Job 12:2

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹ Then Job answered, ² "No doubt, but you are the people, And wisdom shall die with you. ³ But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: Yes, who doesn't know such things as these? ⁴ I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke. ⁵ In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune, It is ready for them whose foot slips.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

ye are the people: Job 6:24, Job 6:25, Job 8:8-10, Job 11:2, Job 11:6, Job 11:12, Job 15:2, Job 17:4, Job 20:3, Job 32:7-13, Proverbs 28:11, Isaiah 5:21, 1 Corinthians 4:10, 1 Corinthians 6:5

Reciprocal: Exodus 4:10 - eloquent Job 5:27 - we have searched Job 6:13 - and is wisdom Job 15:8 - thou restrain Job 26:2 - How hast thou Job 32:13 - We 2 Corinthians 10:12 - we dare not

Cross-References

Genesis 12:3
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you will all of the families of the earth be blessed."

Genesis 12:4
So Abram went, as Yahweh had spoken to him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran.

Genesis 12:6
Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land.

Genesis 12:8
He left from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to Yahweh, and called on the name of Yahweh.

Genesis 12:9
Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.

Genesis 12:10
There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was sore in the land.

Genesis 12:14
It happened that when Abram had come into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

Genesis 12:16
He dealt well with Abram for her sake. He had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.

Genesis 12:17
Yahweh plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.

Genesis 12:18
Pharaoh called Abram, and said, "What is this that you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

No doubt but ye [are] the people,.... Which is said not seriously, meaning that they were but of the common people, that are generally ignorant, and have but little knowledge, at least of things sublime, especially in matters of religion; wherefore, though they took upon them to be his teachers and dictators to him, and censors of him, they were not above the rank, but in the class of people of low and mean understandings; see John 7:49; this sense indeed agrees with what is after said, "who knoweth not such things as these?" but since Job compares himself with them, and asserts he is not inferior to them, it supposes them to have a degree of knowledge and understanding of things somewhat above the common people; wherefore these words are to be taken ironically, exposing their vanity and self-conceit: "ye are the people"; the only, and all the people in the world of importance and consequence for good sense and wisdom; the only wise and knowing folk, the men of reason and understanding; all the rest are but fools and asses, or like the wild ass's colt, as Zophar had said, and which Job took as pointing to him; so the word in the Arabic language c signifies the more excellent and better sort of people; or, ye are the only people of God, his covenant people, his servants; that are made acquainted with the secrets of wisdom, as none else are:

and wisdom shall die with you; you have all the wisdom of the world, and when you die it will be all gone; there will be none left in the world: thus he represents them as monopolizers and engrossers of wisdom and knowledge, full of it in their conceit, allowing none to have any share with them: and by all this he not only upbraids them with their vanity and self-conceit, but puts them in mind, that, as wise as they were, they must die; and that, though their wisdom with respect to them, or any use they could make of it in the grave, where there is none, would die too; or that their wisdom was but the wisdom of the world, which comes to nought; yet there would be wisdom still in the world, and that which is true, which God makes known to men, even the wisdom of God in a mystery, the wisdom hid in himself; and who has the residue of the Spirit and his gifts to instruct men in it, and qualify them to be teachers of others; by which means, though men, even the best of men, die, yet the word of God, the means of true wisdom and knowledge, will always abide.

c Golii Lex. Ar. Col. 1743. Vid. Lud. Capell. in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

No doubt but ye are the people - That is, the only wise people. You have engrossed all the wisdom of the world, and all else are to be regarded as fools. This is evidently the language of severe sarcasm; and it shows a spirit fretted and chafed by their reproaches. Job felt contempt for their reasoning. and meant to intimate that their maxims, on which they placed so much reliance, were common-place, and such as every one was familar with.

And wisdom shall die with you - This is ironical, but it is language such as is common perhaps every where. “The people of the East,” says Roberts, “take great pleasure in irony, and some of their satirical sayings are very cutting. When a sage intimates that he has superior wisdom or when he is disposed to rally another for his meagrc attainments, he says, ‘Yes, yes, you are the man! ‘ ‘Your wisdom is like the sea.’ ‘When you die, whither will wisdom go?’” In a serious sense, language like this is used by the Classical writers to describe the death of eminently great or good men. They speak of wisdom, bravery, piety, or music, as dying with them. Thus, Moschus, Idyll. iii. 12.

Ὅττι βίων τέθνηκεν ὁ βώκολος, ἔττι σὺν αὐτῷ

Καὶ τὸ μέλος τέθνακε, καὶ ὤλετο Δωρίς ἀειδός.

Hotti biōn tethnēken ho bōkolos, esti sun autō

Kai to melos tethnake, kai ōleto Dōris aeidos.

“Bion the swain is dead, and with him song

Has died, and the Doric muse has perished.”

Expressions like these are common. Thus, in the “Pleasures of Hope” it is said:

And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 12:2. No doubt but ye are the people — Doubtless ye are the wisest men in the world; all wisdom is concentrated in you; and when ye die, there will no more be found on the face of the earth! This is a strong irony.