Job 12
What Happens in This Chapter
Job answers his three friends with sarcasm, telling them their advice is common knowledge and that he is not their inferior. He says he has become a laughingstock even though he called on God and God answered, while robbers live in safety. He then points to the animals, birds, earth, and fish as witnesses that the LORD's hand controls all life, and gives a long list of God's power to build up and tear down kings, judges, counselors, priests, and whole nations.
Then Job answered:
1And Job answered and said,
Job is replying to his three friends, who have argued through several rounds of speeches that his suffering must be punishment for some sin. "Answered" here means answered back in a formal debate, not answered a question.
2"No doubt you are the people who matter, and when you die, wisdom will die with you.
2No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
Heavy sarcasm. "You are the people" means something like "you are the ones who count, the whole of humanity that matters", and when you go, human wisdom goes with you.
3But I have a mind too. I am not less than you are. Who does not know things like these?
3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
The KJV's "understanding" translates a Hebrew word literally meaning "heart," which in Hebrew is the seat of thought and judgment rather than of feeling. Job is saying he has a mind as good as theirs.
4I have become a joke to my own friends, though I called on God and he answered me. The honest man who does what is right is laughed at.
4I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
In 1611 English "mocked of his neighbour" means mocked BY his neighbor; "of" regularly meant "by" after a passive verb. The bitterness is that Job was once a man whose prayers God answered, and that is exactly what now makes him a joke.
5A man who is comfortable sneers at disaster. He thinks trouble is only for people whose feet are already slipping.
5He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
The Hebrew of this verse is broken and uncertain, and translations differ widely. The KJV supplies "lamp" from a word that can also be read as "disaster" or "misfortune." The general sense most translators settle on is that people who are safe and comfortable have contempt for the ruin of others.
6The tents of robbers are left alone, and people who make God angry live in safety, with plenty placed in their hands.
6The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
"Tabernacles" in the KJV simply means tents or dwellings; it has nothing to do with the tabernacle of the Israelite worship. The last line is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew: it can mean that God fills their hands with good things, or that these men carry their god in their own hand: that is, their strength is the only god they have.
7But go ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds in the sky, and they will tell you.
7But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
8Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. The fish in the sea will explain it to you.
8Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
9Which one of them does not know that the hand of the LORD has done all this?
9Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?
"LORD" in small capitals is the standard way English Bibles mark the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written Yahweh, rather than the ordinary word for "god." This is the only place in the long cycle of speeches between Job and his friends where that name appears; elsewhere they use general words for God.
10The life of every living creature is in his hand, and so is the breath of every human being.
10In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
11Doesn't the ear test words the way the mouth tastes food?
11Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?
A proverb about testing: just as the mouth judges whether food is good, the ear is supposed to judge whether an argument is any good. Job is inviting his friends to apply that test to what they have been saying.
12Wisdom is found in people who are old, and understanding comes with many years of living.
12With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.
This line reads as a well-worn saying, age brings wisdom. Hebrew has no quotation marks, so it is disputed whether Job is stating it, quoting it back at his elderly friends, or asking it sarcastically as a question before answering in the next verse that wisdom actually belongs to God alone.
13Wisdom and strength belong to God. Good advice and understanding are his.
13With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.
14Look: when he tears something down, it cannot be built again. When he shuts a man in, no one can let him out.
14Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
15Look: if he holds back the waters, everything dries up. If he lets them loose, they flood the land.
15Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
16Strength and wisdom belong to him. Both the one who is fooled and the one who fools him are his.
16With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17He leads advisers away stripped of everything, and he turns judges into fools.
17He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
"Away spoiled" means stripped, led off barefoot and without possessions. This is the standard ancient picture of prisoners of war marched away by their captors. Counselors and judges were the men whose whole standing rested on being wise; God makes fools of them.
18He unties the bonds of kings and ties a plain cloth around their own waists.
18He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
Deliberately double-edged in Hebrew. It can mean God loosens the chains kings put on their prisoners, or that he unties the sash of royal office from the king himself and ties on the plain cloth of a slave or captive instead. A belt or sash was a mark of rank and of readiness for action.
19He leads priests away stripped of everything, and he overthrows those who are firmly established.
19He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty.
The Hebrew word here is "priests"; the KJV's "princes" reflects the fact that the word could also cover high officials of state. Either way, these are men at the top of the social order being led off like captives.
20He takes away the speech of men everyone trusted, and he removes the good sense of the old.
20He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
"The trusty" are trusted advisers, the men whose word a community relied on. "The aged" are the elders, the older men who settled disputes and gave counsel at the town gate; taking away their judgment leaves a community with no one to guide it.
21He pours out scorn on nobles, and he loosens the belt of the strong so they have no power left.
21He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty.
The second line is literally "he loosens the belt of the strong." A tightened belt held up a man's robes so he could fight or run; a loosened one left him unable to move freely, the image is of a warrior disarmed.
22He uncovers deep things hidden in darkness, and he brings the deepest shadows out into the light.
22He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
"The shadow of death" translates one Hebrew word that means deep or total darkness. The KJV's phrase comes from an old way of dividing the word into "shadow" plus "death"; most modern translators read it simply as the thickest possible dark.
23He makes nations great and then destroys them. He spreads a nation wide and then scatters it.
23He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.
"Straiteneth" is 1611 English for hems in, confines, or squeezes narrow, the opposite of the "enlarges" in the same line. The Hebrew word can also carry the sense of leading a people away into exile.
24He takes away the good sense of the leaders of the earth and makes them wander in an empty land with no road.
24He 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.
"Taketh away the heart" again uses "heart" in the Hebrew sense of mind and judgment, not emotion: God strips national leaders of the ability to think straight. The wilderness with no way is trackless desert, where a traveler has no road to follow and no landmarks.
25They feel their way in the dark with no light, and he makes them stagger like a drunk man.
25They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
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