Job 27:11

(11) I will teach you. —Better, I will teach you of the hand of God; or, what is in the power of God.Benson CommentaryJob 27:11. I will teach you by the hand of God — That is, by God’s help and inspiration; or, by such arguments as are irresistible. The words, however, may be rendered, concerning the hand of God; that is, concerning his counsel and providence in governing the world, or the manner of his dealing with men, and especially with wicked men, of whom he discourses, Job 27:13, &c., showing how far the hand of God is either for them, upon, or against them. That which is with the Almighty — That is, in his counsel, and how he executes his secret purposes concerning them; I will not conceal — I will declare the truth of God, and the doctrine that he hath taught his church about these matters.Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary27:11-23 Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath.

When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?Barnes' Notes on the BibleI will teach you by the hand of God - Margin, "or, being in." Coverdale, "In the name of God." So Tindal, Noyes, "Concerning the hand of God." Good, "Concerning the dealings of God." The Chaldee renders it אלהא בנביאת - "By the prophecy of God." Luther, "I will teach you by the hand of God." The idea evidently is, that Job would instruct them by what God had done. He would appeal to his works, and to the dispensations of his providence; and by the indications of wisdom and skill which were to be found there, he would derive important lessons for their instruction on the great principles of his administration. Accordingly, in the remainder of this chapter, he makes his appeal to what actually occurs in the dispensations of Providence, and in the next, he refers to various scientific subjects, evincing the wisdom which God had shown in the mineral kingdom.

Job 27:11 . I will teach you by the hand of God — That is, by God’s help and inspiration; or, by such arguments as are irresistible. The words, however, may be rendered, concerning the hand of God; that is, concerning his counsel and providence in governing the world, or the manner of his dealing with men, and especially with wicked men, of whom he discourses, Job 27:13 , &c., showing how far the hand of God is either for them, upon, or against them. That which is with the Almighty — That is, in his counsel, and how he executes his secret purposes concerning them; I will not conceal — I will declare the truth of God, and the doctrine that he hath taught his church about these matters.

11 . by the hand of God ] Rather, concerning the hand of God. In a brief preface Job intimates that he will instruct his friends regarding the hand of God, that is, His operation, His method of dealing with the wicked. with the Almighty ] There is no just ground for restricting the phrase with the Almighty to the meaning, the plans or purposes of the Almighty, the general principles of His government, which continue to be His principles though they may not for a time appear in actual operation. Such a limitation is interpolated into the text, and is contrary to the parallelism of the first clause. In Job 27:13 the same phrase occurs, “the portion of the wicked man with God,” which is interpreted in the next clause as “the heritage which they receive from the Almighty.” The words refer to no ideal of moral government, such as always exists and may always manifest itself; they describe God’s actual treatment of the wicked man, apart from all limitation. This is the doctrine of the three friends; that of Job in ch. 21, and even ch. 24 was very different. 11–23 . The disastrous fate of the wicked man at the hand of God. Job 27:7-10 drew a contrast between the internal state of the mind of the speaker and that of the sinner; in these verses the contrast is pursued in a terrible picture of the external history and fate of the sinner at the hand of God.

From Job’s hand such a picture can have no meaning, unless either he now anticipates for himself a happy issue out of his afflictions, and restoration to prosperity, while the calamities that befall the wicked are final; or regards his own afflictions, even though they should bring him unto death, as altogether different in their character and marks from those that bring the wicked man to destruction. Either side of the alternative sets Job in complete contradiction to his position in the chapters that precede and follow this one. On the former side see on Job 27:10 . The latter side supposes Job now to take a view of his afflictions entirely opposed to that which he has hitherto taken and continues to take, namely that they are due to the enmity and hostility of God (ch. Job 13:24 , Job 16:9 , Job 19:11 ; Job 19:22 , but also ch. Job 30:21 , and even the present chap. Job 27:2-6 )—a view which Elihu severely animadverts upon, ch. Job 33:10 seq . And the idea that to become the prey of pestilence and sword ( Job 27:14-15 ) is a sure mark of a wicked man, while to be the victim of a fatal and loathsome malady is no such proof of wickedness (Delitzsch), is one which it is difficult to treat with seriousness.

Verses 11-23. - It is impossible to deny that this passage directly contradicts Job's former utterances, especially Job 24:2-24 . But the hypotheses which would make Job irresponsible for the present utterance and fix on him, as his steadfast conviction, the opposite theory, are unsatisfactory and have no solid basis. To suppose that Zophar is the real speaker is to imagine the absolute loss and suppression of two entire verses - one between vers. 10 and 11, assigning the speech to him, and another at the beginning of ch. 28, reintroducing Job and making him once more the interlocutor. That this should have happened by accident is inconceivable. Τὰ κατὰ τύχην οὐ πάνυ συνδυάζεται To ascribe it to intentional corruption by a Hebrew redactor, bent on maintaining the old orthodox view, and on falsely and wickedly giving the authority of Job to it (Froude 'Short Studies on Great Subjects,' vol. 1. p. 316), is to take away all authority from the existing text of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to open a door to any amount of wild suggestion and conjectural emendation. The other hypothesis - that of Eichhorn - that Job is here simply anticipating what his adversaries will say, though a less dangerous view, is untenable, since Job never does this without following up his statement of the adversaries' ease with a reply, and here is no reply whatever, but a simple turning away, after ver. 23, to another subject.