Job 12:25

12:12-25 This is a noble discourse of Job concerning the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering all the affairs of the children of men, according to the counsel of His own will, which none can resist. It were well if wise and good men, who differ about lesser things, would see how it is for their honour and comfort, and the good of others, to dwell most upon the great things in which they agree. Here are no complaints, or reflections. He gives many instances of God's powerful management of the children of men, overruling all their counsels, and overcoming all their oppositions. Having all strength and wisdom, God knows how to make use, even of those who are foolish and bad; otherwise there is so little wisdom and so little honesty in the world, that all had been in confusion and ruin long ago. These important truths were suited to convince the disputants that they were out of their depth in attempting to assign the Lord's reasons for afflicting Job; his ways are unsearchable, and his judgments past finding out. Let us remark what beautiful illustrations there are in the word of God, confirming his sovereignty, and wisdom in that sovereignty: but the highest and infinitely the most important is, that the Lord Jesus was crucified by the malice of the Jews; and who but the Lord could have known that this one event was the salvation of the world?

They grope in the dark without light,.... Like blind men, as the men of Sodom, when they were struck with blindness; or "they grope", or "feel the dark, and not light" (g), as the Targum; as the Egyptian, did when such gross darkness was upon them as might be felt: and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man; that has lost his sight, his senses, and his feet, and knows not where he is, which way to go, nor how to keep on his legs, but reels to and fro, and is at the utmost loss what to do; all this is said of the heads or chief of the people, in consequence of their hearts being taken away, and so left destitute of wisdom and strength. (g) "palpant tenebras et non lucem", Vatablus, Mercerus, Drusius, Schultens.

They grope, like men that cannot see their way. In the dark without light; two phrases expressing the same thing, emphatically to express their profound darkness. Like a drunken man, who reels hither and thither without any certainty. So they sometimes take one course, and sometimes another, as resolving to try all experiments, and indeed not knowing what to do.

They grope in the dark - They are like persons who attempt to feel their way along in the dark; compare the notes at Isaiah 59:10 . And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man - Margin, "wander." Their unstable and perplexed counsels are like the reelings of a drunken man; see Isaiah 19:14, note; Isaiah 24:20, note. This closes the chapter, and with it the controversy in regard to the ability to adduce pertinent and striking proverbial expressions; see the notes at Job 12:3. Job had showed them that he was as familiar with proverbs respecting God as they were, and that he entertained as exalted ideas of the control and government of the Most High as they did. It may be added, that these are sublime and beautiful expressions respecting God. They surpass all that can be found in the writings of the pagan; and they show that somehow in the earliest ages there prevailed views of God which the human mind for ages afterward, and in the most favorable circumstances, was not capable of originating. These proverbial sayings were doubtless fragments of revealed truth, which had come down by tradition, and which were thus embodied in a form convenient to be transmitted from age to age.

22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, And bringeth out to light the shadow of death; 23 He giveth prosperity to nations and then destroyeth them, Increase of territory to nations and then carrieth them away; 24 He taketh away the understanding of the chief people of the land, And maketh them to wander in a trackless wilderness; 25 They grope in darkness without light, He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. The meaning of Job 12:22 in this connection can only be, that there is nothing so finely spun out that God cannot make it visible. All secret plans of the wicked, all secret sins, and the deeds of the evil-doer though veiled in deep darkness, He bringeth before the tribunal of the world. The form of writing given by the Masora is עמוּקות with koph raphatum, consequently plur. from עמוּק, like ערוּמים, עצוּמים from ערוּם, עצוּם, not from עמק. (Note: Kimchi in his Wrterbuch adopts the form עמקּות, but gives Abulwalid as an authority for the lengthened form, which, according to the Masora on Leviticus 13:3, Leviticus 13:25, is the traditional. The two exceptions where the form occurs with a long vowel are Proverbs 23:27 and this passage.) The lxx translates משגיא πλανῶν, as it is also explained in several Midrash-passages, but only by a few Jewish expositors (Jachja, Alschech) by מטעה.

The word, however, is not משׁגּיא, but משׂגּיא with ש sinistrum, after which in Midrash Esther it is explained by מגדיל; and Hirzel correctly interprets it of upward growth (Jerome after the Targ. unsuitably, multiplicat), and שׁטח, on the other hand, of growth in extent. The latter word is falsely explained by the Targ. in the sense of expandere rete, and Abenezra also falsely explains: He scatters nations, and brings them to their original peace. The verb שׁטח is here connected with ל, as הפתּה (Genesis 9:27); both signify to make a wider and longer space for any one, used here of the ground where they dwell and rule. The opposite, in an unpropitious sense, is הנחה, which is used here, as 2 Kings 18:11, in a similar sense with הגלה (abducere, i.e., in servitutem). We have intentionally translated גוים nations, עם people; for גּוי, as we shall show elsewhere, is the mass held together by the ties of a common origin, language, and country; (עם) עם, the people bound together by unity of government, whose membra praecipua are consequently called העם ראשׁי. הארץ is, in this connection, the country, although elsewhere, as Isaiah 24:4, comp. Job 42:5, הארץ עם signifies also the people of the earth or mankind; for the Hebrew language expresses a country as a portion of the earth, and the earth as a whole, by the same name.

Better, as U MBREIT , "He does not (needs not to) regard (as in Job 34:14; Isaiah 41:20) man long (so Hebrew, Genesis 46:29) in order that he may go (be brought by God) into judgment." Literally, " lest his (attention) upon men" (Job 11:10, 11). So Job 34:24, "without number" ought to be translated, "without [needing any] searching out," such as has to be made in human judgments. 24. break in pieces —(Psalms 2:9; Job 12:18; Daniel 2:21). 25. Therefore —because He knows all things (Job 34:21). He knows their works, without a formal investigation (Job 34:24). in the night —suddenly, unexpectedly (Job 34:20). Fitly in the night, as it was in it that the godless hid themselves (Job 34:22). U MBREIT , less simply, for "overturneth," translates, "walketh"; that is, God is ever on the alert, discovering all wickedness. 26. He striketh them —chasteneth. as —that is, because they are wicked. sight of others —Sinners hid themselves in darkness; therefore they are punished before all, in open day. Image from the place of public execution (Job 40:12; Exodus 14:30; 2 Samuel 12:12). ## 27, 28. The grounds of their punishment in Job 34:26. Job 34:28 states in what respect they "considered not God's ways," namely, by oppression, whereby "they caused the cry," &c. 29. (Proverbs 16:7; Isaiah 26:3). make trouble —rather, "condemn" (Romans 8:33, 34).