Job 42 commentary

JOB 42 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1 Then Job replied to the Lord:
GILL, "Then Job answered the Lord, and said. For though he had said he would
answer no more, Job_40:5; yet he might mean not in the manner he had, complaining of
God and justifying himself; besides he might change his mind without any imputation of
falsehood or a lie; see Jer_20:9; to which may be added, that he had then said all he had
to say, and did not know he should have more: he then confessed as much as he was
convinced of, but it was not enough; and now through what the Lord had since said to
him he was more convinced of his ignorance, mistakes, and sins, and had such a sight of
God and of himself, that he could not forbear speaking; moreover an injunction was laid
upon him from the Lord to speak again, and therefore he was obliged to give in his
answer; see Job_40:7.
HE RY, "The words of Job justifying himself were ended, Job_31:40. After that he
said no more to that purport. The words of Job judging and condemning himself began,
Job_40:4, Job_40:5. Here he goes on with words to the same purport. Though his
patience had not its perfect work, his repentance for his impatience had. He is here
thoroughly humbled for his folly and unadvised speaking, and it was forgiven him. Good
men will see and own their faults at last, though it may be some difficulty to bring them
to do this. Then, when God had said all that to him concerning his own greatness and
power appearing in the creatures, then Job answered the Lord (Job_42:1), not by way of
contradiction (he had promised not so to answer again, Job_40:5), but by way of
submission; and thus we must all answer the calls of God.
K&D 1-3, "He indeed knew previously what he acknowledges in Job_42:2, but now
this knowledge has risen upon him in a new divinely-worked clearness, such as he has
not hitherto experienced. Those strange but wondrous monsters are a proof to him that
God is able to put everything into operation, and that the plans according to which He
acts are beyond the reach of human comprehension. If even that which is apparently
most contradictory, rightly perceived, is so glorious, his affliction is also no such
monstrous injustice as he thinks; on the contrary, it is a profoundly elaborated ‫ה‬ ָ ִ‫ז‬ ְ‫,מ‬ a
well-digested, wise ‫ה‬ ָ‫צ‬ ֵ‫ע‬ of God. In Job_42:3 he repeats to himself the chastening word of
Jehovah, Job_38:2, while he chastens himself with it; for he now perceives that his
judgment was wrong, and that he consequently has merited the reproof. With ‫ן‬ ֵ‫כ‬ ָ‫ל‬ he
draws a conclusion from this confession which the chastening word of Jehovah has
presented to him: he has rashly pronounced an opinion upon things that lie beyond his
power of comprehension, without possessing the necessary capacity of judging and

perception. On the mode of writing ִ ְ‫ע‬ ַ‫ד‬ָ‫,י‬ Cheth., which recalls the Syriac form med'et
(with the pronominal suff. cast off), vid., Ges. §44, rem. 4; on the expression Job_42:2,
comp. Gen_11:6. The repetition of Job_38:2 in Job_42:3 is not without some variations
according to the custom of authors noticed in Psalter, i. 330. ‫י‬ ִ ְ‫ד‬ַ ִ‫,ה‬ “I have affirmed,”
i.e., judged, is, Job_42:3, so that the notion of judging goes over into that of
pronouncing a judgment. The clauses with ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ְ‫ו‬ are circumstantial clauses, Ew. §341, a.
EBC 1-6, "And Job finds the way of reconciliation:
"I know that Thou canst do all things,
And that no purpose of Thine can be restrained.
Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge?
Then have I uttered what I understood not,
Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not."
"‘Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will demand of Thee, and declare Thou unto me.
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;
But now mine eye seeth Thee,
Wherefore I repudiate my words and repent in dust and ashes."
All things God can do, and where His purposes are declared there is the pledge of
their accomplishment. Does man exist?-it must be for some end that will come
about. Has God planted in the human mind spiritual desires?-they shall be satisfied.
Job returns on the question that accused him-"Who is this darkening counsel?" It
was he himself who obscured counsel by ignorant words. He had only heard of God
then, and walked in the vain belief of a traditional religion. His efforts to do duty
and to avert the Divine anger by sacrifice had alike sprung from the imperfect
knowledge of a dream life that never reached beyond words to facts and things. God
was greater far than he had ever thought, nearer than, he had ever conceived. His
mind is filled with a sense of the Eternal power, and overwhelmed by proofs of
wisdom to which the little problems of man’s life can offer no difficulty.
" ow mine eye seeth Thee." The vision of God is to his soul like the dazzling light of
day to one issuing from a cavern. He is in a new world where every creature lives
and moves in God. He is under a government that appears new because now the
grand comprehensiveness and minute care of Divine providence are realised. Doubt
of God and difficulty in acknowledging the justice of God are swept away by the

magnificent demonstration of vigour, spirit, and. sympathy, which Job had as yet
failed to connect with the Divine Life. Faith therefore finds freedom, and its liberty
is reconciliation, redemption. He cannot indeed behold God face to face and hear
the judgment of acquittal for which he had longed and cried. Of this, however, he
does not now feel the need. Rescued from the uncertainty in which he had been
involved-all that was beautiful and good appearing to quiver like a mirage-he feels
life again to have its place and use in the Divine order. It is the fulfilment of Job’s
great hope, so far as it can be fulfilled in this world. The question of his integrity is
not formally decided. But a larger question is answered, and the answer satisfies
meantime the personal desire.
Job makes no confession of sin, His friends and Elihu, all of whom endeavour to
find evil in his life, are entirely at fault. The repentance is not from moral guilt, but
from the hasty and venturous speech that escaped him in the time of trial. After all
one’s defence of Job one must allow that he does not at every point avoid the
appearance of evil. There was need that he should repent and find new life in new
humility. The discovery he has made does not degrade a man. Job sees God as great
and true and faithful as he had believed Him to be, yea, greater and more faithful
by far. He sees himself a creature of this great God and is exalted, an ignorant
creature and is reproved. The larger horizon which he demanded having opened to
him, he finds himself much less than he had seemed. In the microcosm of his past
dream life and narrow religion he appeared great, perfect, worthy of all he enjoyed
at the hand of God; but now, in the macrocosm, he is small, unwise, weak. God and
the soul stand sure as before; but God’s justice to the soul He has made is viewed
along a different line. ot as a mighty sheik can Job now debate with the Almighty
he has invoked. The vast ranges of being are unfolded, and among the subjects of
the Creator he is one, -bound to praise the Almighty for existence and all it means.
His new birth is finding himself little, yet cared for in God’s great universe.
The writer is no doubt struggling with an idea he cannot fully express; and in fact
he gives no more than the pictorial outline of it. But, without attributing sin to Job,
he points, in the confession of ignorance, to the germ of a doctrine of sin. Man, even
when upright, must be stung to dissatisfaction, to a sense of imperfection-to realise
his fall as a new birth in spiritual evolution. The moral ideal is indicated, the
boundlessness of duty and the need for an awakening of man to his place in the
universe. The dream life now appears a clouded partial existence, a period of lost
opportunities and barren vainglory. ow opens the greater life in the light of God.
And at the last the challenge of the Almighty to Satan with which the poem began
stands justified. The Adversary cannot say, -The hedge set around Thy servant
broken down, his flesh afflicted, now he has cursed Thee to Thy face. Out of the
trial Job comes, still on God’s side, more on God’s side than ever, with a nobler
faith more strongly founded on the rock of truth. It is, we may say, a prophetic
parable of the great test to which religion is exposed in the world, its difficulties and
dangers and final triumph. To confine the reference to Israel is to miss the grand
scope of the poem. At the last, as at the first, we are beyond Israel, out in a universal
problem of man’s nature and experience. By his wonderful gift of inspiration,

painting the sufferings and the victory of Job, the author is a herald of the great
advent. He is one of those who prepared the way not for a Jewish Messiah, the
redeemer of a small people, but for the Christ of God, the Son of Man, the Saviour
of the world.
A universal problem, that is, a question of every human age, has been presented and
within limits brought to a solution. But it is not the supreme question of man’s life.
Beneath the doubts and fears with which this drama has dealt lie darker and more
stormy elements. The vast controversy in which every human soul has a share
oversweeps the land of Uz and the trial of Job. From his life the conscience of sin is
excluded. The author exhibits a soul tried by outward circumstances; he does not
make his hero share the thoughts of judgment of the evildoer. Job represents the
believer in the furnace of providential pain and loss. He is neither a sinner nor a sin
bearer. Yet the book leads on with no faltering movement toward the great drama
in which every problem of religion centres. Christ’s life, character, work cover the
whole region of spiritual faith and struggle, of conflict and reconciliation, of
temptation and victory, sin and salvation; and while the problem is exhaustively
wrought out the Reconciler stands divinely free of all entanglement. He is light, and
in Him is no darkness at all. Job’s honest life emerges at last, from a narrow range
of trial into personal reconciliation and redemption through the grace of God.
Christ’s pure heavenly life goes forward in the Spirit through the full range of
spiritual trial, bearing every need of erring man, confirming every wistful hope of
the race, yet revealing with startling force man’s immemorial quarrel with the light,
and convicting him in the hour that it saves him. Thus for the ancient inspired
drama there is set, in the course of evolution, another, far surpassing it, the Divine
tragedy of the universe, involving the spiritual omnipotence of God. Christ has to
overcome not only doubt and fear, but the devastating godlessness of man, the
strange sad enmity of the carnal mind. His triumph in the sacrifice of the cross leads
religion forth beyond all difficulties and dangers into eternal purity and calm. That
is through Him the soul of believing man is reconciled by a transcendent spiritual
law to nature and providence, and his spirit consecrated forever to the holiness of
the Eternal.
The doctrine of the sovereignty of God, as set forth-in the drama of Job with
freshness and power by one of the masters of theology, by no means covers the
whole ground of Divine action. The righteous man is called and enabled to trust the
righteousness of God; the good man is brought to confide in that Divine goodness
which is the source of his own. But the evildoer remains unconstrained by grace,
unmoved by sacrifice. We have learned a broader theology, a more strenuous yet a
more gracious doctrine of the Divine sovereignty. The induction by which we arrive
at the law is wider than nature, wider than the providence that reveals infinite
wisdom, universal equity and care. Rightly did a great Puritan theologian take his
stand on the conviction of God as the one power in heaven and earth and hell;
rightly did he hold to the idea of Divine will as the one sustaining energy of all
energies. But he failed just where the author of Job failed long before: he did not
fully see the correlative principle of sovereign grace. The revelation of God in
Christ, our Sacrifice and Redeemer, vindicates with respect to the sinful as well as

the obedient the Divine act of creation. It shows the Maker assuming responsibility
for the fallen, seeking and saving the lost; it shows one magnificent sweep of
evolution which starts from the manifestation of God in creation and returns
through Christ to the Father, laden with the manifold immortal gains of creative
and redeeming power.
PULPIT, "This concluding chapter divides into two parts. In the first part (Job
42:1-6) Job makes his final submission, humbling himself in the dust before God. In
the second (verses 7-17) the historical framework, in which the general dialogue is
set, is resumed and brought to a close. God's approval of Job is declared, and his
anger denounced against the three friends, who are required to expiate their guilt by
a sacrifice, and only promised forgiveness if Job will intercede on their behalf (verse
8). The sacrifice takes place (verse 9); and then a brief account is appended of Job's
after life—his prosperity, his reconciliation with his family and friends, his wealth,
his sons and daughters, and his death in a good old age, when he was "full of days"
(verses 10-17.). The poetic structure, begun in Job 3:3, is continued to the end of Job
3:6, when the style changes into prose of the same character as that employed in Job
1:1-22; Job 2:1-13; and in Job 32:1-5.
Job 42:1, Job 42:2
Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou caner do every thing; i.e. I
know and acknowledge thy omnipotence, which thou hast set forth so magnificently
before me in ch. 38-41. It is brought home to me by the grand review of thy works
which thou hast made, and the details into which thou hast condescended to enter. I
know also and acknowledge that no thought can be with-holden from thee; i.e. I
confess also thy omniscience—that thou knowest even the thoughts of all created
beings (comp. Psalms 44:21; Psalms 139:2; Hebrews 4:13, etc.).
PARKER 1-6, "After the Storm
Job 42:1-6
What does it all come to? We have been much excited by the process, what is its
consummation? Is the end worthy of the beginning? Is the literary structure well
put together, and does it end in domes and pinnacles worthy of its magnitude and
original purpose? Or is this a lame and impotent conclusion? Let us deal frankly
with the facts as they are before us.
It is difficult to avoid the feeling of some disappointment as we come to the
conclusion of the Book of Job. On first reading, the last chapter seems to be the
poorest in all the work. If the writer was a dramatist, he seems to have lost his
cunning towards the close. This chapter appears, when first looked at, to have been
written by a wearied hand. The writer seems to be saying, I would I had never
begun this drama of Job: parts of it were interesting enough to me, but now I have

come to sum it all up I find a want of glory; I have not light enough to set above the
whole tragedy; I thought to have ended amid the glory of noontide, and I find
myself writing indistinctly and feebly in the cool and uncertain twilight. Should any
man so express himself he must vindicate his position by the chapter as it stands at
the close of the Book of Job. Is Job alive? Did we not expect him to go down under
the cataract of questions which we had been considering? Does he not lie a dead
drowned man under the tremendous torrent? To what shall we liken the course of
Job? Shall we say, A ship at sea? Then verily it was a ship that never knew anything
but storms: every wind of heaven had a quarrel with it; the whole sky clouded into a
frown when looking upon that vessel; the sea was troubled with it as with a burden
it could not carry, and the lightnings made that poor ship their sport. Did the ship
ever come into port? or was it lost in the great flood? Shall we compare Job to a
traveller? Then he seems to have travelled always in great jungles. Quiet, broad,
sunny, flowery roads there were none in all the way that Job pursued: he is
entangled, he is in darkness, the air is rent by roars and cries of wild beasts and
birds of prey. It was a sad, sad journey. Is there anything left of Job? The very
weakness of the man"s voice in this last chapter is the crowning perfection of art. If
Job had stood straight up and spoken in an unruffled and unhindered voice, his
doing so would have been out of harmony with all that has gone before. It was an
inspiration to make him whisper at the last; it was inspired genius that said, The
hero of this tale must be barely heard when he speaks at last; there must be no
mistake about the articulation, every word must be distinct, but the whole must be
uttered as it would be by a man who had been deafened by all the tempests of the air
and affrighted by all the visions of the lower world. So even the weakness is not
imbecility; it is the natural weakness that ought to come after such a pressure. Old
age has its peculiar and sweet characteristic. It would be out of place in youth.
There is a dignity of feebleness; there is a weakness that indicates the progress and
establishment of a moral education. Job , then, is not weak in any senile or
contemptible sense; he is weak in a natural and proper degree.
Let us hear every word of his speech. What a deep conviction he has of God"s
infinite majesty—"I know that thou canst do every thing." These words might be
read as if they were the expression of intellectual feebleness. They are the words of a
shattered mind, or of undeveloped intellect; they are more like a repetition than an
original or well-reasoned conviction. "I know that thou canst do every thing,"—
words which a child might say. Yet they are the very words that ought to be said
under the peculiar circumstances of the case. There must be no attempt to match
God"s eloquence; that thunder must roll in its own heavens, and no man must
attempt to set his voice against that shock of eloquence. Better that Job should speak
in a stifled voice, with head fallen on his breast, saying, "I know that thou canst do
every thing." He said much saying little. He paid God, so to say, the highest tribute
by not answering him in the same rhetoric, but by contrasting his muffled tone with
the imperious demands that seemed to shatter the air in which they were spoken.
Who can be religious who does not feel that he has to deal with omnipotence? Who
can be frivolous in the presence of almightiness—in the presence of him whose
breath may be turned towards the destruction of the universe, the lifting up of
whose hand makes all things tremble. Without veneration here is no religion. That

veneration may be turned into superstition is no argument against this contention.
ot what may be done by perverting genius, but what is natural and congruous is
the question now before the mind. There should be a place, therefore, for silence in
the church: "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before
him." We may not stare with audacity. If we catch any hint of the light of his
garment, it must be by furtive glances. See, then, Job overpowered, convinced at
least of omnipotence, assured that he has to deal with almightiness. That assurance
will determine all that he says afterwards. But omnipotence Isaiah , so to say,
objective; it is outside of us, beyond us, something to be looked at, perhaps admired,
perhaps appealed to in servile tones.
Is there no attribute of God which corresponds with this but looks in the other
direction? Job has discovered that attribute, for he adds "and that no thought can
be withholden from thee." The God of Job"s conception, then, was first clothed with
omnipotence, and secondly invested with omniscience. Job is now upon solid
ground. He is no dreaming theologian. He has laid hold of the ideal God in a way
which will certainly and most substantially assist him. If omnipotence were the only
attribute of God, we should feel a sense of security, because we could exclude him
from the sanctuary of our being; we could keep him at bay; we could do with him as
we could do with our nearest and dearest friend,—we could look loyalty and think
blasphemy. Who can not smile, and yet in his heart feel all the cruelty of murder?
But here is a God who can search thought, and try the reins of the children of men;
from whose eye nothing is hidden, but who sees the thought before it is a thought,
when it is rising as a mist from the mind to shape itself into an imagining, a dream
or a purpose. There is not a word upon my tongue, there is not a thought in my
heart, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. God is a searcher of hearts. God
uses this word "search" again and again in talking to Job: Hast thou searched the
depths of the sea, the treasures of the hail, the hiding-place of wisdom? hast thou
penetrated it, taken away fold after fold, and probed the infinite secret to its core? A
wonderful revelation of God is this, which invests him with the attribute of
searching, piercing to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. There is
nothing hidden from the eye of God. "All things," we read in this book, "are naked
and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." God is all secret: to
God secret is impossible. The thing we have hidden in our hearts lies under the
blaze of noonday burning light Is it nothing to have come to this conclusion on
practical grounds as Job has done? We may come into religious conceptions in one
of two ways: we may be instructed in them, they may be communicated to us by the
friendly voice of father or teacher or pastor, and we may hold them with some
realisation of their sacredness; or we may be scourged into them, driven into our
religious persuasions and conclusions; we may be caused to flee into them by some
pursuing tempest: when that is the case, our religion cannot be uprooted, for it is
not something we hold lightly or secure by the hand; it is part of our very souls, it is
involved in our identity. So there is a difference between intellectual religion and
experimental religion; there is a difference between the Christianity of the young
heart and the Christianity of the old heart: in the first instance there must be more
or. less of high imagination, ardent desire, perhaps a touch of speculation, perfectly
innocent and often most useful; but in the case of the experienced Christian all

history stamps the heart with its impress; the man has tested the world, and has
written "lie and vanity" on its fairest words; he knows that there is something
beyond appearances, he has been afflicted into his religion, and he is now as
wrought iron that cannot be bent or broken; the whole process has been completed
within himself, so that suggestion and fact, conjecture and experience, joy and
sorrow, high strength and all-humbling affliction, have co-operated in the working
out of a result which is full of sacred trust, and which is not without a certain
stimulus to pure joy.
So what was supposed to be weakness was in reality strength. The subduing of Job
as to his mere attitude and voice, is the elevation of Job as to his highest conceptions
and experiences. What a thorough conviction he had of his finite
condition!—"Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not" It is something to
know that there are some spaces we cannot reach. The eye can do more than the
hand. The hand would sometimes follow the eye, but it follows it at an
immeasurable distance. The eye sees the fair blue arch of summer, but the spoiling
hand cannot stain that fair disclosure of God"s almightiness. The mind is the better
for knowing that it is pursued by a law of trespass. Imagination is none the worse,
but all the better, for seeing written here and there all round the horizon: o
thoroughfare— o road—Private. What if we could see everything, handle
everything, explain everything? Who would not soon tire of the intolerable
monotony? It is the surprise, the flash of unexpected light, the hearing of a going in
the tops of the trees, the shaking of the arras, that makes one feel that things are
larger than we had once imagined, and by their largeness they allure us into
broader study, into more importunate prayer. "Things too wonderful for me"—in
providence, in the whole management of human history, in the handling of the
universe—that easy, masterly handling by which all things are kept in attitude and
at duty,—that secret handling, for who can see the hand that arranges and sustains
all nature? Yet there nature stands, in all security and harmony and beneficence, to
attest that behind it there is a government living, loving, personal, paternal. Is it not
something to know, then, that we are not infinite? It is easy to admit that in words.
othing is gained, however, by these easy admissions of great propositions in
metaphysics and theology. We must here again, as in the former instance, be driven
into them, so that when we utter them we may speak with the consent and force of a
united life. We accept the position of creaturedom, and must not attempt to seize the
crown of creatorship.
What dissatisfaction Job expresses with mere hearsay in religious inquiry! "I have
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear." That is superficial. There is nothing in it
that can profoundly and savingly affect the life. Who has not heard thousands of
sermons, and forgotten them by the easy process of turning aside from their appeals
and practically disobeying them? Yet, who has heard aright—heard with his soul,
heard with his unblunted and undivided attention, heard with the eagerness of men
who must hear or die? Alas, there is but little such hearing. Even when the
Scripture is read in the public assembly, who can hear all its music, who can reply
to its sweet argument? Is there not much mere hearsay in religion? We may hear
certain truths repeated so frequently that to hear anything to the contrary would

amount to a species of infidelity. In reality, there may be no infidelity in the matter
at all, for what we have been hearing may be all wrong as we shall presently have
occasion to note. There is a mysterious, half-superstitious influence about repetition.
Things may be said with a conciseness and a frequency which claim for the things
said a species of revelation. Hence many false orthodoxies, and narrow
constructions of human thought and human history, because other things do not
balance with what we have always heard. But from whom have we heard these
things? It may be that the fault lies in the speaker and in the hearer, and that the
new voice is not a new voice in any sense amounting to mere novelty, but new
because of our ignorance, new because we were not alive to our larger privileges.
"But now," Job continues, "mine eye seeth thee." "I have heard of thee by the
hearing of the ear" is equal to, I have heard of thine omnipotence: "but now mine
eye seeth thee" amounts to a balancing of the omniscient power of God. Man is
allowed to see something of God, as God sees everything of man. The vision is
reciprocal: whilst God looks we look,—"mine eye seeth."
"Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." o man can imagine
light. Looking upon the grey landscape before the sun has fully risen, a man says—I
can imagine what it will be when the sun shines upon it He is wrong. o man can
imagine sunlight. He can do so in a little degree; he can imaginatively increase the
light that is already shining, but when the sun, so to say, chooses to come out in all
the wizardry of his power, touching and blessing what he will and as he will, he
startles the most diligent devotee at his altar with new displays of unsuspected
splendour. So it Isaiah , only in infinitely higher degree, with the living God. Could
we but see him even in his goodness, it should be unto us like glory; were his glory to
pass before us, we should never see it more, for we should be blinded by the excess
of light.
Here, then, we find the patriarch once so eloquent abhorring himself in dust and
ashes. That is a condition to which we must come before we can be right with God.
Whilst we are mere controversialists, we can never be penitents; whilst we are
"clever," we can never pray; whilst we think that there is one poor little rag upon
our nakedness, God will not command the blessed ones to bring forth the white robe
of adoption and restoration. We must be unmade before we can be Revelation -
made. We must be dead before we can live. Thou fool, that which thou sowest must
die before it can bring forth fruit. That is the explanation of our want of real
religion. We have never experienced real contrition for sin. We have never seen that
we are sinners. If we could see that, all the other prayers of Scripture would gather
themselves up in the one prayer—God be merciful to me a sinner! So long as we can
ask questions we are outside the whole idea of redemption; by these questions we
mean merely intellectual inquiries,—not the solemn moral inquiry, "What shall I do
to be saved?" but the vain intellectual inquiry which assumes that the mind retains
its integrity and is willing to converse with God upon equal terms. From the
Pharisee God turns away with infinite contempt. We may know something of the
full meaning of this by looking at it in its social relations. Take the case as it really
stands in actual experience. A man has misunderstood you, robbed you; has acted

proudly and self-sufficiently toward you; has been assured of one thing above all
others, and that is that he himself is right whoever else may be wrong: he has
pursued his course; that course has ended in failure, disappointment, mortification,
poverty: he returns to you that he may ask favours, but he asks them with all the old
pride, without a single hint that he has done anything wrong, or committed a single
mistake. You cannot help that man; you may feed him, but he can never rise above
the position of a mendicant, a pauper for whom there is no help of a permanent
kind. He speaks to you as if he were conferring a favour upon you in asking for the
bread he wants to eat. What must that man do before he can ever be a man again in
any worthy sense? He must get rid of his pride, his self-sufficiency, his self-idolatry;
he must come and say, if not in words yet in all the signification of spirit—I am a
fool, I have done wrong every day of my life; I have mistaken the bulk, proportion,
colour, value of everything; I have been vain, self-sufficient, self-confident; I have
duped myself: O pity me! ow you can begin, and now you can make solid work:
the old man has been taken out of him; the sinning, the offending Adam has been
whipped out of him, and he comes and says in effect, Help me now, for I am without
self-excuse, self-defence; my vanity, my pride are not dead only, but buried, rotten,
for ever gone. ow you may open your mind, open your heart, open your hand; now
you may buy a ring for his fingers and shoes for his feet; now you may bring forth
the best robe, and put it on him; now he begins to be a son. But without this there is
no possible progress. If we go to God and say that we are men of great intellect, men
even of genius, we can understand thee, show thyself to us; we are equal to the
occasion; if we have made any mistakes, they are mere slips, they have not affected
the integrity of our character or the pureness of our souls; we will climb the range of
creation; we will demand to exercise the franchise of our uninjured manhood.
othing will come of such high demand. The heavens will become as lead when such
appeals are addressed to them. We must come in another tone, saying, God be
merciful to me a sinner! Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? "A guilty, weak, and
helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall." Father, I have sinned against heaven and in
thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make as one of thy hired
servants. ow the house will be full of light, full of music; a house almost heaven.
GUZIK 1-3, "A. Job’s repentance.
1. (Job 42:1-3) Job confesses his presumption and lack of knowledge.
Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
a. I know that You can do everything: This wonderful statement from Job was
obviously connected to the impressive display of the power and might of God over
creation; but it was also connected to the comfort that the sense of the presence of
God brought to Job. God indeed could do everything, including bring comfort and
assurance to Job, even when Job still did not understanding the origin or meaning
of his crisis.
b. And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You: The God who can
master Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40:1-24; Job 41:1-34) can also accomplish
every purpose in Job’s life, including the mysterious meaning behind the twists and
turns.
c. I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know: Job sad many sad and imprudent things, both in his agonized cry of
Job 3:1-26 and in the bitter and contentious debate with his friends. At times he
doubted the goodness of God and His righteous judgment in the world; at times he
doubted if there was any good in this life or in the life beyond. ow Job has come
full circle, back to a state of humble contentment with not knowing the answers to
the questions occasioned by his crisis and his companions.
i. “Job felt that what he had spoken concerning the Lord was in the main true; and
the Lord himself said to Job’s three friends, ‘Ye have not spoken of me the thing
that is right, as my servant Job hath’; but under a sense of the divine presence Job
felt that even when he had spoken aright, he had spoken beyond his own proper
knowledge, uttering speech whose depths of meaning ho could not himself fathom.”
(Spurgeon)
ii. Job’s thinking here is well expressed by one of the shortest psalms, Psalms 131:1-
3 :
LORD, my heart is not haughty,
or my eyes lofty.
either do I concern myself with great matters,
or with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD

From this time forth and forever.
BILL LO G 1-6, "Knowing, Hearing, Seeing, Despising, Repenting
These six verses are among the most explosive and variously interpreted verses in
the Bible. Almost nothing one says about them is completely incorrect, and so I take
heart in advancing this interpretation. It is a mixture of the two leading readings of
the text.
The Theories
On the one hand, scholars have taken Job 42:1-6 as an expression of Job's being
overcome by a new knowledge of God that he did not previously have. When he
learns of God by "seeing" rather than merely by "hearing" (42:5), he sees how
wrong, arrogant, and mistaken he has been all along and he despises himself,
repenting in dust and ashes (42:6).
On the other hand, more recent scholars have taken Job's reaction both in chapters
40 and 42 to be anything other than one of heartfelt submission. Instead, under this
thesis, Job is knuckling under because he can do no other; God has driven him to
surrender. This approach then would read 42:6 as saying not that Job despises
himself but that he "despises and repents of dust and ashes." That is, he has seen
God, and this knowledge of God makes him see the flimsiness of religious claims and
rituals. Rather than despising himself, then, he abandons the traditional religious
life.
Sorting it Out
A partial way through the maze of conflicting interpretation lies in paying close
attention to the verbs of chapter 42. My claim is that the two verbs of 42:6
("despise" and "repent") are best understood in the context of three previous verbs
which provide their proper interpretive context. These verbs are "knowing,"
"hearing," and "seeing."
Knowing
The primary emphasis of 42:1-6 is on new things that Job learns. Four times in two
verses appear verbs or nouns suggestive of Job's ignorance and knowledge. (1) He
now knows that God can do all things (42:2); (2) his (mis)quotation of God's word in
38:2 emphasizes his ignorance; (3) his confession is that he uttered things he didn't
"understand," (4) wonderful things that he did not "know (42:3)." The conclusion
of the book is about the discovery of a different mode of knowing. It is as if Job has
discovered a new faculty within him, one that is charged with fresh, strange and
wonderful knowledge of God. He greets this discovery with the same intensity as he
latched onto the idea of darkness in chapter 3 to summarize his first entry into
distress. All is now knowledge.
Hearing and Seeing
What has changed for Job? His mode of perceiving God. He previously had "heard

of God" but now "I see you (42:5)." This fantastic statement is uttered in the
context of a biblical tradition that says no one can "see" God and live, even though
Moses and some of the elders "saw" God or talked to God "face to face" (Ex. 33:9-
11; 24:9-11). What did Job see? This needs to be interpreted in the context of the
knowledge of 42:2-3. Job "saw" that God's basic character is raw energy and
power, and that is what God admires. Job "saw" that any attempt to confine God to
categories devised by humans, even biblical categories, is, quite simply, wrong. Job's
physical body was riddled with ailments; now his mental world has completely
collapsed.
Despising and Repenting
In this context, the despising and repenting make sense. The verb despise ('maas')
appears here without an object (as in 7:16) to express the abiding sense that one's
life is now utterly worthless. Wracked by pain was Job in chapter 7, and his life was
empty; now the intellectual agony is so severe that he likewise "despises." The vision
of God in 42:5, then, is not the mystic vision of eternal sweetness and peace; it is an
agony-riddled realization (a "knowing") that life has completely come apart.
All Job can do in this context is to sit on the ash heap. One can imagine Job lowering
his eyes, barely moving, barely breathing, completely undone. The springs of life
have departed from him completely.
BI 1-10, "Then Job answered the Lord, and said.
Job’s confession and restoration
I. Job’s acknowledgment of God’s greatness. Throughout his speeches Job had
frequently asserted the majesty of God. But now he has a new view of it, which turns awe
into reverence and fear into adoration.
II. Job’s confession of his ignorance. He felt that in his past utterances he had been
guilty of saying that which he understood not. It is a very common fault to be too
confident, and to match our little knowledge with the wonders of the universe. “Behold,
we know not anything,” is man’s truest wisdom.
III. Job’s humbleness before God. A great change had passed over his spirit. At the
beginning he had sought to vindicate himself, and to charge God—with the strangeness
and the mystery of His ways. Now, at the close, he repents in dust and ashes, and even
abhors himself for his effrontery and impatience.
IV. God’s condemnation of Job’s friends. The friends of Job had not spoken the thing
that was right of God and His ways. They had ascribed a mechanical severity to His
administration of human affairs. In addition to that they had shown an acrimonious
spirit in their denunciation of Job. So God reproved them, and ordered that they should
prepare a burnt offering of seven bullocks and seven rams to offer for their sin.
V. Job’s abundant prosperity. Great End prosperous as Job had been before his
afflictions, he was still greater and more prosperous afterwards. God gave him twice as
much as he had before. (S. G. Woodrow.)

This passage sets before us the result of Jehovah’s coming into communion with Job.
I. The result inwardly.
1. Job’s new knowledge.
(1) He has a new knowledge of God—not new in its facts, exactly, but new in his
appreciation of them. It was not so much a knowledge that God is, as that He is
omnipotent, and wise in His providence. Every revelation of God to our hearts
has for its contents, above the fact of God’s existence, the facts of His character.
God is never shown to us except with His attributes. This new knowledge came to
Job because he suffered. When Job sees God, and learns of his attributes, the cue
attribute which he has questioned, and which he would naturally want to know
about—justice—remains in the background. When God shows Himself to us we
are satisfied, even though He does not show that part of Himself which we have
most wanted to see.
(2) A new knowledge of himself. He says frankly that he had been talking about
which he was ignorant. All along Job had been discussing God with his friends
upon two assumptions—that he was able to know all about Him, and that he did
know all about Him. He now finds that he was mistaken in both. How difficult it
is to know ourselves, even negatively. A sight of the Infinitely Holy convicts us of
sin. We learn what we are by contrast with something else.
2. In connection with Job’s new knowledge there came a new state of heart.
(1) He was willing to have his questions unanswered. All thought of the vexing
problem of suffering seems to be forgotten. Faith has silenced doubt. We are not
made to know some things. The question is, how to be satisfied while not
knowing.
(2) The appearance of God brought to Job the rare virtue of humility. We cannot
truthfully say that heretofore Job had shown any excess of this virtue. Now he
sees that the attitude of mind out of which his bold words Godward had arisen
was unbecoming one who was but a creature. It is no mark of greatness to fancy
oneself infallible. To acknowledge mistake is a sign of progress.
(3) Job goes beyond humility to repentance. He says that dust and ashes are the
best exponent of his state of mind. Repentance is open to any man who thinks.
No one, not even righteous Job, needs to hunt long for reasons for repentance.
II. The result outwardly of Job’s coming into connection with God.
1. His misfortunes were reversed. We cannot infer from this that God will always
literally restore earthly prosperity for those who are afflicted by its loss. What we
may reasonably infer is that God controls outer things for good ends to us. We are
not to infer that the Lord’s hand is shortened, but He chooses His own way.
2. God transforms Job’s sorrow into joy. Some time or some where He will do the
same for us if we are His. It may be largely in this life, as in the case of Job. The area
of vision has been enlarged by our blessed Lord, who brought life and immortality to
light.
3. Job was able to be of service to his friends. Jehovah was angry against the three

friends. God’s coming to Job was a means of his being a blessing to others. It is so
with ourselves.
III. General lessons.
1. The conclusion of the Book of Job shows to us the mercy of God. God sometimes
seems unmerciful, but it is only seeming.
2. Job’s questions remain unanswered. The mystery of Providence is unsolved.
3. Yet Job was satisfied. It was better for him to have Jehovah reveal Himself and
His glory to him, than to know all things he wanted to know. There is something
better than knowledge, something for which knowledge would be no substitute, the
peace of the soul in fellowship with God.
4. The supreme lesson of this sublime Book is that joy comes through submission to
God happiness for the human soul is not in conquest, but in being conquered; not in
exaltation, but in humiliation. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The primary object of the Book of Job is to prove and illustrate the glory and force of a
pure, unselfish religion. Job was reconciled to his sufferings, not by argument, but by a
direct revelation of the character of God. We have here what has been well called “a
religious controversy issuing in utter failure.” Neither party was convinced; each
retained his own views. The result in this case, as in every religious controversy which
has occurred since, was bitterness of spirit and alienation of heart, without adding much
to the cause of truth. It was not when the friends addressed him that Job was convinced,
but when Jehovah addressed him—when He brought him face to face with the wonders
of creation—then the mystery of suffering was solved. The moment a man begins to have
a living perception of God, when God becomes a presence and a reality to him, he begins
to be sorry for his wrong-doing. Job had been peevish, complaining, and somewhat
vindictive under his trials. The nearer a man approaches his perfect ideal, the more he
feels his imperfections. As the moral sense of the race increases, the more heinous seem
the so-called smaller sins. The term which Job uses when he says “I repent” is identical
with that which is used in the New Testament to indicate the godly sorrow which is not
to be repented of. It means a genuine turning away from evil Observe that the reprovers
are reproved. The doctors are treated with a dose of their own medicine. Their dogma
falls upon their own heads. They had been placing the justice of God above all His other
attributes, and now this very justice has pronounced against them. It is very easy to fall
into the error of Job’s three friends, to set ourselves up as monopolists of the truth, and
make people around us who do not happen to agree with us very uncomfortable. The
trouble with Job’s friends was, that in their zeal to vindicate their favourite doctrine they
not only ignored other doctrines which were fully as important, but they violated some
of the simplest principles of righteousness. How does God treat these unprofitable
debaters? He rebukes their assumption by sending them to the victim of their
persecution, that he may pray for them. They did as they were told. The lesson was
humiliating, but it was salutary, and they showed their real goodness of heart by their
prompt obedience. We must not miss noticing in the beautiful climax the double lesson
which it contains. There had been wrong on both sides. Job had little occasion to boast
of his victory, and the greatness of his soul appeared in the heartiness with which he
accepted the Divine decision. Here we have the only true solution of the religions
controversy. Among Christians who disagree there can be no victor or vanquished,

Dissensions which end in the glorification of one party and the humiliation of the other
are only followed by more bitter conflicts, or are the beginning of a long estrangement. It
is only when Eliphaz and Job can get down on their knees together that a real peace is
established. (C. A. Dickinson.)
MACLAREN, "‘THE END OF THE LORD’
The close of the Book of Job must be taken in connection with its prologue, in order to
get the full view of its solution of the mystery of pain and suffering. Indeed the prologue
is more completely the solution than the ending is; for it shows the purpose of Job’s
trials as being, not his punishment, but his testing. The whole theory that individual
sorrows were the result of individual sins, in the support of which Job’s friends poured
out so many eloquent and heartless commonplaces, is discredited from the beginning.
The magnificent prologue shows the source and purpose of sorrow. The epilogue in this
last chapter shows the effect of it in a good man’s character, and afterwards in his life.
So we have the grim thing lighted up, as it were, at the two ends. Suffering comes with
the mission of trying what stuff a man is made of, and it leads to closer knowledge of
God, which is blessed; to lowlier self-estimation, which is also blessed; and to renewed
outward blessings, which hide the old scars and gladden the tortured heart.
Job’s final word to God is in beautiful contrast with much of his former unmeasured
utterances. It breathes lowliness, submission, and contented acquiescence in a
providence partially understood. It does not put into Job’s mouth a solution of the
problem, but shows how its pressure is lightened by getting closer to God. Each verse
presents a distinct element of thought and feeling.
First comes, remarkably enough, not what might have been expected, namely, a
recognition of God’s righteousness, which had been the attribute impugned by Job’s
hasty words, but of His omnipotence. God ‘can do everything,’ and none of His
‘thoughts’ or purposes can be ‘restrained’ (Rev. Ver.). There had been frequent
recognitions of that attribute in the earlier speeches, but these had lacked the element of
submission, and been complaint rather than adoration. Now, the same conviction has
different companions in Job’s mind, and so has different effects, and is really different in
itself. The Titan on his rock, with the vulture tearing at his liver, sullenly recognised
Jove’s power, but was a rebel still. Such had been Job’s earlier attitude, but now that
thought comes to him along with submission, and so is blessed. Its recurrence here, as in
a very real sense a new conviction, teaches us how old beliefs may flash out into new
significance when seen from a fresh point of view, and how the very same thought of
God may be an argument for arraigning and for vindicating His providence.
The prominence given, both in the magnificent chapters in which God answers Job out
of the whirlwind and in this final confession, to power instead of goodness, rests upon
the unspoken principle that ‘the divine nature is not a segment, but a circle. Any one
divine attribute implies all others. Omnipotence cannot exist apart from righteousnes’s
(Davidson’s Job, Cambridge Bible for Schools). A mere naked omnipotence is not God. If
we rightly understand His power, we can rest upon it as a Hand sustaining, not crushing,
us. ‘He doeth all things well’ is a conviction as closely connected with ‘I know that Thou
canst do all things’ as light is with heat.
The second step in Job’s confession is the acknowledgment of the incompleteness of his

and all men’s materials and capacities for judging God’s providence. Job_42:3 begins
with quoting God’s rebuke (Job_38:2). It had cut deep, and now Job makes it his own
confession. We should thus appropriate as our own God’s merciful indictments, and
when He asks, ‘Who is it?’ should answer with lowliness, ‘Lord, it is I.’ Job had been a
critic; he is a worshipper. He had tried to fathom the bottomless, and been angry
because his short measuring-line had not reached the depths. But now he acknowledges
that he had been talking about what passed his comprehension, and also that his words
had been foolish in their rashness.
Is then the solution of the whole only that old commonplace of the unsearchableness of
the divine judgments? Not altogether; for the prologue gives, if not a complete, yet a
real, key to them. But still, after all partial solutions, there remains the inscrutable
element in them. The mystery of pain and suffering is still a mystery; and while general
principles, taught us even more clearly in the New Testament than in this book, do
lighten the ‘weight of all this unintelligible world,’ we have still to take Job’s language as
the last word on the matter, and say, ‘How unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out!’
For individuals, and on the wider field of the world, God’s way is in the sea; but that does
not bewilder those who also know that it is also in the sanctuary. Job’s confession as to
his rash speeches is the best estimate of many elaborate attempts to ‘vindicate the ways
of God to man.’ It is better to trust than to criticise, better to wait than to seek
prematurely to understand.
Job_42:4, like Job_42:3, quotes the words of God (Job_38:3; Job_40:7). They yield a
good meaning, if regarded as a repetition of God’s challenge, for the purpose of
disclaiming any such presumptuous contest. But they are perhaps better understood as
expressing Job’s longing, in his new condition of humility, for fuller light, and his new
recognition of the way to pierce to a deeper understanding of the mystery, by
illumination from God granted in answer to his prayer. He had tried to solve his problem
by much, and sometimes barely reverent, thinking. He had racked brain and heart in the
effort, but he has learned a more excellent way, as the Psalmist had, who said, ‘When I
thought, in order to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary
of God; then understood I.’ Prayer will do more for clearing mysteries than speculation,
however acute, and it will change the aspect of the mysteries which it does not clear from
being awful to being solemn-veils covering depths of love, not clouds obscuring the sun.
The centre of all Job’s confession is in Job_42:5, which contrasts his former and present
knowledge of God, as being mere hearsay before, and eyesight now. A clearer
understanding, but still more, a sense of His nearness, and an acquaintance at first hand,
are implied in the bold words, which must not be interpreted of any outward revelation
to sense, but of the direct, full, thrilling consciousness of God which makes all men’s
words about Him seem poor. That change was the master transformation in Job’s case,
as it is for us all. Get closer to God, realise His presence, live beneath His eye and with
your eyes fixed on Him, and ancient puzzles will puzzle no longer, and wounds will cease
to smart, and instead of angry expostulation or bewildered attempts at construing His
dealings, there will come submission, and with submission, peace.
The cure for questionings of His providence is experience of His nearness, and
blessedness therein. Things that loomed large dwindle, and dangers melt away. The
landscape is the same in shadow and sunshine; but when the sun comes out, even snow
and ice sparkle, and tender beauty starts into visibility in grim things. So, if we see God,
the black places of life are lighted; and we cease to feel the pressure of many difficulties
of speculation and practice, both as regards His general providence and His revelation in

law and gospel.
The end of the whole matter is Job’s retractation of his words and his repentance. ‘I
abhor’ has no object expressed, and is better taken as referring to the previous speeches
than to ‘myself.’ He means thereby to withdraw them all. The next clause, ‘I repent in
dust and ashes,’ carries the confession a step farther. He recognises guilt in his rash
speeches, and bows before his God confessing his sin. Where are his assertions of
innocence gone? One sight of God has scattered them, as it ever does. A man who has
learned his own sinfulness will find few difficulties and no occasions for complaint in
God’s dealings with him. If we would see aright the meaning of our sorrows, we must
look at them on our knees. Get near to God in heart-knowledge of Him, and that will
teach our sinfulness, and the two knowledges will combine to explain much of the
meaning of sorrow, and to make the unexplained residue not hard to endure.
The epilogue in prose which follows Job’s confession, tells of the divine estimate of the
three friends, of Job’s sacrifice for them, and of his renewed outward prosperity. The
men who had tried to vindicate God’s righteousness are charged with not having spoken
that which is right; the man who has passionately impugned it is declared to have thus
spoken. No doubt, Eliphaz and his colleagues had said a great many most excellent,
pious things, and Job as many wild and untrue ones. But their foundation principle was
not a true representation of God’s providence, since it was the uniform connection of sin
with sorrow, and the accurate proportion which these bore to each other.
Job, on the other hand, had spoken truth in his denials of these principles, and in his
longings to have the righteousness of God set in clear relation to his own afflictions. We
must remember, too, that the friends were talking commonplaces learned by rote, while
Job’s words came scalding hot from his heart. Most excellent truth may be so spoken as
to be wrong; and it is so, if spoken heartlessly, regardless of sympathy, and flung at
sufferers like a stone, rather than laid on their hearts as a balm. God lets a true heart
dare much in speech; for He knows that the sputter and foam prove that ‘the heart’s
deeps boil in earnest.’
Job is put in the place of intercessor for the three-a profound humiliation for them and
an honour for him. They obeyed at once, showing that they have learned their lesson, as
well as Job his. An incidental lesson from that final picture of the sufferer become the
priest requiting accusations with intercession, is the duty of cherishing kind feelings and
doing kind acts to those who say hard things of us. It would be harder for some of us to
offer sacrifices for our Eliphazes than to argue with them. And yet another is that sorrow
has for one of its purposes to make the heart more tender, both for the sorrows and the
faults of others.
Note, too, that it was ‘when Job prayed for his friends’ that the Lord turned his captivity.
That is a proverbial expression, bearing witness, probably, to the deep traces left by the
Exodus, for reversing calamity. The turning-point was not merely the confession, but the
act, of beneficence. So, in ministering to others, one’s own griefs may be soothed.
The restoration of outward good in double measure is not meant as the statement of a
universal law of Providence, and still less as a solution of the problem of the book. But it
is putting the truth that sorrows, rightly borne, yield peaceable fruit at the last, in the
form appropriate to the stage of revelation which the whole book represents; that is, one
in which the doctrine of immortality, though it sometimes rises before Job’s mind as an
aspiration of faith, is not set in full light.
To us, living in the blaze of light which Jesus Christ has let into the darkness of the
future, the ‘end of the Lord’ is that heaven should crown the sorrows of His children on

earth. We can speak of light, transitory affliction working out an eternal weight of glory.
The book of Job is expressing substantially the same expectation, when it paints the
calm after the storm and the restoration in double portion of vanished blessings. Many
desolate yet trusting sufferers know how little such an issue is possible for their grief, but
if they have more of God in clearer sight of Him, they will find empty places in their
hearts and homes filled.
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
BAR ES, "I know that thou canst do everything - This is said by Job in view of
what had been declared by the Almighty in the previous chapters. It is an
acknowledgment that God was omnipotent, and that man ought to be submissive, under
the putting forth of his infinite power. One great object of the address of the Almighty
was to convince Job of his majesty, and that object was fully accomplished.
And that no thought - No purpose or plan of thine. God was able to execute all his
designs.
Can be withholden from thee - Margin, “or, of thine can be hindered.” Literally,
“cut off” - ‫בצר‬ bâtsar. The word, however, means also “to cut off access to,” and then to
prevent, hinder, restrain. This is its meaning here; so Gen_11:6, “Nothing will be
restrained (‫יבצר‬ yibâtsar) from them, which they have imagined to do.”
CLARKE, "I know that thou canst do every thing - Thy power is unlimited; thy
wisdom infinite.
GILL, "I know that thou canst do every thing,.... As the works of creation, and the
sustentation of them, show; so the Targum,
"thou sustainest all things,''
and can manage, every creature made by him, even such as were not tractable by men,
such as behemoth and leviathan, the creatures last instanced in; and was able to abase
and bring low the proud, which Job could not do; and could also save him by his right
hand, and bring him out of his low estate in which he was, and raise him to great
prosperity again, which Job always despaired of till now; and though he had a
theoretical knowledge of the omnipotence of God before, see Job_9:4; yet not a practical

experimental knowledge of it; at least not to such a degree as he now had, working upon
his heart, bowing his will, and bringing him to a resignation to the will of God; he not
only knew he could do all things, but that he had a right to do what he pleased; and that
whatever he did he did well and wisely, and in a righteous manner, of which before he
seemed to have some doubt. And that no thought can be withholden from thee; either no
thought of men, good or bad, of God or of themselves, and so is an acknowledgment of
the omniscience of God, and may be an appeal to that; that God, who knows the secrets
of men's hearts, knew what thoughts Job now had of God; of the wisdom, righteousness,
and goodness of God in the dispensations of his providence, different from what he had
before; see Joh_21:17; or rather it may be understood of every thought of God's heart, of
every secret purpose and wise counsel of his; which, as they are all well known to him,
and cannot be withheld from having effect, or the performance of them hindered, Job
now saw and was fully assured that all that had befallen him was according to the
sovereign and inscrutable purposes of God, and according to the wise counsels of his
will; he knew that not only God could do everything, but that he also did whatever he
pleased.
HE RY, "I. He subscribes to the truth of God's unlimited power, knowledge, and
dominion, to prove which was the scope of God's discourse out of the whirlwind, Job_
42:2. Corrupt passions and practices arise either from some corrupt principles or from
the neglect and disbelief of the principles of truth; and therefore true repentance begins
in the acknowledgement of the truth, 2Ti_2:25. Job here owns his judgment convinced
of the greatness, glory, and perfection of God, from which would follow the conviction of
his conscience concerning his own folly in speaking irreverently to him. 1. He owns that
God can do every thing. What can be too hard for him that made behemoth and
leviathan, and manages both as he pleases? He knew this before, and had himself
discoursed very well upon the subject, but now he knew it with application. God had
spoken it once, and then he heard it twice, that power belongs to God; and therefore it is
the greatest madness and presumption imaginable to contend with him. “Thou canst do
every thing, and therefore canst raise me out of this low condition, which I have so often
foolishly despaired of as impossible: I now believe thou art able to do this.” 2. That no
thought can be withholden from him, that is, (1.) There is no thought of ours that he can
be hindered from the knowledge of. Not a fretful, discontented, unbelieving thought is in
our minds at any time but God is a witness to it. It is in vain to contest with him; for we
cannot hide our counsels and projects from him, and, if he discover them, he can defeat
them. (2.) There is no thought of his that he can be hindered from the execution of.
Whatever the Lord pleased, that did he. Job had said this passionately, complaining of it
(Job_23:13), What his soul desireth even that he doeth; now he says, with pleasure and
satisfaction, that God's counsels shall stand. If God's thoughts concerning us be
thoughts of good, to give us an unexpected end, he cannot be withheld from
accomplishing his gracious purposes, whatever difficulties may seem to lie in the way.
JAMISO , "In the first clause he owns God to be omnipotent over nature, as
contrasted with his own feebleness, which God had proved (Job_40:15; Job_41:34); in
the second, that God is supremely just (which, in order to be governor of the world, He
must needs be) in all His dealings, as contrasted with his own vileness (Job_42:6), and
incompetence to deal with the wicked as a just judge (Job_40:8-14).
thought — “purpose,” as in Job_17:11; but it is usually applied to evil devices (Job_
21:27; Psa_10:2): the ambiguous word is designedly chosen to express that, while to
Job’s finite view, God’s plans seem bad, to the All-wise One they continue unhindered in

their development, and will at last be seen to be as good as they are infinitely wise. No
evil can emanate from the Parent of good (Jam_1:13, Jam_1:17); but it is His prerogative
to overrule evil to good.
BE SO , "Job 42:2. I know thou canst do every thing — Job here subscribes to
God’s unlimited power, knowledge, and dominion, to prove which was the scope of
God’s discourse out of the whirlwind. And his judgment being convinced of these,
his conscience also was convinced of his own folly in speaking so irreverently
concerning him. o thought can be withholden from thee — o thought of ours can
be withholden from thy knowledge. And there is no thought of thine which thou
canst be hindered from bringing into execution.
COFFMA , ""I know that thou canst do all things ... etc." (Job 42:2). "Job
acknowledges that God can achieve all that he plans, and that He plans, knowing
that he can do all things."[1] Van Selms elaborated this somewhat, writing, "I sense,
from the examples you have cited, the behemoth and the leviathan, that you are able
to realize all your plans for your creation, however far these may go beyond human
conception. You have reasons for what you do, of which we are totally ignorant"[2]
"Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge" (Job 42:3). "In this Job
repeats the question which God had asked in Job 38:2, admitting that he spoke out
of limited knowledge, too confidently of things too wonderful for him to
understand."[3] In our interpretation of Job 38:2, we applied the words to the
speech of Elihu; but we do not believe that Job's accepting the application of the
words to himself in this verse is a contradiction of that which we alleged earlier. As
a matter of fact, all of the speakers in the Book of Job fall under the same blanket
indictment, but Job is to be blamed far less than any of the others. Job's knowledge
of God has been greatly expanded; and he has a new appreciation of the extent,
complexity and marvelous wonder of God's creation.
"Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak" (Job 42:4). Earlier, Job had been unwilling
to speak (Job 40:4-5); but now, in the light of his greater understanding, he is
willing to respond to God's invitation. "He can now accept the fact that God and his
government of man's life, and even his distribution of rewards and retributions, are
ultimately beyond man's power to comprehend."[4] Job's willingness to speak
should not be interpreted as evidence that he then understand all about God. He
didn't; nor, in this life, would he ever do so.
"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee" (Job
42:5). This must not be understood as a contradiction of the great truth that " o
man may see God." What Job referred to here was God's revelation to him in the
form of a voice out of the whirlwind. Van Selms' comment on this was, "(My
knowledge) was based on hear-say; but now I have been confronted by yourself,
although you wrapped yourself in a thunder-cloud as in a garment; and in that form
of concealment you did appear to me."[5]

"But now mine eye seeth thee" (Job 42:5). This cannot mean that Job then knew
more about God. Perhaps, he knew even less; but he had found an utterly new
conception of God, not as some kind of an impersonal law, but God as a Person, a
Person infinitely concerned with human affairs, a Person who would even speak to
Job! that being the most wonderful and most incredible thing in the whole book. It
revealed a love of God for man as nothing else could possibly have done.
" ow that thou hast revealed thyself unto me, my spiritual eyes are opened; and I
begin to see thee in thy true might, thy true greatness, and thy true inscrutableness.
I now recognize the distance that separates us."[6] The same realization came to Job
in this marvelous experience that was expressed by the Psalmist: "He (God)
remembereth that we are dust" (Psalms 103:14). God, of course, holds this
remembrance of men continually; and happy indeed is the man who himself finds
the grace also to remember it. This grace was given to Job, as revealed in the
following verse.
"Wherefore, I abhor myself" (Job 42:6a). The underlined word here is not in the
text, having been supplied by the translators; and, as indicated in the margin, "I
loathe my words" is also a legitimate rendition. "Godly hatred of one's own
defilement is the natural accompaniment of a believer's confrontation with the Holy
God."[7]
"And repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6b). Of what did Job repent? "Certainly, he
did not repent of such sins as his friends had alleged against him; and neither is it
enough to say that Job repented of his pride. Repentance here is the mood of a man
who realizes his creaturehood and that God is eternally God."[8]
Here in Job 42:5,6, we have, "The supreme lesson of the book. o new theoretical
knowledge of God and his ways has been given to Job; but he has come face to face
with God, and that is enough"![9]
As we come to the end of Job, we are amazed that no answer whatever has been
provided for the overriding question regarding the reason behind human suffering.
"God is not so much concerned with strengthening man's faith by giving him
answers to his questions, as he is with encouraging the kind of faith that does not
demand answers."[10] As the great Apostle to the Gentiles stated it, "The wisdom of
this world is foolishness with God." (2 Corinthians 3:19). The person who waits till
he knows the answers to all his questions will never even begin to serve God.
"Job is a titanic figure of sinful man, standing at midpoint between the Garden of
Eden and the ew Testament."[11] God's manifesting such concern for Job, his
unworthy creature, is a pledge of God's love for all men, and a symbol of that
eventual revelation to all mankind in Jesus Christ. He ranks along with Moses,
Abraham, Melchizedek, and Jethro the priest of Midian as one of the great
monotheists of the Old Testament.

3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans
without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
BAR ES, "Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? - This is
repeated from Job_38:2. As used there these are the words of the Almighty, uttered as a
reproof of Job for the manner in which he had undertaken to explain the dealings of
God; see the notes at that verse. As repeated here by Job, they are an acknowledgment of
the truth of what is there implied, that “he” had been guilty of hiding counsel in this
manner, and the repetition here is a part of his confession. He acknowledges that he
“had” entertained and expressed such views of God as were in fact clothing the whole
subject in darkness instead of explaining it. The meaning is, “Who indeed is it, as thou
saidst, that undertakes to judge of great and profound purposes without knowledge? I
am that presumptuous man? Ilgen.”
Therefore have I uttered that I understood not - I have pronounced an opinion
on subjects altogether too profound for my comprehension. This is the language of true
humility and penitence, and shows that Job had at heart a profound veneration for God,
however much he had been led away by the severity of his sufferings to give vent to
improper expressions. It is no uncommon thing for even good people to be brought to
see that they have spoken presumptuously of God, and have engaged, in discussions and
ventured to pronounce opinions on matters pertaining to the divine administration, that
were wholly beyond their comprehension.
CLARKE, "Who is he that hideth counsel - These are the words of Job, and they
are a repetition of what Jehovah said, Job_38:2 : “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by
words without knowledge?” Job now having heard the Almighty’s speech, and having
received his reproof, echoes back his words: “Who is he that hideth counsel without
knowledge Alas, I am the man; I have uttered what I understood not; things too
wonderful for me, that I knew not. God had said, Job_38:3 : “Gird up now thy loins like
a man; I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.” In allusion to this, Job exclaims to
his Maker, Job_42:4 : “Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will ask of Thee, and
declare Thou unto Me.” I acknowledge my ignorance; I confess my foolishness and
presumption; I am ashamed of my conduct; I lament my imperfections; I implore thy
mercy; and beg thee to show me thy will, that I may ever think, speak, and do, what is
pleasing in thy sight.
Things too wonderful - I have spoken of thy judgments, which I did not

comprehend.
GILL, "Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge?.... It may be
understood, and supplied, as it is by Cocceius, "thou didst say"; as the Lord had said, or
to this purpose; see Gill on Job_38:2; to which Job here replies, I am the foolish man
that has done it, I own it with sorrow, shame, and confusion: or it may be interpreted as
condemning every other man that should act the like part. Schultens understands this as
spoken by Job of God, and renders the words,
"who is this that seals up counsel, which cannot be known?''
the counsels, purposes, and decrees of God are sealed up by him, among his treasures, in
the cabinet of his own breast, and are not to be unsealed and unlocked by creatures, but
are impenetrable to them, past finding out by them, and not to be searched and pried
into; and so the secret springs of Providence are not to be known, which Job had
attempted, and for which he condemns himself;
therefore have I uttered that I understood not; concerning the providential
dealings of God with men, afflicting the righteous, and suffering the wicked to prosper,
particularly relating to his own afflictions; in which he arraigned the wisdom, justice,
and goodness of God, as if things might have been better done than they were; but now
he owns his ignorance and folly, as Asaph did in a like case, Psa_73:22;
things too wonderful for me, which I knew not; things out of his reach to search
into, and beyond his capacity to comprehend; what he should have gazed upon with
admiration, and there have stopped. The judgments of God are a great deep, not to be
fathomed with the line of human understanding, of which it should be said with the
apostle, "O the depth", Rom_11:33, &c. Job ought to have done as David did, Psa_131:1;
of which he was now convinced, and laments and confesses his folly.
HE RY, "II. He owns himself to be guilty of that which God had charged him with in
the beginning of his discourse, Job_42:3. “Lord, the first word thou saidst was, Who is
this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? There needed no more; that
word convinced me. I own I am the man that has been so foolish. That word reached my
conscience, and set my sin in order before me. It is too plain to be denied, too bad to be
excused. I have hidden counsel without knowledge. I have ignorantly overlooked the
counsels and designs of God in afflicting me, and therefore have quarrelled with God,
and insisted too much upon my own justification: Therefore I uttered that which I
understood not,” that is, “I have passed a judgment upon the dispensations of
Providence, though I was utterly a stranger to the reasons of them.” Here, 1. He owns
himself ignorant of the divine counsels; and so we are all. God's judgments are a great
deep, which we cannot fathom, much less find out the springs of. We see what God does,
but we neither know why he does it, what he is aiming at, nor what he will bring it to.
These are things too wonderful for us, out of our sight to discover, out of our reach to
alter, and out of our jurisdiction to judge of. They are things which we know not; it is
quite above our capacity to pass a verdict upon them. The reason why we quarrel with
Providence is because we do not understand it; and we must be content to be in the dark
about it, until the mystery of God shall be finished. 2. He owns himself imprudent and
presumptuous in undertaking to discourse of that which he did not understand and to

arraign that which he could not judge of. He that answereth a matter before he heareth
it, it is folly and shame to him. We wrong ourselves, as well as the cause which we
undertake to determine, while we are no competent judges of it.
JAMISO , "I am the man! Job in God’s own words (Job_38:2) expresses his deep
and humble penitence. God’s word concerning our guilt should be engraven on our
hearts and form the groundwork of our confession. Most men in confessing sin palliate
rather than confess. Job in omitting “by words” (Job_38:2), goes even further than
God’s accusation. Not merely my words, but my whole thoughts and ways were “without
knowledge.”
too wonderful — I rashly denied that Thou hast any fixed plan in governing human
affairs, merely because Thy plan was “too wonderful” for my comprehension.
BE SO , "Job 42:3. Who is he that hideth counsel? — What am I, that I should be
guilty of such madness? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not — Because
my mind was without knowledge, therefore my speech was ignorant and foolish;
things which I knew not — I have spoken foolishly and unadvisedly of things far
above my reach. “The recollection of Job,” says Dr. Dodd, “in this and the two
following verses, is inimitably fine, and begins the catastrophe of the book, which is
truly worthy of what precedes. The interrogatory clause in the beginning of this
verse is a repetition of what Jehovah had said; the latter part of this verse, and the
fourth and fifth verses, are Job’s conclusions.”
COKE, "Job 42:3. Who is he that hideth counsel, &c.— Who is he that pretends to
disclose the wisdom which is incomprehensible? Surely I spoke what I did not
understand; wonders beyond my reach, which I could not know. Heath. The
recollection of Job in this and the two following verses is inimitably fine, and begins
the catastrophe of the poem, which is truly worthy of what precedes. The
interrogatory clauses, in the beginning of this and the next verses, are repetitions of
what Jehovah had said; the latter of this verse, and the 5th and 6th verses, are Job's
conclusions.
ELLICOTT, "(3) Who is he that hideth counsel?—It is quite obvious that the right
way of understanding these verses is, as in Isaiah 63:1-6, after the manner of a
dialogue, in which Job and the Lord alternately reply. “Who is this that hideth
counsel without knowledge?” were the words with which God Himself joined the
debate in Job 38:2; and therefore, unless we assign them to Him here also, we must
regard them as quoted by Job, and applied reflectively to himself; but it is far better
to consider them as part of a dialogue.
PULPIT, "Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? As these are nearly
the words of God in Job 38:2, some suppose that they must be his words again here,
and imagine a short dialogue in this place between Job and the Almighty, assigning
to Job verse 2, the latter half of verse 8, and the whole of verses 5 and 6, while they

assign to God verse 4 and the first clause of verse 8. But it is far more natural to
regard Job as bringing up the words which God had spoken to him, to ponder on
them and answer them, or at any rate to hang his reply upon them, than to imagine
God twice interrupting Job in the humble confession that he was anxious to make.
We must understand, then, after the word "knowledge," an ellipse of "thou sayest."
Therefore have I uttered that I understood not. Therefore, because of that reproof
of thine, I perceive that, in what I said to my friends, I "darkened counsel,"—I
"uttered that I understood not," words which did not clear the matter in
controversy, but obscured it. I dealt, in fact, with things too wonderful for me—
beyond my compre-hension—which I knew not, of which I had no real knowledge,
but only a semblance of knowledge, and on which, therefore, I had better have been
silent.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
BAR ES, "Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak - This is the language of
humble, docile submission. On former occasions he had spoken confidently and boldly
of God; he had called in question the equity of his dealings with him; he had demanded
that he might be permitted to carry his cause before him, and argue it there himself;
Notes, Job_13:3, and notes Job_13:20-22. Now he is wholly changed. His is the
submissive language of a docile child, and he begs to be permitted to sit down before
God, and humbly to inquire of him what was truth. “This is true religion.”
I will demand of thee - Or rather, “I will ask of thee.” The word “demand” implies
more than there is of necessity in the original word (‫שׁאל‬ shâ'al). That means simply “to
ask,” and it may be done with the deepest humility and desire of instruction. That was
now the temper of Job.
And declare thou unto me - Job was not now disposed to debate the matter, or to
enter into a controversy with God. He was willing to sit down and receive instruction
from God, and earnestly desired that he would “teach” him of his ways. It should be
added, that very respectable critics suppose that in this verse Job designs to make
confession of the impropriety of his language on former occasions, in the presumptuous
and irreverent manner in which he had demanded a trial of argument with God. It would
then require to be rendered as a quotation from his own words formerly.
“I have indeed uttered what I understood not,
Things too wonderful for me, which I know not,

(When I said) Hear now, I will speak,
I will demand of thee, and do thou teach me”
This is adopted by Umbreit, and has much in its favor that is plausible; but on the
whole the usual interpretation seems to be most simple and proper.
GILL, "Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak,.... Not in the manner he had
before, complaining of God and justifying himself, but in a way of humble entreaty of
favours of him, of confession of sin before him, and of acknowledgment of his wisdom,
goodness, and justice in all his dealings with him, which before he arraigned;
I will demand of thee; or rather "I will make petition to thee", as Mr. Broughton
renders it; humbly ask a favour, and entreat a gracious answer; for to demand is not so
agreeable to the frame and temper of soul Job was now in;
and declare thou unto me; or make him know what he knew not; he now in
ignorance applies to God, as a God of knowledge, to inform him in things he was in the
dark about, and to increase what knowledge he had. He was now willing to take the
advice of Elihu, and pursue it, Job_34:31.
HE RY, "III. He will not answer, but he will make supplication to his Judge, as he
had said, Job_9:15. “Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak (Job_42:4), not speak either
as plaintiff or defendant (Job_13:22), but as a humble petitioner, not as one that will
undertake to teach and prescribe, but as one that desires to learn and is willing to be
prescribed to. Lord, put no more hard questions to me, for I am not able to answer thee
one of a thousand of those which thou hast put; but give me leave to ask instruction from
thee, and do not deny it me, do not upbraid me with my folly and self-sufficiency,” Jam_
1:5. Now he is brought to the prayer Elihu taught him, That which I see not teach thou
me.
JAMISO , "When I said, “Hear,” etc., Job’s demand (Job_13:22) convicted him of
being “without knowledge.” God alone could speak thus to Job, not Job to God:
therefore he quotes again God’s words as the groundwork of retracting his own foolish
words.
K&D 4-6, "The words employed after the manner of entreaty, in Job_42:4, Job also
takes from the mouth of Jehovah, Job_38:3; Job_40:7. Hitherto Jehovah has
interrogated him, in order to bring him to a knowledge of his ignorance and weakness.
Now, however, after he has thoroughly perceived this, he is anxious to put questions to
Jehovah, in order to penetrate deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the divine power
and wisdom. Now for the first time with him, the true, living perception of God has its
beginning, being no longer effected by tradition ( ְ‫ל‬ of the external cause: in consequence
of the tidings which came to my ears, comp. Psa_18:45, comp. Isa_23:5), but by direct
communication with God. In this new light he can no longer deceive himself concerning
God and concerning himself; the delusion of the conflict now yields to the vision of the
truth, and only penitential sorrow for his sin towards God remains to him. The object to

‫ס‬ፍ ְ‫מ‬ ֶ‫א‬ is his previous conduct. ‫ם‬ ַ‫ח‬ִ‫נ‬ is the exact expression for µετανοεሏν, the godly sorrow
of repentance not to be repented of. He repents (sitting) on dust and ashes after the
manner of those in deep grief.
If the second speech of Jehovah no longer has to do with the exaltation and power of
God in general, but is intended to answer Job's doubt concerning the justice of the divine
government of the world, the long passage about the hippopotamus and the crocodile,
Job 40:15-41:34, in this second speech seems to be devoid of purpose and connection.
Even Eichhorn and Bertholdt on this account suppose that the separate portions of the
two speeches of Jehovah have fallen into disorder. Stuhlmann, Bernstein, and De Wette,
on the other hand, explained the second half of the description of the leviathan, Job
41:12-34, as a later interpolation; for this part is thought to be inflated, and to destroy
the connection between Jehovah's concluding words, Job_41:2-3, and Job's answer,
Job_42:2-6. Ewald forcibly rejected the whole section, Job_40:15, by ascribing it to the
writer of Elihu's speeches-an opinion which he has again more recently abandoned. In
fact, this section ought to have had a third poet as its writer. But he would be the double
(Doppelgänger) of the first; for, deducting the somewhat tame ‫בדיו‬ ‫אחרישׁ‬ ‫,לא‬ Job_41:12, -
which, however, is introduced by the interrupted description being resumed, in order
now to begin in real earnest, - this section stands upon an equally exalted height with the
rest of the book as a poetic production and lofty description; and since it has not only, as
also Elihu's speeches, an Arabizing tinge, but also the poetic genius, the rich fountain of
thought, the perfection of technical detail, in common with the rest of the book; and
since the writer of the book of Job also betrays elsewhere an acquaintance with Egypt,
and an especial interest in things Egyptian, the authenticity of the section is by no means
doubted by us, but we freely adopt the originality of its present position.
But before one doubts the originality of its position, he ought, first of all, to make an
earnest attempt to comprehend the portion in its present connection, into which it at
any rate has not fallen from pure thoughtlessness. The first speech of Jehovah,
moreover, was surprisingly different from what was to have been expected, and yet we
recognised in it a deep consistency with the plan; perhaps the same thing is also the case
in connection with the second.
After Job has answered the first speech of Jehovah by a confession of penitence, the
second can have no other purpose but that of strengthening the conviction, which urges
to this confession, and of deepening the healthful tone from which it proceeds. The
object of censure here is no longer Job's contending with Jehovah in general, but Job's
contending with Jehovah on account of the prosperity of the evil-doer, which is
irreconcilable with divine justice; that contending by which the sufferer, in spite of the
shadow which affliction casts upon him, supported the assertion of his own
righteousness. Here also, as a result, the refutation follows in the only way consistent
with the dignity of Jehovah, and so that Job must believe in order to perceive, and does
not perceive in order not to be obliged to believe. Without arguing the matter with Job,
as to why many things in the government of the world are thus and not rather otherwise,
Jehovah challenges Job to take the government of the world into his own hand, and to
give free course to his wrath, to cast down everything that is exalted, and to render the
evil-doer for ever harmless. By thus thinking of himself as the ruler of the world, Job is
obliged to recognise the cutting contrast of his feebleness and the divine rule, with which
he has ventured to find fault; at the same time, however, he is taught, that - what he
would never be able to do - God really punishes the ungodly, and must have wise
purposes when, which He indeed might do, He does not allow the floods of His wrath to
be poured forth immediately.

Thus far also Simson is agreed; but what is the design of the description of the two
Egyptian monsters, which are regarded by him as by Ewald as out of place here? To
show Job how little capable he is of governing the world, and how little he would be in a
position to execute judgment on the evil-doer, two creatures are described to him, two
unslain monsters of gigantic structure and invincible strength, which defy all human
attack. These two descriptions are, we think, designed to teach Job how little capable of
passing sentence upon the evil-doer he is, who cannot even draw a cord through the
nose of the behêmoth, and who, if he once attempted to attack the leviathan, would have
reason to remember it so long as he lived, and would henceforth let it alone. It is perhaps
an emblem that is not without connection with the book of Job, that these ‫בהמות‬ and ‫לויתן‬
(‫,)תנין‬ in the language of the Prophets and the Psalms, are the symbols of a worldly power
at enmity with the God of redemption and His people. And wherefore should Job's
confession, Job_42:2, not be suitably attached to the completed description of the
leviathan, especially as the description is divided into two parts by the utterances of
Jehovah, Job_41:2-3, which retrospectively and prospectively set it in the right light for
Job?
BE SO , "Job 42:4. Hear, I beseech thee — Hear and accept my humble and
penitent confession. I will demand of thee — Hebrew, ‫,אשׁאלְך‬ eshaleka, interrogabo
te, I will inquire, ask, or make my petition to thee. I will no more dispute the matter
with thee, but beg information from thee. The words which God had uttered to Job
by way of challenge, Job returns to him in the way of submission.
ELLICOTT, "(4) Hear, I beseech thee.—This cannot in like manner be
appropriately assigned to Job, but, as in Job 38:3; Job 40:7, must be referred to
God; then the confession of Job 42:5-6 comes in very grandly. How much of our
knowledge of God is merely hearsay? and it is not till the experimental teaching of
the Holy Ghost has revealed God to our consciences that we really see Him with the
inward eye. The confession of Job, therefore, is the confession of every converted
man. Compare in a much later and very different, and yet analogous sphere, the
confession of St. Paul (Galatians 1:16).
GUZIK 4-6, "a. Listen, please, and let me speak: Before Job seemed to want to
challenge God (Job 31:35-40) in a confrontational way. ow, after his wonderful
revelation of God, He respectfully asked God for the right to speak.
b. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You: This
reminds us that the most powerful aspect of Job’s encounter with God. It was not
primarily what God said; but God’s simple, loving, powerful presence with Job that
changed him most profoundly.
i. Seeing God – not with his literal eye, but in a way literally real – gave Job what he
so wanted: to know that God was with him in his crisis. This wonderful presence of
God has humbled Job.

ii. We should not assume that what Job knew of God was necessarily false; yet each
fresh and deeper revelation of God has a brightness that makes previous experience
of God seem rather pale. What he had just experienced was so real it made his
previous experiences seem unreal.
c. Therefore I abhor myself: It is important to understand each phrase of this
statement of Job’s. This would seem to be the normal conviction of sin that even a
saint like Job senses in the presence of God; yet there is good evidence that Job, with
this statement, was really formally retracting his previous statements made in
ignorance.
i. “The verb translated ‘I despise myself (Job 42:6) could be rendered ‘I reject what
I said.’” (Smick)
ii. “The Hebrew word literally means, from the standpoint of etymology, to
disappear; from the standpoint of usage, to retract, to repudiate. As a matter of fact,
Job at this point went beyond what he had previously said when he declared, ‘I am
of small account,’ and declared that he practically cancelled himself entirely. I
disappear, I retract all that has been said; I repudiate the position I have taken up.”
(Morgan)
iii. “I despise (and translations usually supply myself as the object not found in the
Hebrew). This does not go as far as the abject self-loathing of that radical
repentance that requires admitting known sins. If we are to connect it with verse 3,
Job could be expressing regret at his foolish words, uttered hastily and in
ignorance.” (Andersen)
d. And repent in dust and ashes: It was right for Job to repent. He had done nothing
to invite the crisis that came into his life; the reasons for that crisis were rooted in
the contention between God and Satan as recorded in Job 1:1-22; Job 2:1-13. Yet he
did have to repent of his bad words and bad attitude after the crisis; both for
excessively giving into despair in Job 3:1-26 and for his unwise and intemperate
speech as he contended with his companions.
i. It is important to note that Job did not give into his friends and admit that they
had been right all along. That simply was not true. The sins Job repented of here
were both general sins, common to all men, which seemed all the darker in the
presence of God yet were not the cause of the catastrophe that came into his life;
and they were sins committed after the catastrophe came.
ii. What did Job have to repent of? In his sermon, Job Among the Ashes, Charles
Spurgeon suggested several things:
Job repented of the terrible curse he had pronounced upon the day of his birth.
Job repented of his desire to die.

Job repented of his complaints against and challenges to God.
Job repented of his despair.
Job repented that his statements had been a “darkening of wisdom by words
without knowledge”; that he spoke beyond his knowledge and ability to know.
iii. One might say that these words of Job – words of humble repentance and
submission before God, for sins that were greatly provoked, sins that come from the
godly and not from the wicked – these words that contain no curse of God
whatsoever – these words ended the contest between God and Satan, and
demonstrated that the victory belonged to God and to Job.
iv. God’s confidence in Job’s faith was completely vindicated. “Job is vindicated in a
faith in God’s goodness that has survived a terrible deprivation and, indeed, grown
in scope, unsupported by Israel’s historical creed or the mighty acts of God,
unsupported by life in the covenant community, unsupported by cult institutions,
unsupported by revealed knowledge from the prophets, unsupported by tradition,
and contradicted by experience. ext to Jesus, Job must surely be the greatest
believer in the whole Bible.” (Andersen)
v. Simply put, “Without anger toward him, God allowed Job to suffer in order to
humiliate the Accuser and proved support to countless sufferers who would follow
in Job’s footsteps.” (Smick) This was now accomplished.
PULPIT, "Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak; I will demand of thee, and declare
thou unto me, Job refers to God's words in Job 38:3 and Job 40:7, and realizes the
humbling effect which they had had on him. They made him feel how little he knew
on the subject of God's works and ways, and how little competent he was to judge
them. Hence he bursts into the confession-
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
BAR ES, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear - Referring to the
indistinct views which we have of anything by merely hearing of it, compared with the

Job 42 commentary

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Job 42 commentary