I am vile, what am I, a mean and contemptible creature that should presume to contend with my Maker and Judge? I confess my fault and folly. What shall I answer thee? I neither desire nor am able to dispute with thee. I will for the future bridle my tongue, and instead of contesting with thee, do here humbly and willingly submit myself to thee. read more
NotesJob 40:15. “Behold turn behemoth.” Various opinions as to what is meant by the term “behemoth.” According to GESENIUS, בְּהֵמוֹת (behemoth) is the plural of בְּהֵמָה (behemah, from the unused Root בָהַס baham = بهم in the Xth conjugation, “to be dumb”), a quadruped of the larger sort, living on the land; here the plural of majesty, denoting a large quadruped: the hippopotamus. So BOCHART: the river-horse or hippopotamus; like the Leviathan, an inhabitant of the Nile: the termination וֹת... read more
DISCOURSE: 491TRUE HUMILIATIONJob 40:4. Behold, I am vile!THESE are the words of a man whom God had pronounced “perfect and upright.” As a fallen descendant of Adam, he partook of the corruption of our common nature: but as a child of God, he was one of the most eminent of all the human race. It may be thought, indeed, that this confession of his proved him to have been guilty of some enormous crime; but it evinced rather his great advancement in the divine life, and his utter abhorrence of all... read more
Indwelling Sin A Sermon (No. 83) Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 1, 1856, by the REV. C. H. Spurgeon At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile." Job 40:3-4 . SURELY, if any man had a right to say, I am not vile, it was Job; for, according to the testimony of God himself, he was "a perfect and an upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil." Yet we find... read more
Chapter 40Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said, Shall he that contends with the Almighty instruct him? ( Job 40:1-2 )"Job, are you trying to instruct me?" Isn't that ridiculous? Can you think of anybody trying to instruct God? How foolish! But you're looking at one. How many times I've tried to instruct God. "Now, God, this is the way I see it, and I think You ought to work it out this way." "Lord, why aren't you doing it this way?" I have been so foolish thinking that I can instruct God,... read more
Job 40:4 . Behold, I am vile. Job boldly answered his friends; but when the Lord speaks, he lays his mouth in the dust. Job 40:15 . Behold now behemoth. Here sacred criticism is divided in opinion; and not less than about the unicorn and the rhinoceros. The ancients believed that the behemoth, ta therial, the beast, was an elephant. The description of this noble animal is too large to be transcribed here. It should be remarked that there is little of hyperbole in the description of... read more
Job 40:1-24Moreover, the Lord answered Job, and said.Jehovah’s answerIts language has reached, at times, the “high-water mark” of poetry and beauty. Nothing can exceed its dignity, its force, its majesty, the freshness and vigour of some of its pictures of nature and of life. But what shall we say next? It is no answer, we may say, to Job’s agonised pleadings. It is no answer to the riddle and problem which the experience and history of human life suggests, even to ourselves. Quite true. There... read more
Job 40:3-4Behold, I am vile.A humbling confessionSelf-examination is of unspeakable importance. The most useful knowledge of ourselves is not that which is physical, but that which is moral; not a knowledge of our worldly affairs, but of our spiritual condition.I. The self-accusation. “Behold, I am vile.”1. The quality acknowledged. “Vileness.” “Behold, I am vile.” “Vile,” says Johnson in his Dictionary, is “base, mean, worthless, despicable, impure.” There is nothing in the world to which this... read more
Job 40:4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Ver. 4. Behold, I am vile ] Light and little worth; and therefore deserve to be slighted and laid by, as a broken vessel. The humble man vilifies, yea, nullifies, himself before God, as Abraham, Genesis 18:27 ; as Agur, Proverbs 30:3 ; as Paul, Ephesians 3:8 ; as that martyr who cried out, Gehenna sum Domine, Lord, Thou art heaven, but I am hell, &c. Tantillitas nostra, saith Ignatius of himself and... read more
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Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible - Job 40:1-14
Job 40:1-2 Chronicles : . Divine Irony. The passage opens with a challenge to Job ( Job 40:2) in which God drives home the lesson of the previous speech. Job 40:1 is wanting in LXX and is a gloss. Job 40:3-Deuteronomy : contains Job’ s reply, in which he humbles himself before God. Peake and Strahan, however, both think that these verses are properly to be taken immediately before Job 42:1-Joshua :; so that there is only one reply from Job. If Job had already humbled himself, there seems no... read more