12 "Wisdom is with aged men , With long life is understanding . 13 "With Him are wisdom and might ; To Him belong counsel and understanding . 14 "Behold , He tears down , and it cannot be rebuilt ; He imprisons a man , and there can be no release . 15 "Behold , He restrains the waters , and they dry up; And He sends them out, and they inundate the earth . 16 "With Him are strength and sound wisdom , The misled and the misleader belong to Him. 17 "He makes counselors walk barefoot And makes fools of judges . 18 "He loosens the bond of kings And binds their loins with a girdle . 19 "He makes priests walk barefoot And overthrows the secure ones . 20 "He deprives the trusted ones of speech And takes away the discernment of the elders . 21 "He pours contempt on nobles And loosens the belt of the strong . 22 "He reveals mysteries from the darkness And brings the deep darkness into light . 23 "He makes the nations great , then destroys them; He enlarges the nations , then leads them away. 24 "He deprives of intelligence the chiefs of the earth's people And makes them wander in a pathless e waste . 25 "They grope in darkness with no light , And He makes them stagger like a drunken man .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 12:12-25
Commentary on Job 12:12-25
(Read Job 12:12-25)
This is a noble discourse of Job concerning the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering all the affairs of the children of men, according to the counsel of His own will, which none can resist. It were well if wise and good men, who differ about lesser things, would see how it is for their honour and comfort, and the good of others, to dwell most upon the great things in which they agree. Here are no complaints, or reflections. He gives many instances of God's powerful management of the children of men, overruling all their counsels, and overcoming all their oppositions. Having all strength and wisdom, God knows how to make use, even of those who are foolish and bad; otherwise there is so little wisdom and so little honesty in the world, that all had been in confusion and ruin long ago. These important truths were suited to convince the disputants that they were out of their depth in attempting to assign the Lord's reasons for afflicting Job; his ways are unsearchable, and his judgments past finding out. Let us remark what beautiful illustrations there are in the word of God, confirming his sovereignty, and wisdom in that sovereignty: but the highest and infinitely the most important is, that the Lord Jesus was crucified by the malice of the Jews; and who but the Lord could have known that this one event was the salvation of the world?