Job 12 Bible study: With God is wisdom and might

Every word of this chapter after its first verse is Job's: "Then Job answered" (12:1). His answer runs to the end of chapter 14; the next heading is "Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered" (15:1). Zophar had just spoken (11:1). He wished that God "would show you the secrets of wisdom!" (11:6), and said, "An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey’s colt" (11:12). Job opens, "No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you" (12:2) (tap wisdom), and goes on, "But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?" (12:3). He says it again in the next chapter: "What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you" (13:2). Then he speaks of himself: "I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke" (12:4) (tap joke, just, blameless). And "The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure" (12:6). Each friend had spoken of tents. Eliphaz: "You will know that your tent is in peace" (5:24). Bildad: "The tent of the wicked will be no more" (8:22). Zophar: "Don’t let unrighteousness dwell in your tents" (11:14). In Hebrew tent is the same word in all four verses. These are Job's words, and these notes don't make them the book's verdict, on the friends or on anything else. At the end the LORD says to Eliphaz, of him and his two friends, that they "have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), and he also asks Job, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2). The book doesn't say which words either verse has in view.

Job 12:20→leads toMatthew 11:25

Job says of God, "He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders" (12:20), and "He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth" (12:24). Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants" (Matthew 11:25), and "Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight" (Matthew 11:26). Jesus doesn't name Job, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: understanding is God's, and he can withhold it even from the wise and those who lead. Some read the two together: Job says, "With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding" (12:13), and Jesus thanks the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, that he hid these things from some and revealed them to others, as was well-pleasing in his sight. Others read each in its own setting: Job's 12:20 and 12:24 speak of understanding taken away, and name no one to whom it is given; Jesus speaks of "these things" revealed to infants, and goes on, "No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). Neither reading makes Job's friends "the wise" of Matthew 11:25, or gives a verdict on them.

חָכְמָהchokhmahsay khokh-MAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "wisdom", and among its uses "wisdom, ethical and religious"; Strong's, "wisdom (in a good sense)". It comes three times in this chapter. Job says to his friends, "wisdom will die with you" (12:2); then "With aged men is wisdom" (12:12); then "With God is wisdom and might" (12:13). Zophar had just wished that God "would show you the secrets of wisdom!" (11:6), with the same word. It comes 18 times in the Hebrew of Job, and chapter 28 asks, "But where will wisdom be found?" (28:12).