He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

Beheldeth - as their superior.

Children of pride - the proud and fierce beasts. So Job 28:8; Hebrew, sons of pride. To humble the pride of man, and to teach implicit submission, is the aim of Yahweh's speech, and of the book; therefore, with this, as to leviathan, the type of God in His lordship over creation he closes.

Remarks:

(1) How strange and perverse the presumption of man is! He does not are to provoke the creature that is his superior in strength, yet he dares to provoke the Almighty Creator (Job 41:10). If he could not stand in the contest with some of God's lower creatures, what hope could there be for him in conflict with the infinite Yahweh?

(2) People in their complaints against God, when He afflicts them, forget that the benefits and prosperity which they have previously enjoyed were altogether gratuitous on the part of God. He was under no pre-existing obligation to confer favours on them: and in taking back what He has given He cannot justly be called to account as guilty of injustice (Job 41:11).

(3) Not only is God under no obligation to continue to benefit even the best of men, regarded in themselves, but if He were to deal with them according to their deserts toward Him, He might justly consign them to everlasting misery. Nothing but the long-suffering of God, whom we so often provoke, keeps us from suffering far worse things than the very worst which we are called on to suffer.

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