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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 12:11 - 12:11
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11 Shall not the ear try sayings,
As the palate tasteth food?
12 Among the ancients is wisdom,
And long life is understanding.
13 With Him is wisdom and strength;
Counsel and understanding are His.
The meaning of Job 12:11 is, that the sayings (מִלִּין, Job 8:10, comp. Job 5:27) of the ancients are not to be accepted without being proved; the waw in וְחֵךְ is waw adaequationis, as Job 5:7; Job 11:12, therefore equivalent to quemadmodum; it places together for comparison things that are analogous: The ear, which is used here like αἰθητήριον (Heb 5:14), has the task of searching out and testing weighty sayings, as the palate by tasting has to find out delicious and suitable food; this is indicated by לֹו, the dat. commodi. So far Job recognises the authority of these traditional sayings. At any rate, he adds (Job 12:12): wisdom is to be expected from the hoary-headed, and length of life is understanding, i.e., it accompanies length of life. “Length of days” may thus be taken as the subject (Ewald, Olsh.); but בְּ may also, with the old translations and expositors, be carried forward from the preceding clause: ἐν δὲ πολλῷ βίῳ ἐπιστήμη (lxx). We prefer, as the most natural: long life is a school of understanding. But - such is the antithesis in Job 12:13 which belongs to this strophe - the highest possessor of wisdom, as of might, is God. Ewald inserts two self-made couplets before Job 12:12, which in his opinion are required both by the connection and “the structure of the strophe;” we see as little need for this interpolation here as before, Job 6:14. עִמֹּו and לֹו, which are placed first for the sake of emphasis, manifestly introduce an antithesis; and it is evident from the antithesis, that the One who is placed in contrast to the many men of experience is God. Wisdom is found among the ancients, although their sayings are not to be always implicitly accepted; but wisdom belongs to God as an attribute of His nature, and indeed absolutely, i.e., on every side, and without measure, as the piling up of synonymous expressions implies: חָכְמָה, which perceives the reason of the nature, and the reality of the existence, of things; עֵצָה, which is never perplexed as to the best way of attaining its purpose; תְּבוּנָה, which can penetrate to the bottom of what is true and false, sound and corrupt (comp. 1Ki 3:9); and also גְּבוּרָה, which is able to carry out the plans, purposes, and decisions of this wisdom against all hindrance and opposition.
In the strophe which follows, from his own observation and from traditional knowledge (Job 13:1), Job describes the working of God, as the unsearchably wise and the irresistibly mighty One, both among men and in nature.