the Week of Proper 18 / Ordinary 23
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THE MESSAGE
Job 32:13
Bible Study Resources
Dictionaries:
- HolmanParallel Translations
So do not claim, “We have found wisdom;let God deal with him, not man.”
Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom, God may refute him, not man:'
Lest ye should say, We have found out wisdom: God thrusteth him down, not man.
Beware lest you say, ‘We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not a man.'
Don't say, ‘We have found wisdom; only God will show Job to be wrong, not people.'
So do not say, ‘We have found wisdom! God will refute him, not man!'
"Beware if you say, 'We have found wisdom; God thrusts Job down [justly], not man [for God alone is dealing with him].'
"So do not say, 'We have found wisdom: God will defeat him, not man.'
Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom, God may refute him, not man:'
Lest ye should say, We haue found wisedome: for God hath cast him downe, and no man.
Lest you say,‘We have found wisdom;God will drive him away, not man.'
So do not claim, 'We have found wisdom; let God, not man, refute him.'
You shouldn't say, "We know what's right! Let God punish him."
So don't say, ‘We found the wise course — Let God defeat him, not a human being.'
That ye may not say, We have found out wisdom; God will make him yield, not man.
You men cannot say that you have found wisdom. The answer to Job's arguments must come from God, not people.
So that you could not say, We have found wisdom. God has smitten him, not man.
How can you claim you have discovered wisdom? God must answer Job, for you have failed.
So do not say, ‘We have found wisdom; let God refute him, not a man.'
that you not say, We have discovered wisdom. It is God who will scatter him, not man.
lest ye shulde prayse youre selues, to haue founde out wy?dome: because it is God that hath cast him out, & no man.
Beware lest ye say, We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not man:
Take care that you do not say, Wisdom is here; God may overcome him, but not man.
Beware lest ye say: 'We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not man!'
Lest ye should say, We haue found out wisdom: God thrusteth him down, not man.
Lest ye should say: We haue found out wisdome, God shall cast hym downe, and no man.
lest ye should say, We have found that we have added wisdom to the Lord.
Beware lest ye say, We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not man:
lest perauenture ye seien, We han founde wisdom; God, and not man, hath cast hym awei.
Beware you don't say, We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not man:
Lest ye should say, We have found out wisdom: God thrusteth him down, not man.
Lest you say, "We have found wisdom'; God will vanquish him, not man.
And don't tell me, ‘He is too wise for us. Only God can convince him.'
Do not say, ‘We have found wisdom. God will show he is wrong, not man.'
Yet do not say, ‘We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not a human.'
Lest ye should say, We have found out wisdom. GOD, must put him to flight, not man.
Lest you should say: We have found wisdom, God hath cast him down, not man.
Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom; God may vanquish him, not man.'
Lest ye say, We have found wisdom, God doth thrust him away, not man.
"Do not say, 'We have found wisdom; God will rout him, not man.'
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
Lest: Genesis 14:23, Judges 7:2, Isaiah 48:5, Isaiah 48:7, Zechariah 12:7
We: Job 12:2, Job 15:8-10, Isaiah 5:21, Jeremiah 9:23, Ezekiel 28:3, 1 Corinthians 1:19-21, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, 1 Corinthians 3:18
God: Job 1:21, Job 2:10, Job 4:9, Job 6:4, Job 19:6, Job 19:21, John 19:11
Reciprocal: Job 20:2 - my thoughts
Cross-References
So his gifts went before him while he settled down for the night in the camp.
Jacob said, "Please. If you can find it in your heart to welcome me, accept these gifts. When I saw your face, it was as the face of God smiling on me. Accept the gifts I have brought for you. God has been good to me and I have more than enough." Jacob urged the gifts on him and Esau accepted.
Joseph was running the country; he was the one who gave out rations to all the people. When Joseph's brothers arrived, they treated him with honor, bowing to him. Joseph recognized them immediately, but treated them as strangers and spoke roughly to them. He said, "Where do you come from?" "From Canaan," they said. "We've come to buy food."
Their father Israel gave in. "If it has to be, it has to be. But do this: stuff your packs with the finest products from the land you can find and take them to the man as gifts—some balm and honey, some spices and perfumes, some pistachios and almonds. And take plenty of money—pay back double what was returned to your sacks; that might have been a mistake. Take your brother and get going. Go back to the man. And may The Strong God give you grace in that man's eyes so that he'll send back your other brother along with Benjamin. For me, nothing's left; I've lost everything."
When Joseph got home, they presented him with the gifts they had brought and bowed respectfully before him.
To Fight God's Battles Samuel died. The whole country came to his funeral. Everyone grieved over his death, and he was buried in his hometown of Ramah. Meanwhile, David moved again, this time to the wilderness of Maon. There was a certain man in Maon who carried on his business in the region of Carmel. He was very prosperous—three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep-shearing time in Carmel. The man's name was Nabal (Fool), a Calebite, and his wife's name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and good-looking, the man brutish and mean. David, out in the backcountry, heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep and sent ten of his young men off with these instructions: "Go to Carmel and approach Nabal. Greet him in my name, ‘Peace! Life and peace to you. Peace to your household, peace to everyone here! I heard that it's sheep-shearing time. Here's the point: When your shepherds were camped near us we didn't take advantage of them. They didn't lose a thing all the time they were with us in Carmel. Ask your young men—they'll tell you. What I'm asking is that you be generous with my men—share the feast! Give whatever your heart tells you to your servants and to me, David your son.'" David's young men went and delivered his message word for word to Nabal. Nabal tore into them, "Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? The country is full of runaway servants these days. Do you think I'm going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for my sheepshearers and give it to men I've never laid eyes on? Who knows where they've come from?" David's men got out of there and went back and told David what he had said. David said, "Strap on your swords!" They all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp. Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: "David sent messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults. Yet these men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn't take advantage of us all the time we were in the fields. They formed a wall around us, protecting us day and night all the time we were out tending the sheep. Do something quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can talk to him. He's impossible—a real brute!" Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys. Then she said to her young servants, "Go ahead and pave the way for me. I'm right behind you." But she said nothing to her husband Nabal. As she was riding her donkey, descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending from the other end, so they met there on the road. David had just said, "That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was lost—and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face! May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren't dead meat by morning!" As soon as Abigail saw David, she got off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in homage, saying, "My master, let me take the blame! Let me speak to you. Listen to what I have to say. Don't dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out the meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him. "I wasn't there when the young men my master sent arrived. I didn't see them. And now, my master, as God lives and as you live, God has kept you from this avenging murder—and may your enemies, all who seek my master's harm, end up like Nabal! Now take this gift that I, your servant girl, have brought to my master, and give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master.
Receiving a gift is like getting a rare gemstone; any way you look at it, you see beauty refracted.
A gift gets attention; it buys the attention of eminent people.
Lots of people flock around a generous person; everyone's a friend to the philanthropist.
A quietly given gift soothes an irritable person; a heartfelt present cools a hot temper.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
Lest ye should say, we have found out wisdom,.... They were left to themselves, and not directed to take the proper methods of convincing Job, and answering his arguments; lest they should be wise in their own conceits, and attribute too much to themselves; or Elihu told them this, that they had not convicted Job, though they had condemned him, nor answered his arguments, though they had left off speaking; and this he was obliged to say, and that for the reason before observed: for all wisdom is of God, and not to be found out or acquired by men; not natural wisdom, that is not of men, but of God, and especially supernatural wisdom, or the knowledge of divine and spiritual things, and the reason of God's dealings with the sons of men in the different manner he does, see Job 28:12;
God thrusteth him down, not man: some think Elihu says this in reference to himself, whom God would make use of as an instrument to convince Job and answer his arguments; and that he would ascribe this not to himself, but to God; they took a natural way to convince Job, which failed, that they might not be proud of their own wisdom; he should take a more divine and spiritual method, and, if he succeeded, he should give all the glory to God, and ascribe nothing to himself: as in the conviction and conversion of a sinner, though ministers are instruments, it is not by might or power of men, but by the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts; it is God that thrusts down man from a vain opinion he has of himself; that convinces him of sin, that takes him off of his own righteousness, and humbles him, and lays him low at his feet: but they rather seem to be the words of Job's friends, as related by Elihu; and the sense is in connection with the former, either that they found it was the wisest method they could take with Job to be silent, and leave him to himself, lest they should add to his afflict; on; to which Jarchi inclines, who paraphrases it,
"we found wisdom by our silence, that we may not provoke him any more;''
which, if their sense, shows more tenderness and compassion than they had hitherto expressed, and answers pretty much to the advice given 2 Corinthians 2:6; or else their meaning is, that they found it the best and wisest way to leave him with God, he being so obstinate and incorrigible that none but God could move him; it was not in the power of men, or of words used by men, to make him sensible of things; or rather the meaning is, Elihu was obliged to tell them, that none of them had convinced Job, or answered his arguments, lest they should say, we have found out a wise and strong argument, proving the charge brought against him, that he must be a wicked man and an hypocrite, since God has so sorely afflicted him, and thrust him down from all his grandeur and dignity; which no man could ever have done, and God would not, if he had not been the man we suppose him to be; now Elihu's view is to observe to them, that there was nothing in this argument convincing, in which they imagined so much wisdom lay. Job's afflictions, indeed, were of God, and not men; and which he often owns himself; but this was no proof or argument of his being a wicked man: Mr. Broughton renders the words,
"the Omnipotent doth toss him, not man.''
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Lest ye should say, We have found out wisdom - That is, this has been permitted and ordered in such a manner that it might be manifest that the truths which are to convince him come from God and not from man. You were not permitted to refute or convince him, for if you had been you would have been lifted up with pride, and would have attributed to yourselves what belongs to God. This is in accordance with the entire drift of the book, which is to introduce the Almighty himself to settle the controversy when human wisdom failed. They could not arrogate to themselves the claim that they had found out wisdom. They had been completely silenced by Job; they had no power to drive him from his positions; they could not explain the divine dealings so as to settle the great inquiry in which they had been engaged. Elihu proposes to do it, and to do it in such a way as to show that it could be accomplished only by that wisdom which is from above.
God thrusteth him down, not man - These are the words of Elihu. The meaning is, “God only can drive Job from his position, and show him the truth, and humble him. The wisdom of man fails. The aged, the experienced, and the wise have been unable to meet his arguments and bring him down from the positions which he has taken. That work can be done only by God himself, or by the wisdom which he only can give.” Accordingly Elihu, who proposes to meet the arguments of Job, makes no appeal to experience or observation; he does not ground what he says on the maxims of sages or the results of reflection, but proposes to adduce the precepts of wisdom which God had imparted to him; Job 33:4, Job 33:6. Other interpretations have, however, been given of this verse, but the above seems to me the most simple, and most in accordance with the scope of the passage.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 32:13. We have found out wisdom — We by dint of our own wisdom and understanding, have found out the true system of God's providence; and have been able to account for all the sufferings and tribulations of Job. Had they been able to confute Job, they would have triumphed over him in their own self-sufficiency.
God thrusteth him down, not man. — This is no accidental thing that has happened to him: he is suffering under the just judgments of God, and therefore he must be the wicked man which we supposed him to be.
