Job 12:1

JOB 12

JOB'S FOURTH SPEECH:

JOB ANSWERS NOT ONLY BILDAD BUT ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

This, along with the next two chapters is a record of Job's reply to his three friends. Scherer pointed out that the chapter divisions here are fortunate, following the general organization of Job's speech.[1] In this chapter, Job sarcastically rejected the theology of his friends, appealing to a number of facts that clearly contradicted their views.

Job's bitterly sarcastic words here do not contradict the New Testament evaluation of Job as a man of great patience. On the other hand, we should consider that, "The measure of Job's provocation was so great that only a superhuman being could have avoided being disgusted."[2]

As Franks noted, "Eliphaz had appealed to revelation (that vision which he said he had); Bildad appealed to the wisdom of the ancients, and Zophar assumed that he himself was the oracle of God's wisdom."[3] Job answered Zophar's conceited claim. However, Job, in this speech, did not answer Zophar alone, but all of his `comforters.' He labeled all of them as "forgers of lies" (Job 13:4), challenging them with his declaration that, "I am not inferior to you (Job 12:3).

Job 12:1-6

JOB DENIES THAT HIS COMFORTERS HAD ANY KNOWLEDGE THAT HE HIMSELF DID NOT POSSESS

"Then Job answered and said,

No doubt but ye are the people,

And wisdom shall die with you.

But I have understanding as well as you;

I am not inferior to you:

Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?

I am one that is a laughing-stock to his neighbor,

I who called upon God, and he answered:

The just, the perfect man is a laughing-stock.

In the thought of him that is at ease, there is contempt for misfortune;

It is ready for him whose foot slippeth.

The tents of robbers prosper,

And they that provoke God are secure;

Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly."

"And wisdom shall die with you" (Job 12:2). It is amazing that anyone could suppose that these words were intended as a compliment; but Blair wrote, "Job gives them the benefit of the doubt, saying, `Wisdom shall die with you.' He inferred that they were wise."[4] We agree with Barnes that, "This is evidently the language of severe sarcasm; and it shows a spirit fretted and chafed by their reproaches."[5]

"(For) him that is at ease, there is a contempt for misfortune" (Job 12:5). Job, who had been the greatest man in the East, who had been the special object of God's blessings, who had called upon God, and whom God had answered, - even that man, who, at the moment, had been reduced by the most superlative misfortunes, was experiencing the contemptuous laughter of his neighbors; and in these words he truly spoke of a universal trait of our fallen human nature, namely, that of despising the unfortunate.

"In sheer exasperation, Job here bewails the situation. He knows that he is a godly man of great wisdom and understanding; but here he is treated like a criminal and a simpleton, solely upon the basis of his friends' theory, a theory that is flatly contradicted by the fact that known robbers are prospering while he is reduced to mockery."[6]

In these words, Job is thoroughly contemptuous of the conceited and arrogant ignorance of his `comforters'; and in this great response, he blistered them with devastating and unanswerable criticisms.

"The tents of robbers prosper" (Job 12:6). This is the dramatic and unanswerable contradiction of the false theory of his `comforters.' "This was Job's original proposition; and he clung to it throughout the whole encounter, that God does not deal with men in this life according to their character."[7]