Job 12:13

_WITH HIM IS WISDOM AND STRENGTH, HE HATH COUNSEL AND UNDERSTANDING._ In contrast "with the ancient is wisdom" (Job 12:12), Job quotes a saying of the ancients which suits his argument - "With Him (God) is (the true) wisdom;" "Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength" (Proverbs 8:14): and by that "wisdom and strength" "He breaketh down," etc., as an absolute Sovereign, not allowing man to penetrate His mysteries: man's part is to bow to His unchangeable decrees (Job 1:21). The Mohammedan saying is, 'If God will, and how God will.'...

12-25 This is a noble discourse of Job concerning the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering all the affairs of the children of men, according to the counsel of His own will, which none can resist. It were well if wise and good men, who differ about lesser things, would see how it is for their honour and comfort, and the good of others, to dwell most upon the great things in which they agree. Here are no complaints, or reflections. He gives many instances of God's powerful management of the children of men, overruling all their counsels, and overcoming all their oppositions. Having all strength and wisdom, God knows how to make use, even of those who are foolish and bad; otherwise there is so little wisdom and so little honesty in the world, that all had been in confusion and ruin long ago. These important truths were suited to convince the disputants that they were out of t...

Verse Job 12:13. _WITH HIM_ IS _WISDOM AND STRENGTH_] But all these things come from GOD; he is the Fountain of wisdom and the Source of power. He alone can give us unerring counsel, and understanding to comprehend and act profitably by it. See on Job 12:16....

WITH HIM IS WISDOM - Margin, correctly, “God.” However much wisdom there may seem to be with aged men, yes the true wisdom - that which was supreme and worthy of the name - was to be found in God alone. The object of Job was to lead the thoughts up to God, and to bring his friends to a contemplation of the wisdom which he manifests in his works. Accordingly he goes on in the remainder of this chapter to state some of the illustrations of wisdom and power which God had exhibited, and particularly to show that he was a sovereign, and did his pleasure every where. He made all things; he sustains all things; he reverses the condition of people at his pleasure; he sets up whom he pleases, and when he chooses he casts them down. His works are contrary in many respects to what we should anticipate; and the sense of all is, that God was a holy and a righteous sovereign, and that such were the re...

EXPOSITION The discourse of Job, here begun, continues through three chapters (Job 12:1; Job 13:1; Job 14:1.). It is thought to form the conclusion of the first day's colloquy. In it Job for the first time really pours scorn upon his friends, and makes a mock of them (see verses 2, 8, 20; Job 13:4). This, however, is a secondary matter; his main object is to justify his previous assertions, (1) that the whole course of mundane events, whether good or evil, must be attributed to God (verses 6-25); (2) that his sufferings entitle him to plead with God, and demand to know why he is so punished ...

WITH HIM [IS] WISDOM AND STRENGTH,.... Not with the ancient and long lived man, but with God, who has made the whole universe, and in whose hand and at whose dispose all creatures are, Job 12:9; with him wisdom is originally, essentially, and inderivatively, as the fountain and fulness of it; he is the only and all wise God; his wisdom is displayed in making the world, and all things in it, in the beautiful manner they are set, and in their subserviency to each other; in all the dispensations of his providence, having all a "bathos", a depth of wisdom and knowledge in them, being all according to the counsel of his will; and in the work of redemption and salvation by Christ, in which he has abounded in all wisdom and prudence; in finding out and appointing a Redeemer, mighty and strong, equal to the work; in contriving and bringing it about, in such a manner as to glorify all his perfect...

CHAPTER S 12-14 JOB'S ANSWER TO ZOPHAR _ 1. His sarcasm (Job 12:1)_ 2. He describes God's power (Job 12:7) 3. He denounces his friends (Job 13:1) 4. He appeals to God (Job 13:14) 5. The brevity and trouble of life (Job 14:1) 6. The ray of light through hope of immortality (Job 14:7) Job 12:1. He answers not only Zophar but the others as well. Before this Job had expressed his

Eliphaz had appealed to revelation, Bildad to the wisdom of the ancients, Zophar assumes that he himself is the oracle of God's wisdom. Job answers this assumption. Firstly Zophar is not the only wise man in the world, and secondly, as to this wisdom of God, which explains everything, Job has himself studied the ways of God, and whatever wisdom there may be in them there is certainly also the most arbitrary exercise of Divine power. The friends take themselves to be the whole people (Job 12:2); in your own estimation, Job says, you-' re everybody (Peake). Job, however, is not behind them in wisdom: they are not its sole oracle (Job 12:3). JOB 12:4. According to Duhm an interpolation. They treat of the contrast between the fate of the

HIM: i.e. Jehovah (Job 12:9)....

Job 12:7-10 referred to what one could _see_of God's power and wisdom in the world, these verses refer to what one might learn of them by _hearing_ancient men discourse regarding them. In ch. Job 13:1, where Job looks back upon this chapter, he refers to both channels of knowledge, his eye and his ear. He does not despise knowledge learned from the observation of others when it is pertinent, cf. ch. Job 21:29. And it is obvious that the description in Job 12:13 contains many allusions to catastrophes, both in nature and in human society, which Job could not have seen himself, but must have learned from tradition....