Job 24 · a question people ask

Job says, "yet God doesn’t regard the folly" (24:12). Isn't that what the book said he didn't do in 1:22?

In the text

The book said, "In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing" (1:22). In Hebrew wrongdoing there and folly in 24:12 are one word, tiflah, which comes only three times in the Hebrew Bible (tap folly). In 1:22 Job doesn't charge God with it; in 24:12 Job says God "doesn’t regard" it. The book doesn't comment on 24:12, and doesn't set the two verses side by side itself. Job has said what he wants: "I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments" (23:4). When the LORD answers Job, he asks, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2), and Job says, "therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand" (42:3). The LORD also says to Eliphaz that he and his two friends "have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7). The book doesn't say which of Job's words each of these verses has in view. These notes set them side by side and don't decide.

The verses

“From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.”
Job 24:12 · World English Bible
“In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.”
Job 1:22 · World English Bible
“I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.”
Job 23:4 · World English Bible
““Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Job 38:2 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 24

Job 24: Why aren't times laid up?

In 1:22 the book says Job didn't charge God with tiflah; in 24:12 Job says God "doesn’t regard" the tiflah: the same rare word, found only three times in the Hebrew Bible. And the Hebrew words of Eliphaz's charges against Job (pledges, the naked, widows, 22:6-9) come again in Job's list of wrongs (24:3-10).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions