Bible Commentaries

Job's last reply in this first cycle is to the whole argument, as well as to Zophar's application of it. From beginning to end, it thrills with sarcasm, while it maintains its denial of personal guilt.

In the first movement he treated with contempt his friends' interpretation of God, claiming to know more of Him than they did. In this there are two movements, in the first of which (1-6), he dealt with his friends; in the second (7-25), he turned to the subject of the wisdom and power of God with which they had dealt. His first words reveal his contempt, as in biting sarcasm he says:

No doubt but ye are the people, And wisdom shall die with you.

He then rebuked them, declaring that he was not inferior to them, and yet they had made him a laughingstock. He marked his contempt for them as he affirmed theirs for him.

Turning then to the discussion of the things they had emphasized concerning God, he declared that the knowledge was self-evident. The beast and fowl, the earth and the fishes, are acquainted with these matters. It is knowledge of the simplest that a11 these things are the works of God and that He sustains them. His wisdom is unquestioned. As to God's power, in a passage full of passion and force, Job described it in nature, and among the great men of the earth, counselors and judges, kings and princes, both speaking and governing, amid the nations themselves, increasing and destroying, uplifting and degrading.