Matthew Poole Commentary - Job 26:4 - 26:4

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Matthew Poole Commentary - Job 26:4 - 26:4


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For whose instruction hast thou uttered these things? For mine? Dost thou think me to be so ignorant, that I do not know that which the meanest persons are not unacquainted with, to wit, that God is incomparably greater and better than his creatures?



Whose spirit came from thee? so the sense is, Whom hast thou revived or comforted by this discourse? Not me surely. The spirit or breath of a man is in a manner suppressed and intercepted in deep sorrows and consternations, such as Job’s were; and when he is cheered or refreshed, it finds vent and breathes out freely, as it did before. But I do not remember that ever this phrase is used in this sense; but, on the contrary, the giving or restoring of life is expressed by the coming in, and not by the going out, of spirit or breath, as appears from Gen_2:7 Eze_37:5,6,10. The words therefore are and may be otherwise understood; either thus, Whose spirit or inspiration (as this word signifies, Job_32:8)



came from thee? Who inspired thee with this profound discourse of thine? Was it by Divine inspiration, as thou wouldst have us to believe? or was it not a rash suggestion of thy own vain and foolish mind? Or thus, Whose spirit went out (to wit, of his body, by an ecstasy of admiration) for thee, by reason of thy discourse? I may be thought partial in my censure of it, but thou mayst perceive none of our friends here present admire it, except thyself. Or, To or for whom (the particle eth being here understood out of the former branch, as is usual among the Hebrews) did breath go out from thee, i.e. didst thou speak? For whose good, or to what end, didst thou speak this? God needed it not; I receive no edification or benefit by it.