Context No. 3206 of 4322 · Job

Job 12:1-16: in context

1Then Job answered, 2“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. 3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these? 4I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke. 5In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips. 6The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands. 7“But ask the animals now, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. 8Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. The fish of the sea will declare to you. 9Who doesn’t know that in all these, the LORD’s hand has done this, 10in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind? 11Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food? 12With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding. 13“With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding. 14Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release. 15Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth. 16With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.

Job answers his friends' condescension with a touch of sarcasm: no doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. But I have understanding too; I am not inferior to you. Then he lifts his eyes past their tidy platitudes to the sovereignty of God: ask the animals, and they will teach you that the LORD's hand made all this; with him are wisdom and strength; he breaks down, and none can rebuild.

Job pushes back against friends who speak as though they hold a monopoly on wisdom. But then he turns to the sovereignty of God, a view of God larger than theirs. With God are wisdom and strength; he tears down and none can rebuild, he withholds the waters and they dry up, he sends them out and they overturn the earth. In whose hand is the life of every living thing. Even in his suffering and his frustration with his friends, Job holds a high view of God's sovereign hand over all things. His theology is larger than their tidy formulas.

Is my view of God large enough to hold his sovereign wisdom and power over all things, even when others offer only tidy, inadequate explanations?

Sources

Job 12:13: "With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding."
Job 12:10: "In whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."
Romans 11:33: "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!"