miserable and afflicted man: “look away from him,” etc. [“The predication of hope made very strongly both by יֵשׁ and the accent, the main division of the verse is at hope.” Dav.].—If it be cut down, It shoots up again (viz., the stump left in the ground, comp. Isa_6:13), and its sproutיוֹנֶקֶת, the tender young shoot from the root [suckling], LXX. ῥάδαμνος; comp. צh. Job_8:16) faileth not. Carey, Delitzsch, and others, correctly understand the tree of whose vitality and power of perpetual rejuvenescence Job seems more particularly to think here to be the datepalm, which on account of this very quality is called by the Greeks φοίνιξ. It is not so probable that the oak or terebinth [E. V. “teil”] mentioned in the parallel passage in Isa_6:13, is intended here.
Job_14:8-9, present not properly “another case,” (Dillmann), but they develop the illustration already presented still further and more forcibly.—If its root becometh old in the ground (הִזְקִין, inchoative Hiph., senescere), and its trunk dieth in the dust (comp. Isa_40:24), i. e., if the tree die, not interrupted in its growth by the violent hand of man, while yet young and vigorous, but decaying with age, becoming dry and dead down to the roots.—Through the scent of water (i. e., so soon as it feels the vivifying energy of water; comp. Jdg_16:9) [רֵיחַ, may be taken either subjectively of the scenting, or inhalation of water by the tree; or, bettor, of the scent which water brings with it. “When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign that wherever date-trees grew there must be water.” Vide R. Wilson’sHistory of the Expedition to Egypt, page 18] it sprouts (again; comp. Psa_92:14) and puts forth boughs (comp. Job_18:16; Job_29:19), like a young plant; or also like a sapling newly planted (LXX.: ὡς νεοφυτον). That this description also is pre-eminently suitable to the palm appears from the fact that, as every oriental knows very well, in every place where this tree grows, water must be very near at hand, generally from the indestructible vitality and luxuriant fulness of this φίλυδρον φυτόν, (comp. Delitzsch on this passage. [“Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palm—says Masius in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of nature—thousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life.” Del.]).
Job_14:10-12 present the contrast to the above: the hopelessness of man in death.
Job_14:10. But man dies and is brought down (חָלַשׁ here in the intrans. sense confectum esse, to be prostrated, to be down, whence the usual signification, “to be weak,” is derived: [the Imperf, when transitive, is written יַחְלשׁ; when intransitive, as here, יֶחֱלַשׁ]); man expires (וַיִּגְוַע, Imperf. consec., because the cheerless consequences of death are here further set forth), and where is he?—where does he then go to? what becomes of him? Comp. the similar yearning question in Ecc_3:21.
Job_14:11. The waters flow away [lit. roll off] out of the sea, and a stream falls and dries up.—This is the protasis of a simile, the apodosis of which is introduced, Job_14:12, by וְ “so,” as below in Job_14:19, and as above in Job_5:7; Job_11:12 (in which latter passages indeed the figure follows, not precedes, the thing illustrated). Comp. the description, imitative of the present passage, in Isa_19:5, describing the drying up of the Nile (נָהָר ,יָם) by a Divine judgment—a description which indeed the advocates of a post-Solomonic authorship of our book regard as the original of the passage before us (e.g., Volck, de summa carm. Job sent., p. 31). [יָם here should be taken of an inland sea or body of water, a sense which the application of the word to the lake of Tiberias, Num_34:11; the Euphrates, Isa_27:1; the Nile, see above, abundantly justifies. Such a drying up of large bodies of water is no uncommon phenomenon in the torrid regions of the East.—E.]
Job_14:12. So man lies down and rises no more; till the heavens are no more, they awake not.—עַד בִּלְתִּי שָׁמַיִם, until the failure, i. e., the disappearance of the heavens (comp. the exactly equivalent phrase, עַד בְּלִי יָרֵחַ, Psa_72:7), the same in meaning with לָעַד לְעוֹלָם, Psa_148:6. For according to the popular conception of the ancient Hebrews, the heavens endure forever: Psa_89:30 [29]; Jer_31:35. When in Psa_102:27; Isa_51:6; Isa_65:17 the heavens are described as waxing old and being changed, this statement does not exclude their eternal existence; for the supposition of a destruction of the universe in the sense of its annihilation is everywhere foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. The expression before us, “not to awake till the heavens are no more,” is accordingly in any case equivalent to “not to awake for ever” [or “never to awake”], as the third member of the verse also clearly indicates: and are never aroused out of their sleep—they sleep a שְׁנַת עוֹלָם, Jer_51:39; Jer_51:57, an endless sleep of death. [It is assuredly straining the language, and at variance with the connection, and with Job’s present mood, to assume in the expression an implication that when the phenomenal heavens should disappear, man would awake. How far Job’s mind does reach out towards the idea of a resuscitation of humanity will be seen presently. Amid such fluctuations of thought and feeling as characterize his utterances, we are not to look for self-consistency, much less for a careful and exact expression of the highest forms of truth, whether as revealed elsewhere, or even as at times revealed to his own mind.—E.] How unchangeable the cheerless outlook on such an eternal condition of death In Sheol presents itself to Job, is shown by the vividly expressed wish which Immediately follows that God, if it were possible, would cause him again to emerge out of this condition, which, however, he immediately recognizes as a yearning which is absolutely incapable of being realized.
8. Third Division: Fourth and Fifth Strophes: Continuation and conclusion of the description of the hopelessness of man in the prospect of death: Job_14:13-22.
Fourth Strophe: Job_14:13-17 : [If God would only permit a hope of the cessation of His wrath, and of his restoration from Sheol, how joyfully he would endure] until the change should come; but now He punishes without pity his sins.]
Job_14:13. Ah that Thou wouldst hide me (Hiph. as in Exo_2:3) in the realm of the dead, wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath should change (comp. the description of such a hiding from God’s wrath in Isa_26:20; Psa_27:5; Psa_31:21 [20]), wouldst appoint me a set time (a חֹק, see on Job_14:5), and then remember me—viz., for good, in order to re-establish me in the fellowship of Thy grace, and cause me to live in the same. This last expression וְתִזְכְּרֵנִי accented with the emphasis of glowing passion, is the culmination of the yearning wish which Job here expresses, from which, however, he immediately recoils again, as from a chimerical idea which has no real foundation.
Job_14:14. If man dies, will he live?—i. e., is it possible that he who has once died, will come to life again? The asyndetic introduction of this short but frequent question after the preceding verse, produces a contrast which is all the stronger. No answer to the question follows, because it is self-evident to the reader that it can be answered only in the negative. But strong as is his conviction of the impossibility of a return to life of the dead, equally sweet and gracious is the charm of the thought which dwells on the opposite possibility, which he has just expressed in the form of a wish. [“If a man die, etc., finely natural interpretation of the cold reason and of doubt, striving to banish the beautiful dream and presentiment of a new bodily life with God; but in vain, the spirit tramples down the rising suspicion, and pursues more eagerly the glorious vision.” Dav.] All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my discharge (lit. “my exchange,” comp. Job_10:17) should come.—Job uses the term “warfare” here somewhat differently from Job_7:1 to denote not only the remainder of his toilsome and troublesome days on earth, but “the whole dismal interval between the present and that longed-for goal” in the future when he should be released from Hades; this release is here, in accordance with the figure of military service, designated as an “exchange” or “discharge.” [Hence the “change” here spoken of is not, as the old Jewish expositors, followed by some moderns, have explained it, the change produced by death. The word חֲלִיפָה, however, has here a double significance, which should be appreciated to realize the full beauty of the passage. In addition to its primary and principal meaning as expressing the discharge of the soldier whose term of hard service has expired, it suggests also the “sprouting” anew (יַחֲלִיף, Job_14:7) of the trunks and roots of the tree which has been cut down. The חֲלִיפָה, in a word, which Job yearns for is a release from service which would be at the same time a “springing up” anew from death to life. That this double meaning is not forced, that it is a beautiful and happy stroke of genius, will not seem at all incredible to any one who will carefully trace out our author’s masterly use of words in their various possibilities.—E.]
Job_14:15. Thou wouldst call (to wit, in this discharge [by Ewald and others referred to the forensic call to the final trial, wherein Job confidently hoped to be acquitted; but the connection here indicates rather the call of love, yearning after its object; “the voice of God returning to take His creatures to Himself” (Dav.)—E.], and I would answer Thee (would follow Thy call); Thou wouldst yearn after the work of Thy hands (Job_10:3); i. e., Thou, as. Creator, wouldst feel an affectionate longing after Thy creature, which Thou hadst hitherto treated harshly, and rejected. “The true character of the relation of love between the Creator and His creature would again assert itself, it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa_54:8), and love the true and essential necessity of His being.” Del. [“Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future.” Schlott.] Although only a “phantasy of hope” (Schlott.), it still furnishes an unconscious prophecy of that which was accomplished in Christ’s descent into Hades for the salvation of the saints of the Old Covenant.
Job_14:16. For now Thou numberest my steps, i. e., for at this time Thou watchest every step and motion, as those of a transgressor, comp. Job_13:27. כִּי עַתָּה, as in Job_6:21, introducing the contrast between a point of time on which the eye fixes in the future, and the sad reality of the present. [כִּי assigns the reason for the wish which forms the contents of Job_14:13-15. It is not necessary, with Hirzel and Schlott., to supply any thing between Job_14:15-16, as, e. g., “Thou dost not yearn for Thy creature now, for,” etc. The construction of Umbreit, etc., which takes כִּי עַתָּה as an emphatic clause,=“indeed now,” is to be rejected.—E.]—And dost not hold Thyself back on account of my sins.—This is the most satisfactory rendering of לֹא תִשְׁמֹר עַל חַטָּאתִי. It is found already in Mercier, (non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem), and is of late advocated by Delitzsch [and Wordsworth. It seems to Del. “that the sense intended must be derived from שָׁמַר אַף, which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it; Amo_1:11.”] Dillmann’s explanation gives the same sense: “Thou dost not pass over my sins;” a rendering, indeed, which rests on an emendation of the text to: לֹא תַעֲבֹר עַל־ח׳, which is favored in some measure by the version of the LXX. Also the rendering advocated by Ewald, Heilig., Schlott. and Hahn: “Thou givest no consideration to my sins” (to ascertain, namely, whether they do in truth deserve to be punished so severely), does not differ very essentially. Other explanations lack satisfactory support: such as those of the Rabbis, which differ widely among themselves: e.g. Raschi’s: “Thou waitest not over my sins, i. e. to punish them;” Ralbag’s: “Thou waitest not for my sins=repentance punishment;” Aben-Ezra’s: “Thou lookest not except on my sins.” The same may be said of the attempt of Rosenm., Hirzel and Welte to render the sentence as an interrogative without הֲ: “Dost Thou not keep watch over my sin?” [So E. V., Conant, Dav., Rod., Gesen., Fürst.—In view of Job_13:27 b, it is not apparent why this rendering should be said to “lack satisfactory support.” The preposition עַל cannot be urged against it, for it harmonizes well with the idea thus expressed; and the interrogative form gives vividness, force and variety to the passage.—E.]
Job_14:17. Sealed up in a bag is my gullt. פִּשְׁעִי, lit. “wickedness,” as in Job_13:23 b, here of the aggregate of Job’s former transgressions (comp. Job_13:26 b), of the sum total, the entire mass of guilty actions committed by him, which, as he must believe, is preserved and sealed up by God with all care as a treasure, to be used against him in his own time; comp. Deu_32:34; Hos_13:12. For the figurative expression: “to tie up in a bag,”=to keep in remembrance, comp. Psa_56:9; 1Sa_25:29. Ewald, Hirzel, Renan, incorrectly explain the “guilt sealed in a bag” to be the judicial sentence of condemnation by God already issued against Job, which now only awaits execution; for of the preservation of such penal sentences in a bottle all oriental antiquity knows nothing whatever. [The figure is taken “from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag.” Del.]—And Thou hast devised additions to my transgressions: lit. “and Thou hast still further stitched (to wit, other, new transgressions) on my transgressions; i. e. hast made mine iniquity still greater than it is, and punished it accordingly more severely than it deserves. This accusation which Job here prefers against God is a bold one; but it is too much to affirm that it is “pure blasphemy” (Dillm.), because the language of Job throughout is simply tropical, and his real thought is that God’s treatment of him is as severe as if, in addition to his actual transgressions, he were burdened with a multitude of such as had been fabricated (comp. Hengstenberg on the passage). Hence the rendering of Ewald: “Thou hast patched up, sewed up my transgression” [E. V., Dillmann, Good, Wemyss, Bernard, Con., Barnes, Dav., Rod.], is equally unnecessary with the similar rendering of Umbreit, Vaih., Böttch.: “and Thou coverest up my sins.” Substantially the right interpretation is given by Rosenmüller, Arnh., Hirz., Welte, Delitzsch, Hengst. [Gesen., Fürst, Noyes, Renan, Words.].
[The main argument in favor of the interpretation adopted here by Zöckler is that טפל means properly not to sew up, but “to sew on, patch on, and gen. to add.” So Delitzsch. But (1): It looks very much like hyper-criticism to decide, from a very limited usage, that a word, the essential meaning of which is to sew, may mean to sew on, but cannot mean to sew up; or, if the essential meaning be to plaster, to patch, that it may mean to patch on to (to add a patch), but not to patch over. (2) The point becomes still weaker in a case where the word is used, as here, in a figurative, not a literal sense. (3) The parallelism favors the meaning to sew, or to patch up. It seems somewhat, incongruous, after representing God as having sealed up transgressions in a bag, to represent Him in the next clause as stitching, patching, or fabricating other sins. On the other hand, the thought of sealing sin in a bag is suitably supplemented by the thought that the bag is not only officially sealed, but carefully sewed together; or if, with Bernard, we explain: “With such care dost Thou store up my iniquities in Thy bag, that if Thou seest the slightest possibility of its giving way in any part, so that some of them might slip out and be lost, Thou immediately stoppest up the hole with a patch.” (4) Admitting that the apparent blasphemy of the expression may be explained away, as above by Zöckler, its admitted audacity still remains. But Job is not now in one of his Titanic moods of defiance. He resembles not so much Prometheus hurling charges against the Tyrant of the skies, as Hamlet, meditating pensively on death and the “undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns,” but with an infinitely purer pathos than is found even in the soliloquy of “the melancholy Dane.” It is but a moment ago (Job_14:15 b) that he recognized in a strain of inimitable beauty the yearning bent of Creative Love. He is now indeed complaining of the present severity of God’s dealings with him, but the plaintive tenderness of that sentiment still floats over his spirit and lingers in his words, softening them into the tone of a subdued reproachful moan, very different from the bitter outcry of rebellious defiance.—E.]
Fifth Strophe: Job_14:18-22. Conclusion: completing the gloomy delineation of that which in reality awaited Job, in opposition therefore to the yearning desire of his heart.
Job_14:18. But in sooth a falling mountain crumbles away: observe the paronomasia in the original between the participle נוֹפֵל describing הַר and נָבֵל (יִבּוֹל). [וְאוּלָם at the beginning as elsewhere strongly adversative, introducing in opposition to the dream of a possible restoration in the preceding strophe the stern reality, the inexorable and universal law, which dooms everything to destruction. The use of this conjunction here is a strong confirmation of the position maintained in the concluding remarks on Job_14:17 that the sentiment of Job_14:15-17 lingers also around Job_14:16-17, and that accordingly Job_14:17 b cannot be a daring suggestion of the charge of fabricating iniquity against Job.—E.]—And a rock grows old out of its place. עָתַק is rightly rendered: “to grow old, to decay” by the LXX., and among moderns by Hirzel, Umbreit, Vaihinger, Schlottmann. The topical meaning: “to be removed” is indeed admissible, and is supported by the Vulg., Rosenm, Ewald, Hahn, and generally by the majority of moderns. The more pregnant meaning of the passage, however, would be lost by the adoption of this latter rendering, which is simply prosaic in its simplicity.
Job_14:19. In this verse a and b continue the series of figures begun in Job_14:18, which are intended to illustrate the unceasing operation of the Divine penalty or process of destruction decreed for men, whereas c first introduces that which is to be illustrated by means of the וadæquationis (as in Job_5:7; Job_11:12; Job_12:11). Water hollows out stones (comp. the Lat. gutta cavat lapidem);its floods wash away the dust of the earth. תִּשְׁטֹף, fem. sing., referring to the plural סְפִיחֶיהָ, according to Gesenius, § 146 [§ 143] 3, [Green. § 275, 4. The harshness of the construction which is necessitated by taking סָפִיחַ in the sense which belongs to it elsewhere of a self-sown growth, is shown in the rendering of E. V.: “Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth.” Moreover, the limitation—“self-sown”—is against this rendering, which would require rather some more comprehensive term, such as יְבוּל. The fem. suffix in סְפִיחֶיהָ originates in the same principle which determines the fem. form of the verb, and like the latter refers to מַיִם.—E.].—And the hope of mortal man [note the use of אֱנֹושׁ, bringing man into the category of destructible matter.—E.]—Thou destroyest:i. e. just as incessantly and irresistibly as the physical objects here mentioned yield to the gradual processes of destruction in nature, so dost Thou cause man to perish without any hope of being brought to life again, and this too at once, suddenly (הֶאֱבַדְתָּ, Perf, of the accomplished fact. [For the form of the verb see Green, § 112, 3]). The four figures here used are not introduced to exemplify the idea of incessant change ruling in the realm of nature, whereas from man all hope of a change for the better in his lot is taken away (so Hahn, who takes the ו in c in the adversative sense, but they describe the processes of destruction in nature, and more especially in the lower sphere of inorganic nature, as types of the gradual ceaseless extinction to which man succumbs in death. This moreover is not to be understood as though Job contemplated those processes with a view to console himself with the thought that his destruction in death was a natural necessity, (Hirzel), but in order to exhibit as forcibly and thoroughly as possible the absolute hopelessness of his condition in prospect of the dark future which death holds up before him; see Job_14:20-22, which admit of no other than this disconsolate sentiment for Job_14:19 c. [The descending gradation in the series of objects from which the illustrations here are taken is quite noticeable—mountain—rock—stones—dust; and suggests at least the query whether we do not have here something more than four distinct emblems of decay, whether it is not intended to show a succession of stages in the process: the mountains crumbling into rocks, the rocks breaking down from age into stones, the stones wearing away into dust, and the dust being washed by the waters into the abyss; whether accordingly all nature is not thus resolving itself into the dust to which man too at the last returns What hope is there indeed for man, whose “house of clay is crushed like the moth” (Job_14:19), when the doom even of the everlasting mountains is—dust!—E.].
Job_14:20. Thou overpowerest him forever—then he passeth away.—תקף with accus. if the person is not: “to assail” (Hirzel) [Con. Del.], but as in Job_15:24; Ecc_4:12, “to overpower,” and לָנֶצַח is not “continually, evermore,” but “forever;” comp. Job_4:20; Job_20:7; Job_23:7.—As to the emphatic וַיַּחֲלֹךְ, “then he passeth away,” Greek βαίνει, ὀίχεται, comp. Job_10:21; also in respect of form the same poet. Imperf. in Job_16:6; Job_16:22; Job_20:25.—Disfiguring his countenance, so Thou sendest him away; i. e., in the struggle of death, or when decay sets in, Thou makest him unlike himself, distortest his features, etc., and so sendest him forth out of this life (שִׁלֵּחַ as in Lev_20:23; Jer_28:16; the ו consecut. very nearly as in Psa_118:27).
Job_14:21. Should his sons be in honor, he knows it not; if they are abased he perceives them not: [ל after בִּין here of the direct object: in Job_13:1 however as dat. ethicus. Del.]. The same contrast between כָּבֵד, to come to honor, and צָעַר, to be insignificant, to sink into contempt, is presented in Jer_30:19; for כָּבֵד comp. also Isa_66:5. The mention of the children of the dead man has nothing remarkable about it, since Job is here speaking in general terms of all men, not especially of himself. It is somewhat different in Job_19:17; see however on the passage. The description in the passage before us of the absolute ignorance of the man who is in Sheol of that which takes place in the world above, reminds us of Job_3:13 seq. Comp. in addition Ecc_9:5-6 (see Comm. on the passage).
Job_14:22. Only his flesh in him feels pain, and his soul in him mourns: i. e., he himself, his nature, being analyzed into its constituent parts of soul and body (comp. Job_17:16), perceives nothing more of the bright life of the upper world; he has only the experience of pain and sorrow which belongs to the joyless, gloomy existence of the inhabitants of Sheol, surrounded by eternal night. The brevity of the expression makes it impossible to decide with certainty whether Job here assumes that man carries with him to Sheol a certain corporeality (a certain residue, kernel, or some reflex of the earthly body), or whether he mentions the “flesh” along with the “soul” because (as is perhaps the case also in Isa_66:24; Jdt_16:17) he attributes to the decaying body in the grave a certain consciousness of its decay (Dillmann; comp. Delitzsch, who would cast on the departed soul at least “a painful reflection” of that process). The former view, however, is the more probable in view of what is said in Job_19:27 (see below, Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks on Job 19., No. 3). By means of עָלָיו, “in him,” occurring in both members, the two factors of the nature belonging to the man who has died are emphatically represented as belonging to him, as being his own; the suffixes in בְּשָׂרוֹ and נַפְשׁוֹ are thus in like manner strengthened by this doubled עָלָיו as in Greek the possessive pron. by ἴδιος. It is not probable that אַךְ “only,” is through a hyperbaton to be referred simply to עָלָיו, expressing the thought: “only he himself is henceforth the object of his experiences of pain and mourning, he concerns himself no more about the things of the upper world (Hirzel, Delitzsch), [Noyes, Schlott.]. This rendering is at variance with the position of the words, and with the doubled use of עָלָיו. Dillmann rightly says: “the limiting אַךְ belongs immediately not to the subject, but to the action: he no longer knows and perceives the things of the upper world, he is henceforth only conscious of pain, etc.” Hengstenberg on the contrary arbitrarily explains [and so Wordsworth]: The situation in Job_14:22 is in general not that of the dead, but of one who is on the point of death, of whose flesh (animated as yet by the soul) alone could the sense of pain be predicted (?).
[Job_14:21-22 are a description of the afterlife in two of its principal aspects. (1) As one of absolute separation from the present, and so of entire unconsciousness and independence in regard to all that belongs to life on earth (Job_14:21).—(2). As one of self-absorbed misery, the self-absorption being indicated by the repeated עָלָיו, and the double suffixes in each member of Job_14:22. The thought of Job_14:21 leads naturally to that of Job_14:22. The departed knows nothing of the living, nothing of all that befalls those who during life were in the closest union with himself; the consciousness of his own misery fills him.
The description in Job_14:22 of his experience of that misery is more obscure.—עַלmay be rendered—“on account of”: “only on his own account his flesh suffereth pain, etc.” The objection to this is its non-emphatic position, and the separation between it and אַךְ. In any case the suffix יָו refers to the man, not (as Conant, Dav., Ren., Rod.) to “flesh” in a, and to “soul” in b, for in that case נֶפֶשׁ would require עָלֶיהָ. The proper rendering of עָלָיו therefore is “in him” (in = Germ, an; i. e., his flesh and spirit as belonging to him, as that with which he is invested).—But why connect the “flesh” here with the “soul?” The simplest explanation seems to be that the realm of the dead, the under-world, in its broadest extent embraces both the grave, where the body lies, and Hades where the soul goes, as may be seen in Psa_16:10, where שְׁאוֹל and שַׁחַת are conjoined; and that accordingly by poetic personification, the mouldering flesh is here represented as sharing the aching discontent, the lingering misery of the imprisoned soul. It is no uncommon thing even for us to speak of the comfort, rest, equality, etc., of the grave, as though its occupants might have some consciousness of the same. So on the other hand it would seem that Job here introduces into the resting-place of the body something of that which made the place of the departed soul an object of dread. It may be indeed, as our Comm. suggests above, that the passage reflects some peculiarity in the opinion of antiquity touching the relation of the corporeal and spiritual parts of humanity, after death, but our grounds for affirming this are too precarious.—E.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is undeniable that Job in this reply to Zophar’s attack, which at the same time closes the first colloquy, shows himself decidedly superior to the three friends not only in acuteness, high poetic flight of thought, and penetrative fiery energy of expression, but also in what may be called doctrinal correctness, or purity. In the latter respect he seems to have made progress in the right direction from the stand-point which he had previously occupied. At least he exhibits in several points a perception of sin which is in some measure more profound and accurate, in so far as he, notwithstanding that he repeats the emphatic asseveration of his innocence (see especially Job_13:16; Job_13:19), makes mention of his own sins, not simply of those of his opponents. No doubt it is one of his principal aims to criticize sarcastically and severely their one-sided wisdom (Job_12:2 seq.; Job_13:1 seq.); no doubt he censures with visible satisfaction the one-sided application which they make of their narrow doctrine of retribution, and holds (Job_13:9) that if God in the exercise of rigid justice, should scrutinize them, the result would be anything but favorable to them! Now, however, more decidedly and explicitly than in his previous apologies, he includes himself also in the universal mass of those who are sinfully corrupt and guilty before God. He several times admits in the last division (Job_13:23—Job_14:22) that by his sin he had furnished the inexorable Divine Judge, if not with valid and sufficient cause at least with occasion for the severe treatment which He had exercised toward him. Here belongs the prayer, addressed to God to show him how much and how grievously he had in truth sinned (Job_13:23). Here also belongs the supposition which he expresses (Job_13:26) that possibly it was the “transgressions of his youth” of which he was now called to make supplementary confession; and following thereupon we have his lamentation—which reminds us of David’s penitential prayer (Psa_51:7; comp. Psa_14:3)—concerning the nature of human depravity, which he represents as embracing all, and organically transmitting itself, so that no one is excepted from it (Job_14:4)—an utterance which agrees in substance with the proposition previously advanced by Eliphaz (Job_4:17), but which more profoundly authenticates the truth under consideration, so that the Church tradition is perfectly justified in finding in it one of the cardinal sedes doctrinæ on the subject of original sin. Here finally belongs the description, involving another distinct confession of his own sinfulness, in which he shows how God unsparingly punishes his sin, lies in wait, as it were, for it, and carefully notes it in His book (a thought which is favored, by the corresponding Hebrew expression “to seal transgression in a bag”)—nay, more, seems to interest Himself in wilfully enlarging this, His register of sins (Job_14:16-17). With these several indications of a more profound and comprehensive consciousness of sin, which are indeed still far from signifying a genuine contrite submission beneath God’s righteous discipline, that true penitence which God’s personal interposition at last works in him (Job_42:2 seq.), there stands immediately connected another evidence of progress in Job’s frame of mind, which is also contained in the closing division of this discourse, especially in the 14th chapter, which is characterized by wondrous beauty and astonishing power. Job utters here for the first time, if not the hope, at least the yearning desire for a release from the state of death (Job_14:13-17). He prays that, instead of being shut up in an eternally forlorn separation from God in the gloomy realm of shadows, he may rather be only kept there for a season, until the Divine wrath is ended, and then, when the Creator should remember His creature, to be restored to His fatherly love and compassion. This does not indeed amount to a hope that He would one day be actually released from Hades; it is simply a dream, born of the longing of this sorely tried sufferer, which imagination summons before him as a lovely picture of the future, of which, however, he himself is the next moment assured that it can never be a reality! If we should still call it a hope, we must in any case keep in view the wide interval which separates this forlorn flame of hope, flickering up for once only, and then immediately dying out, from that hope of a resurrection which with incomparably greater confidence is expressed in Job_19:25 seq. At best we can but say, with Ewald; “The hope exists only in imagination, without becoming a certainty, while the speaker, whom it has surprised, only follows out the thought, how beautiful and glorious it would be, were it really so.” This simple germ-hope of a resurrection, however, acquires great significance as a step in the doctrinal and ethical course of thought in our book. For it is the clear radiance of an unconscious prophecy of the future deliverance of spirits out of their prison through Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness (Mat_12:40 seq.; Luk_23:43; Eph_4:8 seq.; Php_2:10 seq.; Col_2:15; 1Pe_3:18 seq.; Rev_1:18; Heb_2:14), which here shines forth in the depths of a soul beclouded by the sorrows of death. On the other side Job expresses so strong a yearning after permanent reconciliation with his Creator, so pure a representation of the nature of the communion of man with God, as a relation which behooves to be of eternal duration, that this very intensity of the religious want and longing of his heart carries with it, in a measure, the pledge that his yearning was not in vain, or that his ἐλπίζειν παρ’ ἐλπίδα would one day be fulfilled. Comp. on the one side what is said by Schlottmann, who (on Job_14:15) rightly emphasizes the thought that “Job must have had a deep experience in the past of the inwardness of the relation between the creature and his Creator, if he was able to give such an expression to it as this dreamy hope of the future;”—on the other side by Delitzsch, who not less strikingly and beautifully points out “how totally different would have been Job’s endurance of suffering, if he had but known that there was really a release from Hades,” and how at the same time in the wish of Job that it might be so, there is revealed “the incipient tendency of the growing hope.” “For,” he continues, “the author of our book confirms us in what one of the old writers says, that the hope of eternal life is a flower which grows on the brink of hell. In the midst of the hell of the feeling of God’s wrath, in which Job is sunk, this flower blooms for him. In its blooming, however, it is not yet a hope, but a longing. And this longing cannot unfold itself into a hope, because no light of promise shines into the night which rules in Job’s soul, and which makes the conflict yet darker than it is in itself.”
2. When we compare Job’s frame of mind, and religious and moral views of the world, as indicated in this discourse, with those expressed in his former discourses, we find these two points of superiority and progress: a more correct insight into sin, and above all, in his relation to the Divine Creator, an inward sense of fellowship blossoming into what is at least a lively longing after eternal union with God. In other respects, however, the present outpouring of his sorely tempted and afflicted heart exhibits retrogression rather than progress. The illusion of a God tyrannically tormenting and hostilely persecuting him has a stronger hold upon him than ever before (see especially Job_13:15 seq.). And this illusion is all the stronger in that, on the one hand, he finds within himself that the witness of his conscience to his innocence is more positive than ever (Job_13:16; Job_13:19), while on the other hand, he is unable to free himself from the preconceived opinion which influences him equally with the three friends, which admits no other suffering to be possible for men than that of penal retribution for sin (comp. Job_13:23; Job_13:26; Job_14:16 seq.). There arises thus a strange conflict between his conscience, which is comparatively pure, and the gloomy anxieties produced by that preconceived notion, and by the contemplation at the same time of his unspeakable wretchedness—a conflict which, in proportion as he neither can nor will relinquish his own righteousness, urges him to cast suspicion on God’s righteousness, and to accuse Him of merciless severity. This unsolved antinomy produces within him a temper of agonizing gloominess, which in Job_13:13 seq. expresses itself more in presumptuous bluster and Titan-like storming against God’s omnipotence, in Job_14:1 seq. more in a tone of elegiac lamentation and mourning. Immediately connected herewith is the melancholy, deeply tragical character which attaches to his utterances from beginning to end of this discourse. For it has been truly remarked of the passage in Job_12:7 seq., in which, with a view to surpass and eclipse that which had been said in the right direction by his three predecessors, he describes the absolute majesty of God in nature and in the history of humanity, that it is “a night-scene (Nachtgemälde), picturing the catastrophes which God brings to pass among the powers of the world of nature and of humanity;” and that the one-sidedly abstract, negative, repelling, rather than attractive representation of God’s wisdom, is the reflection of the midnight gloom of his own feelings, which permits him to contemplate God essentially only on the side of His majesty, His isolation from the world, and His destructive activity. [“For the wisdom of God, of which he speaks, is not the wisdom that orders the world in which one can confide, and in which one has the surety of seeing every mystery of life sooner or later gloriously solved; but this wisdom is something purely negative. … Of the justice of God he does not speak at all, for in the narrow idea of the friends he cannot recognize its control; and of the love of God he speaks as little as the friends, for as the sight of the Divine love is removed from them by the one-sidedness of their dogma, so is it from him by the feeling of the wrath of God which at present has possession of his whole being. Hegel has called the religion of the Old Testament the religion of sublimity; and it is true that, so long as that manifestation of love, the incarnation of the God head, was not yet realized, God must have relatively transcended the religious consciousness. From the book of Job, however, this view can be brought back to its right limits; for, according to the tendency of the book, neither the idea of God presented by the friends, nor by Job, is the pure undimmed notion of God that belongs to the Old Testament: The friends conceive of God as the absolute One, who acts only according to justice; Job conceives of Him as the absolute One, who acts according to the arbitrariness of His absolute power. According to the idea of the book, the former is dogmatic one-sidedness, the latter the conception of one passing through temptation. The God of the Old Testament consequently rules neither according to justice alone nor according to a ‘sublime whim.’ ” Delitzsch I.: 239, 240].
It has been still further truly remarked that the mournfulness of his lamentations over the hopeless disappearance of man in the eternal night of the grave—in contemplating which he is led to regard the changes which take place in the vegetable kingdom as more comforting and hope-inspiring than the issue of man’s life, with which he can compare only the processes of destruction and the catastrophes of inorganic nature (Job_14:7 seq., 18 seq.)—has its echo in classical heathenism in such passages as the following from Horace (Od. IV. 7, 1):
“Nos ubi decidimus
Quo pins Æneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
Pulvis et umbrasumus.”
Or like this from Homer (Il. VI. 146 seq.):
“Like the race of leaves
Is that of humankind. Upon the ground
The winds strew one year’s leaves; the sprouting wood
Puts forth another brood, that shoot and grow
In the spring season. So it is with man;
One generation grows while one decays;”
(Bryant’s Transl.)
Or like this meditation of Simonides (Anthol. Gr. Appendix, 83):
“Nought among men unchangeable endures.
Sublime the truth which he of Chios spoke:
‘Men’s generations are like those of leaves!’
Yet few are they who, having heard the truth
Lodge it within their hearts, for hope abides
With all, and in the breasts of youth is planted.”
Or like this elegy from Moschus (III. 106 seq.):
“The meanest herb we trample in the field,
Or in the garden nurture, when its leaf,
At winter’s touch is blasted, and its place
Forgotten, soon its vernal buds renews,
And, from short slumber, wakes to life again.
Man wakes no more!—man valiant, glorious, wise,
When death once chills him, sinks in sleep profound,
A long, unconscious, never-ending sleep.”
(Gisborne.)
Or like that saying of the Arabian panegyrist of Muhamed, Kaabi ben-Sohair:—“Every one born of Woman, let his good fortune last never so long, is at last borne away on the bier, etc.”: or like that still more impressive description in the Jagur Veda: “While the tree that has fallen sprouts again from the root, fresher than before, from what root does mortal man spring forth when he has fallen by the hand of death?”
Finally, it has been rightly shown that besides the tone of mourning and hopeless lamentation which sounds through this discourse, it is also pervaded by a tone of bitterness and grievous irritation on the part of Job. not only against the friends (this being most forcibly expressed in Job_4:7 seq.) but even in a measure against God, especially in those passages where he presumptuously undertakes to argue with Him (Job_13:13 seq.), and where he even reproaches Him with making fictitious and arbitrary additions to His list of charges, after the manner of the friends when they calumniated him and invented falsehoods against him (Job_14:17; see on the passage). A singular contrast with this tone of defiant accusations is furnished in the plaintive pleading tone with which he submits the twofold condition on which he is willing to prosecute his controversy with God, to wit, that God would allow a respite for a season from his sufferings, and that He would not terrify and confound him with His majesty (Job_13:20-22). It is everywhere the terrible idea of a God who deals with men purely according to His arbitrary caprice, not according to the motives of righteousness and a Father’s love, this “phantom which the temptation has presented before his dim vision instead of the true God,”—it is this which drives him to these passionate outbreaks, which in several respects remind us of the attitude of a hero of Greek tragedy towards the fearful might of an inexorable Fate. [“This phantom is still the real God to him, but in other respects in no way differing from the inexorable ruling fate of the Greek tragedy. As in this the hero of the drama seeks to maintain his personal freedom against the mysterious power that is crushing him with an iron arm, so Job, even at the risk of sudden destruction, maintains the steadfast conviction of his innocence in opposition to a God who has devoted him, as an evil-doer, to slow but certain destruction. It is the same battle of freedom against necessity as in the Greek tragedy. Accordingly one is obliged to regard it as an error, arising from simple ignorance, when it has been recently maintained that the boundless oriental imagination is not equal to such a truly exalted task as that of representing in art and poetry the power of the human spirit, and the maintenance of its dignity in the conflict with hostile powers, because a task that can only be accomplished by an imagination formed with a perception of the importance of recognizing ascertained phenomena. In treating this subject, the book of Job not only attains to, but rises far above, the height attained by the Greek tragedy; for on the one hand it brings this conflict before us in all the fearful earnestness of a death-struggle; on the other however it does not leave us to the cheerless delusion that an absolute caprice moulds human destiny. This tragic conflict with the Divine necessity is but the middle, not the beginning nor the end, of the book; for this god of fate is not the real God, but a delusion of Job’s temptation. Human freedom does not succumb, but it comes forth from the battle, which is a refining fire to it as conqueror. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unexplained, is here cleared up. The book certainly presents much which, from its tragic character, suggests this idea of destiny, but it is not its final aim—it goes far beyond: it does not end in the destruction of its here by fate; but the end is the destruction of the idea of this fate itself.” Delitzsch I. 242 sec.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The points of light which these three chapters exhibit in a doctrinal and ethical respect, have a background of gloom, here and there of profound blackness. The homiletic expositor nevertheless finds in them in rich abundance both texts for exhortation and comfort, and themes for didactic edification. Here belongs of course the beautiful passage containing the physico-theological argument for an infinitely powerful and wise Maker and Ruler of the world (Job_12:7-12)—a passage which in detail indeed exhibits no progressive development, but which does nevertheless present an occasion for such a teleologic advance of thought, in so far as it dwells first on the animal world, then on the realm of human life and its organic functions, in order to produce from both witnesses for a Supreme Wisdom ordering all things. But here still further belongs the description which follows of the Divine majesty and strength which display themselves in the catastrophes of human history (Job_12:13-25),—a description which may be made the foundation of reflections in the sphere of historical theology, or ethical theology, as well as the physico-theological argument. Here belongs again the passage which follows, in which Job sharply censures the unfriendly judgment and invidious carping of his opponents (Job_13:1-12)—a passage which reminds us in many respects of New Testament teachings, as e. g. of Mat_7:1-5, and of Mat_23:2 seq.—Finally, we may put in this class the lamentation in the closing division, especially in Job 14, over the vanity and perishableness of the life of man on earth, which is compared now to a driven leaf, now to the process of mouldering, or being devoured by the moth, now to a fading flower, or a rock worn away and hollowed out by the waters, together with those passages which are interwoven with this lamentation, in which he glances at the beginning of life, poisoned by sin, and at its dismal outlook in the future appointed for it after death by the Divine justice, which is contemplated by itself, isolated from grace and mercy.—The following extracts from the older and later practical expositors may serve to indicate how these themes may be individually treated.
Job_13:7-10 Brentius: All creatures proclaim the Creator, and cry out in speech that cannot be described: God has made me—as Paul also says (Rom_1:19; comp. Psa_19:1 seq.). If any one therefore properly considers the nature of beasts, birds, fishes, he will discover the wonderful wisdom of the Creator (—certain examples of the same being here brought forward, such as the instinct which the deer and the partridge exhibit, the wonderful strength of the little sucking-fish [Echineïs]). Thus by the natures of animals the invisible majesty of God is made visible and manifest. For not only did God create all things, but He also preserves, nourishes and sustains all things: the breath, whether of beasts or of men, is all lodged in His hand.—Cocceius: What all these things severally contribute to the knowledge of the Creator, as it would be a most useful subject of thought, so it is too vast to be here set forth by us. Suffice it that Natural Theology is here established by Job.… When he says “this” (זֹאת, Job_13:9), he doubtless points out individual things. He thus confesses that every single thing was made and is governed by God, not only masses of things, and the universe as a whole, as the Jews dream. In fact individual animals, plants, etc., utter their testimony to the Divine efficiency.… These opinions, either by the light of nature, or the intercourse of the fathers, were transmitted even to the gentiles.—Hengstenberg: In order to make the wisdom of the friends quite contemptible, Job attributes to the animals a knowledge of the Divine omnipotence and wisdom, their existence being an eloquent proof of those attributes, so that they can become teachers of the man who should be so blind and foolish as to fail to know the divine omnipotence and wisdom. That which can be learned from brutes, that as to which we may go to school to them, Job will not be so foolish as not to know, neither will he need to learn it first from his wise friends. …Just as here the animals, so in Psalms 19 the heavens are represented as declaring the glory of God, which is revealed in them. Jehovah, the most profound in significance of the Divine names, here bursts forth suddenly out of its concealment, the lower names of God being in this connection unsatisfactory. Jehovah, Jahveh, the One who Is, the absolute, pure Being, is most appropriately the name by which to designate the First Cause of all existences.
Job_12:11-13. Cocceius: If the mind judges concerning those things which are presented either by signs, such as words, or by themselves, as food to the palate, whether they are true or false, useful or injurious; if by experience (by which many things are seen, heard, examined), by the knowledge of very many things, and of things hidden, and by sagacity it is fitted to make a proper use of things—does it not behoove that God, who gave these things should be omniscient without weakness, nay, with fulness of power, so that all things must obey His nod? For He beholds not, like man, that which belongs to another, but that which is His own. Nevertheless neither is judgment given to man for nought, but so that he may have some power of doing that which is useful, of refusing, or of not accepting that which is hurtful. Much less is God’s wisdom to be exercised apart from omnipotence or sovereignty over all creatures.
Job_12:16 seq. Cramer: Not only true but also false teachers are God’s property; but He uses the latter for punishment (2Th_2:10), yet in such a way that He knows how to bring forth good out of their ill beginning. The Lord is a great king over all gods; all that the earth produces is in His hand (Psa_95:3); even false religions must serve His purposes (comp. Oecolampadius, who remarks on Job_12:16 b: I refer this to ψευδοθρησκείας, or false religions, of which the whole earth is full; he says here, that they come to be by His nod and permission). Such might and majesty He display’s particularly toward the mighty kings of earth, to whom He gives lands and people, and takes them away again, as He wills (Dan_4:29).—Zeyss: Rulers, and those who occupy their place, should diligently pray to God that He would keep them from foolish and destructive measures (in diets, council-chambers, in regard to wars, etc.), in order that they may not plunge themselves and their subjects into great distress (1Ki_3:9).
Job_13:14 seq. Brentius: You see from this passage that it is harder to endure the liability and dread of death than death itself. For it is not hard to die, seeing that whether disease precedes or not, death itself is sudden; but to hear in the conscience the sentence of death (soil.—Thou shalt surely die!) this indeed is most hard! This voice no man can hear without despair, unless, on the other hand, the Lord should say to our soul: I am thy salvation!—Wohlfarth: “Earthly things lost—little lost; honor lost—much lost; God lost—all lost!” thus does Job admonish us.
Job_13:23-28. Oecolampadius: See the stages by which the calamities come, swelling one above the other. (1) To begin with, the face is hidden, and friendship is withheld; then (2) enmity is even declared; (3) persecution follows, and that without mercy, or regard for frailty; (4) reproaches and grave accusations are employed, and the memory of past delinquencies is revived; (5) guards are imposed, lest he should escape, and fetters in which he must rot. (Mercier and others, including of late Hengstenberg, have called attention to these same five stages.)—Zeyss (on Job_13:24): Besides the external affliction, internal trials are generally added.—(On Job_13:26): Even the sins of youth God brings to judgment in His own time (Psa_25:7). Think of that, young men and women, and flee youthful lusts!
Job_14:1 seq. Brentius: Man’s misery is set forth by the simile of the flower; for bodily beauty and durability can be compared to nothing more suitably than to the flower and the shadow.…Verily with what miseries man is filled, is too well known to need reciting. For nowhere is there any state or condition of men which does not have its own cross and tribulation; and thus all things everywhere are filled with crosses.…The thing to be done, therefore, is not to shun the cross, but to lay hold on Christ, in whom every cross is most easily borne.—Zeyss: Although no man is by nature pure and holy (Job_14:4), true believers nevertheless possess through Christ a two-fold purity: (1) in respect of their justification; (2) in respect of their sanctification and renewal: Heb_1:3; Heb_9:14; 1Jn_1:7, etc.
Job_14:7 seq. Zeyss: As a tree sprouts up again, so will men, who have been cut down by the axe of death, germinate again out of the grave on the Last Day; Joh_5:28-29.—Hengstenberg: The prospect of a future life here vanishes away from Job. How indeed could it be otherwise, seeing that he has lost altogether out of his consciousness and experience the true nature of God, on which that hope rests, God’s justice and mercy? In these circumstances the belief in an endless life must of necessity perish within him, for to this faith there was not given until the latter part of the Old Dispensation any firm declaration from God to which it could cling, while before that it existed rather in the form of a longing, a yearning, a hope. Further on, however, [in Job’s history] it again recovers its power.
Job_14:13-17 : See Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 1.
Job_14:18 seq. Cramer: Nothing on earth is so firmly established, but it must perish; and they who occupy themselves with the things of earth, must perish in them (Sir_14:20 seq.; 1Jn_2:16 seq.).—Zeyss: Although mountains, stones and rocks, yea, all that is in the world, are subject to change, God’s word, and the grace therein promised for believers, stand fast forever; Psa_117:2; Isa_54:10.—Vict. Andreæ: Like an armed power the feeling of his present cheerless condition again overpowers Job, and again the feeble spark is extinguished, which had just before (Job_14:13-17), illumined his soul with so tender a gleam of hope. To his former reflections on nature (Job_14:7-12) he now opposes the fact, no less true, that even that which is most enduring in nature itself, such as mountains, rocks, and soils, must gradually decay. And so it seems to him now, in accordance with this fact, as though human life also were destined by God only to endless annihilation. Death it is—with its pale features so suddenly disfiguring the human countenance—which again stands in all its horror, and annihilating power, before his despairing soul!
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 not inferior--not vanquished in argument and "wisdom" (Job 13:2).
not inferior--not vanquished in argument and "wisdom" (Job 13:2).
such things as these--such commonplace maxims as you so pompously adduce.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 JOB’S THIRD REPLY, Job_12:12-14.
JOB’S THIRD REPLY, Job_12:12-14.
1. Job answered — He scouts the pompous pretensions of the “friends” to superior wisdom, which, however, he remarks, do not prevent their treating misfortune with contempt. A single matter-of-fact utterance, (Job_12:6,) foils all their laboured arguments — a fact which they should have learned from the most ordinary view of society. The inferior creation is ready to instruct man, if he will but listen, instead of pluming himself with the wise saws of the ancients, which Job says are not to be accepted until they have been fully tested. Infinite in knowledge and in power, God holds all events and results in his hands; and his wisdom and might are not less mysterious and inexplicable in his providence over men than in the worlds of nature. (Chap. 13.) Conscious of innocence, and assured that he will not find justice at the hands of men, who, for various reasons, are ever ready to pervert the truth, Job takes the only course open to him, and formally, as in open court, makes his appeal to God. He is painfully sensible that he takes his life in his hands; and yet, such is his faith in God and in truth, that he triumphantly declares that if God should smite him down he would still hold fast to his faith — even in death God should be his salvation. Though pain, passion, and despair burn within him, the flame that lifts itself to sight is one of blended faith and hope which nothing can extinguish. His appeal commences with a bold and unjustifiable challenge, (23-28,) and ends in a heart-rending wail. Chap. 14. Heir of a fleeting existence, which brings with it the taint of corruption, Job pleads the miserable lot of man as a reason for clemency on the part of God. For vegetation there is a possible renewal of life, but for man there is none in this present world, not even till the heavens be no more. His one striking prayer is, that he may be hidden in the grave until the present dark scheme shall have ended, and another day have dawned, when God shall try the cause of Job under an economy different from that which now prevails (Job_12:15). In a scene where even rocks and mountains waste away, man can cherish but little, if any, hope. A gloom rests upon the whole of mortal life, “which is lighted up as by a lightning flash, only by the possibility of another life after death.” — Dillmann. This, the last and greatest address of Job in the first debate, divides itself according to the chapters, the first of which is in two sections of about equal length.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–25 2. ye are the people] Sarcastic admiration of the…
2. ye are the people] Sarcastic admiration of the wisdom of his three friends, cf. ch. Job_11:6. “The people” does not seem to mean the right people, persons worthy of the name of “people;” rather “the people” is used as three other persons, well known to history, employed it, when they said, “We, the people of England.” It means the whole people; hence Job adds, “Wisdom will die with you.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 14, 18, 19, 23 (1) And Job answered and said.—Each of the friends…
XII.
(1) And Job answered and said.—Each of the friends has now supplied his quota, and Job proceeds to reply to the third, showing that he is far more conversant with the wisdom and majesty of God than they are themselves, though in their own esteem they alone are wise.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–25 The discourse of Job, here begun, continues through three…
The discourse of Job, here begun, continues through three chapters (ch. 12, 13, 14). It is thought to form the conclusion of the first day"s colloquy. In it Job for the first time really pours scorn upon his friends, and makes a mock of them. (see vers. 2, 8, 20 Job_13:4-13) This, however,is a secondary matter; his main object is to justify his previous assertions,
(1) that the whole course of mundane events, whether good or evil, must be attributed to God (vers. 6-25);
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(2) that his sufferings entitle him to plead with God, and demand to know why he is so punished. (Job_13:3-28) A comparatively mild expostulation concludes the first series of speeches (ch. 14).
Vers. 1, 2. And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people. Bitterly ironical. Ye are those to whom alone it belongs to speak the only "people" to whom attention is due. And wisdom shall die with you. "At your death," i.e. , "all wisdom will have fled the earth; there will be no one left who knows anything." At least, no doubt, you think so.
Vers. 1-5. Job to Zophar: 1. The conduct of the friends criticized.
I ARROGANT ASSUMPTION REPELLED.
1. With sarcastic admiration. "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you." Irony is a weapon difficult and dangerous to use, apt to wound the hand that wields it as well as the heart that feels it, and seldom becoming on the lips of any, least of all of good men. Admirably adapted to sting and lacerate, it rarely improves or conciliates those against whom it is directed. Yet, not being absolutely sinful, it may be employed with success against arrogant pretension and haughty assumption. Elijah on Mount Carmel, (1Ki_18:27) and St. Paul in his Epistles, (Gal_5:15 Php_3:2 1Co_4:8) used satire with remarkable effect. Job also in the present instance may be held as justified in retorting on Zophar and his colleagues, whose conduct richly deserved castigation.
2. With vehement self-assertion. "But I have understanding literally, "a heart as well as you; I am not inferior to you literally, "I fall not beneath or behind you." Modesty, which at all times becomes good men, (Pro_30:3 Dan_2:30 Joh_1:27 2Co_3:5) and is specially enjoined upon God"s people, (Psa_25:9 Mic_6:8) and Christ"s followers, (Mat_5:3 Mat_18:4 Rom_12:3 Col_3:12 1Pe_5:5) need not prevent a frank self-assertion when one is, like Job, unjustly aspersed. It is sometimes false humility to sit with uncomplaining silence beneath the tongue of slander. Provided one indulge not in extravagant assertion, and assume not the credit of gifts and graces which have descended from above, a man may honestly and even boldly maintain his intellectual and moral worth, should these appear to be maliciously traduced. Job might have safely claimed to surpass his antagonists in mental capacity and acquaintance with the culture of the day, in ripe personal experience and ability to interpret the ways of God to man; but with much modesty he only aspires to be their equal, to have a heart (Anglice"a head, a brain) as well as they, and not to be the shallow-pated witling, or wild ass"s colt, they insinuated.
3. With scornful contempt. "Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?" The sublime wisdom with which they sought to overwhelm him was the veriest commonplace; their much-paraded teaching but a string of threadbare maxims, "familiar in the mouth as household words," of which he himself could supply an endless series of examples, as beautiful and more correct which he does in the present chapter. It is a just ground of complaint when old and hackneyed sentiments in morals or religion, science or philosophy, are served up with the air of, and made to do duty for, original discoveries. Yet it is proper to remember that truth once apprehended by the mind does not deteriorate, or become less valuable, by age. Besides, it is of more consequence that a doctrine should be true than that it should be new. Still, new truth, or, what is often mistaken for such, new aspects of old truths, possess a singular fascination for vigorous and independent minds.
II UNKIND BEHAVIOUR RESENTED.
1. Its character described. "I am as one mocked of his neighbour;" "The just upright man is laughed to scorn." By serving up such trite platitudes as Job had listened to, they had simply been converting him and his calamities into a laughing-stock, because they saw him standing on the sharp edge of ruin, as a traveller might cast away "a despised lamp," of which he had no further need. To make a man the subject of laughter, the butt of ridicule, the object of scornful wit on account of either personal appearance, (Gen_21:9) bodily infirmity, (2Ki_2:23) providential adversity, (Lam_2:15) or religious character, (Psa_42:3) is severely reprehended by the Word of God. (Pro_3:34 Pro_17:5 Pro_30:17) Yet good men may expect to receive such treatment at the hands of worldly unbelievers and nominal professors, since the like was meted out to Christ, (Mat_26:67, 68 27:27-31 Luk_23:35) David, (Psa_22:7 Psa_35:16 Psa_69:11, Psa_69:12) and the apostles, (Act_2:13) to Old Testament saints, (2Ch_30:10 1Ki_22:24 Heb_11:36) and New Testament preachers (Act_17:32) and disciples. (Jud_1:18)
2. Its aggravations recited. These were twofold.
(1) Job, who had been subjected to this scornful laceration, had been
(a) a good man, personally just and upright, and therefore such a one as saints should not have ridiculed;
(b) one who had enjoyed confidential communications with Heaven a man of prayer, who had called upon God and been answered by him and therefore not a person to be lightly spoken of or to; and
(c) a miserable sufferer overtaken by adversity one who was "ready to slip with his feet," and on that account all the more requiring to be comforted instead of scorned.
(2) They who had scorned him had been
(a) his neighbours, his friends, at whose hands he should rather have received pity; (Job_6:14) and
(b) were themselves in the enjoyment of ease, which might have kindled in their flinty bosoms a spark of sympathy for his misfortunes.
3. Its extenuation stated. It was common. "Contempt for the weak, who totter and fall on slippery paths, is the habitual impulse of those who stand firmly on the firm ground of security, and see no reason why other men should not be as vigorous and "resolute" and prosperous as themselves" (Cox). The world worships success; failure is its unpardonable sin. When fortune smiles upon a person he is known of all; when adversity engulfs him, he is forgotten by all. (Job_8:18) Recall the language of Buckingham on his way to execution: "This from a dying man receive as certain," etc. ("King Henry VIII," Ac 2. sc., 1); and Mark Antony"s address over Ceasar"s dead body: "But yesterday," etc. (Julius Caesar," act 3. sc. 2).
Learn:
1. If adversity has its uses, prosperity has its dangers, being prone to engender self-conceit, arrogance, lack of sympathy, and contempt for others.
2. Wisdom is the noblest excellence of man; yet of wisdom no man enjoys a monopoly.
3. It is no disparagement to truth to be styled commonplace, since precisely as it becomes commonplace does it accomplish its mission.
4. As prayer will not always hinder persecution, so neither should persecution by either friends or foes be allowed to extinguish prayer.
5. Few faults of men are so completely bad that no sort of extenuation can be discovered for them.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-6. The resentment of a wounded spirit.
Repeated reproaches and accusations falling upon the conscience of an innocent man sting him into self-defence. They may do a service by rousing him out of stupor and weakness, and may bring to light the nobler qualities of his soul. We are indebted to the slanders of the Corinthians for some of the noblest self-revelations of St. Paul.
I OUTBURST OF INDIGNANT SCORN. (Vers. 1-3) With bitter irony Job rebukes the assumption of these men to know better than himself concerning matters which belonged to the common stock of intelligence, and in which he was in no wise inferior to them. To claim superior knowledge over others is always offensive. To do so against a sick and broken man from the vantage-ground of health and prosperity is nothing less than a cruelty. And to make this pretension in matters of common tradition and acceptance, where all stand about on a level, is an insult to the sufferer"s understanding.
II INDIGNANT REMONSTRANCE AGAINST THE COURSE OF THE WORLD. (Vers. 4-6)
1. Cruel inversions of life. Job, who in his just and innocent life, had hitherto stood in confidential relations with God, who had prayed and whose prayers had been heard, is now a butt for laughter and scorn. He calls now and God no longer hears (ver. 4).
2. The injustice of human opinion. (Ver. 5) "Contempt belongs to misfortune, in the opinion of the secure." A true description of the opinion of the world. If "nothing succeeds like success; then nothing damns like failure in the common opinion of the unfeeling world. "It awaits those whose foot is slipping." As the herd of wolves turn upon the sick and fallen brute, so the thoughtless man tramples upon the man who is down. To those who are banded together by the tie of selfish pleasure only or convenience, the very sight of that which interferes for a moment with their content is hateful. How different the sanctified instincts of pity, compassion, and helpfulness which Christ has planted in his society, the Church! It is the mission of the Christian community to leaven with its principles the heartless mass of society. On the other hand, nothing succeeds like success; "restful dwellings" (ver. 6) and confident security are enjoyed by the wasters or desolators who by word and deed hold God in contempt, and think to make him bend to their purposes. The rude man of violence, who owns no law but that of the strong hand, thinks that where force is there is God, and all must bow to force as if to God. So he "taketh God in his hand;" he "imputes his power unto his god;" he sacrifices to his net, and burns incense unto his drag. (Hab_1:11, Hab_1:16) His motto is like that of the impious warrior, "My right hand is god" (Virg., AEn." 10:773, "Dextra mihi deus"). J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-6. Contempt the lot of misfortune.
Job is driven to retort. He affirms his own competency to speak. He claims equality with his would-be teachers, whose words are yet far from healing or comforting his sorely afflicted heart. "I have understanding as well as you." But to him belongs the contempt which is the lot of misfortune. Sad is the story told in a sentence here, but repeated in every day"s history and in every land and every age. The selfish heart, rising to a higher level of prosperity, looks down, and looks contemptuously down, on him over whom Misfortune casts her dark shade. "The just upright man is laughed to scorn." Note the truth of this, its wrong and its remedy.
I UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE TESTIFIES TO THIS THAT CONTEMPT IS THE LOT OF MISFORTUNE. The testimony comes up from a thousand sufferers towards whom fortune has shown no favour. The wounds may be deep, the pangs of sorrow keen; dark desolation may encompass; but the joyful, the well-to-do, on whom the smile of prosperity rests, become incompetent to descend to the lowly lot. On such the tale of woe makes little impression. There is a sad, if not even natural, revulsion from the mere sight of suffering, and the step is easy from this to the bitter, scathing complaint, "Ah! he brought it all upon himself!" From Job"s days downward the same has been ever seen. Prosperity seems to blind the eyes, to harden the heart, to withdraw the sympathies even from the friend overtaken in misfortune. It is an interruption to ease and felicity, to quiet and comfort. And Well-to-do resists as impertinent the appeals of the victim of misfortune; or, as here, takes up an accusation against him, and treats him as an offender. Everywhere the truth of this is seen. "He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thoughts of him that is at ease;
II IT IS NOT MORE GENERAL THAN IT IS WRONG. It is unworthy, unbrotherly, unneighbourlike. The great Teacher hit the evil with his hard words, and exposed for ever to the gaze of men the self-sufficiency of the prosperous one and his carelessness as to the condition of the sufferer. He passes by on the other side, indisposed to help the poor wretch lying in his blood, stript and sore. Pride fills the heart to overflowing that is well-nigh full of treasure. There is little room in it for sympathy and pity, and the tender communion of sorrow. He who is lifted up does not feel that the lot of him who is trodden down is any affair of his. He cannot be hindered on his way. Shame upon the heart that is so far forgetful of the common interest that it leaves the needy and sad, and finds itself absorbed in its own comfort! The curl of contempt upon the lip and the hard word upon the tongue Job fathomed this depth, and in the bitterness of his soul rebukes the wrong.
III WE TURN TO OTHER WORDS FOR THE CORRECTION OF THIS ERROR. True, Job by his irony accuses his severe friends, who transport themselves into accusers. In their hard words he traces the contempt of which he complains, and takes his lot with others who suffer like himself. He is not unmindful of the true Source of help. He is one who "calleth upon God." lie retains his integrity, and the consciousness of it gives him support even under this trouble. "The just upright man is laughed to scorn." But the assurance of his uprightness is a deep consolation. Here, then, are the true sources of help. The tested faith in God will find its reward, and the testimony of a good conscience is of price untold. By these Job is upheld, and by that strength which is secretly imparted to all faithful ones who call upon God, though it may seem as though they were abandoned and forgotten. If the "neighbour" mocketh, the righteous Judge does not mock; and though the trial is permitted and continued, a Divine and gracious end is reserved which Job lived fully to prove. R.G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 13, 20 But I have understanding as well as you.
Job_12:1-5
But I have understanding as well as you.
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The effect of the friends speeches upon Job
The whole world, Job feels, is against him, and he is left forlorn and solitary, unpitied in his misery, unguided in his perplexity. And he may well feel so. All the religious thought of his day, all the traditions of the past, all the wisdom of the patriarchal Church, if I may use, as I surely may, the expression, is on one side. He, that solitary sufferer and doubter, is on the other. And this is not all, or the worst. His own habits of thought, his own training, are arrayed against him. He had been nursed, it is abundantly clear, in the same creed as those who feel forced to play the part of his spiritual advisers. The new and terrible experience of this crushing affliction, of this appalling visitation, falling upon one who had passed his life in the devout service of God, strikes at the very foundation of the faith on which that life, so peaceful, so pious, and so blessed, as it has been put before us in the prologue to the tragedy, has been based and built up. All seems against him; his friends, his God, his pains and anguish, his own tumultuous thoughts; all but one voice within, which will not be silenced or coerced. How easy for him, had he been reared in a heathen creed, to say, My past life must have been a delusion; my conscience has borne me false witness. I did justice, I loved mercy, I walked humbly with my God. But I must in some way, I know not how, have offended a capricious and arbitrary, but an all-powerful and remorseless Being. I will allow with you that that life was all vitiated by some act of omission or of commission of which I know nothing. Him therefore who has sent His furies to plague me, I will now try to propitiate. But no! Job will not come before his God, a God of righteousness, holiness, and truth, with a lie on his lips. And so he now stands stubbornly at bay, and in this and the following two chapters he bursts forth afresh with a strain of scorn and upbraiding that dies away into despair, as he turns from his human tormentors, once his friends, to the God who seems, like them, to have become his foe, but to whom he clings with an indomitable tenacity. (Dean Bradley.)
Independency of thought in religion
Now in these verses Job asserts his moral manhood, he rises from the pressure of his sufferings and the loads of sophistry and implied calumny which his friends had laid upon his spirit, speaks out with the heart of a true man. We have an illustration of independency of thought in religion, and this shall be our subject. A man though crushed in every respect, like Job, should not surrender this.
I. From the capacity of the soul.
1. Man has a capacity to form conceptions of the cardinal principles of religion. He can think of God, the soul, duty, moral obligation, Christ, immortality, etc.
2. Man has a capacity to realise the practical force of these conceptions. He can turn them into emotions to fire his soul; he can embody--them as principles in his life.
II. From the despotism of corrupt religion. Corrupt religion, whether Pagan or Christian, Papal or Protestant, always seeks to crush this independency in the individual soul.
III. From the necessary means of personal religion. Religion in the soul begins in individual thinking.
IV. From the conditions of moral usefulness. Every man is bound to be spiritually useful, but he cannot be so without knowledge, and knowledge implies independent study and conviction.
V. From the teachings of the Bible. The very existence of the Bible implies our power and obligation in this matter.
VI. From the transactions of the judgment. In the great day of God men will have to give an account of their thoughts and words as well as deeds. Let us, therefore, have the spirit of Job, and when amongst bigots who seek to impose their views on us and override our judgment, let us say, No doubt ye are the people, end wisdom shall die with you; but I have understanding as well as you. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
XII.
BEYOND FACT AND FEAR TO GOD
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JOB 12-14
JOB SPEAKS
ZOPHAR excites in Jobs mind great irritation, which must not be set down altogether to the fact that he is the third to speak. In some respects he has made the best attack from the old position, pressing most upon the conscience of Job. He has also used a curt positive tone in setting out the method and principle of Divine government and the judgment he has formed of his friends state. Job is accordingly the more impatient, if not disconcerted. Zophar had spoken of the want of understanding Job had shown, and the penetrating wisdom of God which at a glance convicts men of iniquity. His tone provoked resentment. Who is this that claims to have solved the enigmas of providence, to have gone into the depths of wisdom? Does he know any more, he himself, than the wild asss colt?
And Job begins with stringent irony-
"No doubt but ye are the people
And wisdom shall die with you."
The secrets of thought, of revelation itself are yours. No doubt the world waited to be taught till you were born. Do you not think so? But, after all, I also have a share of understanding, I am not quite so void of intellect as you seem to fancy. Besides, who knoweth not such things as ye speak? Are they new? I had supposed them to be commonplaces. Yea, if you recall what I said, you will find that with a little more vigour than yours I made the same declarations.
"A laughing stock to his neighbours am I,
I who called upon Eloah and He answered me, -
A laughing stock, the righteous and perfect man."
Job sees or thinks he sees that his misery makes him an object of contempt to men who once gave him the credit of far greater wisdom and goodness than their own. They are bringing out old notions, which are utterly useless, to explain the ways of God; they assume the place of teachers; they are far better, far wiser now than he. It is more than flesh can bear.
As he looks at his own diseased body and feels again his weakness, the cruelty of the conventional judgment stings him. "In the thought of him that is at ease there is for misfortune scorn; it awaiteth them that slip with the foot." Perhaps Job was mistaken, but it is too often true that the man who fails in a social sense is the man suspected. Evil things are found in him when he is covered with the dust of misfortune, things which no one dreamed of before. Flatterers become critics and judges. They find that he has a bad heart or that he is a fool.
But if those very good and wise friends of Job are astonished at anything previously said, they shall be more astonished. The facts which their account of Divine providence very carefully avoided as inconvenient Job will blurt out. They have stated and restated, with utmost complacency, their threadbare theory of the government of God. Let them look now abroad in the world and see what actually goes on, blinking no facts.
The tents of robbers prosper. Out in the desert there are troops of bandits who are never overtaken by justice; and they that provoke God are secure, who carry a god in their hand, whose sword and the reckless daring with which they use it make them to all appearance safe in villainy. These are the things to be accounted for; and, accounting for them, Job launches into a most emphatic argument to prove all that is done in the world strangely and inexplicably to be the doing of God. As to that he will allow no question. His friends shall know that he is sound on this head. And let them provide the defence of Divine righteousness after he has spoken.
Here, however, it is necessary to consider in what way the limitations of Hebrew thought must have been felt by one who, turning from the popular creed, sought a view more in harmony with fact. Now-a-days the word nature is often made to stand for a force or combination of forces conceived of as either entirely or partially independent of God. Tennyson makes the distinction when he speaks of man:
"Who trusted God was love indeed
And love creations final law,
Though nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravin, shrieked against the creed,"
and again when he asks-
"Are God and nature then at strife
That nature lends such evil dreams,
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life?"
Now to this question, perplexing enough on the face of it when we consider what suffering there is in the creation, how the waves of life seem to beat and break themselves age after age on the rocks of death, the answer in its first stage is that God and nature cannot be at strife. They are not apart; there is but one universe, therefore one Cause. One Omnipotent there is whose will is done, whose character is shown in all we see and all we cannot see, the issues of endless strife, the long results of perennial evolution. But then comes the question, What is His character, of what spirit is He who alone rules, who sends after the calm the fierce storm, after the beauty of life the corruption of death? And one may say the struggle between Bible religion and modern science is on this very field.
Cold heartless power, say some; no Father, but an impersonal Will to which men are nothing, human joy and love nothing, to which the fair blossom is no more than the clod, and the holy prayer no better than the vile sneer. On this, faith arises to the struggle. Faith warm and hopeful takes reason into counsel, searches the springs of existence, goes forth into the future and forecasts the end, that it may affirm and reaffirm against all denial that One Omnipotent reigns who is all-loving, the Father of infinite mercy. Here is the arena; here the conflict rages and will rage for many a day. And to him will belong the laurels of the age who, with the Bible in one hand and the instruments of science in the other, effects the reconciliation of faith with fact. Tennyson came with the questions of our day. He passes and has not given a satisfactory answer. Carlyle has gone with the "Everlasting Yea and No" beating through his oracles. Even Browning, a later athlete, did not find complete reason for faith.
"From Thy will stream the worlds, life, and nature, Thy dread sabaoth."
Now return to Job. He considers nature; he believes in God; he stands firmly on the conviction that all is of God. Hebrew faith held this, and was not limited in holding it, for it is the fact. But we cannot wonder that providence disconcerted him, since the reconcilation of "merciless" nature and the merciful God is not even yet wrought out. Notwithstanding the revelation of Christ, many still find themselves in darkness just when light is most urgently craved. Willing to believe, they yet lean to a dualism which makes God Himself appear in conflict with the scheme of things, thwarted now and now repentant, gracious in design but not always in effect. Now the limitation of the Hebrew was this, that to his idea the infinite power of God was not balanced by infinite mercy, that is, by regard to the whole work of His hands. In one stormy dash after another Job is made to attempt this barrier. At moments he is lifted beyond it, and sees the great universe filled with Divine care that equals power; for the present, however, he distinguishes between merciful intent and merciless, and ascribes both to God.
What does he say? God is in the deceived and in the deceiver; they are both products of nature, that is, creatures of God. He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. Cities arise and become populous. The great metropolis is filled with its myriads, "among whom are six-score thousand that cannot discern between their right hand and their left." The city shall fulfil its cycle and perish. It is God. Searching for reconciliation Job looks the facts of human existence right in the face, and he sees a confusion, the whole enigma which lies in the constitution of the world and of the soul. Observe how his thought moves. The beasts, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, all living beings everywhere, not self-created, with no power to shape or resist their destiny, bear witness to the almightiness of God. In His hand is the lower creation; in His hand also, rising higher, is the breath of all mankind. Absolute, universal is that power, dispensing life and death as it broods over the ages. Men have sought to understand the ways of the Great Being. The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meat. Is there wisdom with the ancient, those who live long, as Bildad says? Yes: but with God are wisdom and strength; not penetration only, but power. He discerns and does. He demolishes, and there is no rebuilding. Man is imprisoned, shut up by misfortune, by disease. It is Gods decree, and there is no opening till He allows. At His will the waters are dried up; at His will they pour in torrents over the earth. And so amongst men there are currents of evil and good flowing through lives, here in the liar and cheat, there in the victim of knavery; here in the counsellors whose plans come to nothing; there in the judges who sagacity is changed to folly; and all these currents, and cross currents, making life a bewildering maze, have their beginning in the will of God, who seems to take pleasure in doing what is strange and baffling. Kings take men captive; the bonds of the captives are loosed, and the kings themselves are bound. What are princes and priests, what are the mighty to Him? What is the speech of the eloquent? Where is the understanding of the aged when He spreads confusion? Deep as in the very gloom of the grave the ambitious may hide their schemes; the flux of events brings them out to judgment, one cannot foresee how. Nations are raised up and destroyed; the chiefs of the people are made to fear like children. Trusted leaders wander in a wilderness; they grope in midnight gloom; they stagger like the drunken. Behold, says Job, all this I have seen. This is Gods doing. And with this great God he would speak; he, a man, would have things out with the Lord of all. {Job_13:3}
This impetuous passage, full of revolution, disaster, vast mutations, a phantasmagoria of human struggle and defeat, while it supplies a note of time and gives a distinct clue to the writers position as an Israelite, is remarkable for the faith that survives its apparent pessimism. Others have surveyed the world and the history of change, and have protested with their last voice against the cruelty that seemed to rule. As for any God, they could never trust one whose will and power were to be found alike in the craft of the deceiver and the misery of the victim, in the baffling of sincere thought and the overthrow of the honest with the vile. But Job trusts on. Beneath every enigma, he looks for reason; beyond every disaster, to a Divine end. The voices of men have come between him and the voice of the Supreme. Personal disaster has come between him and his sense of God. His thought is not free. If it were, he would catch the reconciling word, his soul would hear the music of eternity. "I would reason with God." He clings to God-given reason as his instrument of discovery.
Very bold is this whole position, and very reverent also, if you will think of it; far more honouring to God than any attempt of the friends who, as Job says, appear to hold the Almighty no better than a petty chief, so insecure in His position that He must be grateful to any one who will justify His deeds. "Poor God, with nobody to help Him." Job uses all his irony in exposing the folly of such a religion, the impertinence of presenting it to him as a solution and a help. In short, he tells them, they are pious quacks, and, as he will have none of them for his part, he thinks God will not either. The author is at the very heart of religion here. The word of reproof and correction, the plea for providence must go straight to the reason of man, or it is of no use. The word of the Lord must be a two-edged sword of truth, piercing to the dividing asunder even of soul and spirit. That is to say, into the centre of energy the truth must be driven which kills the spirit of rebellion, so that the will of man, set free, may come into conscious and passionate accord with the will of God. But reconciliation is impossible unless each will deal in the utmost sincerity with truth, realising the facts of existence, the nature of the soul and the great necessities of its discipline. To be true in theology we must not accept what seems to be true, nor speak forensically, but affirm what we have proved in our own life and gathered in utmost effort from Scripture and from nature. Men inherit opinions as they used to inherit garments, or devise them, like clothes of a new fashion, and from within the folds they speak, not as men but as priests, what is the right thing according to a received theory. It will not do. Even of old time a man like the author of Job turned contemptuously from school-made explanations and sought a living word. In our age the number of those whose fever can be lulled with a working theory of religion and a judicious arrangement of the universe is rapidly becoming small. Theology is being driven to look the facts of life full in the face. If the world has learned anything from modern science, it is the habit of rigorous research and the justification of free inquiry, and the lesson will never be unlearned.
To take one error of theology. All men are concluded equally under Gods wrath and curse; then the proofs of the malediction are found in trouble, fear, and pain. But what comes of this teaching? Out in the world, with facts forcing themselves on consciousness, the scheme is found hollow. All are not in trouble and pain. Those who are afflicted and disappointed are often sincere Christians. A theory of deferred judgment and happiness is made for escape; it does not, however, in the least enable one to comprehend how, if pain and trouble be the consequences of sin, they should not be distributed rightly from the first. A universal moral order cannot begin in a manner so doubtful, so very difficult for the wayfaring man to read as he goes. To hold that it can is to turn religion into an occultism which at every point bewilders the simple mind. The theory is one which tends to blunt the sense of sin in those who are prosperous, and to beget that confident Pharisaism which is the curse of church life. On the other hand, the "sacrificed classes," contrasting their own moral character with that of the frivolous and fleshly rich, are forced to throw over a theology which binds together sin and suffering, and to deny a God whose equity is so far to seek. And yet, again, in the recoil from all this men invent wersh schemes of bland goodwill and comfort, which have simply nothing to do with the facts of life, no basis in the world as we know it, no sense of the rigour of Divine love. So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remain with us and confuse theology until some think it lost in unreason.
"But ye are patchers of lies,
Physicians of nought are ye all.
Oh that ye would only keep silence,
And it should be your wisdom". {Job_13:4-5}
Job sets them down with a current proverb-"Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise." He begs them to be silent. They shall now hear his rebuke.
"On behalf of God will ye speak wrong?
And for Him will ye speak deceit?
Will ye be partisans for Him?
Or for God will ye contend?"
Job finds them guilty of speaking falsely as special pleaders for God in two respects. They insist that he has offended God, but they cannot point to one sin which he has committed. On the other hand, they affirm positively that God will restore prosperity if confession is made. But in this too they play the part of advocates without warrant. They show great presumption in daring to pledge the Almighty to a course in accordance with their idea of justice. The issue might be what they predict; it might not. They are venturing on ground to which their knowledge does not extend. They think their presumption justified because it is for religions sake. Job administers a sound rebuke, and it extends to our own time. Special pleaders for Gods sovereign and unconditional right and for His illimitable good nature, alike have warning here. What justification have men in affirming that God will work out His problems in detail according to their views? He has given to us the power to apprehend the great principles of His working. He has revealed much in nature, providence, and Scripture, and in Christ; but there is the "hiding of His power," "His path is in the mighty waters, and His judgments are not known." Christ has said, "It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority." There are certainties of our consciousness, facts of the world and of revelation from which we can argue. Where these confirm, we may dogmatise, and the dogma will strike home. But no piety, no desire to vindicate the Almighty or to convict and convert the sinner, can justify any man in passing beyond the certainty which God has given him to that unknown which lies far above human ken.
"He will surely correct you
If in secret ye are partial.
Shall not His majesty terrify you,
And His dread fall upon you?" {Job_13:10-11}
The Book of Job, while it brands insincerity and loose reasoning, justifies all honest and reverent research. Here, as in the teaching of our Lord, the real heretic is he who is false to his own reason and conscience, to the truth of things as God gives him to apprehend it, who, in short, makes believe to any extent in the sphere of religion. And it is upon this man the terror of the Divine majesty is to fall.
We saw how Bildad established himself on the wisdom of the ancients. Recalling this, Job flings contempt on his traditional sayings.
"Your remembrances are proverbs of ashes,
Your defences, defences of dust."
Did they mean to smite him with those proverbs as with stones? They were ashes. Did they intrench themselves from the assaults of reason behind old suppositions? Their ramparts were mere dust. Once more he bids them hold their peace, and let him alone that he may speak out all that is in his mind. It is, he knows at the hazard of his life he goes forward; but he will. The case in which he is can have no remedy excepting by an appeal to God, and that final appeal he will make.
Now the proper beginning of this appeal is in the twenty-third verse (Job_13:23), with the words: "How many are mine iniquities and my sins?" But before Job reaches it he expresses his sense of the danger and difficulty under which he lies, interweaving with the statement of these a marvellous confidence in the result of what he is about to do. Referring to the declarations of his friends as to the danger that yet threatens if he will not confess sin, he uses a proverbial expression for hazard of life.
"Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hand?"
Why do I incur this danger, do you say? Never mind. It is not your affair. For bare existence I care nothing. To escape with mere consciousness for a while is no object to me, as I now am. With my life in my hand I hasten to God.
"Lo! He will slay me: I will not delay-
Yet my ways will I maintain before Him". {Job_13:15}
The old Version here, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," is inaccurate. Still it is not far from expressing the brave purpose of the man- prostrate before God, yet resolved to cling to the justice of the case ashe apprehends it, assured that this will not only be excused by God, but will bring about his acquittal or salvation. To grovel in the dust, confessing himself a miserable sinner more than worthy of all the sufferings he has undergone, while in his heart he has the consciousness of being upright and faithful-this would not commend him to the Judge of all the earth. It would be a mockery of truth and righteousness, therefore of God Himself. On the other hand, to maintain his integrity which God gave him, to go on maintaining it at the hazard of all, is his only course, his only safety.
"This also shall be my salvation,
For a godless man shall not live before Him."
The fine moral instinct of Job, giving courage to his theology, declares that God demands "truth in the inward parts" and truth in speech-that man "consists in truth"-that "if he betrays truth he betrays himself," which is a crime against his Maker. No man is so much in danger of separating himself from God and losing everything as he who acts or speaks against conviction.
Job has declared his hazard, that he is lying helpless before Almighty Power which may in a moment crush him. He has also expressed his faith, that approaching God in the courage of truth he will not be rejected, that absolute sincerity will alone give him a claim on the infinitely True. Now turning to his friends as if in new defiance, he says:-
"Hear diligently my speech,
And my explanation with your ears.
Behold now, I have ordered my cause;
I know that I shall be justified.
Who is he that will contend with me?
For then would I hold my peace and expire."
That is to say, he has reviewed his life once more, he has considered all possibilities of transgression, and yet his contention remains. So much does he build upon his claim on God that, if any one could now convict him, his heart would fail, life would no more be worth living; the foundation of hope destroyed, conflict would be at an end.
But with his plea to God still in view he expresses once more his sense of the disadvantage under which he lies. The pressure of the Divine hand is upon him still, a sore enervating terror which bears upon his soul. Would God but give him respite for a little from the pain and the fear, then he would be ready either to answer the summons of the Judge or make his own demand for vindication.
We may suppose an interval of release from pain or at least a pause of expectancy, and then, in verse twenty-third (Job_13:23), Job begins his cry. The language is less vehement than we have heard. It has more of the pathos of weak human life. He is one with that race of thinking, feeling, suffering creatures who are tossed about on the waves of existence, driven before the winds, of change like autumn leaves. It is the plea of human feebleness and mortality we hear, and then, as the "still sad music" touches the lowest note of wailing, there mingles with it the strain of hope.
"How many are mine iniquities and sins?
Make me to know my transgression and my sin."
We are not to understand here that Job confesses great transgressions, nor, contrariwise, that he denies infirmity and error in himself. There are no doubt failures of his youth which remain in memory, sins of desire, errors of ignorance, mistakes in conduct such as the best men fall into. These he does not deny. But righteousness and happiness have been represented as a profit and loss account, and therefore Job wishes to hear from God a statement in exact form of all he has done amiss or failed to do, so that he may be able to see the relation between fault and suffering, his faults and his sufferings, if such relation there be. It appears that God is counting him an enemy (Job_13:24). He would like to have the reason for that. So far as he knows himself he has sought to obey and honour the Almighty. Certainly there has never been in his heart any conscious desire to resist the will of Eloah. Is it then for transgressions unwittingly committed that he now suffers-for sins he did not intend or know of? God is just. It is surely a part of His justice to make a sufferer aware why such terrible afflictions befall him.
And then-is it worthwhile for the Almighty to be so hard on a poor weak mortal?
Wilt thou scare a driven leaf-
Wilt thou pursue the dry stubble-
That thou writest bitter judgments against me,
And makest me to possess the faults of my youth,
And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And watchest all my paths,
And drawest a line about the soles of my feet-
One who as a rotten thing is consuming,
As a garment that is moth eaten?
The sense of rigid restraint and pitiable decay was perhaps never expressed with so fit and vivid imagery. So far it is personal. Then begins a general lamentation regarding the sad fleeting life of man. His own prosperity, which passed as a dream, has become to Job a type of the brief vain existence of the race tried at every moment by inexorable Divine judgment; and the low mournful words of the Arabian chief have echoed ever since in the language of sorrow and loss.
"Man that is born of woman,
Of few days is he and full of trouble.
Like the flower he springs up and withers;
Like a shadow he flees and stays not.
Is it on such a one Thou hast fixed Thine eye?
Bringest Thou me into Thy judgment?
Oh that the clean might come out of the unclean!
But there is not one."
Human frailty is both of the body and of the soul; and it is universal. The nativity of men forbids their purity. Well does God know the weakness of His creatures; and why then does He expect of them, if indeed He expects, a pureness that can stand the test of His searching? Job cannot be free from the common infirmity of mortals. He is born of woman. But why then is he chased with inquiry, haunted and scared by a righteousness he cannot satisfy? Should not the Great God be forbearing with a man?
"Since his days are determined,
The number of his moons with Thee,
And Thou hast set him bounds not to be passed.
Look Thou away from him that he may rest,
At least fulfil as a hireling his day,"
Mens life being so short, his death so sure and soon, seeing he is like a hireling in the world, might he not be allowed a little rest? might he not, as one who has fulfilled his days work, be let go for a little repose ere he die? That certain death, it weighs upon him now, pressing down his thought.
For even a tree hath hope;
If it be hewn down it will sprout anew,
The young shoot thereof will not fail.
If in the earth its root wax old,
Or in the ground its stock should die
Yet at the scent of water it will spring,
And shoot forth boughs like a new plant.
But a man: he dies and is cut off;
Yea, when men die, they are gone.
Ebbs away the water from the sea,
And the stream decays and dries:
So when men have lain down they rise not;
Till the heavens vanish they never awake,
Nor are they roused from their sleep.
No arguments, no promises can break this deep gloom and silence into which the life of man passes. Once Job had sought death; now a desire has grown within him, and with it recoil from Sheol. To meet God, to obtain his own justification and the clearing of Divine righteousness, to have the problem of life explained-the hope of this makes life precious. Is he to lie down and rise no more while the skies endure? Is no voice to reach him from the heavenly justice he has always confided in? The very thought is confounding. If he were now to desire death it would mean that he had given up all faith, that justice, truth, and even the Divine name of Eloah had ceased to have any value for him.
We are to behold the rise of a new hope, like a star in the firmament of his thought. Whence does it spring?
The religion of the Book of Job, as already shown, is, in respect of form, a natural religion; that is to say, the ideas are not derived from the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer does not refer to the legislation of Moses and the great words of prophets. The expression "As the Lord said unto Moses" does not occur in this book, nor any equivalent. It is through nature and the human consciousness that the religious beliefs of the poem appear to have come into shape. Yet two facts are to be kept fully in view.
The first is that even a natural religion must not be supposed to be a thing of mans invention, with no origin further than his dreams. We must not declare all religious ideas outside those of Israel to be mere fictions of the human fancy or happy guesses at truth. The religion of Teman may have owed some of its great thoughts to Israel. But, apart from that, a basis of Divine revelation is always laid wherever men think and live. In every land the.heart of man has borne witness to God. Reverent thought, dwelling on justice, truth, mercy, and all virtues found in the range of experience and consciousness, came through them to the idea of God. Every one who made an induction as to the Great Unseen Being, his mind open to the facts of nature and his own moral constitution, was in a sense a prophet. As far as they went, the reality and value of religious ideas, so reached, are acknowledged by Bible writers themselves. "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity." God has always been revealing Himself to men.
"Natural religion" we say: and yet, since God is always revealing Himself and has made all men more or less capable of apprehending the revelation, even the natural is supernatural. Take the religion of Egypt, or of Chaldaea, or of Persia. You may contrast any one of these with the religion of Israel; you may call the one natural, the other revealed. But the Persian speaking of the Great Good Spirit or the Chaldaean worshipping a supreme Lord must have had some kind of revelation; and his sense of it, not clear indeed, far enough below that of Moses or Isaiah, was yet a forth reaching towards the same light as now shines for us.
Next we must keep it in view that Job does not appear as a thinker building on himself alone, depending on his own religious experience. Centuries and ages of thought are behind these beliefs which are ascribed to him, even the ideas which seem to start up freshly as the result of original discovery. Imagine a man thinking for himself about Divine things in that far away Arabian past. His mind, to begin with, is not a blank. His father has instructed him. There is a faith that has come down from many generations. He has found words in use which hold in them religious ideas, discoveries, perceptions of Divine reality, caught and fixed ages before. When he learned language the products of evolution, not only psychical, but intellectual and spiritual, became his. Eloah, the lofty one, the righteousness of Eloah, the word of Eloah, Eloah as Creator, as Watcher of men, Eloah as wise, unsearchable in wisdom, as strong, infinitely mighty, -these are ideas he has not struck out for himself, but inherited. Clearly then a new thought, springing from these, comes as a supernatural communication and has behind it ages of spiritual evolution. It is new, but has its root in the old; it is natural, but originates in the over nature.
Now the primitive religion of the Semites, the race to which Job belonged, to which also the Hebrews belonged, has been of late carefully studied; and with regard to it certain things have been established that bear on the new hope we are to find struck out by the Man of Uz.
In the early morning of religious thought among those Semites it was universally believed that the members of a family or tribe, united by blood relationship to each other, were also related in the same way to their God. He was their father, the invisible head and source of their community, on whom they had a claim so long as they pleased him. His interest in them was secured by the sacrificial meal which he was invited and believed to share with them. If he had been offended, the sacrificial offering was the means of recovering his favour; and communion with him in those meals and sacrifices was the inheritance of all who claimed the kinship of that clan or tribe. With the clearing of spiritual vision this belief took a new form in the minds of the more thoughtful. The idea of communion remained and the necessity of it to the life of the worshipper was felt even more strongly when the kinship of the God with his subject family was, for the few at least, no longer an affair of physical descent and blood relation. ship, but of spiritual origin and attachment. And when faith rose from the tribal god to the idea of the Heaven-Father, the one Creator and King communion with Him was felt to be in the highest sense a vital necessity. Here is found the religion of Job. A main element of it was communion with Eloah, an ethical kinship, with Him, no arbitrary or merely physical relation but of the spirit. That is to say, Job has at the heart of his creed the truth as to roans origin and nature. The author of the book is a Hebrew; his own faith is that of the people from whom we have the Book of Genesis; but he treats here of mans relation to God from the ethnic side, such as may be taken now by reasoner treating of spiritual evolution.
Communion with Eloah had been Jobs life and with it had been associated his many years of wealth, dignity, and influence. Lest his children should fall from it and lose their most precious inheritance, he used to bring the periodical offerings. But at length his own communion was interrupted. The sense of being at on with Eloah, if not lost, became dull and faint. It is for the restoration of his very life-not as we might think of religious feeling, but of actual spirit energy-he is now concerned. It is this that underlies his desire for God to speak with him, his demand for an opportunity of pleading his cause. Some might expect that he would ask his friends to offer sacrifice on his behalf, But he makes no such request. The crisis has come in a region higher than sacrifice, where observances are of no use. Thought only can reach it; the discovery of reconciling truth alone can satisfy. Sacrifices which for the old world alone sustained the relation with God could no more for Job restore the intimacy of the spiritual Lord. With a passion for this fellowship keener than ever, since he now more distinctly realises what it is, a fear blends in the heart of the man, Death will be upon him soon. Severed from God he will fall away into the privation of that world where is neither praise nor service, knowledge nor device. Yet the truth which lies at the heart of his religion does not yield. Leaning all upon it, he finds it strong, elastic. He sees at least a possibility of reconciliation; for how can the way back to God ever be quite closed?
What difficulty there was in his effort we know. To the common thought of the time when this book was written, say that of Hezekiah, the state of the dead was not extinction indeed, but an existence of extreme tenuity and feebleness. In Sheol there was nothing active. The hollow ghost of the man was conceived of as neither hoping nor fearing, neither originating nor receiving impressions. Yet Job dares to anticipate that even in Sheol a set time of remembrance will be ordained for him and he shall hear the thrilling call of God. As it approaches this climax the poem flashes and glows with prophetic fire.
Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol,
That Thou wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath be past,
That Thou wouldst appoint a set time, and remember me!
If a (strong) man die, shall he live?
All the days of my appointed time would I wait
Till my release came.
Thou wouldst call, I would answer Thee;
Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands.
Not easily can we now realise the extraordinary step forward made in thought when the anticipation was thrown out of spiritual life going on beyond death ("would I wait"), retaining intellectual potency in that region otherwise dark and void to the human imagination ("I would answer Thee"). From both the human side and the Divine the poet has advanced a magnificent intuition, a springing arch into which he is unable to fit the keystone-the spiritual body; for He only could do this who long afterwards came to be Himself the Resurrection and the Life. But when this poem of Job had been given to the world a new thought was implanted in the soul of the race, a new hope that should fight against the darkness of Sheol till that morning when the sunrise fell upon an empty sepulchre, and one standing in the light asked of sorrowful men, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
"Thou wouldst have a desire to the work of Thy hands." What a philosophy of Divine care underlies the words! They come with a force Job seems hardly to realise. Is there a High One who makes men in His own image, capable of fine achievement, and then casts them away in discontent or loathing? The voice of the poet rings in a passionate key because he rises tea thought practically new to the human mind. He has broken through barriers both of faith and doubt into the light of his hope and stands trembling on the verge of another world. "One must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future."
But the wrath of God still appears to rest upon Jobs life; still He seems to keep in reserve, sealed up, unrevealed, some record of transgressions for which He has condemned His servant. From the height of hope Job falls away into an abject sense of the decay and misery to which man is brought by the continued rigour of Eloahs examination. As with shocks of earthquake mountains are broken, and waters by constant flowing wash down the soil and the plants rooted in it, so human life is wasted by the Divine severity. In the world the children whom a man loved are exalted or brought low, but he knows nothing of it. His flesh corrupts in the grave and his soul in Sheol languishes.
"Thou destroyest the hope of man.
Thou ever prevailest against him and he passeth
Thou changest his countenance and sendest him away."
The real is at this point so grim and insistent as to shut off the ideal and confine thought again to its own range. The energy of the prophetic mind is overborne, and unintelligible fact surrounds and presses hard the struggling personality.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 I. Defends himself against the charge of ignorance implied…
JOB’S REPLY TO ZOPHAR
I. Defends himself against the charge of ignorance implied in Zophar’s speech (Job_12:2-3).
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His defence is:—
1. Ironical (Job_12:2). “No doubt but ye are the people; and wisdom shall die with you;” the wisdom of mankind is collected in your person, and when you die wisdom must perish at the same time. Times when it may be proper to use the language of irony and sarcasm. Its proper use to put error and pretension to shame. So Elijah to the worshippers of Baal: “Cry aloud for he is a God;” and Paul to the Corinthians: “Ye are rich; ye have reigned as kings without us” (1Co_4:8). Assumption on the part of preachers and monitors sure to render their words powerless and themselves ridiculous.
2. Serious (Job_12:3). “But I have understanding as well as you: I am not inferior to you.” Times when modesty does not forbid a man to speak in his own commendation. Allowable when for our own defence, or for the interests of truth. Paul compelled by his detractors to this “foolishness of boasting” (2Co_12:11). A man’s duty to know himself; and especially to know whether he has “understanding” to “know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, which is life eternal” (2Co_13:5; 1Jn_5:20; Joh_17:3).
3. Contemptuous. “Yca, who knoweth not such things as these” (margin, “with whom are not such things as these?”). Conceit and pretension to be taken down. Zophar’s vaunted wisdom was after all—
(1) Commonplace. His speech mostly such moral and religious sentiments as were found in everybody’s mouth.
(2) Borrowed; second-hand maxims handed down from the fathers. Preachers to be careful—
(1) Not to deal in mere commonplace sentiments, or to ring changes on a few universally admitted truths. Hearers to be taught something which they do not already know. The instructed scribe to “bring out of his treasure things new and old.” Necessary to present new truths, or old ones in a new, clearer, or more impressive light.
(2) Not to parade before others what is not really their own, without acknowledging it. False prophets reproved for stealing God’s words, “every one from his neighbour,” and passing them off as if delivered to themselves (Jer_23:30).
II. Complains of his being treated with scorn in consequence of affliction (Job_12:4).
“I am as one (or, ‘I am one who is’) mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God and he heareth him (or, ‘that he may answer him;’ or, ‘and let him answer him;’ possibly the taunt of his enemies, as Psa_22:8; Mat_27:43); the just upright man is laughed to scorn.” This treatment, according to the ordinary way of the world (Job_12:5). “He that is ready to slip with his feet is a lamp despised (or a torch thrown away as useless) in the thought of him that is at case” (or, “contempt adheres to calamity in the mind of the prosperous and secure, ready for those who slip with their feet”—who are tottering, or already fallen into adversity and trouble). Probably one of proverbial maxims referred to in Job_12:4, quoted by Job on his side of the question, and as descriptive of his own case.
1. He was mocked. No small aggravation of his affliction (ch. Job_16:10; Job_16:20; Job_17:2; Job_17:6; Job_21:3; Job_30:1; Job_30:9-10). The experience of David (Psa_22:7; Psa_35:16; Psa_69:11-12; and of David’s Lord (Mat_26:67-68; Mat_27:27-31; Luk_23:35). Mockery worse to bear than open violence. The bitterness of this treatment enhanced by the previous experience of honour and respect (ch. Job_29:7-25). Believers not to be staggered at “cruel mockings,” either from the world or nominal professors. Such mockery the expression of inward contempt,—“in the thought of him,” &c. The followers of a despised Christ to expect no better treatment than their Master (Isa_53:3; Joh_13:16).
2. Was mocked in consequence of his affliction (Job_12:5). An aggravation of the treatment. Affliction painful enough in itself, and demanding sympathy. Hard to endure, and cruel to inflict, mockery and contempt on account of it. This experience of Job also that of David, and of the great Antitype of both. Christ was mocked by men when bruised by God.
3. Job thus mocked notwithstanding his uprightness and piety.
(1.) His uprightness,—“the just upright man.” The testimony already given him by God (ch. Job_1:8; Job_2:3).
(2.) His piety. Manifested in his prayerfulness,—“who calleth upon God,” &c. Exemplified in his conduct in reference to his children (ch. Job_1:5). His practice still in his affliction (ch. Job_16:20). Made at last an intercessor for his friends (ch. Job_12:8; Job_12:10). A man of piety necessarily a man of prayer. Affliction draws a good man nearer to God, sends a bad one farther from Him. Terrible aggravation of the sin when the mocked sufferer is an upright child of God. The tremendous guilt of the Jews in relation to Jesus. Job’s prayers ordinarily heard and answered, though apparently not so now. So with Jesus in his last suffering (Psa_22:2; Luk_22:42, compared with Joh_11:42). Prayer, offered believingly in the name of Christ, heard and answered, though in God’s own time and way. God’s answer to believers’ prayers his testimony to the acceptance of their persons.
4. Job was mocked by these who were at ease themselves (Job_12:5). Another aggravation of the sin as well as of the suffering occasioned by it. To be “at ease,” a common description of the ungodly. Too often applicable even to the professors of religion (Amo_6:1). Job’s complaint that of Christ’s suffering church (Psa_123:3-4). Suffering in ourselves the parent of sympathy for others.
III. Re-asserts the prosperity of the ungodly (Job_12:6).
“The tabernacles of robbers prosper; yea, they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly” (or, “to whom God bringeth with his hand,” or, “to him who carrieth God in his hand”). Repeats more fully what he had asserted (ch. Job_9:24). Perhaps quotes another maxim of the ancients. Observe—
1. The characters spoken of.
(1) “Robbers.” Reference to the ungodly who put might for right. The earth, previous to the flood, filled with violence by such. The giants in those days, mighty men of renown (Gen_6:1). The flood the consequence of their violence and its prosperity. A similar state of things not long after that event. Nimrod, “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Hence the war of the kings (Genesis 14). The Sabeans and Chaldeans (ch. 15–17) other specimens of these “robbers.” Lust for property, power and pleasure, the natural tendency of fallen men. Hence wars and fightings (Jas_4:1-2). Tyrants, despots, and great conquerors, often only robbers on a large scale. Unlawful gains, oppression of the poor, and mercantile dishonesty, other forms of “robbery” (Jer_22:13; Heb_2:12).
(2) They “provoke God to anger.” The effect of all ungodliness. God angry with the wicked every day. The wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness of men (Rom_1:18). God’s anger especially provoked by cruelty and wrong. The whole life of the ungodly a continued provocation of God. Wealth treasured up against the day of wrath (Rom_2:5). Patience no proof of the want of provocations.
2. What is asserted of them. They “prosper.” The prosperity of the ungodly more fully enlarged upon (ch. Job_21:7-13). The stumbling-block of Asaph (Psa_73:2; Psa_73:12); the perplexity of Jeremiah (Jer_12:1).
(1) Their dwellings are in outward peace and prosperity. Their “tabernacles” prosper. A cluster of tents required to form an Oriental chieftain’s household. The families of the ungodly appear to prosper (ch. Job_21:8-9; Job_21:11). Full of children, and leaving the rest of their substance to their babes (Psa_17:14). Their homes appear likely to stand for many generations. Their lands called by their own names (Psa_49:11).—
(2) They enjoy abundance of earthly comforts. Their abundance brought to them in the providence of God, though idolatrously ascribed to their own hand (Deu_8:17; Heb_1:11). Observe—(i.) Good fortune no proof of Divine favour. Dives had his good things in this life, Lazarus his evil things, (ii.) Earthly goods as well as trials at the Divine disposal. These often mysteriously, always wisely, distributed. As compared with spiritual blessings, rather the husks that the swine eat, or the bones thrown to the dogs. Ordinarily given as incitements to repentance, gratitude, and love. When lusted after, often given in judgment rather than in mercy. The desire granted, while leanness is sent into the soul (Psa_106:15).
IV. An Appeal to the irrational creation (Job_12:7-10).
“Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, &c. Who knoweth not in all these (or, ‘which among all these knoweth not’) that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?” (that God—here alone in the dialogues spoken of as “the Lord”—is both Creator and Governor of all things). Perhaps a third proverbial maxim quoted by Job.—Observe:
1. All animate and inanimate nature man’s teachers.
The Book of Nature
Its lessons manifold both as to faith and practice. Job, in the end, referred to its teachings by God himself. Heaven and earth an open Bible, speaking both from God and of Him. The nocturnal sky a wide unfolded scroll, with every star a character. David’s delight to spell in it the glory and perfections of God (Psa_19:1-2). Every rising sun proclaims anew His goodness and faithfulness (2Sa_3:23). Solomon sent his readers to the ants for a lesson of industry. Jesus directs His disciples to the birds and the flowers to learn implicit confidence in the care of their heavenly Father. The book of nature distinctly enough written, and the voices of creation sufficiently audible and clear. But sin has dimmed our spiritual vision, dulled our hearing, and made us slow to learn either about God or ourselves.
2. The existence of an all-pervading, all-sustaining, and all-controlling
Providence
Insisted on by Zophar as if Job had been ignorant of it. Declared by the dust on a butterfly’s wing as well as by the lustre of the Dogstar. Proclaimed by the motion of an insect as it dances in the sun-beams, as well as by the rising and setting of sun, moon, and planets. The hand that upholds the, sun in the heavens guides the sparrow in its fall to the ground. “Not a fly but has had infinite wisdom concerned, not only in its structure, but in its destination.” [Young] Nature’s works designed to lead up to nature’s God.—“In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath (or spirit) of all mankind” (Job_12:10). All life in and from God. First created, and then supported and preserved by Him. “In Him we live,” &c.,—not only by Him but in Him. The life of men, animals and plants, no longer continued than He pleases. The laws of existence established by Him, and still under His control. The spirit or thinking part of man as well as the soul or feeling part of animals, equally proceeding from and dependent upon Him. The highest creature no more able to prolong his existence a moment beyond His will than to create a universe. The power of a man to think, as well as the sense to feel, and the muscles to act, alike from Him. A glance of His eye able to reduce creation to its original nothingness. All events under His control. Moral evil permitted, penal evil inflicted by Him. The twin truths of creation and providence everywhere taught by external nature. The truth that nature fails to teach, that which man most needs to learn. For man to learn the way of pardon and reconciliation with God, the volume of nature required to be supplemented by that of revelation.
V. The right and duty of exercising private judgment, (Job_12:11).
“Doth not the ear try words, and the mouth taste his meat?” (or, “as the mouth tastes its food”). The office of the ear to try or judge of the statements submitted to it. The ear put for the judgment or reason which acts through it. Moral and religious truths at that time conveyed through the ear rather than the eye. Books or writings rarely, if ever, found among the people—Men’s duty to examine and judge of what they hear. Applicable to the quotations already, or yet to be, made from the ancients by Job and his friends, as well as to the sentiments uttered by themselves. Job bespeaks candour and attention to his speeches, and resolves to judge for himself as to what is advanced by his friends. Observe, in reference to
Private judgment
1. Man possesses a faculty by which to judge of moral and religious statements. Such a faculty distinguishes man from the brutes, and allies him to angels. The faculty of reason or judgment originally given and still continued to men, though weakened and depraved by sin. Appealed to by God in His messages to men (Isa_5:3); by Christ (Luk_12:57); by His apostles (1Co_10:15; 1Co_11:13-14). Lies at the foundation of all efforts to instruct, enlighten, and persuade others in reference to religious subjects. Implies the possession and the apprehension of a standard of right and wrong. Its highest office to judge of moral and religious statements by that standard. A standard of moral judgment implanted in man’s nature at his creation, but now much effaced. Renewed in the moral law and in the Scriptures in general. The object of the Bible and of the Holy Spirit to exhibit that standard, and to lead men to judge, conclude, and act according to it.
2. Man’s duty to exercise that faculty in regard to all statements of moral and religious subjects. Appeal to the law and the testimony in reference to what man teaches, enjoined by God Himself (Isa_8:20). Men commanded to cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge (Pro_19:27). The apostolic injunction—“Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God” (1Th_5:21; 1Jn_4:1). The part of the “simple” to “believe every word.” The Beræans commended for searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things spoken by the apostles were according to them (Act_17:11). Superstition and priestcraft deny to men the right of private judgment, and forbid the ear to do its office. To believe only because the Church or our forefathers have done so, is for the ear no longer to “try words.” Man responsible to God for the right exercise of the judgment He has given him. When God speaks, the office of the judgment is to discover that He has done so, to ascertain what He has spoken, and then, unquestioningly, to accept it. God’s announcements often above reason, never contrary to it. The judgment to be exercised on moral and religious subjects with—
(1) Seriousness and attention;
(2) Candour and patience;
(3) Modesty and humility;
(4) Impartiality and absence of prejudice;
(5) Prayer for Divine enlightenment.
3. Human authority on religious subjects to be respected, but not regarded as paramount (Job_12:12-13). “With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days is understanding. With Him (i.e. God) is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding,”—wisdom in both its forms, speculative and practical; or, wisdom to direct and strength to accomplish. The latter verse probably the commencement of another quotation. Job’s object in it—
(1) To vindicate his knowledge of God as not inferior to that of his friends;
(2) To show that the wisdom of God infinitely surpasses that of the wisest of men. Human wisdom acquired by study, observation and experience,—by the long-continued exercise of the judgment referred to in Job_12:11. By reason of use men have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, and so become men of full age in understanding, instead of children (Heb_5:13-14; 1Co_14:20). That wisdom always imperfect and fallible. God the only infallible teacher. Wisdom, in men, as something communicated; with God, as something eternally and essentially abiding. In man as a stream, limited and uncertain; with God, as a perennial fountain. An appeal, therefore, to be made from man’s teaching to God’s. Divine teaching to be implicitly submitted to and confided in, as that of infinite wisdom.
VI. Spirited description of God’s providence in the world (Job_12:14-25.
Probably a quotation of ancient poetry, or the production of the poet put into Job’s mouth. Properly commences with Job_12:13. A magnificent ode or hymn on the Divine perfections and procedure in the world. The similarity in language and sentiment to parts of 107th Psalm remarkable. Celebrates especially the various
Acts of Divine Providence
Exhibits its operations on a grand and extensive scale. Represents God as ruling over nations as well as individuals. His Providence viewed more in its solemn and judicial aspects.
1 In acts of destruction (Job_12:14). “He breaketh down, and (or ‘so that’) it cannot be built again.” The part of the Divine Ruler is to pull down as well as to build up—to kill as well as to make alive (Isa_45:7; Amo_3:6; Deu_32:39). Breaks down houses, cities, individuals, families, nations—the earth itself. Seen in the Flood, the Cities of the Plain, perhaps the Tower of Babel. Breaks down cities, buildings, &c., by earthquakes, inundations, volcanoes, lightnings, tempests, &c. nations and kingdoms by invasions, wars, civil discord, foolish counsels, &c. individuals by diseases and misfortunes. Breaks down in various ways human schemes and enterprises (Gen_11:3-8; 2Ch_20:36-37). Reference to one form of destruction in Job_12:15. “He withholdeth the waters and they dry up; also he sendeth them out and they overturn the earth.” Exemplified in the Deluge. The windows of heaven then opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up (Gen_7:11). Inundations frequent in Arabia and Egypt.
2. In laying restraints on individuals. “He shutteth up a man (Heb. ‘over a man’) and there is no opening.” Reference to underground prisons (Jer_37:18). God in His providence shuts up individuals as prisoners—by affliction and misfortune (Job himself an example); by delivering them up into the hand of enemies; by bringing them into difficulties and straits; by inward darkness and distress; by insanity, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar. When God shuts up, none but Himself can open (Isa_22:22).
3. In overruling both men’s misery and mischief (Job_12:16). “The deceived and the deceiver are His.” The deceiver can only act, and the deceived suffer, by His permission. The deceiver His, to restrain his deception and employ it for His own wise purposes. The deceived His, to deliver him from the deception, or to correct or punish him by it. The deceiver God’s instrument in trying the good and punishing the bad. Satan the deceiver of the nations (Rev_20:3). Lying spirits in the mouth of false prophets, God’s instruments in punishing Ahab and his people (1Ki_22:20). False Christs and false prophets to deceive many, but not the elect (Mat_24:11-24). Antichrist’s advent to be with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those that receive not the love of the truth (2Th_2:11).
4. In punishing nations and their rulers (Job_12:17). “He leadeth councillors away spoiled (stripped as captives taken in war, or deprived of their dignity, or as persons bereft of judgment), and maketh the judges fools;” (—so infatuates them, that they shall give wrong judgment, and so bring the nation into trouble). So God threatened to take away from Judah the judge, and the prudent, and the councillor, and to give children to be their princes, and to cause babes to rule over them (Isa_3:2-4). No greater woe to a land than when God in judgment gives it up to unwise rulers and statesmen (Ecc_10:16).—Job_12:18. “He looseth the bond of kings (dissolves their authority, as in the case of Rehoboam and the Ten Tribes), and girdeth their loins with a girdle” (perhaps a cord or rope, as indicative of servitude). No uncommon thing for despotic rulers to be dethroned by their oppressed and discontented subjects, and instead of the insignia of royalty to have to wear the habit of a prisoner or an exile (Jer_52:8-11; Jer_52:31-33). Numerous examples in Europe within the last century.—(Job_12:24-25). “He taketh away the heart (or understanding) of the chief of the people of the earth (or the land), and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way, &c.” Easy with God in judgment on themselves or the nation, to leave rulers and statesmen in such perplexity as not to know what to do, and to abandon them to foolish and ruinous counsels. So Rehoboam adopted the unwise counsel given him by his youthful advisers. The result of such judicial infatuation seen in foolish and hurtful wars, in the adoption of unwise public measures, in the enactment of intolerant, partial, and unjust laws, and in a short-sighted reactionary policy after one of enlightened progress.
5. In humbling the brave, the gifted, and the great (Job_12:19). “He leadeth princes (or priests—probably civil rulers, viceroys, or ministers of state) away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty” (warriors mighty in battle). No king saved by the multitude of a host. The battle is the Lord’s, who gives the victory to whom He will. Threatened to take from Judah the mighty man and the man of war. At times turned the edge of Israel’s sword, so that they could not stand in the battle (Psa_89:43). Armies and their generals often overthrown when calculating on certain victory. God sometimes overthrows the mighty by allowing them to overthrow themselves through foolish and ambitious counsels. (Job_12:20.)—“He removeth away the speech of the trusty (the cloquence of the patriotic orator), and taketh away the understanding of the aged” (the prudence and wisdom of the experienced senator). So God threatened to take away from Judah “the eloquent orator, the ancient and the honourable man” (Isa_3:2-3). May remove such by disease or death without supplying their places, by withholding the desire to serve their country with their gifts, or by withdrawing the gifts themselves. Persuasive eloquence and penetrating judgment not in men’s own keeping. The influence of wise and confidential advisers sometimes destroyed to serve God’s own purposes (2Sa_15:31; 2Sa_17:14; 2Sa_17:23).—Job_12:21. “He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.” Numerous examples furnished by France and other European countries during the last hundred years.
6. In disclosing hidden wickedness (Job_12:22). “He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.”
(1) Wicked and deeplaid schemes. Examples: the diabolical contrivance of Haman for the destruction of the Jews (Book of Esther); the Gunpowder Plot for the overthrow of the Protestant religion in England.
(2) Secret crimes long hidden from men. Examples: Joseph’s brethren, Achan, David. The verse in this sense quoted by the Apostle, 1Co_4:5.
7. In the increase and decay of nations (Job_12:23). “He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them; He enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them again.” A nation sometimes made to rise within a short time to great power and influence. Examples: Rome; Israel under David and Solomon; and in more modern times, England, America, and Prussia. Examples of the decay of nations: Israel, after the death of Solomon; Rome, after the prevalence of luxury, pride and cruelty; Spain, after its persecution of the truth and exclusion of an open Bible. Changes in the condition of nations perhaps as early as the times of Job (Genesis 14). Egypt, a powerful monarchy at a very early period, ultimately for its idolatry, “the basest of kingdoms.” The seven nations of Canaan extirpated for their wickedness and lust. Only a short period occupied by the rise and fall of each of the first three universal empires.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Job 12:7-8
Job 12:7-8
I. The great lesson which the animal creation, regarded simply as the creature and subject of God, is fitted to teach us, is a lesson of the wisdom, and power, and constant beneficence of God. Job sends us to the animal creation that we may gather from it instances of the greatness of the Creator’s hand and the constancy of the Creator’s providence. For every creature there is a place, and to this each is adapted with transcendent skill and beneficence. Nowhere do we detect a fault or a flaw amid all these teeming myriads. All are perfectly complete, and attest the majesty of Him by whose hand they have been formed.
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II. Consider the lessons which the lower animals are fitted to teach us by the way in which they spend their life and use the powers which God has given them. (1) They constantly and unceasingly fulfil the end of their being. Be their sphere large or small, they always occupy it to the full. What a lesson is here addressed to man, and what a rebuke to him for the studied and persevering neglect he manifests of the purpose for which God has made him and sent him into the world! (2) The lower animals are seen always to live according to their nature. They neither transgress that nature, nor do they fall short of it. Can this be said of man? How far is the best from yielding his entire nature in its symmetry and its fulness to what truth and righteousness demand of him. (3) The lower animals teach us to seek happiness according to our nature and capacity, and with a prudent foresight to avoid occasions of disaster and sorrow. Let us not despise the reproof because it comes from a humble source, but rather let the humility of the source enhance the pungency of the reproof, and appeal to us with a more cogent conclusiveness to bethink ourselves and turn into a wiser and better course.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 488.
References: Job 12:8.—H. Macmillan, Bible Teachings in Nature, p. 152; G. Morrison, The House of God, p. 113. Job 12:9, Job 12:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 326. Job 12:20.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 165. Job 12:22.—J. Martineau, Hours of Thought, vol. ii., p. 348. Job 12-14—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. v., pp. 172, 273; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 149. Job 13:14.—J. Robertson, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 256.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Job's Third Speech (Job 12-14)
Job's Third Speech (Job 12-14)
The friends have said God is wise and mighty. Job replies, 'I know that as well as you. You infer that He is also righteous, but experience shows that His power and wisdom are directed to unrighteous ends.' But it is with God rather than with them that he wishes to argue, and come what may he will utter all he feels. He challenges God to name his sins, presses man's hopeless destiny as a reason for God's pity, longs that God might shelter him out of reach of His anger, till it has passed away, and then renew His communion with him, but closes again on the note of man's hopeless fate. The thought that God might take Job's part against Himself here comes to expression.
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1-12. Job sarcastically praises the wisdom of the friends, which, however, is not greater than his own, or indeed than any one may learn from God's creation and government of the world. It is easy to mock one who is down: yet the prosperity of the wicked is a fact as patent as the wisdom and power of God.
2. A sarcastic allusion to the omniscience of the friends: Ye are the people the only wise ones.
4. Who calleth] RV 'A man that called.' Job complains that he, a servant of God, has become the subject of mockery.
5. RV 'In the thought of him that is at ease there is contempt for misfortune; it is ready for them whose foot slippeth.' An allusion to the way his friends treat him now that he is in trouble. How easy to despise the man who is down! 6. The wicked, on the other hand, seem to fare better than the good. Into whose hand, etc] Another rendering is, 'Who bears (his) god in his hand'; i.e. who regards his sword as his god: cp. Hab_1:11-16.
7. Even the animals know the commonplaces that constitute the friends' stock of wisdom.
9. In all these] among all these creatures. The lord] see on Job_1:21. Hath wrought this] i.e. orders all things.
11, 12. 'I test your arguments as the palate tests its food; the aged are not necessarily wise.'
11. And the mouth, etc.] RV 'Even as the palate tasteth its meat.'
12. RM 'With aged men, ye say, is wisdom.' Job is not stating his own views.
13-25. With God are wisdom and might, no one can reverse His actions. The mightiest are overthrown by Him, and He takes away the understanding of the wise.
13. With him] viz. God. Absolute power and wisdom are inherent in God, not acquired by pains and years as man acquires such power and wisdom as he possesses.
14. The impotence of man in the hands of the Almighty.
Shutteth up a man] e.g. in prison.
16. Are his] exist by His permission.
17. Perhaps the original text meant 'He sends mad counsellors.'
18. God sets kings free, or imprisons them according to His will.
19. Princes] RV 'priests.' Perhaps, 'He sends mad priests and perverts the mighty.'
22. 'The v. means that God through His wisdom sees into the profoundest and darkest deeps, and brings what is hidden to light' (Davidson).
23. Straiteneth them again] RM 'leadeth them away into captivity.'
24. Wilderness] The Heb. is used of the primeval chaos of Gen_1:2.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTERS 12-14 Job’s Answer to Zophar
CHAPTERS 12-14 Job’s Answer to Zophar
1. His sarcasm (Job 12:1-6)
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2. He describes God’s power (Job 12:7-25)
3. He denounces his friends (Job 13:1-13)
4. He appeals to God (Job 13:14-28)
5. The brevity and trouble of life (Job 14:1-6)
6. The ray of light through hope of immortality (Job 14:7-22)
Job 12:1-6. He answers not only Zophar but the others as well. Before this Job had expressed his disappointment in them, rebuked them for their unkindness, and assailed as worthless their arguments, but now he treats them in a very sarcastic manner.
No doubt but ye are the people
And wisdom shall die with you.
Was he then without any understanding or inferior to them? Do you think I am ignorant of the things you have spoken to me about? You mock me; I am nothing but a laughingstock. You as my neighbors come to me and say, “He calls on God, that He should answer him.” Yet I am the just, the perfect man; you make sport of me. You are at ease and treat the one who is down, overwhelmed by misfortune, with contempt. But remember:
The tents of robbers prosper,
And they that provoke God are secure;
Abundance does He give unto them.
This is what Zophar had claimed in his address, that the wicked do not prosper. (See Job 11:2; Job 11:14; Job 11:19-20.) Robbers often prosper and those who are secure are often those who provoke God. Perhaps his friends with their prosperity might belong to that class.
Job 12:7-25. This is also in answer to Zophar’s argument. Zophar had spoken of the greatness of God. The wisdom which Zophar had tried to impress upon him is so elementary that the beasts themselves know something about it.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee;
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee;
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
Who knoweth not in all these,
That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind.
Job outstrips Zophar’s speech in every way. He is ahead in the controversy. In Job 12-13 Job seems to have Bildad’s statement in mind (Job 8:8-9), and he declares now that with God is wisdom and might; He hath counsel and understanding. But what follows, while true in itself, is but the one side of God’s doings, and the darkest pessimism, such as suited his mind. God spoils counsellors, maketh judges fools, looseth the bonds of kings, leadeth priests away spoiled, overthroweth the mighty, pours contempt on princes; He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them.
He taketh away the heart of the chiefs of the people in the earth,
And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
They grope in dark without light.
And He maketh them stagger like a drunken man.
It is a dreadful picture Job has drawn of God by the one-sided description of His greatness. Not a word of His love and mercy. It is in full keeping with his despairing heart.
Job 13:1-5. He had told in the previous words that he was not an ignorant man. What his wise friends had told him he understood perfectly; both nature and history had taught him the greatness of God which they had emphasized. What ye know, I know; I am not inferior to you. I am just as good as you are. What he desires is not to speak with them but to the Almighty; he wants to reason with God. The parallelism of verses 4 and 5 is interesting and has been rendered as follows:
But as for ye, plastered with lies are ye,
Physicians of no value are ye all
Would ye but altogether hold your peace;
That, of itself, would show that ye are wise.
Still stronger is his rebuke as found in Job 13:7-13. He warns them that their whole course is wrong. They are presumptuous in talking deceitfully for God. All this he speaks in self-defense, that he is innocent, and with it the subtle accusation against God once more, that He is unjust. He also warns them that “He will surely reprove you” and this came true.
Job 13:14-28. Then his words addressed to God Himself. He dares to approach Him. Knowing the greatness and awfulness of God, and perhaps conscious too of not having Him honoured as he should have done, he says, this would be the meaning of the rather difficult verse (Job 13:14), “Come what may I take my life in my hand and risk it.” The paraphrase of the Companion Bible expresses it correctly.
Aye, come what may, I willingly the risk will take; and put my life into my hand.
But at that moment when he makes this resolve His faith breaks through and he utters one of the sublimest words which ever came from human lips. “Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” And thousands upon thousands have spoken it after him, thus honouring God with faith’s sweetest song in the night.
He wants God to hear his speech diligently and have declaration come into His ear. He expresses his hope that God would yet declare him just, that is justify him, then who will dare to contend with him? And then that pleading of his with so much pathos! Relieve me from the sufferings, withdraw thine hand far from me, which rests upon me; and let not thy terror make me afraid. Then call Thou, and I will answer (Job 13:20-22). Or let me speak, he says, and answer Thou me. Then once more the right note, that note which finally must be sounded to the full in his wretched misery--”How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sins.” But it was only momentarily. He breaks out in fresh charges against God. His self-righteousness has blinded him so that he asks, “wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and holdest me for Thine enemy?” Horrible charges he brings against His Maker, the charges of injustice (Job 13:26-28). He wanted to listen to God, but He gives Him no chance to speak. When finally God speaks Job is in the dust.
Job 14:1-6. A true picture he has drawn in these words of man’s frailty. Besides this unclean, for, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. He requests that he might be let alone “till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day.”
Job 14:7-22. There is hope for a tree, he declares, though cut down, but it may sprout again. “But man that dieth, and wasteth away; Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” He speaks of man “who lieth down and riseth not.” That is the language of man apart from revelation. It is the expression of one who is in darkness and uncertainty. Frequently teachers of errors, like soul-sleep, the annihilation of the wicked, etc., in defense of their false teachings quote Job and the utterances of these friends as if these were true revelations from God, when their words are only the expressions of the human mind, and often false and misleading. What Job spoke and his friends is given in an unfailing inspired account, but revelation is a different matter altogether.
Then Job’s desire is to be hidden in Sheol, until His wrath be past. “That Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!” In this he expresseth the wish to believe that there is hope and that some one might give him the assurance about it--”If a man die, shall he live again?” But this ray of hope is only for a moment and once more he gives way to despair and continues his awful suspicions that God is his enemy. The first series of controversies are a complete failure. Job by justifying himself has dishonored God, and his friends by condemning him and not giving him the comfort he needed have sinned as well.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 The Strange Good Fortune of the Godless.
The Strange Good Fortune of the Godless.
If Zophar’s arguments had been valid and Job’s suffering was to be regarded as the direct punishment for a specific sin, then his faith in the justice of God would have been severely shaken. For that reason Job answers in a tone of great severity.
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v. 1. And Job answered and said, in a tone and with words of bitter sarcasm,
v. 2. No doubt but ye are the people, that is, the right kind, the representative men, and wisdom shall die with you, since, by their own statements, they possessed it all, and no one dared to differ with them.
v. 3. But I have understanding as well as you, he was in no wise lacking in the understanding of which they thought they had the monopoly; I am not inferior to you, he was not meaner in wisdom than they and therefore did not have to give way one inch; yea, who knoweth not such things as these? What they had brought forward was a matter of common knowledge, by no means unusual; they had no reason to take special pride in their remarks.
v. 4. I am as one mocked of his neighbor, he had become a laughing-stock to his own friends, who calleth upon God, and He answereth him, that is, I who called to God and found a hearing, who had made the worship of God the rule of my life. The just, upright man is laughed to scorn, a target for the mockery of those who called themselves his friends.
v. 5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease, literally, "For misfortune scorn, according to the opinion of the prosperous, ready for those whose foot wavers," that is, fortunate and successful people ordinarily have nothing but scorn and contempt for the unfortunate, for such as are overtaken with misfortune.
v. 6. The tabernacles of robbers prosper, powerful tyrants, men who make it a practise to spoil others, live in safety, and they that provoke God are secure, Psa 73:12; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly, rather, "he who has God enter into his hand," trusting in the weapon which he wields with his right hand. The strange good fortune of the godless has often puzzled believing children of God, but the solution of the question is found Psalms 73.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 19, 22, 24 No doubt you are the people; wisdom will die…
No doubt you are the people; wisdom will die with you
Job mocks how they are acting and shows how ridiculous they sound. AT: "Surely you are such important people that wisdom cannot exist without you" or "You all act like you are the only wise people and that when you die, wisdom will disappear" (See: Irony)
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No doubt
"Surely"
you
This is plural in verses 2 and 3. (See: Forms of You)
you are the people
"you are the important people who know everything"
Indeed, who does not know such things as these?
Job used this question to express a truth that should be obvious to his listeners. It can be expressed as a statement. AT: "Certainly there is no one who does not know such things as these." or "Certainly everyone knows these things." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
Job
wise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25 12:1–14:22 In his longest speech thus far, Job addresses…
12:1–14:22 In his longest speech thus far, Job addresses not only Zophar’s remarks but the entire first round of speeches.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.