Job 11:6 - Exposition

And that he would show thee the secrets of wisdom! In God are "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid away" ( ἀπόκρυφοι ' Colossians 2:3 ). Zophar wishes that he would reveal to Job this wisdom, or a portion of it, as, in that case, all his pride and self-confidence would be confounded and fall away. That they are double to that which is! This phrase is very obscure. Some translate, "For he ( i.e. God) is twice as wise as thou;" others, "That it ( i.e. wisdom) is manifold in effectual working;" others, again, "That they ( i.e. the treasures of wisdom) are double (or manifold) in substance." Perhaps this last rendering is to be preferred. The treasures of wisdom that are hid away in God have many depths, secret and unexplored; they "lie, as it were, fold over fold, in unexpected complexities, defying the shallow and unscrutinizing gaze" (Professor Stanley Leathes). If they were revealed to Job, they would astonish, confound, silence, him. Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth. "Be sure," i.e; "that God, so far from inflicting on thee a more severe punishment than thou deservest, in reality excuses much of thy guilt, and punishes thee less than is thy due." This is Zophar's conclusion from his general knowledge of God's dealings with man (comp. Ezra 9:13 ).