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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 12:22 - 12:22
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness,
And bringeth out to light the shadow of death;
23 He giveth prosperity to nations and then destroyeth them,
Increase of territory to nations and then carrieth them away;
24 He taketh away the understanding of the chief people of the land,
And maketh them to wander in a trackless wilderness;
25 They grope in darkness without light,
He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
The meaning of Job 12:22 in this connection can only be, that there is nothing so finely spun out that God cannot make it visible. All secret plans of the wicked, all secret sins, and the deeds of the evil-doer though veiled in deep darkness, He bringeth before the tribunal of the world. The form of writing given by the Masora is עֲמוּקֹות with koph raphatum, consequently plur. from עָמוּק, like עֲרוּמִים, עֲצוּמִים from עָרוּם, עָצוּם, not from עָמֹק.
(Note: Kimchi in his Wörterbuch adopts the form עֲמֻקֹּות, but gives Abulwalid as an authority for the lengthened form, which, according to the Masora on Lev 13:3, Lev 13:25, is the traditional. The two exceptions where the form occurs with a long vowel are Pro 23:27 and this passage.)
The lxx translates משגיא πλανῶν, as it is also explained in several Midrash-passages, but only by a few Jewish expositors (Jachja, Alschech) by מטעה. The word, however, is not מַשְׁגִּיא, but מַשְׂגִּיא with ש sinistrum, after which in Midrash Esther it is explained by מגדיל; and Hirzel correctly interprets it of upward growth (Jerome after the Targ. unsuitably, multiplicat), and שֹׁטֵחַ, on the other hand, of growth in extent. The latter word is falsely explained by the Targ. in the sense of expandere rete, and Abenezra also falsely explains: He scatters nations, and brings them to their original peace. The verb שׁטח is here connected with לְ, as הִפְתָּה (Gen 9:27); both signify to make a wider and longer space for any one, used here of the ground where they dwell and rule. The opposite, in an unpropitious sense, is הִנְחָה, which is used here, as 2Ki 18:11, in a similar sense with הִגְלָה (abducere, i.e., in servitutem). We have intentionally translated גוים nations, עם people; for גֹּוי, as we shall show elsewhere, is the mass held together by the ties of a common origin, language, and country; (עָם) עַם, the people bound together by unity of government, whose membra praecipua are consequently called הָעָם רָאשֵׁי. הארץ is, in this connection, the country, although elsewhere, as Isa 24:4, comp. Job 42:5, הארץ עם signifies also the people of the earth or mankind; for the Hebrew language expresses a country as a portion of the earth, and the earth as a whole, by the same name. Job dwells longer on this tragic picture, how God makes the star of the prosperity of these chiefs to set in mad and blind self-destruction, according to the proverb, quem Deus perdere vult prius dementat. This description seems to be echoed in many points in Isaiah, especially in the oracle on Egypt, Job 19 (e.g., כַּשִּׁכֹּור, Job 19:14). The connection ברך לא בתהו is not genitival; but דרך לא is either an adverbial clause appended to the verb, as חקר לא, Job 34:24, בנים לא, 1Ch 2:30, 1Ch 2:32, or, which we prefer as being more natural, and on account of the position of the words, a virtual adjective: in a trackless waste, as אִישׁ לֹא, Job 38:26; עבות לא, 2Sa 23:4 (Olsh.).
Job here takes up the tone of Eliphaz (comp. Job 5:13.). Intentionally he is made to excel the friends in a recognition of the absolute majesty of God. He is not less cognizant of it than they.