Job 32:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 32:13

Comments

It was possible that the comforters would conclude that Job was so intransigent that no amount of good words could convince him. They might persuade themselves that their speeches had been full of helpful advice and sound admonition, but that they were dealing with a man who was so stubborn that nothing could get through to him. Failing to ask proper questions about why their words had had no effect on him, they might not bother to examine properly their own inadequate approach. Instead they may be tempted to say, ‘The only one who can help in this case is the Lord himself; this man is so hard to reason with that it will take the skill and power of God to get through to him.’ The quote marks should come at the end of the verse after the word ‘man’ not after ‘wisdom’, since the second phrase is also part of what Elihu suggests that they are saying to themselves. But Elihu knew that if they said this to themselves, it was not true. He knew that good words are enormously powerful even when spoken by the meekest of men and that if Job had been given sound correction, he would have listened carefully enough and would have corrected his wrong attitudes and responses to his situation. Elihu’s words, when he starts to address Job are altogether more acceptable. He assumes that he is speaking to a man who fears God and has a new nature made in the image of God, and yet who needs correction. He is more sympathetic and makes efforts to win Job’s trust before he proceeds. He establishes his own competence to advise the man before he begins to admonish him.

Application

God will of course judge all men and his judgment will penetrate to the core. All hypocrisy will be uncovered by him and no amount of deceit will succeed in preventing justice from doing its work. All stubbornness will crumble in his presence and each one will be naked before him. Nevertheless it is a shameful thing that there is no one among God’s people on earth who are capable of convincing a man who has gone astray of his errors, especially if that one is a believer and therefore capable of being convinced. It was unthinkable that Job, a true man of God, would remain intransigent and hold out until he encountered the judgment of God, when there were those among God’s people who were capable of convincing him of his error.

Questions

Barnes takes the view that the quotation from the comforters should end after the word ‘wisdom’, and that the final phrase is the expression of Elihu. Understood this way, Elihu is saying that although they claim to have answered Job, they have not done so, and the reason is that they have used their own wisdom, the wisdom of man, instead of the wisdom which comes from God, which Elihu is using. God will thrust Job down in this sense: by speaking through his servant, Elihu. The previous interpretation seems less strained, and given what the book says about the comforters’ failure to convince Job (Job 32:1), and what Elihu says about this in the next verse, it is unlikely that they were claiming to have answered Job adequately.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Job 32:13 Commentary and Bible Study