Job 12:3

_BUT I HAVE UNDERSTANDING AS WELL AS YOU; I AM NOT INFERIOR TO YOU: YEA, WHO KNOWETH NOT SUCH THINGS AS THESE?_ Not inferior - not vanquished in argument and "wisdom" (Job 13:2). SUCH THINGS AS THESE - such commonplace maxims as you so pompously adduce....

1-5 Job upbraids his friends with the good opinion they had of their own wisdom compared with his. We are apt to call reproofs reproaches, and to think ourselves mocked when advised and admonished; this is our folly; yet here was colour for this charge. He suspected the true cause of their conduct to be, that they despised him who was fallen into poverty. It is the way of the world. Even the just, upright man, if he comes under a cloud, is looked upon with contempt....

Verse Job 12:3. _I_ AM _NOT INFERIOR TO YOU_] I do not fall short of any of you in understanding, wisdom, learning, and experience. _WHO KNOWETH NOT SUCH THINGS AS THESE?_] All your boasted wisdom consists only in _strings of proverbs_ which are in every person's mouth, and are no proof of wisdom and experience in them that use them....

BUT I HAVE UNDERSTANDING AS WELL AS YOU - Margin, as in the Hebrew “an heart.” The word “heart” in the Scriptures is often used to denote the understanding or mind. It seems to have been regarded as the source of that which was called life or soul. Indeed, I do not recollect a single instance in the Scriptures in which the word “head” is used, as with us, as the seat of the intellect, or where the distinction is adverted to that is so common with us, between the head and the heart. With us, the heart is the seat of the affections and emotions; with the Hebrews, it was the seat of understanding, and the σπλάγχνα _splangchna_ - the viscera, the bowels, were the seat of the emotions; see the notes at Isaiah 16:11. A more correct physiology has taught us that the brain is the organ of the intellect, and we

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 ...

BUT I HAVE UNDERSTANDING AS WELL AS YOU,.... A natural understanding, or an understanding of natural things, which distinguishes a man from a brute; and a spiritual understanding, an understanding enlightened by the spirit of God, which is naturally dark as to divine things; but he had an understanding given him, to know himself, his state and condition by nature; to know God, his love and grace to men, and, as his covenant God, to know Christ his living Redeemer, who should stand on the earth in the latter day, both to be his Redeemer and his Judge; to know his interest in him, and in the blessings of grace and glory by him: or, "I have an heart as well as you" d; a wise and an understanding one; a new heart, and a right spirit; an heart to fear and serve the Lord, a sincere and upright one, and devoid of hypocrisy and deceit; and as good an one as theirs: I [AM] NOT INFERIOR UNTO YOU:...

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

WHO KNOWETH NOT. ? Figure of speech _Erotisis._ App-6....

_But I have understanding_ Rather, I ALSO HAVE UNDERSTANDING, lit. _heart_; cf. on ch. Job 11:12, to the depreciating words of which Job refers. _who knoweth not such things as these_ lit. _with whom are not such things as these_? i. e. such knowledge as this. The reference is to Zophar's exhibition of the Divine wisdom and might, ch. Job 11:7-12....