Bible Commentaries

And Job answered and said,

And Job answered and said — Being nipped and nettled with his friends’ hard usage of him, and harsh language to him, but especially with Zophar’s arrogant and lofty preface in the former chapter, he begins now to wax warm, and more roughly and roundly to shape them an answer.

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No doubt but ye [are] the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

No doubt but ye are the people — The select peculiar people, the only ones, as a man is put for a good man, Jeremiah 5:1 , a wife for a good wife, Proverbs 18:22 , a name for a good name, Ecclesiastes 7:1 . As Athens was said to be the Greece of Greece, and as one promising to show his friend all Athens at once, showed him Solon; or as the Latin poet, saying of Fabius Maximus,

So saith Job by a holy jeer (not to disgrace his friends, but to bring them to more modesty and moderation, if it might be), Certes, ye are not one or two men, but specimen totius orbis, an epitome of the world, or at least the representative of some whole people (Vatablus); ye have got away all the wit from myself and others, whom ye look upon as so many wild ass’s colts in comparison of yourselves. Thus the pope (Simon Magus like) pretends to be some great thing, Acts 8:9 , even the Church virtual; and that in his breast, as in Noah’s ark, is comprehended all wisdom and worth. Ye know nothing at all, saith he (Caiaphas-like), to all others, John 11:49 . So do his janizaries, the Jesuits, who will needs be taken for the only scholars, politicians, and orators of the world. The Church, say they, is the soul of the world; the clergy, of the Church; and we, of the clergy; the empire of learning is ours, …

And wisdom shall die with you — As being locked up in your bosoms. Suetonius telleth us of Palaemon, the grammarian, that he was heard to say that learning was born with him, and would die with him. The Gnostics would needs be held the only knowing men; Illuminates, in Spain, the only spiritual men; Swenkfeldians, in Germany, styled themselves the confessors of the glory of Christ; our Antinomians, the hearers of the gospel, and of free grace. But what saith Solomon? "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth," Proverbs 27:2 . And that which had been much to a man’s commendation if from another, soundeth very slenderly from himself, saith Pliny. Aben Ezra and Rabbi Levi set another sense upon this verse, as if it were no irony, but a plain assertion to this effect: Questionless you are to be counted among the common sort of people. See John 7:49 . Neither is there in you anything excellent or extraordinary, that ye should be looked upon as drained from the dregs or sifted from the brans of the very vulgar; your wisdom, if ever you had any, is even dead and decayed with you, and you have outlived your prime, …

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But I have understanding as well as you; I [am] not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?

But I have understanding as well as you — Think not that you have engrossed all the knowledge, and that you have the monopoly of wisdom in your breasts; for surely I may come into the balance with you, and claim as great a share in understanding as yourselves. Zophar was pleased to call me hollow and heartless, Job 11:12 ; but I have a heart (so the Hebrew here hath it), that seat of understanding; and that shall appear in the ensuing discourse: where Job proveth that by solid arguments concerning which Zophar had but barely propounded. And whereas this patient man was not without his impatience, yet he discovereth more grace, even in his distempers, than his friends did in their seeming wise carnages. Breaking out in the body shows strength of nature. Some infirmities discover more good than some seeming beautiful actions.

I am not inferior to you — Heb. I fall not lower than you. See Nehemiah 6:16 Esther 6:13 Job 13:2 . He meaneth that he was much their superior, and did better understand the doctrine of God’s providence than they. This he speaketh not out of any vain glory, or ambitious boasting, but as David, and Paul, and others after them did, commending themselves, either in defence of their own wronged innocence, or when it appeared unto them that the concealing of their good parts and practices might turn to the hindrance of the truth, or to the harm of the Church, or to the impairing and impeaching of God’s glory. In these cases self-commendation is not unseemly; but a Job may lawfully stand upon, not his comparisons only, but his disparisons also.

Yea, who knoweth not eueh things as these? — viz. That God rewardeth the righteous, and punisheth the ungodly. The heathen saw this by the rush candle of nature’s dim light. "Doth not nature itself teach you?" saith Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:14 . And again, "This ye know, that no whoremonger, …, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ," Ephesians 5:5 .

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I am [as] one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright [man is] laughed to scorn.

Iam as one mocked of his neighbour — Those that should countenance and comfort me contemn and scorn me. I am their laughter and pastime; so he took it, since they sat so heavily upon the skirts of his conscience, and would not weigh his reasons brought in his own defence.

Who calleth upon God, and he answereth him — i.e. I, Job, do make God my refuge when these jeering neighbours of mine do shame my counsel, Psalms 14:6 , and would mock me out of my religion; but God favoureth me though men frown; and where human help faileth Divine appeareth. Or thus rather: I am derided by those who profess to call upon God, and to hear often from heaven. They are hard hearted to me, though themselves have liberally tasted of God’s tenderness; and they pull up the bridge of mercy before me, which themselves have oft gone over.

The just upright man is laughed to scorn — "Shame shall be the promotion of fools," Proverbs 3:35 , and such a dissembler as Doeg may well be derided, Psalms 52:6-7 . But what hath the righteous done? And why should just, upright Job be laughed to scorn? But this is no news. Christ and his people have ever been for signs and for wonders in this mad world, always beside itself in point of salvation. "He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey," or is accounted mad, Isaiah 59:15 . If he will needs be a just upright man, if he will live godly in Christ Jesus (if he be so set upon it, that none shall hinder him), he shall suffer persecution, this of the tongue howsoever, 2 Timothy 3:12 . A wolf flieth not upon a painted sheep. We can look upon a painted toad with delight; it is the reality of godliness that is hated.

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He that is ready to slip with [his] feet [is as] a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.

He that is ready to slip with his feet — He who is in a declining, tottering condition, ready to fall and perish under the burden of his afflictions, though formerly he was looked upon and made use of as a lamp or torch, yet when he is at an under, and brought low, is shamefully slighted by such as have the world at will; like as a torch when wasted and waxen short is cast out of the hands, and trodden on with the feet of him that held it. The holiest men, if afflicted, do but smother instead of shining. When Christ himself was a man of sorrows, he was therefore despised and rejected of men, who hid, as it were, their faces from him, and esteemed him not, Isaiah 53:3 . The prodigal’s elder brother speaks scornfully of him, because poor, Luke 15:30 , "This thy son." He saith not, This my brother, … Gregory saith, that the poor just man is here compared to a lamp extinct, because he shineth inwardly by the virtue of an upright heart; but outwardly is as it were extinct, because there is nothing outward to commend him; no glorious apparel, no goodly houses, …; whence they are slighted by the rich wretches of this world. But such a lamp (saith he, following the Vulgate translation) is set for an appointed time; that is, the day of judgment, when he shall shine most brightly, even as the sun, …, when the world’s favourites shall be thrust into utter darkness.

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The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth [abundantly].

The tabernacles of robbers prosper — By robbers here understand all such as sin against the second table, but especially oppressors and wrong dealers, whether by force or fraud. As by those that provoke God ( qui res Dei interturbant, so the Tigurines translate), that irritate and disquiet him, attempting to put him out of temper, are meant sinners against the first table. See the like 1 Timothy 1:13: I was against God a blasphemer, against man a persecutor, against both injurious; but I obtained mercy, special mercy. So do not these robbers and God-provokers in the text: thrive they may, and be in a peaceable condition; yea, they may be secure and confident of the continuance of their prosperity. Confidences are to them, saith the Hebrew, verity; for they trust in uncertain riches, while God bringeth into their hands, viz. whatsoever they wish, yet not as love tokens, but as wrath tokens; these fatting beasts are but fitting for the slaughter. God oft giveth in wrath to some which he withholdeth from others in great mercy. Meanwhile Zophar’s twofold assertion in the former chapter, Job 12:17 ; Job 12:20 , that good men prosper here, and bad men suffer, falls to the ground, while Job disproves it, 1. By experience in this verse and the former. 2. By the testimony of the creatures, those catholic preachers, Job 12:7-25 . By the testimony of the senses, and of ancient men, Job 12:11-12 .

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But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:

But ask now the beasts of the earth, and they shall teach thee — Even the wildest of them that abide in the wilderness. There is not one of these, or else of the fowls of the air, but can both teach thee, and tell thee that the world is ordered by a providence, that God is powerful, wise, just, …, and must therefore be loved and served. That he suffereth the bad to oppress the good, as the beasts do devour the little ones; as the hurtful fowls destroy the harmless; as the great fishes eat up the smaller: man, who was once the captain of God’s school, is now, for his truantcy, turned down into the lowest form, as it were, to learn his A B C’s again; yea, to learn it from the meanest creatures. See Proverbs 6:6 Jeremiah 8:7 Matthew 6:26 ; where it appeareth, that in the ant, stork, swallow, …, God hath set before us, as in a picture, the lively resemblance of many excellent virtues, which we ought to pursue and practise. These are the right laymen’s books, the images that may truly teach people the knowledge of God, and of his will, of themselves, and of their duties; which we should the rather learn, because God hath given us wisdom beyond them, Job 37:11 , and yet by sending us to them, shameth our dulness and disobedience.

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Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee — Teach thee? what? Surely many good lessons; as that of humility and modesty, considering our origin, Terra quam terimus docet terram quam gerimus; that of fruitfulness, while she liberally yields her riches and strength, and brings forth food for the maintenance of those innumerable armies of creatures that live upon her; but especially, and for the purpose, this the earth teacheth, that the tabernacles of robbers prosper, that oppressors swallow down most of her delicates, eat the fat and drink the sweet, ruffle in her silks, and rifle in her hidden treasures of gold and silver.

And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee — These muti magistri silent teachers, have somewhat also to say to thee, and by a dumb kind of eloquence read thee a divinity lecture, while they are able to produce many such particular examples of violence in the seas; and will further declare (or cipher up unto thee) how oft they are served up to great men’s tables, and do fill the fat paunches of oppressors. It is not unlikely that Job, in this frequent sending Zophar to school to the unreasonable and inanimate creatures, closely twitteth him with those quicker questions of his, Job 11:8 , "What canst thou do? what canst thou know?" …, giving him also to know that he need not travel as far as heaven or hell for instances of God’s infinite power and wisdom, since we may contemplate the footsteps of God in each creature; and since he is so near unto us that he may be almost felt with our hands, as Paul speaketh ( ψηλαφησειαν ), Acts 17:27 .

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