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No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?
With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.
He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again.
He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.

New Defender's Study Bible Notes

12:2 ye are the people. This is one of the very few instances of sarcasm or satire in the Bible. A few others are found (I Kings 18:27; Jeremiah 2:27,28; etc.), but there are not many.


12:7 teach thee. The beasts, the fowls, the fishes, and the earth itself had been placed under man’s dominion (Genesis 1:26,28). To exercise that dominion, men would need first of all to learn from the creation its physical and biological processes.


12:9 Who knoweth not. In the scientific study of zoology, geology, and the other sciences, the most obvious lesson they will teach an honest student is the truth of their special creation by an omnipotent, omniscient Creator.


12:10 breath of all mankind. Compare Acts 17:28. Job’s concept of God certainly was different from the pantheism carried from Babel to most of the world. Job recognized God as Creator, not as part of nature.


12:14 no opening. After speaking of the creation (Job 12:7-10), Job seems to have thought of his ancestor Noah, and the great Flood. The Lord permanently “broke down” the antediluvian civilization so that it could not be “built again.” Then He “shut him in” (Genesis 7:16) the ark, the one man in that world who had obeyed God.


12:15 overturn the earth. God had “withheld the waters” in the primeval “waters above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7), so that there was no “rain upon the earth” (Genesis 2:5) in the antediluvian period. But then, when the iniquity of the antediluvian people was full, He sent the waters out and they overturned the earth!


12:20 removeth away the speech. This possibly refers to the confusion of tongues at Babel. The previous verse (Job 12:19) had said God “overthroweth the mighty,” possibly referring to Nimrod, the “mighty hunter before the LORD” (Genesis 10:9), whose rebellion against God had led God to confuse the languages and disperse the nations from Babel.


12:23 increaseth the nations. This verse may well refer to the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), when suddenly the one nation at Babel was changed into about seventy nations.


12:23 enlargeth the nations. Japheth’s descendants were to be “enlarged” (Genesis 9:27).


12:24 wander in a wilderness. Except for the fertile plains of Shinar and the Nile Valley, the world after the Flood was largely an uncharted wilderness. It was into this that God scattered the rebelling tribes at Babel.


12:25 grope in the dark. Many of the scattering tribes had to live in caves for a time. These may well have been the so-called “cave-men,” exploited by the evolutionists as primitive ape-men, in spite of the fact that their remains and artifacts are fully human.


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