Job 12:24

_HE TAKETH AWAY THE HEART OF THE CHIEF OF THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH, AND CAUSETH THEM TO WANDER IN A WILDERNESS WHERE THERE IS NO WAY._ He taketh away the heart - intelligence. WANDER IN A WILDERNESS - figurative; not referring to any actual fact. This cannot be quoted to prove Job lived after Israel's wanderings in the desert. Psalms 107:4; Psalms 107:40, quotes this passage....

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 12:24. _HE TAKETH AWAY THE HEART OF THE CHIEF_] Suddenly deprives the leaders of great counsels, or mighty armies of courage; so that, panic-struck, they flee when none pursueth, or are confounded when about to enter on the accomplishment of important designs. _AND CAUSETH THEM TO WANDER IN A WILDERNESS_] A plain allusion to the journeyings of the Israelites in the deserts of Arabia, on their way to the promised land. Their _chief, Aaron_, had his _courage all taken away_ by the clamours of the people; and so made them a molten calf to be the object of their worship, which defection from God was the cause of their wandering nearly _forty_ years in the trackless wilderness. The reference is so marked, that it scarcely admits of a doubt; yet _Houbigant_ and some others have called it in question, and suppose that those _chiefs_ or

HE TAKETH AWAY THE HEART - The word heart here evidently means mind, intelligence, wisdom; see the notes at Job 12:3. OF THE CHIEF OF THE PEOPLE - Hebrew “Heads of the people;” that is, of the rulers of the earth. The meaning is, that he leaves them to infatuated and distracted counsels. By withdrawing from them, he has power to frustrate their plans, and to leave them to an entire lack of wisdom; see the notes at Job 12:17. AND CAUSETH THEM TO WANDER IN A WILDERNESS - They are like persons in a vast waste of pathless sands without a waymark, a guide, or a path. The perplexity and confusion of the great ones of the earth could not be more strikingly represented than by the condition of such a lost traveler

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 ...

HE TAKETH AWAY THE HEART OF THE CHIEF OF THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH,.... The people of the earth are the common people; the "chief" or "heads" f of them, as it may be rendered, are kings, princes and generals of armies; whose "hearts" may be said to be "taken away" when they are dispirited, and deprived both of courage and conduct; have neither valour nor wisdom, neither fortitude of mind, nor military skill to defend themselves and their people against their enemies. Sephorno interprets this of Sihon and Og, whose spirits the Lord hardened, and made their hearts obstinate to war with Israel, Deuteronomy 2:30; but it may be better understood of the Israelites, and the heads of them, when they were discomfited by the Amalekites, quickly after their coming out of Egypt, see Numbers 14:45; about which time

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

HEART. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Cause), App-6, for the courage given by it. WILDERNESS. a pathless _tohu._ Compare note on Genesis 1:2....

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....