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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 42:1 - 42:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Then Job answered Jehovah, and said:
2 Now I know that Thou canst do all things,
And no plan is impracticable to Thee.
3 “Who then hideth counsel -
Without knowledge?”
Thus have I judged without understanding,
What was too wonderful for me, without knowing.
He indeed knew previously what he acknowledges in Job 42:2, but now this knowledge has risen upon him in a new divinely-worked clearness, such as he has not hitherto experienced. Those strange but wondrous monsters are a proof to him that God is able to put everything into operation, and that the plans according to which He acts are beyond the reach of human comprehension. If even that which is apparently most contradictory, rightly perceived, is so glorious, his affliction is also no such monstrous injustice as he thinks; on the contrary, it is a profoundly elaborated מְזִמָּה, a well-digested, wise עֵצָה of God. In Job 42:3 he repeats to himself the chastening word of Jehovah, Job 38:2, while he chastens himself with it; for he now perceives that his judgment was wrong, and that he consequently has merited the reproof. With לָכֵן he draws a conclusion from this confession which the chastening word of Jehovah has presented to him: he has rashly pronounced an opinion upon things that lie beyond his power of comprehension, without possessing the necessary capacity of judging and perception. On the mode of writing יָדַעְתִּ, Cheth., which recalls the Syriac form med'et (with the pronominal suff. cast off), vid., Ges. §44, rem. 4; on the expression Job 42:2, comp. Gen 11:6. The repetition of Job 38:2 in Job 42:3 is not without some variations according to the custom of authors noticed in Psalter, i. 330. הִגַּדְתִּי, “I have affirmed,” i.e., judged, is, Job 42:3, so that the notion of judging goes over into that of pronouncing a judgment. The clauses with וְלֹא are circumstantial clauses, Ew. §341, a.