Comentarios bíblicos

FIRST SERIES.

Job 12:1-14:22.

JOB'S REPLY TO ZOPHAR

2. wisdom shall die with you--Ironical, as if all the wisdom in the world was concentrated in them and would expire when they expired. Wisdom makes "a people:" a foolish nation is "not a people"

(Ro 10:19).

3. not inferior--not vanquished in argument and "wisdom"

(Job 13:2).

such things as these--such commonplace maxims as you so pompously adduce.

4. The unfounded accusations of Job's friends were a "mockery" of him. He alludes to Zophar's word, "mockest"

(Job 11:3).

neighbour, who calleth, &c.--rather, "I who call upon God that he may answer me favorably" [UMBREIT].

5. Rather, "a torch" (lamp) is an object of contempt in the thoughts of him who rests securely (is at ease), though it was prepared for the falterings of the feet [UMBREIT]

(Pr 25:19).

"Thoughts" and "feet" are in contrast; also rests "securely," and "falterings." The wanderer, arrived at his night-quarters, contemptuously throws aside the torch which had guided his uncertain steps through the darkness. As the torch is to the wanderer, so Job to his friends. Once they gladly used his aid in their need; now they in prosperity mock him in his need.

6. Job shows that the matter of fact opposes Zophar's theory

(Job 11:14, 19, 20)

that wickedness causes insecurity in men's "tabernacles." On the contrary, they who rob the "tabernacles" ("dwellings") of others "prosper securely" in their own.

into whose hand, &c.--rather, "who make a god of their own hand," that is, who regard their might as their only ruling principle [UMBREIT].

7, 8. Beasts, birds, fishes, and plants, reasons Job, teach that the violent live the most securely

(Job 12:6).

The vulture lives more securely than the dove, the lion than the ox, the shark than the dolphin, the rose than the thorn which tears it.

8. speak to the earth--rather, "the shrubs of the earth" [UMBREIT].