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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
And; or rather, but; for this is added by way of opposition, to show that man’s wisdom doth not lie in a curious inquiry into, or in an exact knowledge of, the secret paths of God’s counsel and providence: but in things of another and of a lower nature.
Unto man; unto Adam at first, and in and with him to all his race and posterity.
He said, i.e. God spoke it, partly, and at first inwardly, to the mind of man, in which God wrote this with his own finger, and engraved it as a first principle for his direction; and partly afterwards by the holy patriarchs, and prophets, and other teachers of his church, whom God sent into the world to teach men true wisdom; which accordingly they did, not by acquainting the people with the secrets and intricacies of God’s counsel and providence, but by declaring the revealed will of God, and instructing them in their duty towards God and men, making this their great, if not only, business, to make men wise unto salvation. See Deu_4:6 29:29. Behold; which expression notes the great importance of this doctrine, and withal man’s dulness and backwardness to apprehend and consider it, and man’s proneness to place his wisdom in vain and curious speculations.
The fear of the Lord, i.e. true religion, and the right worship of God, both inward and outward, all which cometh under this name.
That is wisdom; in that only consists man’s true wisdom, because that, and that only, is his duty, and his safety, and happiness, both for this life and for the next; and withal this is attainable, whereas the depths of God’s ways are unknown and unsearchable to human or created capacities. To depart from evil, i.e. from sin, which is called evil eminently, as being the chief, if not the only, evil, and the cause of all other evils, and that which is constantly and immutably evil, whereas afflictions are frequently made good and highly beneficial. Religion consists of two branches, doing good and forsaking evil; the former is expressed in the former clause of this verse, and the latter in these words.
Is understanding; is the best kind of knowledge or wisdom to which man can attain in this life. The same thing is here twice expressed in several phrases. And the design of Job in this close of his discourse, is not only to show the mistake, and reprove the arrogance and boldness, of his friends, in prying into God’s secrets, and passing such a rash censure upon him, and upon God’s ways and carriage towards him; but also to vindicate himself from the imputation of hypocrisy and profaneness, which they fastened upon him, by showing that he had ever esteemed it to be his best wisdom and true interest to fear God, and to depart from evil.