Moreover Yahweh answered Job,
“Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
Then Job answered Yahweh,
“Behold, I am of small account. What will I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind,
“Now brace yourself like a man. I will question you, and you will answer me.
Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?
“Now deck yourself with excellency and dignity. Array yourself with honor and majesty.
Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low.
Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together. Bind their faces in the hidden place.
Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
“See now, behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass as an ox.
Look now, his strength is in his thighs. His force is in the muscles of his belly.
He moves his tail like a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together.
His bones are like tubes of bronze. His limbs are like bars of iron.
He is the chief of the ways of God. He who made him gives him his sword.
Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play.
He lies under the lotus trees, in the covert of the reed, and the marsh.
The lotuses cover him with their shade. The willows of the brook surround him.
Behold, if a river overflows, he doesn’t tremble. He is confident, though the Jordan swells even to his mouth.
Shall any take him when he is on the watch, or pierce through his nose with a snare?
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 14, 18, 20, 21, 23 Signifying that they that justify themselves, condemn God as…
Signifying that they that justify themselves, condemn God as unjust.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–24 Job 40:1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Job 40:1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Ver. 1. Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said] Hic verisimile est aliquantisper Deum tacuisse, saith Mercer. Here it is likely that God held his peace awhile, and seeing that Job replied not, he added the following words, the more fully to convince and affect him. There is somewhat to do to reduce a sinner from the error of his way; yea, though he be in part regenerate, the flesh will play its part against the spirit. This must be considered, and all gentleness used to those that offend of infirmity, after God’s example here.
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 vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Having made a little pause to try what Job…
Having made a little pause to try what Job could answer to his questions, and Job being it seems astonished with God’s rebukes, or expecting what God would further say, continued silent.
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, 15 Here is, I. A humbling challenge which God gave…
Here is, I. A humbling challenge which God gave to Job. After he had heaped up many hard questions upon him, to show him, by his manifest ignorance in the works of nature, what an incompetent judge he was of the methods and designs of Providence, he clenches the nail with one demand more, which stands by itself here as the application of the whole. It should seem, God paused awhile, as Elihu had done, to give Job time to say what he had to say, or to think of what God had said; but Job was in such confusion that he remained silent, and therefore God here put him upon replying, Job 40:1, Job 40:2. This is not said to be spoken out of the whirlwind, as before; and therefore some think God said it in a still small voice, which wrought more upon Job than the whirlwind did, as upon Elijah, Kg1 19:12, Kg1 19:13. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and then it does wonders. Though Job had not spoken any thing, yet God is said to answer him; for he knows men's thoughts, and can return a suitable answer to their silence. Here, 1. God puts a convincing question to him: "Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? Shall he pretend to dictate to God's wisdom or prescribe to his will? Shall God receive instruction from every peevish complainer, and change the measures he has taken to please him?" It is a question with disdain. Shall any teach God knowledge? Job 21:22. It is intimated that those who quarrel with God do, in effect, go about to teach him how to mend his work. For if we contend with men like ourselves, as not having done well, we ought to instruct them how to do better; but is it a thing to be suffered that any man should teach his Maker? He that contends with God is justly looked upon as his enemy; and shall he pretend so far to have prevailed in the contest as to prescribe to him? We are ignorant and short-sighted, but before him all things are naked and open; we are depending creatures, but he is the sovereign Creator; and shall we pretend to instruct him? Some read it, Is it any wisdom to contend with the Almighty? The answer is easy. No; it is the greatest folly in the world. Is it wisdom to contend with him whom it will certainly be our ruin to oppose and unspeakably our interest to submit to? 2. He demands a speedy reply to it: "He that reproaches God let him answer this question to his own conscience, and answer it thus, Far be it from me to contend with the Almighty or to instruct him. Let him answer all those questions which I have put, if he can. Let him answer for his presumption and insolence, answer it at God's bar, to his confusion." Those have high thoughts of themselves, and mean thoughts of God, who reprove any thing he says or does.
II. Job's humble submission thereupon. Now Job came to himself, and began to melt into godly sorrow. When his friends reasoned with him he did not yield; but the voice of the Lord is powerful. When the Spirit of truth shall come, he shall convince. They had condemned him for a wicked man; Elihu himself had been very sharp upon him (Job 34:7, Job 34:8, Job 34:37); but God had not given him such hard words. We may sometimes have reason to expect better treatment from God, and a more candid construction of what we do, than we meet with from our friends. This the good man is here overcome by, and yields himself a conquered captive to the grace of God. 1. He owns himself an offender, and has nothing to say in his own justification (Job 40:4): "Behold, I am vile, not only mean and contemptible, but vile and abominable, in my own eyes." He is now sensible that he has sinned, and therefore calls himself vile. Sin debases us, and penitents abase themselves, reproach themselves, are ashamed, yea, even confounded. "I have acted undutifully to my Father, ungratefully to my benefactor, unwisely for myself; and therefore I am vile." Job now vilifies himself as much as ever he had justified and magnified himself. Repentance changes men's opinion of themselves. Job had been too bold in demanding a conference with God, and thought he could make his part good with him: but now he is convinced of his error, and owns himself utterly unable to stand before God or to produce any thing worth his notice, the veriest dunghill-worm that ever crawled upon God's ground. While his friends talked with him, he answered them, for he thought himself as good as they; but, when God talked with him, he had nothing to say, for, in comparison with him, he sees himself nothing, less than nothing, worse than nothing, vanity and vileness itself; and therefore, What shall I answer thee? God demanded an answer, Job 40:2. Here he gives the reason of his silence; it was not because he was sullen, but because he was convinced he had been in the wrong. Those that are truly sensible of their own sinfulness and vileness dare not justify themselves before God, but are ashamed that ever they entertained such a thought, and, in token of their shame, lay their hand upon their mouth. 2. He promises not to offend any more as he had done; for Elihu had told him that this was meet to be said unto God. When we have spoken amiss we must repent of it and not repeat it nor stand to it. He enjoins himself silence (Job 40:4): "I will lay my hand upon my mouth, will keep that as with a bridle, to suppress all passionate thoughts which may arise in my mind, and keep them from breaking out in intemperate speeches." It is bad to think amiss, but it is much worse to speak amiss, for that is an allowance of the evil thought and gives it an imprimatur - a sanction; it is publishing the seditious libel; and therefore, if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth and let it go no further (Pro 30:32) and that will be an evidence for thee that that which thou thoughtest thou allowest not. Job had suffered his evil thoughts to vent themselves: "Once have I spoken amiss, yea, twice," that is, "divers times, in one discourse and in another; but I have done: I will not answer; I will not stand to what I have said, nor say it again; I will proceed no further." Observe here what true repentance is. (1.) It is to rectify our errors, and the false principles we went upon in doing as we did. What we have long, and often, and vigorously maintained, once, yea, twice, we must retract as soon as we are convinced that it is a mistake, not adhere to it any longer, but take shame to ourselves for holding it so long. (2.) It is to return from every by-path and to proceed not one step further in it: "I will not add" (so the word is); "I will never indulge my passion so much again, nor give myself such a liberty of speech, will never say as I have said nor do as I have done." Till it comes to this, we come short of repentance. Further observe, Those who dispute with God will be silenced at last. Job had been very bold and forward in demanding a conference with God, and talked very boldly, how plain he would make his case, and how sure he was that he should be justified. As a prince he would go near unto him (Job 31:37); he would come even to his seat (Job 23:3); but he has soon enough of it; he lets fall his plea and will not answer. "Lord, the wisdom and right are all on thy side, and I have done foolishly and wickedly in questioning 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 vv1–23 Moreover the Lord answered Job,.... The Lord having discoursed…
Moreover the Lord answered Job,.... The Lord having discoursed largely of the works of nature, in order to reconcile the mind of Job to his works of providence, stopped and made a pause for a little space, that Job might answer if he thought fit; but he being entirely silent, the Lord began again:
and said; as follows:
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, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 Job humbles himself before God, ver. 1-5. God challenges…
Job humbles himself before God, ver. 1-5. God challenges him to vie with him, in justice, power, majesty, and dominion over the proud, ver. 6-14. And gives an instance of his power in the Behemoth, ver. 15-24.
Answered - Having made a little pause to try what Job could answer. This is not said to be spoken out of the whirlwind, and therefore some think God said it in a still, small voice, which wrought more upon Job, (as upon Elijah) than the whirlwind did. Tho' Job had not spoken any thing, yet God is said to answer him. For he knows mens thoughts, and can return a fit answer to their silence.
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, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Job humbles himself before the Lord, 1-5.
CHAPTER XL
Job humbles himself before the Lord, 1-5.
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And God again challenges him by a display of his power and
judgments, 6-14.
A description of behemoth, 15-24.
NOTES ON CHAP. XL
Verse 1. Moreover the Lord answered] That is, the Lord continued his discourse with Job. Answered does not refer to any thing said by Job, or any question asked.
I think it very likely that this whole piece, from the beginning of this first verse to the end of the fourteenth, was originally the ending of the poem. Mr. Heath has noticed this, and I shall lay his words before the reader: "The former part of this chapter is evidently the conclusion of the poem; the latter part whereof seems to be in great disorder; whether it has happened from the carelessness of the transcriber, or, which appears most probable, from the skins of parchment composing the roll having by some accident changed their places. It is plain from the seventh verse of the forty-second chapter Job 42:7 that Jehovah is the last speaker in the poem. If, then, immediately after the end of the thirty-ninth chapter, we subjoin the fifteenth verse of the forty-second chapter, and place the fourteen first verses of the fortieth chapter immediately after the sixth verse of the forty-second chapter, and by that means make them the conclusion of the poem, all will be right; and this seventh verse of the forty-second chapter will be in its natural order. The action will be complete by the judgment of the Almighty; and the catastrophe of the poem will be grand and solemn." To these reasons of Mr. Heath, Dr. Kennicott has added others, which the reader may find at the end of the chapter. Job 40:24 Without taking any farther notice of the transposition in this place, I will continue the notes in the present order of the verses.
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, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24 Job 40:1. Moreover the Lord answered Job — Having…
Job 40:1. Moreover the Lord answered Job — Having first made a little pause to try what Job had to allege in his own defence, or could answer to his questions; and he continuing silent, as being, it seems, astonished at God’s rebukes, or expecting what he would further say, the Lord proceeded with his questions and rebukes. What follows is not said to be spoken out of the whirlwind, and therefore some think God said it in a still, small voice, which wrought more upon Job (as upon Elijah) than the whirlwind did. Though Job had not spoken any thing, yet God is said to answer him: for he knows men’s thoughts, and can return a fit answer to their silence.
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 vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Moreover, the Lord answered Job - The word “answered”…
Moreover, the Lord answered Job - The word “answered” is used here as it is often in the Scriptures, not to denote a reply to what had been immediately said, but to take up or continue an argument. What God said here was designed as a reply to the spirit which Job had so frequently manifested.
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 vv3, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 Judgment. Job had frequently acknowledged that God could not…
Judgment. Job had frequently acknowledged that God could not be in the wrong. But he had expressed himself in to forcible language, of which God makes him, as it were, ashamed. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "rejectest thou not my decision? yea, dost thou think that I have judged thee in a different manner, in order that thou mayst appear just?" (Haydock)
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 v6 Second Discourse of Jehovah (together with Job’s answer):
Second Discourse of Jehovah (together with Job’s answer):
To doubt God’s justice, which is most closely allied to His wonderful omnipotence, is a grievous wrong, which must be atoned for by sincere penitence:
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Job_40:6 to Job_42:6
1. Sharp rebuke of Job’s presumption, which has been carried to the point of doubting God’s justice:
Job_40:6-14
Job_40:6. Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
7 Gird up thy loins now like a man:
I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
8 Wilt thou also disannul my judgment?
wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous?
9 Hast thou an arm like God?
or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?
10 Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency,
and array thyself with glory and beauty.
11 Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath;
and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
12 Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low;
and tread down the wicked in their place.
13 Hide them in the dust together:
and bind their faces in secret.
14 Then will I also confess unto thee
that thine own right hand can save thee.
2. Humiliating exhibition of the weakness of Job in contrast with certain creatures of earth, not to say with God; shown
a. by a description of the behemoth (hippopotamus):
Job_40:15-24
15 Behold now behemoth,
which I made with thee;
he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins,
and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar:
the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass;
his bones are like bars of iron.
19 He is the chief of the ways of God:
He that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food,
where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees,
in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him with their shadow;
the willows of the brook compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not:
he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan in his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes:
his nose pierceth through snares.
b. by a description of the leviathan (crocodile): Job 40:25–41:26 [E. V. Job_41:1-34]
E.V. [Heb.]
41. [40.]
1 [25] Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?
or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
2 [26] Canst thou put a hook into his nose?
or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
3 [27] Will he make many supplications unto thee?
will he speak soft words unto thee?
4 [28] Will he make a covenant with thee?
wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?
5 [29] Wilt thou play with him as with a bird?
or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
6 [30] Shall the companions make a banquet of him?
shall they part him among the merchants?
7 [31] Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?
or his head with fish spears?
8 [32] Lay thine hand upon him,
remember the battle, do no more.
[41]
9 [1] Behold the hope of him is in vain:
shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
10 [2] None is so fierce that dare stir him up;
who then is able to stand before Me?
11 [3] Who hath prevented me that I should repay him?
whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.
12 [4] I will not conceal his parts,
nor his power, nor his comely proportion.
13 [5] Who can discover the face of his garment?
or who can come to him with his double bridle?
14 [6] Who can open the doors of his face?
his teeth are terrible round about.
15 [7] His scales are his pride,
shut up together as with a close seal.
16 [8] One is so near to another,
that no air can come between them.
17 [9] They are joined one to another,
they stick together that they cannot be sundered.
18 [10] By his neesings a light doth shine,
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
19 [11] Out of his mouth go burning lamps,
and sparks of fire leap out.
20 [12] Out of his nostrils goeth smoke,
as out of a seething pot, or cauldron.
21 [13] His breath kindleth coals,
and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
22 [14] In his neck remaineth strength,
and sorrow is turned into joy before him.
23 [15] The flakes of his flesh are joined together:
they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.
24 [16] His heart is as firm as a stone;
yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
25 [17] When he raiseth up himself the mighty are afraid:
by reason of breakings they purify themselves.
26 [18] The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold:
the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.
27 [19] He esteemeth iron as straw,
and brass as rotten wood.
28 [20] The arrow cannot make him flee;
slingstones are turned with him into stubble.
29 [21] Darts are counted as stubble;
he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.
30 [22] Sharp stones are under him:
he spreadeth sharp-pointed things upon the mire.
31 [23] He maketh the deep to boil like a pot;
he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 [24] He maketh a path to shine after him;
one would think the deep to be hoary.
33 [25] Upon earth there is not his like,
who is made without fear.
34 [26 He beholdeth all high things:
he is a king over all the children of pride.
3. Job’s answer: Humble confession of the infinitude of the divine power, and penitent acknowledgment of his guilt and folly:
Job_42:1-6
1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
2 I know that Thou canst do everything,
and that no thought can be withholden from Thee.
3 “Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge?”
therefore have I uttered that I understood not;
things too wonderful for me which I knew not;
4 Hear, I beseech Thee, and I will speak:
I will demand of Thee, and declare Thou unto me.
5 I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
but now mine eye seeth Thee:
6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent
in dust and ashes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. That the omnipotent and infinitely wise activity of the Creator in nature is at the same time just, was in the first discourse of God affirmed for the most part only indirectly, or implicite. Only once, in Job_38:13-15, was this aspect of His character expressly presented, and then only incidentally. The second discourse of Jehovah is intended to supply what is still lacking as to this point, to constrain Job fully to recognize the justice of God in all that He does, and in this way to vanquish the last remainder of pride and presumption in his heart. It accomplishes this end by a twofold method of treatment. First by the direct method of severely censuring the doubt which Job had uttered as to the divine justice, and by vindicating God’s sole and exclusive claim to the power requisite for exercising sovereignty over the universe (first, and shorter part: Job_40:6-14). Next by the indirect method of attacking his pride through a lengthened description of two proud monster-beasts, mighty creations of God’s hand, which after all the amazing wonder which their gigantic power calls forth, are nevertheless only instruments in the hand of the Almighty, and must submit, if not to the will of man, at least to the will of God, who crushes all tyrannous pride (second, and longer part: Job_40:15 to Job_41:26 [ Job_41:34]). This second part, which is again divided into two unequal halves-the shorter describing the behemoth- Job_40:15-24, the longer the leviathan, Job 40:25-41:26. [E. V., Job_41:1-34], falls back on the descriptive and interrogative tone of the first discourse of God; in contrast with which however it is characterized by an allegorizing tendency. It directly prepares the way for Job’s second and last answer, in which he renews the humble submission which he had previously made, and strengthens it by a penitent confession of his own sinfulness.-The strophic arrangement of this second discourse of Jehovah is comprehensively simple and grand, corresponding to the contents, which are thoroughly descriptive, with a massive execution. It embraces in all five Long Strophes, of 8–12 verses each, not less than three of which are devoted to the description of the leviathan in Job 40:25–41:26, [E. V., Job 41.] These five Long Strophes include indeed shorter subordinate divisions, but not, strictly speaking, regularly constructed strophes.-Against the modern objections to the authenticity of the episode referring to the behemoth and leviathan, see above in the Introd. § 9, II. (also the notice taken of the peculiar theory of Merx in the Preface).
2. First Division (Long Strophe): Severe censure of Job’s presumptuous doubt respecting the justice of the divine course of action: Job_40:6-14.
Job_40:6. Then answered Jehovah Job out of the storm, etc.-This intentional repetition of Job_38:1 is to show that God continues to present Himself to Job as one who, if not exactly burning with wrath towards him, would have him feel His mighty superiority. That here also, instead of מנ סעוה, the original text was מִנְהַסְּעָוָה, is evident from the Masorah itself. The absence of the art. ה, if it originally belonged here, is by no means to be explained, with Ramban, as designed to indicate that the storm was no longer as violent as before.
Job_40:7 precisely as in Job_38:3.
Job_40:8. Wilt thou altogether annul my right?-הֲאַף stands in a climactic relation to Job’s “contending” (רֹב) reproved in Job_40:2. “To break” (הפר) God’s right would be the same as “to abolish, annul” the same (comp. Job_15:4). Job was on the point of becoming guilty of this wickedness, in that he sought to substitute what he assumed to be right, his idea of righteousness, for that of God, so that he might be accounted righteous, and God unjust, (see the second member).
Job_40:9. Or hast thou an arm like God?-וְאִם interrogative, as in Job_8:3; Job_21:4; Job_34:17. The “arm” of God as a symbol of His power, comp. Job_22:8; so also the “thunder-voice” spoken of in the second member; comp. Job_37:2 seq.-תַּרְעֵם, lit., “wilt, canst thou thunder? dost thou pledge thyself to thunder?”
Job_40:10. Then put on majesty and grandeur, as an ornament; clothe, deck thyself with these attributes of divine greatness and sovereignty (comp. Psa_104:1 seq.; Job_21:6 [5]. The challenge is intended ironically, since it demands of Job that which is in itself impossible; in like manner all that follows down to Job_40:13 (comp. Job_38:21).
Job_40:11. Let the outbreakings of thy wrath pour themselves forth.-הֵפִֹץ, effundere, to pour forth, to cause to gush forth, as in Job_37:11; Pro_5:16. עַבְרוֹת, lit., “over-steppings,” are here the overflowings, or outbreakings of wrath; comp. Job_21:30; and for the thought, particularly in the second member, comp. Isa_2:12 seq. The fact that Jehovah ironically summons Job to display such manifestations of holy wrath and of stern retributive justice against sinners, conveys an indirect, but sufficiently clear and emphatic assurance of the truth that He Himself, Jehovah, governs the world thus rigidly and justly; comp. above, Job_38:13 seq.
Job_40:12. Look on all that is proud, and bring it low.-This almost verbal repetition of Job_40:11 b is intended to emphasize the fact that at the moment when God casts His angry glance upon the wicked, the latter is cast down; comp. Psa_34:17 [16].-And overturn the wicked in their place, הָדַךְ, ἅπ. λεγ., “to throw down,” or perhaps “to tread down” (related to דּוּךְ). In the latter case the passage might be compared with Rom_16:20.-On תַּחְתָּם “in their place” [= “on the spot”], comp. Job_36:20.
Job_40:13. Hide them in the dust altogether;i.e., in the dust of the grave (hardly in holes of the earth, or of rooks, as though Isa_2:10 were a parallel passage).-Shut up fast (lit., “bind, fetter”) their faces in secret, i.e., in the interior of the earth, in the darkness of the realm of the dead; טָמוּן here substantially = שְׂאֹל Comp. the passage out of the Book of Enoch Job_10:5, cited by Dillmann: καὶ τὴν ὄψιν αὐτοῦ πώμασον, καὶ φῶς μὴ θεωρείτω.
Job_40:14. Then will I too praise thee, not only wilt thou praise thyself (comp. Job_40:8)-That thy right hand brings thee succor;i.e., that thou dost actually possess the power (the “arm,” Job_40:9) to put thy ideas of justice into execution with vigor; comp. the similar expressions in Psa_44:4 [3]; Isa_59:18; Isa_63:5. This conclusion of the rebuke which Jehovah administers directly to Job’s insolent presumption, as though he only knew what is just, prepares at once the transition to the description which follows of the colossal animals which are introduced as eloquent examples of God’s infinite creative power, which for the very reason of its being such is of necessity united to the highest justice.
3. Second Division: The descriptions of animals, given for the purpose of humiliating Job by showing his weakness, and the absolute groundlessness of his presumptuous pride.
a. The description of the behemoth: Verses 15–24.
Job_40:15. Behold now the behemoth.-Even Dillm., one of the most zealous opponents of the genuineness of the whole section, is obliged to admit that the connection with what precedes by means of הִנֵּהּ is an “easy” one. Moreover it is by no means one that is “purely external,” for the behemoth is brought to Job’s attention for the very purpose of illustrating the proposition that no creature of God’s, however mighty, can succeed against Him, can “with his right hand obtain for himself help against Him” (see Job_40:14 b). This is clearly enough indicated by the second member: which I have made with thee;i.e. as well as thee (עִם as though it were comparative, as in Job_9:26; comp. Job_37:18). Job is bid to contemplate his fellow-creature, the behemoth, far huger and stronger than himself, that he may learn how insignificant and weak are all created beings in contrast with God, and in particular how little presumptuous and proud confidence in external things can avail against Him (comp. the passage of Horace; Vis consilî expert mole ruit sua, etc.). The name בְּהֵמוֹת (which the ancient versions either misinterpreted as a plural [so the LXX.: θηρία], or left untranslated, as a proper name [Vulg., etc.]), in itself denotes, in accordance with the analogy of other plural formations with an intensive signification: “the great beast, the colossus of cattle, the monster animal.” The word is, however, a Hebraized form of the Egyptian p-ehe-mau, “the water-ox” (p=the, ehe=ox, mau or mou=water), and like this Egypt, word (besides which indeed the hieroglyphic apet is more frequently to be met with), and the Ital. bomarino, it signifies the Nile-horse, or hippopotamus. For it is to this animal that the whole description which follows refers, as is most distinctly and unmistakably shown by the association with another monster of the Nile, the crocodile: not to the elephant, of which it is understood by Thom. Aquinas, Oecolampadius, the Zürich Bib., Drusius, Pfeifer, Le Clerc, Cocceius, Schultens, J. D. Michaelis [Scott, Henry. Good refers the description to some extinct pachyderm of the mammoth or mastodon species. Lee, following the LXX., understands it of the cattle, first collectively, and then distributively]. The correct view was taken by Bochart (Hieroz. iii. 705 seq.), and after him has been adopted by the great majority of moderns. With the following vivid description of this animal’s way of living and form, beginning with the mention of his “eating grass” (supporting himself on tender plants, the reeds of the Nile, roots, etc.), may be compared Herod, ii. 69–71; Pliny viii. 25; Aben Batuta, ed. Defrem 4., p. 426; among the moderns, Rüppell: Reisen in Nubien, 1829, p. 52 seq.; and in particular Sir Sam. Baker in his travels, as in The Nile and its Tributaries, The Albert Nyanza, etc. (See extracts from these works, with striking illustrations of the hippopotamus in the Globus, Vol. XVII., 1870, Nos. 22–24) [Livingstone, Travels and Researches, p. 536].
Job_40:16. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, etc.-אוֹן as in Job_18:7; Job_18:12. שְׁרִירִים in b, a word found only here (derived from the root שׁר, “to wind, to twist,” which is contained also in שֹׁר, “navel,” as also in שֹׁרֶשׁ “root”), cannot signify, the “bones,” of which mention is first made in Job_40:18 (against Wetzstein in Delitzsch), but the cords, the sinews and muscles, which in the case of the hippopotamus (not, however, of the elephant) are particularly firm and strong just in the region of the belly.
Job_40:17. He bends his tail like a cedar;i.e. like a cedar-bough; the tert. comp. lies in the straightness, firmness and elasticity of the tail of the hippopotamus (which is furthermore short, hairless, very thick at the root, of only a finger’s thickness, however, at the end, looking therefore somewhat like the tail of the hog, but not at all like that of the elephant). יַחְפֹּץ, instead of being translated “he bends” (Targ.), may possibly be explained to mean “he stiffens, stretches out” (LXX., Vulg., Pesh.).-The sinews of his thighs are firmly knit together; or also “the veins of his legs” (by no means nervi testiculorum ejus, as the Vulg. and Targ. [also E. V.] render it). With יְשׂרָגוּ, “they are wrapped together, they present a thick, twig-like texture,” comp. שָׂרִגִים, “vine-tendrils” [the interweaving of the vine-branches being before the poet’s eye in his choice of the word. Del.].
Job_40:18. His bones are pipes of brass.-אֲפִיקִים here “pipes, tubes, channels,” as in Job_41:7; comp. נַחַל, Job_28:4. נְחוּשָׁה, a word peculiar to our book, instead of the form which obtains elsewhere, נְחשֶׁת (comp. further Job_20:24; Job_28:2; Job_41:19). Concerning מְטִיל, “staff, pole, bar,” probably the Semitic etymological basis of μέταλλον, comp. Delitzsch on the passage. In respect to the similes in both members of the verse, comp. Son_5:15 a.
Job_40:19. He is a firstling of God’s ways;i.e. a master-piece of His creative power (comp. Gen_49:3). רֵאשִׁית can all the more easily dispense with the article here, seeing that it denotes only priority of rank (as in Amo_6:1; Amo_6:6; comp. also בְּכוֹר in Job_18:13, and often), not of time (as e.g. in Pro_8:22; Num_24:20). In respect to “God’s ways” in the sense of the displays of His creative activity in creating and governing the universe, comp. Job_26:14. The whole clause refers to the immense size and strength of the hippopotamus, which, at least in length and thickness, if not in height, surpasses even the elephant, and overturns with ease the ships of the Nile, vessel, crew and cargo. In reality therefore there is no exaggeration in the statement; and only an exegetical misapprehension of it, and an idle attempt at allegorizing it (stimulated in the present instance by the resemblance to Pro_8:22) could have influenced the Jewish Commentators, and those of the ancient Church, to find in this designation of the behemoth as a “firstling of God’s ways” a symbolic representation of Satan (comp. Book of Enoch, 60, 6 seq.; many Rabbis of the Middle Ages; the Pseudo-Melitonian Clavis Scripturœ Sacræ [in Pitra, Spicileg. Salesm. Vol. II.], Eucherius of Lyons in his Formulæ maj. et minores [Idem, Vol. III., p. 400 seq.], Gregory the Great, and most of the Church Fathers on the passage; Luther also in his marginal gloss on the passage, Brentius [see below, Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks.-The same view is taken moreover by Wordsworth, who explains: “It seems probable that Behemoth represents the Evil One acting in the animal and carnal elements of man’s own constitution, and that Leviathan symbolizes the Evil One energizing as his external enemy. Behemoth is the enemy within us; Leviathan is the enemy without us”].-It only remains to say, that there is nothing surprising in the fact that here, in a discourse by God, He should speak of Himself in the third person; comp. above Job_39:17; Job_38:41.-He who made him furnished to him his sword, viz. his teeth, his two immense incisors (which according to Rüppell in l. c. grow to be twenty-six French inches long), with which as with a sickle (a ἅρπη, Nicander, Theriac. 566; Nonnus, Dionysiac. 26) he mows down the grass and green corn-blades. הָעשֹׁוֹ stands for הָעשֵֹׁהוּ, “He who hath made him, his Creator” (the article being used as demonstrative; comp. Gesenius § 109 [§ 108, 2, a]), and יַגֵשׁ elliptically for יַגֵשׁ לוֹ, “brought near to him, furnished to him.” The emendation suggested by Böttcher and Dillmann-חֵעָשׁוּ instead of הָעשֹׁוֹ: “which was created [lit. plur. ‘which were created’] so as to attach thereon a sword” (יַגֵשׁ as Jussive)-is unnecessary, as is also Ewald’s rendering of הִגִּישׁ in the sense of “to blunt, to make harmless.”
Job_40:20 gives a reason for Job_40:19 b:For the mountains bring him forth food.-יְבוּל=בּוּל, produce, fruit, vegetation. The clause is not intended to describe the hippopotamus as an animal that commonly or frequently grazes on the mountains (in point of fact it is only in exceptional instances that he ascends the mountains or high “grounds, when the river-banks and the grounds immediately around them have been eaten up). It only intends to say that entire mountains, vast upland tracts, where large herds of other animals abide, must provide for him his food (see b).
Job_40:21 states where the hippopotamus is in the habit of staying: He lies down under the lotus-trees, in the covert of reeds and fens (comp. Job_8:11)-צֶאֱלִים, plur. of צִאְל, or of צֶאֱלָה (a word which occurs also in the Arabic), are not the lotus-flowers, i.e., the water-lilies (Nymphæa Lotus) [so Conant], but the lotus-bushes, or trees (Lotus silvestris s. Cyrenaica), a vegetable growth frequently found in the hot and moist lowlands of Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Syria, with thorny branches, and a fruit like the plum. On b comp. the description of the hippopotamus given by Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII. 15): Inter arundines celsas et squalentes nimia densitate hæc bellua cubilia ponit.
Job_40:22. Lotus-trees cover him as a shade.-צִלְלוֹ (resolved from צִלּוֹ, like גֶּלְלוֹ, Job_20:7, from גִּלּוֹ) is in apposition to the subject, with which it forms at the same time a paronomasia. Another paronomasia occurs between יְסֻכֻּהוּ and יְסֻבֻּהוּ in b.
Job_40:23. Behold, the river shows violence; he trembles not; lit., “he does not spring up, is not startled. הֵן at the beginning of this clause has, as in Job_12:11; Job_23:8, substantially the force of a conditional particle. עָשַׁק here without an object: “to exercise violence, to act violently,” (differing from Job_10:3) a word which strikingly describes a river wildly swelling and raging [sweeping its borders with tyrannous devastation. E. V., following the Vulg. absorbebit fluvium (Targ. “he doth violence to the river”) gives to עשק a meaning not warranted]. He remains unconcerned (lit. “he is confident”) when a Jordan rushes (lit. “bursts through, pours itself forth,” גִּיחַ as in Job_38:8) into his mouth. The Jordan, (יַרְדֵּן without the Art.) is used here in an appellative sense of a river remarkable for its swiftly rushing course, not as a proper name, for hippopotami scarcely lived in the Jordan. There is nothing strange in this mention of the Jordan in order vividly to illustrate the description, the same being a river well known to Job, and also to his friends. It certainly cannot be urged as an argument for the hypothesis that the author of this section is not the same with the author of the remainder of the book (against Ewald and Dillmann). [“The reason why the Jordan is the river particularly here used as an illustration is, I suppose, because not unlikely, rising as it does at the foot of the snow-clad Lebanon, it was liable to more sudden and violent swellings than either the Euphrates or the Nile. It is, in fact, more of a mountain torrent than either, and probably in its irruptions it drove away in consternation the lions and other wild beasts, located in the thickets on its banks.” Carey. Comp. Jer_12:5 and Jer 41:19].
Job_40:24. Before his eyes do they take him, pierce through his nose with snares.-The position and tone of the words forbid one taking this verse as an ironical challenge: “Let one just take him!” or as a question: “Shall, or does any one take him,” etc.? Instead of בְּעֵֹנָיו (i.e., “while he himself is looking on, under his very eyes;” comp. Pro_1:17), we must at least have read הַבְּעֵינָיו. Moreover instead of the 3d Pers. we should rather have looked for the 2d, if either of the above constructions had been the true one (comp. the questions in Job 40:25 seq.) [Job_41:1 seq.]. The clause accordingly is to be taken, with the ancient versions, and with Stickel, Umbreit, Ewald, Dillmann [Conant] as descriptive of something which actually takes place, and hence as referring to the capture of the river-horse. By the ancients in like manner as by the Nubians of to-day this was accomplished by means of harpoons fastened to a long rope. It is either to this harpoon-rope, or to a switch drawn through the nose after the capture has been effected that the word מוֹקֵשׁ in b refers. It can hardly mean a common trap (Delitzsch [“let one lay a snare which, when it goes into it, shall spring together and pierce it in the nose”]).-Why does God close the description of the hippopotamus with a reference to its capture? Evidently because He wishes thereby to emphasize the thought that this animal is wholly and completely in His power, that all its size and strength are of no avail to it, and that when God determines to deliver it into the hands of men, its pride is humbled without fail. Whereas on the other hand the description of the leviathan which follows contains no such reference to its capture, but sets forth throughout only the difficulty, or indeed the impossibility of becoming its master by the use of ordinary strength and cunning; this indicates an advance over what goes before.
4. Continuation, b. First part of the description of the leviathan: Job_41:1-11 [Heb. Job 40:25-41:3]: the untamableness and invincibility of the leviathan.-Dost thou draw out the leviathan with a net? [or as E. V., Gesen., Fürst, etc., “with a hook”]. The name לִוְיָתָן denotes here neither the mythical dragon of heaven, as in Job_3:8 (see on the passage), nor the whale, as in Psa_104:26, but the crocodile, whose structure and mode of life are in the following description depicted with fidelity to the minutest particular (comp. the evidence in detail in Bochart, Hieroz. III., 737 seq.). In and of itself לויתן is the generic name of any monster capable of wreathing itself in folds, in like manner as תַּנִּין (comp. τείνω) may denote any monster that is long stretched out. But as the latter name is become the prevalent designation of the whale, (see on Job_7:12), so the name leviathan seems to have attached itself from an early period to the crocodile, that particularly huge and terrible amphibious monster of Bible lands, for which animal there was no special name appropriated in the primitive Hebrew, as it was not indigenous to Palestine, or at all events was but rarely found in its waters (traces indeed are not absolutely wanting of its having existed in them at one time: see the remarks of Robinson in respect to the “coast-river Nahr ez Zerka, or Maat-Temsâh [“crocodile-waters”], and also in respect to the city Crocodilon, not far from Cesarea, in his “Physical Geography,” etc., p. 191). The name leviathan does not involve the Hebraizing of an Egyptian name of the crocodile, (analogous to that of pe-ehe-mou in behemoth). By so much the more probable is it that in the interrogative תִּמְשֹׁךְ “drawest thou” (without הֲ, see Ew., § 324, a), the poet intends an allusion to the well-known Egyptian name of the animal, which in Copt, is temsah, in modern Arab, timsah (Ew., Del., Dillm., etc).-Dost thou with a cord press down his tongue? i.e., when, liks a fish, be has bitten the fishing-hook, dost thou, in pulling the line, cause it to press down the tongue? The question is not (with Schult., Hirzel, Delitzsch, etc.) to be rendered: “Canst thou sink a line into his tongue [or “his tongue into a line”]? a rendering which is indeed verbally admissible, but which yields an idea that is not very intelligible. This member expresses, only with a little more art, the same thought as the first. It is not at all necessary to assume (with Ewald, Dillmann and other opponents of the genuineness of the present section), that the poet represents the capture of the crocodile as absolutely impossible, thus contradicting the fact attested by Herodotus, II., 7, that the ancient Egyptians caught this animal with fishing-hooks. That which the ironical question of God denies is simply the possibility of overcoming this animal, like a harmless fish, with ordinary craft or artifice, not the possibility of ever capturing it.-There is nothing to forbid the assumption that instead of the Egyptian crocodile (or at least along with it) the author had in view a Palestinian species or variety of the same animal, which is no longer extant, and that this Palestinian crocodile, just because it was rarer than the saurian of the Nile, was in fact held to be impossible of capture, (comp. Delitzsch II, p. 366, n. 2). It is, generally speaking, a very precarious position to question the accuracy of our poet’s statements even in a single point: compare e.g., the perfectly correct mention in this passage of the tongue of the crocodile, with the ridiculous assertion of Herodot. (II. 68), Aristotle, and other ancients, that the crocodile has no tongue.
Job_41:2 [Job 40:26]. Canst thou put a rush-ring into his nose, and bore through his jaw (or, “his cheek”) with a hook?-i.e.. canst thou deal with him as fishermen deal with the fish captured by them, piercing their mouths with iron hooks in order afterwards to thrust through them rush-cords (σχοίνους), or iron rings (the fishermen of the Nile use the latter to this day, see Bruce, Travels, etc.), and to lay the fish thus tied together in the water?
Job_41:3 [Job 40:27.] Will he make many supplications to thee, etc., i. e., will he speak thee fair, in order to retain his freedom? The question which follows in Job_41:28 enlarges upon this thought, with a somewhat different application. “For a servant for ever” is here equivalent to “for a tamed domestic animal” (comp. Job_39:9).
Job_41:5 [Job 40:29]. Wilt thou play with him as with a bird?-שִׂחַק בְּ differently from Psa_104:26, where it signifies to play in something. By the “bird” here spoken of is meant neither the “golden beetle” (which in the language of the Talmud is called “bird of the vineyard”), nor the grasshopper (comp. Lewysohn, Zool. des Talmud. § 364). We are rather to compare with it the sparrow of Catullus: Passer, deliciæ meæ puellæ, and, as in that poem, we are to understand by the נערות “female slaves;” scarcely the “little daughters” of the one who is addressed (as Dillmann thinks, who takes pains to exhibit here a new reason for suspecting the genuineness of this section).
Job_41:6 [Job 40:30]. Do fishermen-partners trade in him? [do they divide him among the Canaanites?]חַבָּרִים (different from חֲבֵרִיםIsa_44:11) are fishermen as members of a guild, or as partners in a company associated together for the capture of fish; comp. Luk_5:7; Luk_5:10, יִכְרוּ with עַל as in Job_6:27, “to make bargains for anything, to traffic with it;” not “to feast upon anything, to make a banquet,” as the phrase is rendered by the LXX. (ἐνσιτοῦνται), Targum [E. V.], Schult., Rosenmüller, etc.; for כָּרָה “to banquet” (2Ki_6:23) agrees neither with the construction with עַל, nor the mention of the “Canaanites,” i.e., the Phenician merchants (Isa_23:8; Zec_14:21; Pro_31:24) in the second member. [Gesenius, Conant, etc., less simply take כָּרָה in its more usual sense, “to dig,” i.e., dig pits, lay snares for. Merx. reads יִכְּרוּ from כרר, and translates: The animal, against which hunters go in troops].
Job_41:7 [Job 40:31]. Not only is the crocodile unsuited to be an article of commerce, but. coated as he is with scales, he is equally unsuited to be the object of an exciting harpoon-hunt. With שֻׂכּוֹת, “pointed darts,” comp. the Arab, sauke, which signifies both “thorn” and “spear.”
Job_41:8 [Job 40:32]. Remember the battle, thou wilt not do it again-i. e., shouldst thou presume to fight with him (זְכֹר, not Infinit. dependent on תּוֹסַף, but Imperat. consecut., comp. Ew., § 347, b), thou wilt not repeat the experiment (תּוֹסַף pausal form for תּוֹסֶף, see Ew., § 224, b). Needless violence is done to this verse also, if (as by Dillmann) the attempt be made to deduce from it the idea of the absolute impossibility of capturing and conquering the crocodile. Let it be borne in mind that the words are addressed to a single individual.
Job_41:9 [Job_41:1], Behold, every hope is disappointed; lit. “behold, his hope is disappointed,” that viz. of the man who should enter into a contest with the monster (the use of the suffix accordingly being similar to that of Job_37:12). Even at the sight of him one is cast down; lit. as a question: “is one cast down?” etc.; i.e., is it. not the fact that the mere sight of him is enough to cast one down with terror? On מַרְאָיו, which is not plur.. but sing, comp. Gesenius, § 93 [§ 91], 9, Rem.
Job_41:10 [Job_41:2], None so fool-hardy that he would stir him up.-רֹא is not, without further qualification, אֵין (Hirz.), but the lacking subj. is to be supplied out of the next member, and the whole clause is exclamatory: “not fierce (fool-hardy, rash) enough, that he should rouse him up!” Respecting אַכְזָר, (comp. Job_30:21. And who will take his stand before Me?-i.e., appear against Me as Mine adversary; התיצב here in another sense than in Job_1:6; Job_2:1. According to some MSS. and the Targ. the text should be לְפָנָיו, referring to the crocodile: and who will stand before him?” But this would destroy the characteristic fundamental thought of the verse, which consists in a conclusio a min. ad majus: “If no one ventures to stir up that creature which I have made, how much less will any one dare to contend with Me, the Almighty Creator?”
Job_41:11 [3]. Who gave to me first of all that I must requite it?-i. e., who would dare to appear against me as my accuser or my enemy, on the ground that he has perchance given me something, and is thus become my creditor? (Rom_11:35). As to the second half of the verse which gives the reason for the question, in which God claims all created beings as His property, comp. Psa_50:10 seq.; on תַּחַת כָּל־הַשָּׁמַיִם see Job_28:24; on the neuter הוּא see Job_13:16; Job_15:9.-The general thoughts advanced in Job_41:2 b, and Job_41:3 are a suitable close to what is said of the invincibility of the crocodile, as a mighty illustration of God’s creative power, so that we are required neither to transpose the passage (as e.g., by placing it after Job_40:14), nor to deem it out of place here, between the description of the leviathan’s untamableness, and that of his bodily structure (against Dillmann).
5. Conclusion: c. Second part of the description of the leviathan: The bodily structure and mode of life characteristic of the leviathan, the king of all proud beasts: Job_41:12-34 [4–20].
Job_41:12 [4]. I will not keep silent as to his members (בַּדִּים, see Job_18:13). So according to the K’thibh לֹא אַחֲרִישׁ; the K’ri לוֹ אח׳ would give the idea in the form of a question: “as to him should I pass his limbs in silence?” which as being a little more difficult is to be preferred. In no case does the clause deserve to be called “a prosaic and precise announcement of the subject to be treated of,” such as would seem to be “not very suitable” in a discourse delivered by God (Dillmann): the idea of the ancients touching what might be suitable and in taste, and what might not be so, were quite different from our modern notions. Nor as to the fame of his powers (so Vaihinger strikingly); lit. “nor of the word of his powers” i.e., of their kind and arrangement (Ewald), how the case stands with respect to them; comp. דָּבָר in Deu_15:2; Deu_19:4. In the final clause וְחִין עֶרְכּוֹ the word עֶרֶךְ is in any case equivalent to “disposition, structure” (Aq.: τάξις), and הִין seems to be a secondary form of חֵן= come-liness, gracefulness, with which the tenor of this description which follows well agrees, setting forth as it does not only that which is fearful, but also that which is beautiful and elegant in the structure of the leviathan. For this reason it is unnecessary either with Ewald to identify the word with הִין, “measure” (dry measure), or with Dillmann to amend the text (to עֵין? or חֹסֶן?)
Job_41:13-17 [5–9]: The upper and foreside [face] of the crocodile.-Who has uncovered the face of his garment?i.e., no one can uncover, lift up the upper side (פָּנִים as in Isa_25:7) of his scaly coat of mail; this lies on his back with such tenacity that it cannot be removed, nor broken. [Others, Ewald, Schlott., etc., explain פָּנִים of the anterior part of his garment, or armor, that which pertains to the head or face; but this would be less natural, and would involve tautology-the. “opening of the jaws” being referred to again in the next ver.].-Into his doable jaws who enters in?-Lit., “into the double of his jaws;” רֶסֶן here accordingly in a different sense from Job_30:11 [where it means “bridle,” the meaning which E. V. gives to it here]. The fact mentioned by Herod. II., 68, and confirmed by modern observations, to wit, that a little bird, the plover, (Charadrius Ægyptius, in Herod, τροχίλος) enters the open jaw of the crocodile, in order to look for insects there, need not be deemed unknown to our author; only we are not to insist on his having such an incident in mind in the passage before us.
Job_41:14 [6]. The doors of his face-who has opened them?i.e., his jaws, his mouth, the aperture of which reaches back of the eyes and ears (comp. the well-known picture, taken from the Description de l’Egypte, and introduced into several pictorial works on zoology, e.g., into Klotz and Glaser’s Leben und Eigenthümlichkeiten der mittleren und niederen Thierwelt, Leipzig, 1869, p. 15, representing the mouth of a crocodile wide open, with a Charadrius in it).-Round about his teeth is terror; comp. Job_39:20. The crocodile has thirty-six long, pointed teeth in the upper jaw, and thirty in the lower, the appearance of which is all the more terrible that they are not covered by the lips.
Job_41:15 [7]. A pride are the furrows of the shields (comp. Job_40:18), referring to the arched bony shields, of which the animal has seventeen rows, all equally large and square in form. [According to this interpretation אֲפִיקֵי means first channels, and then the shields bounded by those channels. Others (Gesenius, Conant, etc.) take it as an adj. = robusta (robora) scutorum].-Fastened together like a closely, fitting seal; or, construing חותם צר not as appositional, but as instrumental accusative (according to Ewald, § 297, b): “fastened together as with a closely-fitting seal” [so E. V.]. How this is to be understood is shown by the two verses which follow; in which comp., as to the phrase, אישׁ באחיהו, Gesen., § 124, [§ 122], Rem. 4; as to the verbs דבקִ and יתלכדJob_38:30; Job_38:38.
Job_41:18-21 [10–13]. The sneezing and breathing of the crocodile.-His sneezing flashes forth light (תָּהֶל, abbreviated from תָּהֵל, Hiph. of הלל, comp. Job_31:26); i.e., when the crocodile turned toward the sun with open jaws is excited to sneezing (which in such a posture happens very easily, see Bochart III., 753 seq.), the water and slime gushing from his mouth glisten brilliantly in the sunbeams. As Delitz. says truly: “This delicate observation of nature is here compressed into three words; in this concentration of whole, grand thoughts and pictures, we recognize the older poet.”-And his eyes are as eyelids of the dawn (Job_3:9); i.e., when with their red glow they glimmer in the water, before the animal’s head becomes visible above the surface of the water. This cat-like sparkle of the crocodile’s eyes was observed from an early period, and is the reason why in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics two crocodiles’ eyes became the hieroglyph for the dawn, according to the express statement of Horus, Hierogl. I., Job 68: ἐπειδὴ πρὸ παντὸς σώματος ζώου οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἐκ τοῦ βύ̓θου ἀναφαίνονται.
Job_41:19 [11]. Out of his mouth proceed torches;i.e., not literal torches, but streams of water shining like torches, when the animal emerging out of the water breathes violently.-Out of his nostrils goes forth smoke, like a seething pot with reeds [lit., “like a kettle blown and reeds”]; i.e., like a heated kettle standing over a crackling and strongly smoking fire of reeds (Ewald, Böttcher, Delitzsch, Dillm.) [Conant]. The common rendering is: “as a seething pot and caldron;” but אַגְמוֹן is scarcely to be taken to signify something else here than above in Job 40:26 [Job_41:2]; “caldron” would be אַגָּן, Arab, iggane. With the description before us, as well as with the still more strongly hyperbolical description in the verse which follows, comp. the description of Bochart, l. c.: Turn spiritus diu pressus sic effervescit et erumpit tam violenter, ut flammas ore et naribus videatur evomere. Also what the traveler Bartram (in Rosenmüller’s Alterth., p. 250) relates of an alligator in Carolina, that a thick smoke streamed out of its distended nostrils, with a noise which made the earth shake. [Schlottmann calls attention to the close parallelism between Job_41:18-19 and Job_41:20-21].
Job_41:22 [14]. On his neck dwells (lit., “passes the night, lodges,” יָלִין as in Job_17:2) strength, and despair danceth hence before him. תָּדוּץ, leaps, springs up suddenly. Both members of the verse refer to the crocodile suddenly emerging out of the water, and terrifying men or beasts, and particularly to the violent movements of its neck or head, which are sufficient to overturn ships, etc. [“The trepidation, the confused running to and fro of one who is in extreme anguish (comp. יתחטאו Job_41:17) is compared to the dancing of one who is crazed, and this is attributed to the דאבה as the personification of the anguish.” Schlott.-E. V., less suitably: “and sorrow is turned into joy before him”].
Job_41:23 [15] seq., describe the lower and hinder parts of the animal.-The flanks [מפלי, the flabby pendulous parts of the body, especially the belly] of his flesh are closely joined together, are fixed fast upon him, are not moved; i.e., they do not shake with the motions of the body, being thickly lined with strong scales, smaller however than those on the back. יָצּוּק, pass. partic. of יצק, differing accordingly from Job_28:2; Job_29:6.
Job_41:24 [16]. His heart is firmly cast as a stone, firmly cast as a nether millstone, [not as E. V., “as a piece of the nether millstone,” for פלח, as that which is split off, or produced by cleavage, refers to the whole stone; hence elsewhere (Jdg_9:53; 2Sa_24:6), פֶלַח רֶֹכֶב for the upper millstone]. It was necessary that the nether millstone should be particularly hard, because it has to bear the weight and friction of the upper stone; comp. the Biblical Archæologies and Dictionaries, under the word “Mill.” Besides the physical hardness of the crocodile’s heart (in respect to which comp. Arist. De partib. animal. 3, 4), the poet here has in view the firmness of his heart in the tropical or ethical sense, i.e., the courage and fierceness of the beast, as the following verses show clearly enough.
Job_41:25 [17]. At his rising up heroes tremble.-אֵילִים, or, as many MSS. read אֵלִים “mighty ones,” from אוּל “to be thick, strong:” comp. Exo_15:15 with Eze_31:11; Eze_32:21. מִשֵּׂתוֹ, contracted from מִשְּׂאֵתוֹ, cannot mean here “before his majesty” (Job_13:11; Job_31:23), but simply: “at his rising, when he raises himself up.”-From terror they miss their aim. מִשְּׁבָרִים, lit., “from brokenness [breakings];” not however “from wounds.” Jerome correctly: tẹrriti (comp. Isa_65:14). הִתְחַטֵּא, lit., “they miss,” i.e., “their mark” (to wit, here, the slaying of the monster). [Gesenius, Conant, etc., “they lose themselves for terror,” spoken of a person in astonishment and terror missing his way in precipitate flight.-Fürst: “they disappear, i.e., they cannot hold out.”-E. V., under the influence of the Vulg. and Targ. “by reason of breakings they purify themselves,” which hardly yields an intelligible meaning].
Job_41:26 [18]. If one reaches him with the sword, lit., he who reaches him with the sword, it doth not hold, i.e., the sword, (lit., “it does not get up”), it glances off without effect from the scaly armor of the beast. As to the construction comp. Ewald, § 357, c; on the use of בְּלִי with the finite verb, which occurs only here, Ew., § 322, a. In the second member, which introduces three additional subjects to the verb תָּקוּם, this בְּלִי is to be again supplied: “nor spear, dart, and armor.”-According to the testimony of the ancient versions it would seem that שִׁרְיָה must be rendered as a synonym of שִׁרְיוֹן, “coat of mail,” although the context, and a comparison with the Arab, sirwe, or surwe, “arrow,” would favor rather the meaning “missile,” either the harpoon, or some peculiar kind of arrow. For מַסָּע the definition “sling-stone” has the support of the Targ., while the LXX and the Vulg. associate the word with the preceding חֲנִית in the sense of hasta missilis.
Verses 27–29 [19–21] describe more at length the ineffective rebound of ordinary human weapons from the armor of the leviathan, together with the animal’s fearlessness in encountering all assaults by means of such weapons. Respecting נְחוּשָׁה in Job_41:19, b, comp. on Job_40:18. רִקָּבוֹן in the same member is a poetic form for רָקָב (Job_13:28). The “son of the bow,” Job_41:20 a is the arrow, as the “ son of the flame “ in Job_5:7 meant the spark of fire. The “turning to stubble,” Job_41:20 b is of course to be taken only in the subjective sense of becoming as it were stubble.
Job_41:29 [21]. Clubs are accounted (by him) as chaff; lit. “a club;” תּוֹתַח, as a generic term, is construed with the plur. On b (רַעַשׁ and כִּידוֹן), comp. Job_39:23-24.
Job_41:30 [22] continues the description of the under side of the body begun in Job_41:23 [16]. His under parts are pointed shards; lit. “the sharpest of shards,” חַדּוּדֵי הָרֶשׁ; on this mode of expressing the superlative, which occurs also in Job_30:6, comp. Gesen., § 112 [§ 110], Rem. 1. The comparison of the scales on the under side of the crocodile, and especially on his tail, with pointed sherds, is found also in Aelian, H. N. 10, 24. He spreadeth a threshing sledge upon the mire; i.e., by means of those same pointed scales, which leave a mark on the soft mire, like that made by the iron spikes of a threshing-sledge (comp. Isa_28:27).
Job_41:31 [23]. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot.-On הִרְתִּיחַ, “to cause to seethe, to boil and foam violently,” comp. Job_30:27. The “deep” [מְצוּלָה), i.e., literally, the deep of the sea. (=יָם) is a word which can also be applied to a great river, like the Nile; comp. Isa_19:5; Nah_3:8. The Bedouins to this day call the Nile bahr. “sea,” it being quite like a sea when it overflows its banks. He maketh the sea (comp. Job_14:11) like a pot of ointment, i.e., as respects its bubbling and foaming. An Egyptian sea may here be assumed, standing in connection with the Nile, or perhaps one of the seas of the Jordan, if the author took a Palestinian crocodile as the object of his description. The figure of the pot of ointment can hardly allude to the strong odor of musk which the crocodile emits when playing in the water (Bochart, Del.) seeing that the poet is describing here only the visible effects of his tumbling and rushing in the water.
Job_41:32 [24]. After him he maketh the path to shine, by means of the bright white trail which he leaves behind him on the surface of the water, and which in b is compared to the silver bright whiteness of hoary hair (שֵׂיבָה), in the same way that the classic poets speak of a πολιὴ ἅλς (Il. I. 350; Od. IV. 405), or of a canescere (incanescere) of the waves (Catull. Epithal. Pelei; Manilius, Astron.: Ut freta canescunt, sulcum ducente carina, etc.).
Job_41:33 [25] seq.: Conclusion of the whole description, repeating the affirmation of the invincibility of the leviathan as a proud tyrant in the animal kingdom. There is not upon the earth one who commands him; lit. “there is not upon the dust (comp. Job_19:25) dominion over him,” comp. Zec_9:10. So correctly the Targ., Pesh., and most of the moderns, while the LXX, Vulg., [E. V.], Umbreit, Delitzsch, [Lee, Noyes, Merx] translate: “on earth there is not his like.” By itself מָשְלוֹ could certainly be thus rendered; but the second member-“he who is made (הֶעָשׂוּ comp. Job_15:22) [Green, § 172, 5] for no-fear” (or “for, into a fearless creature,” לִבְלִי־חָת)-favor rather the meaning given above.
Job_41:34 [26]. He looks on all that is high; i.e., looks it boldly in the face, without fearing or turning back before it (comp. Job_40:11). He is king overall the sons of pride, i.e., over all the huge, proudly stalking beasts of prey (comp. Job_28:8), he is therefore a tyrant in the midst of the animal kingdom, to whom the larger quadrupeds must submit, especially in consequence of the violent blows which he inflicts with his tail (Bochart, p. 767; Oken, Allgem. Naturgesch., VI, 654 seq.).
6. Job’s answer and penitent confession: Job_42:1-6.
Job_42:2. Now I know that Thou canst do all things-now that in these two animal colossi Thou hast set before me the most convincing proofs of Thine omnipotence, and at the same time of the constant justice of Thy ways. And that no undertaking (no thought, or purpose, which Thou dost undertake to carry out; מְּזִמָּהsensu bono, comp. זִמָּה Job_17:11) is forbidden to Thee (lit. “cut off”) [rendered inaccessible, impracticable]. To these thoughts, which God has the power to execute without condition or any limitation whatever, belongs, in the very first rank, the appointment of severe sufferings for men who, apparently, are innocent. This Job here recognizes as the normal result of the operations of the All-wise, All-merciful, and Righteous God in His government of the world, being just as truly the result of His operations as the terrible forms and activities of the behemoth and leviathan.
Job_42:3. “Who is this that obscureth counsel without knowledge?” thus, namely hast thou rightly spoken to me. The words of God at the beginning of the first discourse (Job_38:2), are cited here verbally; and from this divine verdict, as one that cannot be assailed nor abrogated, the inference which follows is immediately drawn: thus have I judged, without understanding, what was too wonderful for me, without knowing;i.e., the judgments which I have heretofore pronounced respecting my sufferings as unmerited and unreasonably cruel, were uttered without understanding or knowledge. To the idea, complete in itself, conveyed by הִגַּדְתִּי, “I have judged (uttered),” an object is emphatically added in the following member, so that the notion of judging passes over into that of deciding or passing judgment upon something.
Job_42:4 contains another expression, cited both from the first discourse of Jehovah (Job_38:3), and from the introduction to the second (Job_40:7), here however preceded and strengthened by the short introductory clause: “Hear, I pray thee, and I will speak,” and for this reason to be regarded as only a free citation, to which Job then appends the observation contained in Job_42:5. This verse (4) is not therefore to be regarded as an independent entreaty on the part of Job to Jehovah, framed however in imitation of the words of Jehovah in the passages referred to (as Rosenm., Stick., Hirz., Hahn., Del. [Scott, Noyes, Barnes] think). The meaning is: “Thou hast demanded of me to make my answer to Thee, as in a judicial trial; my answer can be none other than that which now follows (Job_42:5-6). [To the view that this is the language of humility on the part of Job, seeking for further instruction from God, Carey objects: “(1) That Job does not ask God any particular question on which he requires information. (2) That on the supposed view the first clause, “Hear now, and I will speak,” would be the formula of an opening address, leading one to expect that that address was to be of some length, at least, whereas no such address does actually follow. (3.) That the words themselves would be too arrogant for Job to use in his present humbled state of mind. (4.) That as Job_42:3 is manifestly a citation from Job_38:2, and as the words in this present verse occur in Job_38:3, they may reasonably be supposed to be a citation also. (5.) On the supposition of their being a citation, a more natural, and, at the same time, a more pregnant sense is obtained”].
Job_42:5. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.-“According to (לְ, as, e.g., in Job_28:22; Psa_18:45) the hearing of the ear,” i.e., on the basis of a knowledge which was mediate only, and therefore incomplete, the opposite information resting on the firm basis of immediate perception, observation, or experience; comp. Psa_48:9. But now mine eye hath seen thee-i.e., not externally, or corporeally, but intuitively, by means of that intellectual faith-perception which, in the visible manifestations of creation, beholds the Creator Himself; comp. the νοούμενα καθορᾶται of Rom_1:19; also above on Job_38:1.
Job_42:6. Therefore do I recant-lit. “I reject [repudiate],” that, viz., which I have heretofore said”; the object omitted, as in Job_7:16; Job_36:5. The LXX., Symm., and Vulg. read אֶמָּאֵם: “I reject, blame, accuse myself” (Luth.) [E. V.: “abhor myself”], which gives substantially the same sense with the Masoretic reading (for Böttcher’s rendering of this Niphal-“I despair”-finds no conclusive support in Job_7:5), but is by no means of necessity to be substituted for the same. And I repent (am sorry, נִחַמְתִּי, Niph.) in dust and ashes-i.e., like one in deep mourning, one who feels himself completely broken and humbled; comp. Job_2:8; Job_2:12. And so Job returns, as it were, to his heap of ashes, the symbol of his voluntary submission under the mighty hand of God. He perfectly resumes that patient resignation to the will of God, out of which he had allowed himself to be provoked by the accusation of the friends, in that he recognizes the divine decree of suffering as one that has been inflicted on him not unjustly, and holds his peace, until the sentence of the Most High, pronouncing His blessing upon him, again exalts the upright penitent.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The progress which this second discourse of God, taken in connection with Job’s confession of penitence, marks in the inward development of the poem, is in general clear. The destruction and punishment of the proud self-exaltation of the presumptuous censurer of God’s ways, which had constituted the aim and issue of the first discourse (see on Job_40:5), must be followed by the entire overthrow of the presumption in Job’s heart, in consequence of which he had not deeply and earnestly enough perceived his sinfulness, had doubted whether the severe visitation which had come upon him was deserved, and had thus assailed God’s justice. In addition to the complete humiliation of Job it was necessary still further to produce in him entire contrition, the voluntary confession of his guilt; and this is exactly what this second discourse aims at and accomplishes. It accomplishes this, as may be seen from the first part, which is in the form of a direct rebuke (Job_40:7-14), by the ironical challenge addressed to Job, to take the government of the world into his own hand, and to judge the proud transgressors on the earth (see Job_40:10 seq.). This is a challenge which shows an advance beyond the series of ironical questions in the first discourse, in that it imputes to him who is addressed not merely the exercise of a high, wonderful, and all-embracing divine knowledge, but rather of an omnipotent activity resembling that of God, the ruler of the universe. God now no longer says, “knowest thou?” or “canst thou?” but “do it! seat thyself on my judicial throne!” and the stronger irony which flashes forth from such appeals must in the nature of things be accompanied by a stronger power to cause shame to him who is addressed, so that the last remnant of presumption in his heart is swept away. “By thus thinking of himself as the ruler and judge of the world, Job is obliged to think of the cutting contrast between his feebleness and the divine rule, with which he has ventured to find fault; at the same time, however, he is taught that-what he would never be able to do-God really punishes the ungodly, and must have wise purposes when He does not, as indeed He might, let loose at once the floods of His wrath” (Del.). In other words: Job, brought to the lowest depths of shame, must, by that challenge, be made sensible of two things in one, the omnipotence and the inflexible justice of the divine government of the world. He is compelled to see that there cannot be, and least of all in the administration of the Most High, a “bare omnipotence,” disjoined from justice and love.
2. So far the purpose of this discourse is clear. But is the second part of it, which is characterized by disproportionate length, and in which nature, or rather, more particularly, the animal world, is described, in accordance with this purpose? Are we, with a number of critics (see Introd. § 9) to reject this part of the book as not genuine? Or, instead of resorting to this violent operation, favored as it is by nothing in the historic transmission of the text, are we, by more profoundly fathoming the meaning and aim of this wonderful description of animals, to exhibit its original organic connection with its surroundings? Obviously there is little to be gained from such ingenious, and yet at bottom, superficial remarks as that of Herder: “Behemoth and Leviathan are the pillars of Hercules at the end of the book, the Non plus ultra of another world;” and just as little from the flat and shallow physical theology of the vulgar rationalism, which represents the poet as finding in these “prodigies of the amphibious world” (Job_40:9) the hippopotamus and the crocodile, “the power, wisdom, and goodness of God” (see, e.g., Wohl-farth on the passage), or from the downright allegorizing of the Church Fathers, who in the leviathan and also in behemoth found the devil, with whom also Luther is in accord, when he says; “By behemoth is meant all the large monster beasts, and by leviathan all the large monster fishes. But under these names he describes the power and might of the devil, and of his servants, the ungodly multitude in the world.”1 On the other side, the opinion favored by most moderns, that the hippopotamus and crocodile, like the animal pictures grouped together in the first discourse of Jehovah (Second Part, Job_38:39 seq.), are designed to illustrate the greatness and wonderful glory of God’s creative energy, and so to present impressive pictures of created existence mirroring the omnipotence of God-this opinion is far from furnishing a perfectly satisfactory explanation of the poet’s purpose in describing so earnestly and elaborately these two animals, and in this way dissipating completely the doubt which has been raised touching the genuineness of this section of the book. That which alone can help us to a correct appreciation of the poet’s purpose is the truth, flowing from the view of nature presented throughout the revealed Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, that the entire animal world is a living text-book, a mirror of morals, now warning, now encouraging and shaming us, a gallery of pictures, ethical and parenetic, collected for men by God Himself; and that in particular the animals distinguished for ferocity and size are awe-inspiring examples for us, symbols, as it were, or pictorial embodiments of the Divine Wrath. Novatian, in his work on the Jewish legislation touching food (De cibis Judaicis), says: In animalibus mores depinguntur humani et actus et voluntates; and most of the Church Fathers express themselves in substantial agreement with this view in respect to the more profound ethical and symbolical significance of the animal world. So, e.g., Clement of Alexandria, among whose utterances on this subject (Pædag. III. 11; Strom. II., p. 389 C; 405 D, etc.), that which he has said respecting the sphinx (Strom. V., p. 561 C) deserves to be mentioned here as being of special significance: “the human half of this creature teaches us that God is to be loved, the animal (τὸ υηρίον) that He is to be feared.” Comp. also Irenæus (Adv. hær. V. 8), Tertullian (Adv. Marc. II. 18; IV. 24; De Resurr. carn. 52), Origen (Homil. VII. in Levit.), Gregory of Nyssa (Opp. T. I., p. 165, 166), Chrysostom (Homil. in Genes. XII.), and Jerome, who (Comm. in Isaj. l. VI. c. 14, p. 259, Vall.) sets forth with peculiar vividness the ethical significance of animals, especially of the poisonous and ravenous sort: Mores igitur hominum in diversis animantibus monstrantur, sicut Pharisæi et Sadducæi propter nequitiam appellantur genimina viperarum et propter dolos Herodes vulpus dicitur, etc.2 That this ethico-symbolical, or, if you please, ethico-allegorical, conception of the animal world is most deeply rooted in the Sacred Scriptures, and especially in the Old Testament, scarcely requires to be more particularly proved. We need only refer to the many passages where godless men, who have sunk beneath their proper dignity, are described as “beasts” (בְּהֵמָה), such as Psa_49:13 [Psa_49:12], Psa 49:21 [Psa_49:20]; Psa_73:22; Jer_5:8; Dan_4:12 seq.; comp. also Psa_32:9; 2Ki_19:28; Tit_1:12, etc. Is it likely that our passage, which, with the most penetrating sympathy, describes two species of wild beasts, whose ferocity and strength make them dangerous, setting forth their physical constitution and mode of life, was composed without any reference to this deeper symbolical significance of the animals for man? Because it has nothing in common with that archetypal ideal significance which belongs to those royal beasts which appear in Ezekiel’s description of the cherub, the lion, the eagle, and the ox, is it therefore devoid of all and every profounder meaning, and entitled simply to the claim of being a broad, detailed, poetic description of natural objects, without any religious and ethical purpose? If the passage did not itself repeatedly call attention to the deeper meaning of that which is described, we might possibly entertain in regard to it that depreciative opinion which regards it as not genuine. But after the repeated intimations which itself conveys-especially in Job_40:19; Job_41:19; Job 2 [Job_2:10], Job_2:3 [Job_2:11], Job 2:14 [Job 2:22], Job 2:17 [Job 2:25]-concerning the presumptuous pride and the tyrannical ferocity of the two animals described, it is scarcely to be doubted that, according to the clearly defined and firmly maintained purpose of the poet, these are to be regarded as symbols not merely of the power, but also of the justice of God; or, in other words, that the divine attribute of which the poet desires to present them as the vivid living mirror and manifesting medium is omnipotence in the closest union with justice (more particularly with punitive justice, or wrath), or omnipotence in its judicial manifestations. These two pictures from the animal world are designed to hold up before Job the truth that all pride and presumption shown by God’s creatures towards Him, the Creator, can avail nothing; and that there is nothing in the creation so powerful and fearful, or even so invincible to man, but that it is compelled to serve the wise and exalted purposes of God in governing the world. They are intended to teach him “how little capable of passing sentence upon the evil-doer he is, who cannot even draw a cord through the nose of the behemoth, and who, if he once attempted to attack the leviathan, would have reason to remember it so long as he lived, and would henceforth let it alone” (Delitzsch).-To go further in the direction of a symbolical and allegorical explanation of the two monsters, and to find in them emblems of the world-power which is hostile to God, but which is powerless as against Him, would not be advisable. At least the description contains no sort of intimation, pointing more definitely to such an emblematic application to any historical empires or nations; and the pre-eminently significant and instructive passage at the close of the discourse in which the leviathan is described as “king overall the proud,” gives us to understand clearly enough what is the deeper meaning which the poet wishes to put in the very foreground of his description. [See further the very striking remarks on the view of the animal kingdom conveyed by these descriptions, in their “contradiction to those oriental dreams which made the animal creation an occasion of offense to the languid, oriental devotee,” and their “accordance with those juster views of the economy of the animal system which modern science has lately brought itself to approve,” in Isaac Taylor’s Œpirit of the Hebrew Poetry, Ch. VIII.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
It will not be found difficult in the homiletic treatment of this discourse rightly to apprehend and profitably to apply both the fundamental parenetic thought which it presents (as distinguished from that of the first discourse of Jehovah), and the allegorical vesture and illustrative treatment which it receives in the second longer part. The older practical expositors indeed do not furnish much help, because they wander for the most part into the extreme of unhealthy allegorical exaggerations, just as the modern scientific exegesis, in the majority of its representatives, strays into the opposite extreme of a superficial, barren, literal interpretation. A few hints deserving attention may be introduced here from the older as well as the more recent expositions of the discourse.
Job_40:7 seq. Brentius: Thus doth the Lord say to Job: Is my judgment, by which I either afflict the pious, or declare all men to be liars, to be made void and of no effect by thy opinion? Does it behoove me to be unrighteous, in order that thy righteousness may be established? Thou art righteous indeed, and to this thou hast my own testimony (in Job 2), but thou art not therefore at liberty to calumniate God’s judgments in the afflictions which He sends.-Cramer: Those who ascribe to themselves any righteousness before God proceeding from their own powers, they do nothing else than condemn God, and attempt to annul His sentence, as though He had no authority and power to judge, and to condemn them (Rom_3:4)!-Starke: God seeks to remind man, not once simply, but again and again, of the sins which he has committed, and to work in him thorough conviction, in order that his repentance may be sincere (Mat_23:37).-Wohlfarth: As God repeatedly challenges Job to convict Him, the author of his lot, if he can, so does the Lord in His works and word call upon us to do the same. And if we do not succumb to the power of sorrow on account of our sufferings, if on the contrary we hearken to the voice of divine truth which everywhere surrounds us, we shall be constrained to acknowledge that the sufferings of the pious are always under God’s oversight, and that, so far from making the friend of virtue wholly unfortunate, it is absolutely certain that He, the Almighty and Holy One, guards innocence, and that if He will not deliver it here, He will recompense it hereafter for the pain which it has endured here below.
Job_40:15 seq. Cocceius: It will be easy, if we wish to follow Scripture, to resolve into an allegory those things which are here spoken to Job, both in general and in detail (!), and from the physical object described to learn a notable lesson. For it is a remarkable feature of God’s plan that He makes the most savage of men subserve the good of the Church, so that although they may not love God from the heart, nor understand the truth, they will nevertheless, notwithstanding their own wisdom and judgments be thereby condemned, embrace the pious, hear cheerfully the word of truth, take pleasure in the reputation of the faithful, … so that now with the whole world raging against the truth of the doctrine of Christ, it is a great and blessed dispensation that many vain, proud, fierce, pleasure-loving men are so softened that they will endure the doctrine and reproofs of Christ’s peaceful ministers, and wish to be esteemed among Christ’s, without being such, etc.-V. Gerlach: That which this second discourse of God shows to Job is this, that justice and omnipotence are inseparable, and that in order to establish his righteousness, man must have as much power as God himself. … If any creature feels that in itself it is powerless, it thereby confesses at the same time that it is not righteous, but is in a moral, as well as a natural sense, dependent. For righteousness is nought else than that which the Almighty has established as the law after which the world is governed; In order now to make this principle clear to Job’s perception, God does not stop in His discourse with that which He says to Job with a view to his humiliation and reconciliation; but in like manner as in the series of natural wonders presented in the previous discourse, the Lord exhibits His surpassing wisdom, so by these two most powerful beasts, which man is unable to subdue, He exhibits His power, in order to prove that man, who is not able to tame these animals, is still less able to carry out his will in the government of the world, and to humble beneath himself the pride of the unrighteous.
Job_41:1 seq. H. Vict. Andreä: If in what is said of the leviathan we find it expressly set forth how utterly powerless in his own strength is man as compared with him, we are naturally led to regard this leviathan as a type of the evil, and of the human misery connected with it, which existing on the earth as they do in accordance with the divine decree and permission, present in the world without so mighty a power adverse to humanity, that the individual man, even when in his own person he is able, as in fact is the case, inwardly to release himself from their hold upon him by dint of a living faith, he is nevertheless, as regards his external participation in the evil which has come through sin into the world subject to the evil and the misery, and seeks in vain to become their master. At the close (Job_41:33 [26]), God points as with the finger to the pride of the leviathan, and characterizes him as king of all the “children of self-exaltation,” whose servants they make themselves through their own pride. … Thus, at least in general, does that “accuser [murderer] of men from the beginning” (Joh_8:44), in harmony with the antecedent scenes in heaven mentioned in the prologue, present himself to us here at the close as a highly expressive figure, nay as the right key to the interpretation of Job’s own history, as well as of the entire history of humanity.
Job_42:1-6. v. Gerlach: Job, in repeating here the words of God in His first address to him, acknowledges to his own shame the truth of that which God had held up before him. God’s incomprehensible wisdom and omnipotence have convinced him that the ways of His providence also are inscrutable.-Vilmar. (Past.-theol. Blätt XI, 70): By Elihu’s discourses and God’s judicial manifestation, and then by the repentance which is in this way produced within him, Job is brought back to the stand-point at first occupied by him (comp. Job_2:10), and the close of the book in general must be brought back rigidly to this initial point. The bodily disease remains at first unrelieved, but the sting which by the intervention of the three friends it had inflicted on the sufferer, is plucked out of his soul. In a sense that is absolutely proper the book forms a περίοδος; after long wandering the resignation to God which marks the beginning of the book reappears in the resignation of its close. And after that the inward disease has been overcome, the outward is also healed by God.
Footnotes:
[1]Concerning Luther’s predecessors in this Satanological allegoristic interpretation (which of late H. V. Andrea has again attempted to revive up to a certain point, see Homiletic Remarks below-but which the representation of Satan in the prologue clearly shows to be inadmissible), see above on Job_40:19, and comp. G. M. Dursch, Symbolik der Christichen Religion, Vol. II, (1859), p. 344seq. [Wordsworth also adopts this allegoristic interpretation, and applies in detail to Satan the description of both behemoth and leviathan.]
[2]Among later advocates of the same idea, comp., e.g., Peter Damiani, Opusc. 52; de bono religiosi status et variarum animantium tropologiis; Pierre Viret. Metamorphose Chrestienne, Genève, 1561; Joh. Bapt. Porta († 1561), De physiologia humana; Jac. Böhme. Gnadenw. VII. 3, 4; V. 20, etc.; John Bunyan, in his Autobiography [Works, Vol. I., p. 28, Newhaven, 1831]; also G. H. v. Schubert, Geschichte der Seele, 4th Ed., p. 732 seq.; Lotze, Mikro kosmos. II. p. 108 seq; also my Theol. Naturalis, I. p. 537 seq.; 541 seq.
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 vv2–24 he that contendeth--as Job had so often expressed a…
he that contendeth--as Job had so often expressed a wish to do. Or, rebuketh. Does Job now still (after seeing and hearing of God's majesty and wisdom) wish to set God right?
answer it--namely, the questions I have asked.
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 vv2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 JEHOVAH’S SECOND ADDRESS TO JOB, Job_40:1-2.
JEHOVAH’S SECOND ADDRESS TO JOB, Job_40:1-2.
After a suitable pause, that the impression of the discourse may be deepened, during which humbled Job ventures no response, Jehovah makes a pointed application of the preceding discourse to Job himself, Job_40:2.
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2. Shall he that contendeth — Will the censurer contend with the Almighty? Murmuring over the doings of God is nothing less than faultfinding with God himself. The censurer is summoned from his long-protracted silence by this terse and pungent, but kindly call, to answer the appeals of the Almighty. Job ought to be as ready to reason as he was to reprove; at least, to answer some one of the questions out of nature’s catechism. It is significant that the last words in this address. “let him answer,” are, in the original, the very verb that rang out so defiantly at the close of Job’s protracted defence (Job_31:35,) “Let the Almighty answer.” Compare Job_13:22; Job_23:5. He that reproveth — מוכיח, a hiphil form, is used in a forensic sense, and signifies to argue, (Pro_30:6,) prove; thence, in an offensive sense, to argue down, reprove, chastise. See note, Job_16:21; and for other forms of the verb, Job_6:25; Job_13:15; Job_19:5; Job_22:4; etc. Job, who at the outset bore the title in heaven of “God fearing,” (Job_1:1,) now hears the humiliating designation of “God’s accuser,” (Hitzig,) or “one that sets God right.” (Dillmann.)
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24 1. answered Job] That is, took up anew His…
1. answered Job] That is, took up anew His words and directly appealed to Job.
Chap. Job_40:1-5. Effect of the Divine Speech on Job
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As if the purpose of the preceding survey of Creation might be lost in the brilliancy of the individual parts of it, the Divine Speaker gathers up its general effect and brings it to bear on Job directly, demanding whether he will persevere in his contention with Jehovah;—will the reprover contend with the Almighty? Job_40:1-2.
Job is abased by the glory of God which He has made to pass before him, and brought to silence—I am too mean, what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand upon my mouth; Job_40:3-5.
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 vv2, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24 (2) Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct…
XL.
(2) Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him?—Rather, Can he that reproveth (e. g., Job) contend with the Almighty? or, Can the contending with the Almighty instruct Him? “Art thou prepared still to dispute and contend with God? or, if thou dost, is there any hope that thou wilt instruct (i.e., convince) Him in argument? Let him that argueth with God (i.e., Job) answer this question.” It might, perhaps, tend to make these verses (Job_40:4-5) more effective if we transposed them after Job_42:6, and regarded them as the very climax of the poem, as some have done. But this is not necessary, and is an arrangement that has no support from external evidence. If, however, it were adopted, Job’s resolution, “Once have I spoken; but I will speak no more: yea, twice; but I will not again” (Job_40:5), would not be literally inconsistent, as it now is, with what he says in Job_42:1-6.
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 Vers. 1-5. Between the first and the second part…
Vers. 1-5. Between the first and the second part of the Divine discourse, at the end of which Job wholly humbles himself, (Job_42:1-6) is interposed a short appeal on the part of tile Almighty, and a short reply on Job"s part, which, however, is insufficient. God calls upon Job to make good his charges (vers. 1, 2). Job declines, acknowledges himself to be of no account, and promises silence and submission for the future (vers. 3-5). But something more is needed; and therefore the discourse is further prolonged.
Vers. 1, 2. Moreover the Lord. Jehovah as in Job_38:1 and in the opening chapters. (see the comment on Job_12:9) Answered Job, and said, Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? rather, Can he that reproveth contend with the Almighty? (see the Revised Version). Does Job, the reprover, think that he can really contend with the Almighty? If so, then he that reproveth God, let him answer it; or, let him answer this; let him answer, that is, what has been urged in ch. 38 and 39.
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Vers. 1-5. Jehovah to Job: the first answer the application.
I JEHOVAH"S CONDESCENSION TOWARDS JOB.
1. In listening with patient silence to Job"s censures and complaints. "Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him?" literally, "Shall the reprover i.e. of God contend in contending with the Almighty?" This is the first formal notice taken by Jehovah of the fact that Job had indulged in censorious reflections against the Divine character and administration. They had all been heard by that ever-listening ear which no sound can escape. But no sign or indication had been given that the Deity was cognizant of the reflections cast upon him by his angry servant. Patiently he had suffered Job to proceed against him as far as he thought good. And the like meek, uncomplaining attitude does he still preserve towards them, whether ungodly unbelievers or backsliding professors, who cast reproaches on his Name. (Psa_50:21) The Divine patience in the face of man"s provocations to wrath is a sublime miracle of condescension.
2. In seeking rather to remove Job"s censures by instruction than to silence them by chastisement. When at length Job had ended his long arraignment of the Divine government of the world, it would not have been surprising had God descended on him by way of punishment, calling him to account for his over-bold behaviour. Instead of that, the Almighty causes an ambassador, Elihu, to deal with him by way of education, imparting to him such views of God"s character and ways as might serve to correct his misapprehensions. Nay, himself, the supreme Jehovah, stoops to become his own Ambassador for the selfsame purpose, that he might set before the mind of his servant such an image and presentment of himself that the misconceptions which gave rise to his censures might be removed. What God gave to Job out of the whirlwind he has in the Person of Jesus Christ given to the world a manifestation of himself and for a like purpose, not condemnation, but salvation, (Joh_3:17) through the removal of those erroneous ideas which hinder men from giving him their confidence and love. (2Co_4:6)
3. In submitting to discuss the question of his own character with his creature. "He that reproveth God, let him answer it;" i.e. if Job had anything to urge in reply to the representation which God had given of himself, God was ready to attend to it. Surely here was a depth of self-abasement to which only a God of love and grace could stoop! A prefigurement, may it not be said, of the stupendous condescension of the Incarnation, when God, not arrayed in majesty, but clothed in the lowly garb of humanity, stooped to talk with sinful man, as a man talketh with his friend!
II JOB"S SUBMISSION TO JEHOVAH.
1. An acknowledgment of insignificance. "Behold, I am vile;" literally, "I am mean, small, of no account, a being to be despised in comparison with thee." It is not yet a sense of moral imperfection that fills the breast of Job, as afterwards, when the second Divine remonstrance ends, (Job_42:6) but simply a vivid realization of his utter feebleness and contemptibleness before a God of such incomparable majesty as Jehovah, of such far-reaching power and wide-ranging wisdom. Man never knows his real littleness until he understands the greatness of God.
2. A confession of ignorance. "What shall I answer thee?" Job meant that he felt utterly unable to reply to the arguments which God had adduced in support of his right to govern the world on principles of his own without taking Job or any other creature into his confidence. Hence the resolution, "I will lay my hand upon my mouth," was designed to intimate both his resolution to be silent and his inability to reply. The less men attempt to answer God the better. When God brings his heavenly teachings home to the spirit, the proper attitude is silent admiration and submission. "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.
3. An admission of error. "Once have I spoken; but I will not answer literally, "and I will not answer," i.e. I will not reply again; yea, twice; but literally, "and I will proceed no further." Whether Job intended to say that he had twice, or only once, answered God, he certainly meant that he had spoken wrongly in his previous utterances. It was much that he had now arrived at a clear perception of his error. It was a good preparation for his ultimate complete withdrawal from the false position which all throughout the controversy with God he had maintained.
4. A profession of amendment. He had done wrong in the past; he would do so no more at least in this respect. This becoming resolution was "a fruit meet for repentance," a promise of the final soul-surrender which was drawing nigh.
Learn:
1. That God deals with men on the principles of grace, even when they richly deserve to receive only justice.
2. That for a puny creature to find fault with God is an amazing act of presumption.
3. That the first sign of goodness in a human soul is a perception, how ever faint, of its own insignificance.
4. That they who have fallen into sin once should, like Job, endeavour to do so no more.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-5. Conclusion of Jehovah"s address: reply of Job: lowliness in the presence of Jehovah.
The words of Jehovah express this
I THAT THE DIVINE WORKS PRESENT A TRIUMPHANT CHALLENGE TO HUMAN INTELLIGENCE. (Ver. 2) Can man surpass them? Can he even imitate them? What can he do but silently admire them, and adore the Author of them? Therefore the serious contemplation of the works of God is well fitted to silence an ignorant criticism, and quell the idle murmurs of discontent. To trace his power, wisdom, and fatherly love through the various departments of the visible universe is to deepen in our minds faith in his order. We in some way are instruments for promoting that order, and shall be blessed in proportion to our active or resigned compliance with its laws.
II THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE ORDER, THEN, IS FITTED, NOT ONLY TO SILENCE THE CAVILS OF A SHORT-SIGHTED CRITICISM, BUT TO PRODUCE BOTH FAITH AND HUMILITY. (Vers. 3-5) This is the effect on the mind of Job. He feels his littleness in presence of the infinite Intelligence; and, laying his hand upon his mouth, makes the resolve of silence for the future from all questioning of his Maker. Thus silently, as the storms and frosts of winter give place to the genial warmth and gentle influences of spring, is this proud and passionate heart, which want of sympathy and injustice at the hands of man had stung into proud self-consciousness and presumptuous appeals to God, softened by the voice and revelation of God himself into the heart of a little child. When we see ourselves as we are, because seeing ourselves in relation to him; when we are convinced of our insignificance in ourselves, and of the greatness of that grace which alone sheds a true value and significance upon our lives, peace begins to be shed through the heart, and in the silence of a true submission we wait for that which God may further have to speak to us, instead of assailing him with the clamour of passion and ignorance. J.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 1, 2. Contending with the Almighty.
Job has been contending with the Almighty, and now God confronts him with the fact. This is the practical point to which we have come after being led through the picture-gallery of nature which has revealed to us the greatness of God in contrast with the littleness of man.
I WE ARE TEMPTED TO CONTEND WITH GOD.
1. By our liberty. We have freedom of thought as well as freedom of will. Thus we seem to be able to turn round and take up a position of our own in opposition to God.
2. By our trouble. It was great distress that drove Job into a contention with God. We do not find him attempting or desiring anything of the kind in the opening scene of the story. When trouble comes upon us we are displeased, and not seeing why it is sent we are tempted to murmur.
3. By our sin. Even Job, innocent as regards the gross charges of his three censors, was imperfect, as he is now brought to admit. Now, sin is opposition to God, and the attempt to justify it leads to contention with God.
4. By God"s forbearance. Because he is long-suffering we presume upon his patience. We are like Jacob wrestling with the "Traveller unknown," who only maintained the conflict so long as his mysterious Antagonist refrained from putting forth his strength. (Gen_32:24-32)
II WE ARE WRONG IN CONTENDING WITH GOD. This contention shows faults in us.
1. Ignorance. If we knew all, we should see how foolish the whole contention was. But we stumble into it in our confusion and folly.
2. Rebellion. Oar business is to submit and obey. When we dispute we are resisting, if only mentally.
3. Distrust. God is not trusted when we venture to oppose ourselves to him; for if he were we should be silent, not perhaps understanding his action, but possessing our souls in patience, and waiting for the final disclosure that is to explain God"s treatment of his children.
III IT IS USELESS FOR US TO CONTEND WITH GOD. Our position in relation to God does not offer us a chance of success.
1. Inequality. This is a contest of feebleness with almightiness. How can the finite hope for a victory in wrestling with the Infinite?
2. Incompetence. We do not know how to put our ease before God, and his action is not understood by us. Therefore our contention is confused and misleading. There is only one way of coming to terms with God, and that is to accept his terms.
IV IT IS NEEDLESS FOR US TO CONTEND WITH GOD. We are not left with the doleful prospect of simply submitting to the inevitable. Although we cannot see the good in God"s action, if only we have faith in him we may rest assured that he is doing just the very best thing for us and all his creatures. This assurance depends on his nature and character. He is a just God and a Saviour, and therefore he cannot be acting unjustly and injuriously. Our indictment of God"s goodness is a huge blunder from beginning to end. Let us but trust his goodness in the dark and in the face of the most distressful events, and in the end we shall see that our safety lies in submission. 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 On vv1, 2, 3, 8, 23 Moreover, the Lord answered Job, and said.
Job_40:1-24
Moreover, the Lord answered Job, and said.
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Jehovahs answer
Its language has reached, at times, the high-water mark of poetry and beauty. Nothing can exceed its dignity, its force, its majesty, the freshness and vigour of some of its pictures of nature and of life. But what shall we say next? It is no answer, we may say, to Jobs agonised pleadings. It is no answer to the riddle and problem which the experience and history of human life suggests, even to ourselves. Quite true. There is no direct answer at all. Even those partial answers, partial yet instructive, which have been touched on from time to time by speaker after speaker, are not glanced at or included in these final words. It is as though the voice of God did not deign to repeat that He works on the side of righteousness. He only hints at it. Job is not even told the purpose of the fiery trial through which he himself has passed, of those in other worlds than his own who have watched his pangs. No! God reveals to him His glory, makes him feel where he had, gone wrong, how presumptuous he had been. That is all. He does not say, All this has been a trial of thy righteousness: thou hast been fighting a battle against Satan for Me, and hast received many sore wounds. Nothing is said of the truth, already mooted and enforced in this Book, that suffering does its perfect work when it purifies and elevates the human soul, and draws it nearer to the God who sends or permits the suffering. Nor is any light thrown on that faint and feeble glimmer of a hope not yet fully born into the world, of a life beyond the grave; of a life where there shall be no more sorrow or sighing, where Job and his lost sons and daughters shall be reunited. The thoughts that we should have looked for, perhaps longed for, are not here. Those who tell us that the one great lesson of the whole book is to hold up the patriarch Job as the pattern of mere submission, mere resignation--those who search in it for a full Thodice, a final vindication, that is, and explanation of Gods mode of governing the world--those, lastly, who find ill it a revelation of the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality, can scarcely have studied either Jobs language or the chapters before us today. One thought, and one only, is brought into the foreground. The world is full of mysteries, strange, unapproachable mysteries, that you cannot read. Trust, trust in the power, and in the wisdom, and in the goodness of Him, the Almighty One, who rules it. Turn from the insoluble problems of your own destiny, the voice says to Job, and says to us. Good men have said their best, wise men have said their wisest. Man is still left to bear the discipline of some questions too hard for him to answer. We cannot solve them. We must rest, if we are to rest at all, in the belief that He whom we believe to be our Father in heaven, whom we believe to have been revealed in His Son, is good, and wise, and merciful; that one day, not here, the riddle will be solved; that behind the veil which you cannot pierce, lies the solution in the hand of God. (Dean Bradley.)
The Lords answer
I. A Divine reproof that was effectual.
1. Observe the reproof. Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him?
(1) What is thy intellect to His? The glimmering of a glow worm to the brilliancy of a million suns.
(2) What is thy sphere of observation to Mine? Thou art a mere speck in space. I have immensity under My eye.
(3) What is thy experience to Mine? Thou art the mere creature of a day, observing and thinking for a few hours. I am from everlasting to everlasting.
2. Observe the effect. What was the effect of this appeal? Here it is. Then Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? etc.
(1) A sense of moral unworthiness. I am vile.
(2) A resolution to retract. I will proceed no further. He regrets the past, and resolves to improve in the future. This is what every sinner should do, what every sinner must do, in order to rise into purity, freedom, and blessedness.
II. A Divine comparison that was silencing.
1. It is a comparison between himself and the Great Creator. Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me. What is thy power to Mine? Hast thou an arm like God? What is thy voice to Mine? Canst thou speak in a voice of thunder? What is thy greatness to Mine? Deck thyself with majesty, etc. What is thy wrath to Mine? Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath. What art thou in My presence? The only effective way of hushing the murmurings of men in relation to the Divine procedure, is an impression of the infinite disparity between man and his Maker.
2. It is a comparison between himself and the brute creation. Behold now behemoth. Study this huge creature, and thou wilt find in many respects thou art inferior to him. Therefore be humble, and cease to contend with Me. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Job_40:15. “Behold turn behemoth.” Various opinions as to what…
Notes
Job_40:15. “Behold turn behemoth.” Various opinions as to what is meant by the term “behemoth.” According to GESENIUS, בְּהֵמוֹת (behemoth) is the plural of בְּהֵמָה (behemah, from the unused Root בָהַס baham = ָוד in the Xth conjugation, “to be dumb”), a quadruped of the larger sort, living on the land; here the plural of majesty, denoting a large quadruped: the hippopotamus. So BOCHART: the river-horse or hippopotamus; like the Leviathan, an inhabitant of the Nile: the termination וֹת (oth) however, being, according to Bochart, not the sign of the plural, but of Egyptian singular, the animal being Egyptian. The SEPTUAGINT has: “Beasts.” TARGUM: “The animal.” The VULGATE, SYRIAC, and ARABIC, like the English Version, leave the word untranslated. MERCER, CASTALIO, and COCCEIUS, like Gesenius, consider the plural to be used on account of the great size of the animal. GROTIUS thinks it equivalent to “the animal of animals;” i.e., the most excellent animal. According to MAIMONIDES, the term includes all land animals of monstrous size. So apparently the Septuagint. DR. LEE, in like manner, renders it “the beasts.” The term, however, generally regarded as denoting a distinct species of animal, as—
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(1) distinct species are described in the former chapter;
(2) It is here compared with other species;
(3) The description is not suitable to all beasts of the field. The animal intended formerly regarded very generally as the elephant. So most of the earlier interpreters, both Catholic and Reformed, and all the Hebrew expositors. So the Geneva and Dutch versions, and the Italian of Diodati. According to MERCER: “Some animal larger and more monstrous than the elephant. Modern interpreters generally consider the hippopotamus, or river-horse, as especially intended. Bishop PATRICK says: “Not the elephant, which never lies among the reeds, but an animal of that region—the hippopotamus. CONANT: “The river-ox, the appropriate name of the animal commonly known as the hippopotamus, or river-horse, the word being probably its Egyptian name. ROBINSON and CALMET derive the name from the Egyptian “pe” (the definite article “the”), “ehe,” an ox, and “mouth,” water; the water or river-ox, the name being modified like other foreign words. According to KITTO, the word is the plural of excellence; denoting the chief and most powerful of herbivorous animals known to Job, and living in his neighbourhood. GOOD thinks neither the elephant nor the hippopotamus exactly intended, but an animal now extinct. So A. CLARKE. FAUSSET thinks the description agrees partly with the elephant and partly with the hippopotamus, but exactly in all the details with neither; and that it is rather intended as a practical personification of the great Pachydermata or Herbivora, the idea of the hippopotamus being predominant. According to REISKE and BYTHNER, the word indicates “beasts” in general; the peculiar name not being here given, as unnecessary, from the description. COCCEIUS, FRY and others, view the animal, called “the beast” by way of eminence, as one and the same with Leviathan. SAMUEL WESLEY queries whether it is not the animal alluded to by the Psalmist (Psa_68:30): “Rebuke the company of the spearman;” Margin: “The beasts of the reeds;” BOOTHROYD: “The wild beasts of the reeds.”
JEHOVAH’S ADDRESS CONTINUED
A pause in the Almighty’s address apparently indicated in the commencement of the present chapter. The language in which it is resumed, together with the reply of Job immediately following, implies also a suspension of the argument, which seems only to be taken up at the fifteenth verse—when the Almighty spoke a second time out of the whirlwind. This is usually explained on the ground that Job’s conviction and repentance, though expressed in Job_40:4-5 in reply to the Almighty’s appeal in Job_40:2, were not yet sufficiently deep, and that the argument and means of correction are on that account resumed. It is conjectured, however, by some that an accidental dislocation of the parts has taken place, and that the first fourteen verses of the chapter originally followed the description of Leviathan and the first six verses of the succeeding chapter. In this way the narrative is believed better to correspond with the seventh verse of the forty-second chapter, which seems to make the Almighty the last speaker; while the fourteenth verse of the present chapter forms a manifestly appropriate and impressive conclusion to the Divine address. Taking the narrative, however, as it stands in the text, we have—
I. The application of the preceding address. Job_40:1-2.—“Moreover the Lord answered Job and said: Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him (or, ‘will the corrector of the Almighty still contend with Him?’ Or, ‘is the disputer with the Almighty yet instructed’)? He that reproveth God, let him answer if” (viz., the questions just proposed). Observe—
1. A sin most offensive to God, to contend with Him by disputing the equity of His government and the reasonableness of His providential dispensations. This Job’s sin. The sin to which fallen human nature, even in believers, is always liable. The sin into which Asaph felt himself falling (Psa_73:2-15). Conspicuously the sin of Jonah.
2. The contemplation of the greatness and sovereignty of God as Creator and Ruler of the universe, fitted to silence all questionings and complainings in regard to His providential procedure. This the object of the Almighty’s address, and of the reference made by Him to His power, wisdom, and goodness as seen in the creation, preservation, and government of the earth, with all the tribes of its inhabitants, as well as of the worlds above and around us, and of all the various forces and phenomena of nature. Such a Being can require no instruction from any of His creatures; and for even the highest of them to think to reprove Him for any of His doings can only be the summit of presumption and folly. All ground of complaining against God on the part of His creatures removed by His infinitely glorious perfections. Those perfections sufficient foundation for our most assured confidence in the Divine procedure. A Being possessed of such perfections able only to do what is wise, and just, and good. Enough to hear in the darkest dispensations: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa_46:10).
II. Job’s Confession. Job_40:3-5.—“Then Job answered the Lord and said: Behold, I am vile (mean and contemptible): what shall I answer Thee (either as to these questions or Thy conduct and procedure)? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth (in token of silence and conviction). Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea twice, but I will proceed no farther.” In this confession observe—
1. The discovery. “I am vile.” Abraham’s acknowledgment—“Am but dust and ashes.” All flesh grass. Man a worm. His days on earth as a shadow. But of yesterday, and knowing nothing. Even the nations less than nothing, and vanity. The question appropriate and becoming: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” Vile in his origin, and creature-nature; much viler still in his character as a sinner. His proper place therefore in the dust, with his hand upon his mouth. Murmurings and complainings against God’s procedure monstrous in any creature, but especially so in one so vile as man. Note—
(1) God made man in his own image, but sin has made him vile. The character of sin to debase; that of righteousness to exalt. Sin renders man rebellious against his Creator, injurious to his neighbour, brutish in himself. Sin, the abominable thing which God hates.
(2) Repentance changes men’s views of themselves as well as of God. Job’s former language: “I am not wicked.” “I would go as a prince before God;” Now it is: “Behold, I am vile.” The language of Saul, the Pharisee: “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are;” that of Paul, the penitent: “I am the chief of sinners.”
(3) Job’s discovery a blessed one. The result of Divine teaching and of God’s revealing himself to the soul. Isaiah’s acknowledgment when he beheld the glory of the Lord in the temple: “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.” That of Peter on the discovery of Christ’s divinity in the fishing boat: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” This discovery the first step to Job’s exaltation, and the exaltation of any sinner. “He giveth grace to the lowly.” “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Pride and self-righteousness the greatest hindrances to a man’s peace.
2. Job’s silence. “What shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” No plea to offer (chap. Job_21:5; Jud_1:18, Jud_1:19). A Divinely taught self-knowledge the effectual cure of a murmuring spirit. God’s government of his creatures of such a character as to stop the mouth of every objector. A day at hand when every mouth will be shut, and all the world become guilty before God. The immediate result of the Spirit’s work in conviction. Examples: The thief upon the Cross; Saul of Tarsus.
3. His resolution. “Once have I spoken, but I will not answer,” &c. The proof of repentance to resolve not to repeat the offence. “If I have offended, I will not offend any more.” “He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall obtain mercy.” “Go and sin no more.” Complete and unconditional surrender, the aim of the Holy Ghost in the sinner’s conviction. Note—Job’s sin that of his lips, and especially in relation to God. Sins of the lips to be repented of as well as sins of the life. Unbecoming thoughts and words in regard to God at least as punishable as injustice towards our neighbour. “Uprightings of judgment towards God as much a duty as uprightness of conduct towards man.”—Kitto.
III. The Almighty’s Challenge. Job_40:6-14.—“Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said: Gird up thy loins now like a man (a hero or mighty man, as thou imaginest thyself to be—spoken in irony): I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgment (judicial sentence, or justice in governing the world)? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayst be righteous (in order to establish thy innocence—which Job appeared on the point of doing)? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency, and array thyself [like a God] with glory and beauty. Cast abroad (manifest on every side, or dart forth as lightnings) the rage (or overflowings) of of thy wrath [against the ungodly for their destruction]: and behold [with a withering glance] every one that is proud, and abase him. Look [with omniscient eye from the throne of the universe] on every one that is proud, and bring him low (by the infliction of condign punishment, and for the manifestation of thy power and justice); and tread down the wicked in their place (on the spot, however high in power and station). Hide them in the dust [of the grave], and bind their faces in secret (without public process, or in the darkness of a prison, like so many doomed malefactors—Est_7:8). Then will I also [as well as others] confess unto thee [with praise], that thine own right hand can save thee.”
The Almighty’s address from the storm-cloud renewed, not to explain and remove the mysteries in His providential dealings, for which there will be time enough hereafter, but still to further convince Job of his error in questioning the Divine justice, and more fully to humble him, by the exhibition of His own almightiness and man’s littleness. From the challenge in the above section, observe—
1. The spirit and tendency of all murmurings against God’s dealings with us is to “disannul” His decisions, and to maintain our own righteousnes as deserving better treatment.
2. Discontent and rebellion against the Divine procedure is virtually to “contend” with God, and enter the lists with the Almighty. “Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth; but woe unto the man that striveth with his Maker.” A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. “Who can abide when once he is angry.” The wrath of a king like the roaring of a lion; what then the wrath of a God? The sinner must either submit by grace or be subdued by judgment. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.”
4. Pride the object of God’s special displeasure. The sin of fallen angels.
5. Every sinner “beheld” by the omniscient eye of the Almighty. “No darkness or shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.”
6. The proudest to be one day “brought low.” Proud sinners humbled either in mercy or judgment. Those happy who willingly humble themselves before God, before they are unwillingly humbled by Him.
7. Thorough humiliation and self-abasement required, in order to the reception of full salvation and spiritual comfort. Job for a time only partially humbled. The ploughshare of conviction to be driven deeper into his soul, before the seed of Divine consolation is cast into it. The knife to be still further applied, before the wound is finally bound up. God’s kindness seen in thoroughly humbling the saint as well as the sinner. A crowning blessing, to be divested of the last remains of pride and self-righteousness. God empties in order to fill; humbles in order to exalt.
8. The tendency of fallen humanity always to save itself. The essence of all infidelity, Pharisaism, and self-righteousness. The spirit of Cain with his offering of first fruits, in contrast with that of Abel with his bleeding lamb. The Pharisee in the temple, with his—“God, I thank thee I am not as other men;” in contrast with the Publican and his—“God be merciful to me a sinner.” Self-salvation the aim of most of the religion in the world, whether Pagan, Mahometan, Jewish, or Christian. Much of the religion of the cloister as well as of the synagogue. Penances, prayers, almsgivings, and so-called good works, often only so many different forms of self-salvation. Self-salvation usually the first attempt of an awakened sinner. Salvation by self the great impediment to salvation by Christ.
9. Attempts to save ourselves only cured by the discovery of our own weakness. To save ourselves implies a power nothing less than Divine. To be our own Saviour we must possess the attributes of Deity. The Saviour of humanity, when fallen, must be God as truly as the Creator of humanity itself. “God our Saviour”—two ideas necessarily connected. Salvation includes—
(1) Satisfaction to Divine justice for sin;
(2) Regeneration or the renewal of a sinful nature. Satisfaction for sin, which deserves endless death, only to be made by one possessing infinite dignity. Regeneration, or the creation of a new and holy nature in a fallen man, the work of a Divine power. The power required to save ourselves, that which can punish sin anywhere and banish it from the world. The sinner made to see his inability, in order to abandon his attempts at self-salvation, and to cast himself entirely on God the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of the Gospel, that it reveals a Divine power put forth for man’s salvation; and actually put forth in the case of all who believe it. Man’s inability to save himself the ground of Christ’s redemption. To exhibit that inability one of the objects of this book. “God, and not man, the sinner’s Saviour—the substance of all revelation.”—Townsend.
IV. Description of Behemoth. Job_40:15-24.—“Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee (or in thy neighbourhood); he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel (or muscles) of his belly. He moveth (Marg., “setteth up”) his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones (or thighs) are wrapped together (or interlaced). His bones are as strong pieces (or tubes) of brass (or copper); his bones (a different word from the preceding—probably a Syriac or Chaldaic one, and rather denoting the larger bones—his limbs) are like bars of iron. He is [in bulk and strength] the chief of the ways (or works) of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach him (or, ‘hath given to him his sword’—the weapon—probably his hooked teeth or tusks, with which he might defend himself and attack others, but which he only uses in mowing down the grass for his food). Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play (the animal harmless and herbivorous, notwithstanding his sword). He lieth under the shady trees (or lotuses), in the covert of the reed and fens (or marshes abounding on the banks of the Nile). The shady trees (or lotuses) cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river (or a ‘river rages’ or overflows its banks), and [he] hasteth not (to escape from fear of the consequences): he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan with his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes (or ‘will any take him before his eyes?’—instead of using stratagem): his nose pierceth through snares” (or, “will any pierce his nose with hooks?”—as 2Ki_19:28; Eze_38:4).
Uncertain what animal, if any one in particular, is intended by the description. The name “Behemoth,” as a Hebrew word, simply denotes “beasts,” or viewed as the plural of majesty, “the beast.” So rendered in some of the ancient versions. The word, however, thought by some to be rather the Hebrew form of an Egyptian name for the animal, viz., P-ehe-moth, or the water-ox. The elephant generally understood by the older commentators to be the animal intended. Modern interpreters, however, decidedly in favour of the hippopotamus, or river-horse. The description believed to agree better with the latter; while the hippopotamus, being an inhabitant of the Nile and its banks, was much more likely to be familiary known to the patriarch and the poet than the elephant.
Both the elephant and the hippopotamus belong to the class of animals termed by naturalists Pachydermata, or thick-skinned. The elephant comprehends the largest of the living terrestrial animals that suckle their young. Its food is strictly vegetable. It is of a mild disposition, and lives in herds, which are conducted by old males. Those of the present day clothed with a rough skin, nearly destitute of hair. Are only found in the torrid zone of the eastern continents; the Indian elephant being found from the Indus to the Eastern Ocean, and in the large islands of the south of India; and the African one, from Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope. The African elephant not now tamed, although the Carthaginians appear to have employed it in the same way that the inhabitants of India do theirs. The hippopotamus has a very massive and naked body, with very short legs, so that the belly reaches to the ground, an enormous head, and a short tail. It lives in rivers and their neighbourhood, feeding on roots and other vegetable substances, and exhibits much ferocity and stupidity. Now confined to the rivers of the middle and south of Africa.—Cuvier.
The description apparently agreeing in every particular neither with the elephant nor the hippopotamus, the animal has been conjectured by some to be a now extinct genus; and by others to be rather a poetical personification of the great pachydermata—the idea of the hippopotamus being predominant. Extinct species of this class of animals found in a fossil condition. The great mastodon the type of the elephant, though of a different species—the principal distinction being in the shape and structure of the teeth; while the mastodon also possessed short tusks in its lower, in addition to those in its upper, jaw. This animal equalled the elephant in size, but with still heavier proportions. Its remains found in a wonderful state of preservation both in America and the Eastern Continent. The skeleton of one, almost entire, found in the valley of the Missouri, now to be seen in the British Museum. The animal supposed to have been more an aquatic, or swamp-hunting, quadruped than the elephant. A mammoth—a more recent animal of the same class—measuring from the fore-part of the skull to the end of the tail sixteen feet four inches, and twelve feet in height, discovered in Siberia in 1801, imbedded in ice, with its flesh, skin, and hair as perfect as if recently dead. The remains of another found, which is supposed to have been twenty-five feet high and sixty feet in length. Gigantic elephants, of nearly twice the bulk of the largest elephant of Africa or Ceylon, believed by Professor Owen, from the abundance of their remains, to have roamed in herds over the British Islands in the period immediately before the creation of man. The fossil remains of an animal discovered in the gypsum quarries of Paris and other parts of France, to which has been given the name Palœtherium, or the ‘ancient beast,’ and which seems to have combined the characters of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the horse, the pig, and the camel; while its external appearance, as restored by Cuvier, approaches more nearly to that of the tapir. The animal supposed to have lived in marshy ground, and to have fed on the roots and stems of trees.
The Almighty’s object in the, description of Behemoth, to present to Job, in this gigantic and powerful animal, an evidence of His Divine power; and at the same time to teach him his own littleness, and the presumption of thinking to dispute with his Maker, or of questioning the justice of His procedure. The Creator, Preserver, and Governor of such creatures must be one who possesses sufficient power, wisdom, and rectitude to govern the world.
Observe—
(1) Not merely do the heavens and the firmament over our head declare the glory of God, but every creature which His hands have made. The huge mammoth points to the irresistibleness of His power, while the almost invisible animalcule tells of the universality of His Providential care.
(2) The largest, as well as the least, of His creatures dependent on, and provided for by, the Creator. “He giveth the beast his food.” How much more will He care and provide for His own children made after His image! He Who constantly feeds the gigantic monsters of the land and sea can be at no loss to supply the wants of His trusting people. The happiness of believers that they are able to testify with David: “He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure” (2Sa_23:5).
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 I. Every excuse for sin condemns God. This will…
Job 40:8
I. Every excuse for sin condemns God. This will be apparent if we consider (1) that nothing can be sin for which there is a justifiable excuse. (2) If God condemns that for which there is a good excuse, He must be wrong. (3) But God does condemn all sin. Hence either there is no apology for it, or God is wrong. (4) Consequently every excuse for sin charges blame upon God, and virtually accuses Him of tyranny.
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II. Consider some of these excuses in detail: (1) Inability. (2) Want of time. (3) A sinful nature. (4) Sinners plead that they are willing to be Christians. (5) Sinners say they are waiting God’s time. (6) Sinners plead that their circumstances are very peculiar. (7) Another excuse is in this form: "My heart is so hard that I cannot feel." (8) "My heart is so deceitful," etc.
III. All excuses for sin add insult to injury. (1) A plea that reflects injuriously upon the court or the lawgiver is an aggravation of the original crime. (2) The same is true of any plea made in self-justification. (3) It is truly abominable for the sinner to abuse God and then excuse himself for it. This is the old way of the guilty.
IV. (1) Excuses render repentance impossible. (2) Sinners should lay all their excuses at once before God. (3) Sinners ought to be ashamed of their excuses and repent of them.
C. G. Finney Sermons on Gospel Themes, p. 72.
References: Job 40:23.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 120. Job 42:5.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 18; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., p. 434.
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 vv1, 6 A short dialogue between the Almighty and Job, ending…
A short dialogue between the Almighty and Job, ending in the latter's confession and submission.
2. Cox renders, 'Is he who contended with the Almighty corrected? Let him who disputed with God reply.'
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4. Vile] RV 'of small account.' Job confesses that in view of these marvellous works of God, it was presumption to think of criticising His actions.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v15 Or, the elephant, as some think.
behemoth
Or, the elephant, as some think.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The answer demanded (Job 40:1-2)
CHAPTER 40
1. The answer demanded (Job 40:1-2)
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2. Job’s answer (Job 40:3-5)
3. Jehovah’s appeal to Job (Job 40:6-14)
4. Behold behemoth! (Job 40:15-24)
Job 40:1-3. Now comes the direct word of Jehovah out of the storm-cloud to Job. He addresses him as “he that reproveth God.” He had contended with the Almighty and now the Almighty Job had judged faces him and demands an answer. Let him answer.
Job 40:3-5. And Job answers; and what an answer it is! It is the answer for which God was waiting. “Lo! I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.” He acknowledges that he had spoken too much and that now he cannot answer and proceeds no further. He is completely silenced, acknowledges his own nothingness and vileness, that his words were wrong and that he has nothing else to say. He was convinced that such a God who had spoken to him of creation and His creatures, making known His power, wisdom and care, could never be unjust in His dealings with man.
Job 40:6-14. But Jehovah, the searcher of hearts, has not yet finished. Job’s abominable pride must be laid bare. Jehovah asks him the serious question, “Wilt thou disannul My judgment? Wilt thou condemn Me, that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an almighty arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like His?” Then he tells him: “Deck thyself now with majesty and glory.” Array thyself with majesty and power. Come and take My place and then thus arrayed let Job be in God’s place, rule and deal with proud man and the evil-doers.
Send far and wide thy overflowing wrath;
And on each proud one look, and bring him low;
Each proud one single out, and humble him;
Yea, crush the evildoers where they stand;
Hide them away together in the dust;
And in the deepest dungeon have them bound.
It is Divine irony, but needed in order to humble Job still more. He who was so proud and had so stubbornly defended his righteousness in self-justification and God-accusation, how could he do what Jehovah asked him to do?
But if he were to do it, then Jehovah would be ready to own to him “that thy right hand to save thee will suffice.” It all strikes home to the proud, self righteous heart of Job.
Job 40:15-24. The Lord asks Job to consider the behemoth; it is undoubtedly the hippopotamus (the Greek for river-horse). A description of this powerful beast follows. He calls the behemoth the “chief of the ways of God,” one of His greatest works in animal creation. The behemoth is one of Job’s fellow-creatures “which I made as thee.” He eateth grass like an ox. He has tremendous strength in his loins and legs. He takes its rest under the shady trees and fears nothing:
Suppose the stream should swell, he will not blench
For he believes that Jordan he can drink.
Shall any take him while he lies on watch?
Or with a ring shall any pierce his nose?
Behemoth then is a powerful, uncontrollable beast which lives for itself. How weak then is man as contrasted with this beast in possession of such marvellous strength. Yet it is only a beast and Job is a man. How abominable then must Job’s pride and boasting appear in the sight of the Lord.
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, 6, 15 Job Retracts His Charges
Job Retracts His Charges
v. 1. Moreover, since Job was still silent, the Lord answered Job and said,
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v. 2. Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him, continue his critical attitude after all that had now been laid before him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it, giving the proper replies and explanations of all the marvels set forth. Job had censured: let him now make good his charges.
v. 3. Then Job answered the Lord and said,
v. 4. Behold, I am vile, too base to offer a solution of the problems presented; what shall I answer Thee? He was unable to present so much as another argument. I will lay mine hand upon my mouth, closing it tightly, imposing absolute silence upon himself.
v. 5. Once have I spoken, in making his challenge against God; but I will not answer, not making another attempt to censure the Lord; yea, twice, referring to his repeated charges; but I will proceed no further. He retracted his former statements, he no longer dared to criticize God, since the Lord’s miraculous wisdom and providential care was too evident to permit of his further opposition.
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, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, 22 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Yahweh continues to challenge Job.
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Should anyone who wishes to criticize try to correct the Almighty?
Yahweh is rebuking Job. This can be translated as a statement. AT: "No one who wants to criticize me should try to argue with me, for I am Almighty God." or "You, a person, want to criticize me, Almighty God, but you should not try to correct me." (See: Rhetorical Question)
He who argues with God, let him answer
Yahweh speaks of Job and himself as if they were two other people to remind Job that no person anywhere should argue with God. AT: "You want to argue with me, so answer me" (See: Pronouns)
translationWords
Yahweh
Job
Almighty
God
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, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 15 40:1-2 The Greek Old Testament omits this conclusion to…
40:1-2 The Greek Old Testament omits this conclusion to God’s first speech.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.