Job 32:12

32:6-14 Elihu professes to speak by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and corrects both parties. He allowed that those who had the longest experience should speak first. But God gives wisdom as he pleases; this encouraged him to state his opinion. By attention to the word of God, and dependence upon the Holy Spirit, young men may become wiser than the aged; but this wisdom will render them swift to hear, slow to speak, and disposed to give others a patient hearing.

Yea, I attended unto you,.... Very closely, with great application and diligence, endeavouring to get, as it were, within them, and thoroughly understand the meaning of what they said: and, behold, there was none of you that convinced Job; which was not owing to his obstinacy, but to want of proof in them, their words and arguments; they had charged Job highly, as particularly Eliphaz, Job 22:5; but then they failed in their proof; they produced nothing to support their allegations: or that answered his words; the arguments and reasons he gave in proof of his own innocence and uprightness, or the instances he produced, showing that God often afflicted good men, and suffered the wicked to prosper; and therefore no argument could be drawn from God's dealings with men, proving they were either of this or the other character, good or bad men.

Job 32:12-13 . Yea, I attended unto you — I have duly considered all you have said; and behold, none of you convinced Job — I must pronounce you have not confuted him, nor advanced any thing to the purpose in answer to his defence of himself. Lest you should say, We have found out wisdom — God has thus left you to your own weakness and mistakes, and shown you your inability to convince him, or even to make good your own arguments by answering his objections, lest you should glory in your own wisdom; lest you should boastingly say, We have discovered and said all that need or can be said in the cause, and what may finally end the controversy; we have said, God thrusteth him down, not man, and by his dreadful judgments upon him, shows him to be a hypocrite, and to be guilty of some gross, though secret sins. Or, as the Hebrew, אל ידפנו , eel jiddepennu, may be properly rendered, God must, or will, confute him, not man; “God only can sift him to the bottom, and know whether his pretences to piety have any thing real in them, or are only hypocritical.” But, says Elihu, this argument does not satisfy me, and therefore bear with me if I seek for a better.

Verse 12. - Yea, I attended unto you - or, lent you my attention - and, behold, there was none of you that convinced Job; rather, that convicted (or, confuted ) Job. Or that answered his words . In Elihu's opinion, the argumentative value of all the long speeches of the three friends was nil ; they had entirely failed to answer Job's arguments. Job 32:12

There was none of you that convinced Job - There was no one to produce conviction on his mind, or rather, there was no one to reprove him by answering him - ענה מוכיח môkiyach ‛ânâh. They were completely silenced: and had nothing to reply to the arguments which he had advanced, and to his reflections on the divine government.

11 Behold, I waited upon your words, Hearkened to your perceptions, While ye searched out replies. 12 And I attended closely to you, Yet behold: there was no one who refuted Job, Who answered his sentences, from you. 13 Lest ye should say: "We found wisdom, God is able to smite him, not man!" 14 Now he hath not arranged his words against me, And with your sentences I will not reply to him. He has waited for their words, viz., that they might give utterance to such words as should tend to refute and silence Job. In what follows, עד still more emphatically than ל refers this aim to that to which Elihu had paid great attention: I hearkened to your understandings, i.e., explanations of the matter, that, or whether, they came forth, (I hearkened) to see if you searched or found out words, i.e., appropriate words. Such abbreviated forms as אזין equals אאזין (comp. מזין equals מיזין for מעזין, Proverbs 17:4, Ges. 68, rem. 1, if it does not signify nutriens, from זוּן) we shall frequently meet with in this Elihu section.

In Job 32:12, Job 32:12 evidently is related as an antecedent to what follows: and I paid attention to you (עדיכם contrary to the analogy of the cognate praep. instead of עדיכם, moreover for עליכם, with the accompanying notion: intently, or, according to Aben-Duran: thoroughly, without allowing a word to escape me), and behold, intently as I paid attention: no one came forward to refute Job; there was no one from or among you who answered (met successfully) his assertions. Every unbiassed reader will have an impression of the remarkable expressions and constructions here, similar to that which one has in passing from the book of the Kings to the characteristic sections of the Chronicles. The three, Elihu goes on to say, shall not indeed think that in Job a wisdom has opposed them - a false wisdom, indeed - which only God and not any man can drive out of the field (נדף, Arab. ndf, discutere, dispellere, as the wind drives away chaff or dry leaves); while he has not, however (ולא followed directly by a v. fin. forming a subordinate clause, as Job 42:3; Psalm 44:18, and freq., Ew. 341, a), arrayed (ערך in a military sense, Job 33:5; or forensic, Job 23:4; or even as Job 37:19, in the general sense of proponere) words against him (Elihu), i.e., utterances before which he would be compelled to confess himself affected and overcome.