Job's answer to Bildad's remark turned out to be predictably caustic...
Job's answer to Bildad's remark turned out to be predictably caustic (vv. 2-4). For him, seeking an encounter with the living God, commonplaces had now begun to feel like real mockery. As if mimicking his friend, Job himself delivers a short but expressive speech glorifying the greatness of God (vv. 5-14). It is as though he wants to tell Bildad that if it comes to a contest in eloquence, he will not come in last. But Job has no time for rhetorical exercises: his life is drawing to an end, and he still has not learned the main thing. Bildad's remark about the incomprehensibility of God's ways was, of course, only a commonplace, but Job no longer had any use for commonplaces. He needed not commonplaces, but answers to the questions tormenting him. He cannot treat words as lightly as his friends do.
For Bildad, what he said essentially meant nothing; it was only a general remark. For Job, however, it was an answer to the question he had raised, and an utterly inappropriate answer at that. Empty talk was not part of his plans, and he was not wrong to perceive attempts to draw him into idle chatter instead of serious conversation as a kind of mockery. That is how people usually speak to children or to the mentally ill; meanwhile, Zophar had already hinted that Job says what he says because he is not in his right mind.
Answering these accusations, Job delivers a speech in a spirit that was close and understandable to his friends, as if wanting to show them that all their arguments and commonplaces are as well known to him as to them, and that he does not reject the partial rightness, fitting within the framework of religion, that these commonplaces carry. But Job also wants to reach the minds and hearts of his friends. He wants to convince them that their rightness is not the final truth, that there is something greater, the very thing he, Job, is seeking and cannot find. For Job's friends, the greatness of God revealed in the beauty and harmony of the universe turns out to be almost the highest form of revelation. Of the three, the experience of personal communion with God is known, it seems, only to Eliphaz, but even in his life it does not occupy the central place. For Job, however, just such an experience now comes to the foreground; the greatness of God revealed in His creation is an axiom for him. But such natural revelation is not enough for Job, because it does not answer the questions that trouble him. He wants to receive an answer from God Himself, while his friends think that a person in his right mind and sound memory would never demand anything from God, much less an answer to questions without which, as Job's friends thought, one can live quite well.
26 Job observes, that Bildad's discourse was foreign to the matter, Giobbe 26:1-4.
Enlarges on the power and greatness of God, which yet are unsearchable, Giobbe 26:5-14.
26:4 To whom - For whose instruction hast thou uttered these things?For mine? Dost thou think I do not know, that which the meanest persons are not unacquainted with; that God is incomparably greater and better than his creatures? Whose spirit - Who inspired thee with this profound discourse of thine?
26:5 Dead things - Job having censured Bildad's discourse, proceeds to shew how little he needed his information in that point. Here he shews that the power and providences of God reaches not only to the things we see, but also to the invisible parts of the world, not only to the heavens above and their inhabitants, and to men upon earth, of which Bildad discoursed, chap.Giobbe 25:2-3, but also to such persons or things as are under the earth, or under the waters; which are out of our sight and reach; yet not out of the ken of Divine providence. These words may be understood; either,
- of dead, or lifeless things, such as amber, pearl, coral, metals, or other minerals, which are formed or brought forth; by the almighty power of God, from under the waters; either in the bottom of the sea, or within the earth, which is the lowest element, and in the scripture and other authors spoken of as under the waters; this being observed as a remarkable work of God's providence, that the waters of the sea, which are higher than the earth, do not overwhelm it. Or,
- of dead men, and of the worst of them, such as died in their sins, and after death were condemned to farther miseries; for of such this very word seems to be used, Proverbi 2:18 Proverbi 9:18, who are here said to mourn or groan from under the waters; from the lower parts of the earth, or from under those subterranean waters, which are supposed to be within and under the earth; Salmi 33:7, and from under the inhabitants thereof; either of the waters or of the earth, under which these waters are, or with the other inhabitants thereof; of that place under the waters, namely, the apostate spirits.
So the sense is, that God's dominion is over all men, yea, even thedead, and the worst of them, who though they would not own God, nor his providence, while they lived, yet now are forced to acknowledge and feel that power which they despised, and bitterly mourn under the sad effects of it in their infernal habitations.26:6 Hell - Is in his presence, and under his providence. Hell itself, that place of utter darkness, is not hid from his sight.Destruction - The place of destruction.
26:7 North - The northern part of the heavens, which is put for the whole visible heaven, because Job and his friends lived in a northern climate. Nothing - Upon no props or pillars, but his own power and providence.
26:9 Holdeth - From our view, that his glory may not dazzle our sight; he covereth it with a cloud. Throne - The heaven of heavens, where he dwelleth.
26:11 Pillars - Perhaps the mountains which by their height and strength seem to reach and support the heavens. Astonished - When God reproveth not them, but men by them, manifesting his displeasure by thunders, or earthquakes.
26:14 Parts - But small parcels, the outside and visible work.Portion - Of his power and wisdom, and providence. His Power - His mighty power, is aptly compared to thunder; in regard of its irresistible force, and the terror which it causes to wicked men.