“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
Parallel Translations
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“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
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Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.
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Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing it is He that judgeth those that are high.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Job 21:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Romans 11:34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
- 1 Corinthians 2:16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.
- Isaiah 40:13-14 Who has directed Yahweh’s Spirit, or has taught him as his counselor? Who did he take counsel with, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?
- Job 4:18 Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.
- Job 15:15 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;
- Job 34:17-19 Should even one who hates justice govern? Will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty?— Who says to a king, ‘Vile!’ or to nobles, ‘Wicked!’? He doesn’t respect the persons of princes, nor respect the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of his hands.
- Job 35:11 who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’
- Job 36:22 Behold, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him?
- Job 40:2 “Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
- Psalms 82:1 God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.
- Psalms 113:5-6 Who is like Yahweh, our God, who has his seat on high, Who stoops down to see in heaven and in the earth?
- Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.
- Isaiah 40:22-23 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
- Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands?’
- 1 Corinthians 6:3 Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?
- 2 Peter 2:4 For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment;
- Jude 1:6 Angels who didn’t keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
- Revelation 20:1-3 I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time.
- Revelation 20:12-15 I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Who sendeth to the wicked prosperity, and punisheth the…
Who sendeth to the wicked prosperity, and punisheth the godly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 21:22 Shall [any] teach God knowledge? seeing he…
Job 21:22 Shall [any] teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.
Ver. 22. Shall any teach God knowledge?] None but a presumptuous fool will take upon him to do that. Such as was Alphonso the wise (the fool rather), who feared not to say openly, that if he had been of God’s counsel at the creation, some things should have been better made and marshalled (Roderic, Sanct. Hist. Hispan, p. 4, ch. 5). The wisest men are benighted in many things; and whatever light they have it is from the Father of lights, whose judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out. What a madness were it therefore for any mortal to prescribe to the Almighty, or to define whom, when, by what means, and in what measure he must punish offenders! Herein Job’s friends took too much upon them; and he gives them the telling of it, wishing them to be wise to sobriety, and not to give laws to God, who well knoweth what he hath to do, and how to order his earthly kingdom. To disallow of his dealings is to teach him knowledge; which is greatest sauciness.
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Seeing he judgeth those that are high] Excelsos in excelsis, the angels, who are so far above us in all manner of excellencies, and yet are ignorant of the wisdom of God’s ways, which they know but in part; for how little a portion is heard of him? Job 26:14. His judgments therefore are rather to be adored than pryed into: Mirari oportet. Non rimari, it is proper to be amazed, not to explore. Let us rest contented with a learned ignorance.
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 Knowledge, i.e. discretion, or how to govern the world.…
Knowledge, i.e. discretion, or how to govern the world. For so you do, whilst you tell him that he must not sorely afflict the godly, nor give the wicked much and long prosperity here.
He judgeth those that are high; either,
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1. The highest persons, whether in earth, as the greatest kings; or in heaven, as the angels: he judgeth them, i.e. he exactly knows them, and accordingly gives sentence concerning them, as he sees fit; and therefore it is great folly and presumption in us to direct or correct his judgments. Or,
2. Those things that are high, and deep, and far out of our reach, as God’s secret counsels and judgments are.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain One dieth in his full strength,.... Man is born…
One dieth in his full strength,.... Man is born a weak feeble creature, and it is by degrees, and through various stages of infancy, childhood, and youth, that he arrives to his full strength in manhood; and, when he does, sometimes so it is, that his strength is not weakened in the course of his life by a train of disorders and diseases, as it is in some; but death seizes and carries him off in the prime of his days, and in the fulness of his strength; for no strength of man, even the greatest, is a security against death: thousands die before they come to their full strength, and multitudes after it begins to decay; and when it is almost wasted, through the force of distempers, or the infirmities of old age, and others, as here, when their strength is in its highest rigour and utmost perfection, and all as God pleases: the words may be rendered "in the strength of his integrity", or "of his perfection" (f); in the Targum and Ben Gersom, and so Mr. Broughton, "in his very perfection"; and the word is sometimes used, in a moral and spiritual sense, of the integrity of a man's heart, and the uprightness of his ways and walk, and of the perfection of his state God-ward; see Job 1:1; and such a man who is upright in heart and conversation, who is truly gracious, sincerely a good man, and perfect through the complete righteousness of Christ, he dies such, his integrity continues with him to the last; and his graces being brought to maturity, he comes to his grave like a shock of corn in its season, and is found in the perfect righteousness of his living Redeemer: but it seems best to take the words in a natural and literal sense, as before; or to interpret them of the fulness of outward felicity, which some men arrive unto, and die in the midst of, when they have got to the highest degree of honour and grandeur, and attained to the greatest degree of wealth and riches, it could well be supposed they would; and then, when in the perfection of it, have been taken away by death; both these senses may stand together: it follows,
being wholly at ease and quiet; in easy circumstances, having an affluence of all good things, and nothing to disturb them, nor are in trouble as others, or plagued as they be; having all that heart can wish, or more, and without any pains of body, at least any long and continued ones; while others are attended with them, days, and months, and years, before their death, Job 33:19; whereas these go down to the grave in a moment, feeling little or no pain, and are quiet and easy in their minds, thoughtless of a future state, and unconcerned how it will be with them in another world; having no sight nor sense of sin, of the evil nature and just demerit of it, feel not the weight and burden of it in their consciences; have no concern or grief of mind for sins of omission or commission, no godly sorrow for it, or repentance of it, nor any fears of wrath and ruin, hell and damnation; but as they are at ease from their youth, with respect to those things, so they live and so they die, secure, stupid, and senseless. Some interpret this of good men (g); and it is not to be wondered at that a man that dies in his integrity, in the perfection of grace, holiness, and righteousness, should be at ease and quiet; who has an interest in the God of peace, whose peace is made by the blood of Christ, his Peacemaker, and who has a conscience peace arising from a comfortable view of the peace speaking blood, righteousness, and sacrifice of the Mediator; who knows his state is safe, being interested in everlasting love, in an unchangeable covenant in God, as his covenant God, in Jesus his living Redeemer; and knows where he is going, to heaven, to happiness and glory, to be with God, with Christ, with holy angels and glorified saints: but the former sense seems best, of a man dying in easy circumstances, without pain of booty, or distress of mind, whether we understand it of a good man or bad man, though the latter is rather meant.
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(f) "in fortitudine perfectionis suae", Pagninus; so Junius and Tremellius, Piscator; "in fortitudine integritatis suae", Montanus, Bolducius; so Drusius, Mercerus. (g) So Schmidt.
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 Teach - How to govern the world? For so…
Teach - How to govern the world? For so you do, while you tell him that he must not afflict the godly, nor give the wicked prosperity. That he must invariably punish the wicked, and reward the righteous in this world. No: he will act as sovereign, and with great variety in his providential dispensations. High - The highest persons, on earth, he exactly knows them, and gives sentence concerning them, as he sees fit.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 22. Shall any teach God knowledge?] Who among…
Verse 22. Shall any teach God knowledge?] Who among the sons of men can pretend to teach GOD how to govern the world, who himself teaches those that are high-the heavenly inhabitants, that excel us infinitely both in knowledge and wisdom? Neither angels nor men can comprehend the reasons of the Divine providence. It is a depth known only to God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 21:22. Shall any teach God knowledge — How…
Job 21:22. Shall any teach God knowledge — How to govern the world? For so you do while you tell him that he must not afflict the godly, nor give the wicked prosperity; that he must invariably punish the wicked, and reward the righteous in this world. No: he will act as sovereign, and with great variety in his providential dispensations. Seeing he judgeth those that are high — The highest persons on earth, he exactly knows them, and gives sentence concerning them, as he sees fit. Thus, as Job had introduced the foregoing particular, namely, that wicked men are sometimes severely punished in this world, by an easy transition, at Job 21:16; so, by another as easy, he here introduces the remaining article of his discourse above mentioned, namely, that God deals out things promiscuously in this world, not according to men’s merit or demerit, which he pursues in the following verses.
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 Shall any teach God knowledge? - This commences the…
Shall any teach God knowledge? - This commences the reply of Job to the sentiments of his friends to which he had just adverted. The substance of the reply is, that no one could prescribe to God how he should deal with people, and that it; was not a FACT that people were treated as they had supposed. Instead of its being true, as they maintained, that wicked people would all be cut down in some fearful and violent manner, as a punishment for their sins, Job goes on Job 21:23-26 to show that they died in a great variety of ways - one in full age and prosperity, and another in another manner. This, he says, God directs as he pleases. No one can teach him knowledge; no one can tell him what he ought to do. The reasoning of his friends, Job seems to imply, had been rather an attempt to teach God how he “ought” to deal with people, than a patient and candid inquiry into the “facts” in the case, and he says the facts were not as they supposed they ought to be.
Seeing he judgeth those that are high - Or rather, he judges “among the things” that are high. He rules over the great affairs of the universe, and it is presumptuous in us to attempt to prescribe to him how he shall govern the world. The design of this and the following verses is to show, that, from the manner in which people actually die, no argument can be derived to determine what was their religious condition, or their real character. Nothing is more fallacious than that kind of reasoning.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Reply of Job, "In all these assertions you try…
Reply of Job, "In all these assertions you try to teach God how He ought to deal with men, rather than prove that He does in fact so deal with them. Experience is against you. God gives prosperity and adversity as it pleases Him, not as man's wisdom would have it, on principles inscrutable to us" (Isa 40:13; Rom 11:34).
those . . . high--the high ones, not only angels, but men (Isa 2:12-17).
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 22. Teach God knowledge — Prescribe to God what…
22. Teach God knowledge — Prescribe to God what he ought to do! (Job_20:23,) who is perfectly competent to administer his own government.
Those that are high — Literally, For he judgeth the high, that is, angels. (Job_4:18; Job_15:15.)
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 22. The emphasis falls on God—Shall any teach knowledge…
22. The emphasis falls on God—Shall any teach knowledge unto God? The principles of providence insisted on by the friends were not those according to which God’s actual providence was administered. They were substituting their principles for His.
seeing he judgeth] The clause emphasises the word God: Shall any teach knowledge unto God—God who judges those that are high? “Those that are high” are the inhabitants of the heavens; and to “judge” means to decide in regard to, to bring His judicial power to bear upon; the word does not mean to condemn. God judges the heavens, and shall one teach Him how to rule the affairs of earth? Cf. ch. Job_22:13.
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22–26. By insisting on a doctrine of providence which did not correspond to God’s providence as actually seen in facts, Job’s friends were making themselves wiser than God and becoming His teachers—Will any teach knowledge unto God? Shall we insist on His method of government being what it plainly is not? This is what it is: One man dieth in his full prosperity,—wholly at ease and quiet. Another man dieth in the bitterness of his soul and has not tasted pleasure. They lie down alike in the dust and the worm covers them. Their different fortune is not determined by their different character. The one is not good and the other wicked. But God distributes to them as He chooses.
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 (22) Shall any teach God knowledge? may be regarded…
(22) Shall any teach God knowledge? may be regarded as the hypothetical reply of the antagonist. If the reader prefers to understand these latter verses in any other way, it is open to him to do so, but in our judgment it seems better to understand them thus. The supposed alternative hypothetical argument seems to throw much light upon them.
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 Shall any teach God knowledge? Job has been searching…
Shall any teach God knowledge? Job has been searching the "deep things of God," speculating upon the method of the Divine government of the world, he has perhaps rashly ventured to "rush in where angels fear to tread." Now, however, he cheeks himself with the confession that God"s ways are inscrutable, his knowledge far beyond any knowledge possessed by man. Men must not presume to judge him; it is for him to judge them. Seeing he judgeth those that are high. None so exalted, none so advanced in wisdom and knowledge, none so venturesome in sounding depths that they cannot fathom, but God is above them, judges them, knows their hearts, and, according to his infallible wisdom, condemns or approves them. This is a chastening thought, and its effect on Job is to make him contract his sails, and, leaving the empyrean, content himself with s lower flight. Previously he has maintained, as if he were admitted to the Divine counsels, that the prosperity of the wicked was a rule of God"s government. Now he goes no further than to say that there is no rule discoverable. Happiness and misery are dispensed as far as man can see on no definite principle, and, at the end, one lot happens to all: all go down into the tomb, and lie in the dust, and the worms devour them (vers. 23-26).
Teaching God.
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Job has already warned his friends that their advocacy of a cruel creed was speaking wickedly for God. (Job_13:7) The presumption of the foolish advocates of an effete orthodoxy now reaches a greater height, and they virtually assume to teach God. Their dogma is above Divine revelation. If the two differ, so much the worse for the revelation. Let us see how this same error may be found in other branches of life and thought.
I IN AUTHORITATIVE ORTHODOXY. It cannot be said that the mere act of calling in the aid of authority to establish and support what we believe to be the truth implies a disposition to assume to be the teachers of God. But there is a tendency in absolute reliance on authority to move towards that absurdity which reaches its climax in the folly that Job ascribes to his friends. The tendency is to think the settled opinion of our party or section of the Church a certain and infallible truth. Thus people are urged to submit to such settled opinion without inquiry. Though God may have given teaching available to all in nature and in the Scriptures, though he may be speaking in the hearts of his children by the voice of his Spirit, all these Divine communications are set aside in favour of the one human authoritative utterance. Instead of this being subject to the test of nature, Scripture, and conscience, God"s voice in those three channels is translated and often distorted into accordance with the dogma of authority.
II IN PRIVATE JUDGMENT. The same error may be seen in the opposite direction, in a sort of ultra-Protestant employment of the right of freedom of thought. The individual man asserts his opinion as infallible, regardless of the ideas of all other people. He poses as "Athanasius contra mundum," without possessing the title to independence which was earned by the hero of Nicaea. The mischief is not that he is independent surely everybody should think for himself; it is that he rejects all external aids to knowledge, and sets up his own reason, or often his own prejudice, as the standard of truth. He rejects the Pope of Rome that he may be his own pope. Even the Divine revelation in the Bible must be interpreted so as to agree with his opinions. Instead of going to the Scriptures as a humble learner seeking light, he approaches them as one who has made up his mind, and who mast now get the Bible to echo his notions. The same mistake is made by those who presume to judge nature or providence, thinking they would have done better if they had been in God"s place.
III IN PRAYER. Is it not very common for people to pray as though they were instructing God? They inform him of what he already knows far better than they know it themselves. God invites our confidence and confession; but this is that we may put ourselves into right relations with him, not that we may tell him anything of which he would be ignorant but for our prayer. Or people go further, and offer instructions to God as to the way in which he should act. Prayer, instead of being a supplication, becomes a dictating to God. Entreaty is virtually converted into a demand. We have to learn to submit to the higher knowledge as well as the higher authority of God. Prayer needs to be more simply the trusting of ourselves to God for him to do with us just what he knows to be best. W.F.A.
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 Shall any teach God knowledge?
Job_21:22
Shall any teach God knowledge?
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Mental independence of God
The mental independency of God involves two things--uninstructibleness and irresponsibleness. The former in man is either a calamity or a crime. But that which in any finite intelligence would be either a misfortune or a sin, is a glorious perfection in God. It is the glory of God that He cannot be instructed--that no one can teach Him knowledge. He knows all things, actual and possible. But whilst the former ought not to exist in any intelligent creature, the latter irresponsibility does not exist. No being is authorised to use his knowledge in any way he may think fit. All rational creatures are accountable for the use of their knowledge. Not so with God. He can use His infinite knowledge in any way He pleases. He is answerable to none: all are responsible to Him.
I. That all His operations must emanate from pure sovereignty. All that exists must be traced to the counsel of His own will. He received neither the plan nor motive for any act. Creation--redemption--conversion--every part of each--every Divine movement in connection with each--rises out of benevolent spontaneity.
II. That all His laws must be the transcript of His own mind. It is seldom just to regard human laws as a correct reflection of the mind of the sovereign, for a human sovereign, in most cases, receives counsels and suggestions from others; but as God has had no counsellor, His laws are the expression of Himself. What they are, He is. The history of His government is the history of Himself. Irresponsible power in a creature would be despotism, but in God it has, from the beginning, been mercy.
III. That all His dispensations should be cordially acquiesced in.
1. Rectitude dictates this. The Absolute Mind has a right to do what He does.
2. Expediency dictates this. Opposition is useless. No being can give Him a new idea or motive, and, therefore, no one can turn Him from His course.
IV. That all His revelations should be properly studied. A book from a Mind absolutely independent should be studied--
1. With an expectation of difficulties.
2. With the profoundest reverence. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Job continues speaking to his friends.
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Can anyone teach God knowledge since he judges even those who are high?
Job asks this question to emphasize that God knows everything. AT: "Obviously, no one can teach anything to God since he even judges those in heaven." (See: Rhetorical Question)
those who are high
Possible meanings are 1) "those who are in heaven" or 2) "powerful people."
One man dies in his full strength
Job contrasts this man who dies in health and peace to the man who dies in sorrow and pain in Job 21:25. You can make this explicit. AT: "If there are two men, one may die in his full strength" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
His body is full of milk ... the marrow of his bones is moist
Both of these phrases mean that the person is very healthy. (See: Parallelism)
His body is full of milk
The word for "milk" may mean "fat." Either rendering means he is well-fed. AT: "His body if full of fat" (See: Idiom)
the marrow of his bones is moist
This idiom means his body is youthful and healthy. (See: Idiom)
translationWords
know
judge
die
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 21:22 The rhetorical answer is that no one can…
21:22 The rhetorical answer is that no one can teach a lesson to God (Isa 40:13-14; 45:9; Rom 11:34; 1 Cor 2:16). • The most powerful might refer to angels or demons (1 Cor 6:3; 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 1:6; Rev 20:1-3) or, more likely, to the powerful on earth (Job 34:17-19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.