“With God are wisdom and might; he has counsel and understanding.
Job's friends have argued that his suffering proves his guilt. He answers by turning away from their reasoning and pointing to God Himself. He says that wisdom, strength, counsel and understanding all belong to God. Writers agree the words are true. They also say Job showed only one side of them.
The Answer to Men Who Claimed Wisdom
His friends had spoken as men sure of their own insight. Job first turns their appeal to age and experience back on them.
Leslie M. GrantWith his ears he tested their words. He tasted what they fed him, to find out whether it was good or not (vv.10-11). So he sets Zophar's claim to wisdom aside by telling him that "wisdom is with aged men, and with length of days, understanding" (v.12).
Wisdom Joined to Strength
The verse before grants that long life brings wisdom. This verse moves the subject to God, where wisdom and strength are held together. In a man, they never grow together.
William Kelly"With God are wisdom," he says. He turns to God; for, after all, a man gains only a little. "With God are wisdom and might" — while an old man grows wiser, he grows weaker — "he has counsel and understanding."
Counsel That Cannot Be Reversed
The verses that follow show this wisdom and strength in action. What God pulls down stays down. What He shuts stays shut. Job says this without seeing that he is himself the broken man.
Leslie M. Grant"If He breaks a thing down, it cannot be rebuilt" (v.14). In fact Job had been broken down, but he did not realise that the One who broke him down could also rebuild him, though Job could not do it. If God imprisons one, man cannot release him, though God can do so.
Human Counsel Emptied Out
Job's next lines describe advisers and judges losing the very thing that makes them useful. These are the people a society leans on.
Leslie M. Grant"He leads counsellors away plundered, and makes fools of the judges." That is, He strips counsellors of the value of their counsel. So man's wisdom comes to nothing, and the judges become foolish. Man's authority becomes as useless as his wisdom. Men that others counted dependable lose their speech and their power to help. Even elders known for their experience find their good sense taken away (vv.17-20).
The Collapse of His Friends' Argument
These reversals break the theory Job's friends were pressing on him: what happens to a man now shows God's verdict on him.
William KellyThere are all kinds of change. So there is nothing here that shows the settled judgment of God. Everything among men keeps flowing and changing. Nothing, then, could be more foolish than the basis of the three friends' attack on Job.
True Words, One Side Only
Job's teaching here is sound. His choice of evidence is not. He states the truth about God's wisdom and might, then illustrates it only from the side of ruin.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIn verses 12-13 Job seems to have Bildad's statement in mind (8:8-9). He now declares that with God are wisdom and might; He has counsel and understanding. But what follows is only one side of God's doings. It is true in itself, yet it is the darkest pessimism, which suited his mind.
Faith holds the same facts and speaks in a different tone.
Samuel RidoutIt is indeed a great but very dark picture of God's power. We can only shudder at the dreadful sight. Job's misery has cast a grim light over all God's greatness. How different is the language of faith: "God is our refuge and strength … therefore we will not fear … Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46).
Where It Leads Job
Admitting that God is wise and mighty does not settle Job's case. It turns him away from the debate and toward the One he cannot explain.
F. B. HoleHe did not claim to be better than his friends, but he was certainly not below them. Yet he admitted that God's ways puzzled him, being far above him and out of his sight. So, as verse 3 shows, what he wanted was to speak to the Almighty and reason with God, instead of spending his time reasoning with his friends.
Summary
- Wisdom moves — Job grants that age carries wisdom, then lifts the subject higher. With God, wisdom and strength go together. In man, they pull apart.
- Wisdom acts — God's counsel is not theory. He breaks down and it stays broken; He shuts and no one opens.
- Wisdom empties — counsellors lose the worth of their counsel. Judges become fools. Trusted men lose their speech. Man's wisdom and authority fail together.
- Wisdom overturns the argument — everything among men keeps shifting. So today's circumstances prove nothing about God's verdict. The friends' whole case falls.
- Wisdom needs faith's tone — Job's statement is true, but he paints it only in shadow. Faith sees the same greatness and finds refuge, not dread. It drives Job to reason with God rather than with men.