4 Have you an arm like God? have you a voice of thunder like his?
The rulers kept quiet, and put their hands on their mouths;
Take note of me and be full of wonder, put your hand on your mouth.
Then I said, The curse is on me, and my fate is destruction; for I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.
If you have done foolishly in lifting yourself up, or if you have had evil designs, put your hand over your mouth.
And they said to him, Be quiet; say nothing, and come with us and be our father and priest; is it better for you to be priest to one man's house or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?
I am less than nothing in comparison with all your mercies and your faith to me your servant; for with only my stick in my hand I went across Jordan, and now I have become two armies.
But the Lord is in his holy Temple: let all the earth be quiet before him.
It is a true saying, in which all may put their faith, that Christ Jesus came into the world to give salvation to sinners, of whom I am the chief:
I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have done wrong, against heaven and in your eyes: I am no longer good enough to be named your son: make me like one of your servants.
But Simon, when he saw it, went down at the knees of Jesus and said, Go away from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner.
And after the people had been numbered, David's heart was troubled. And David said to the Lord, Great has been my sin in doing this; but now, O Lord, be pleased to take away the sin of your servant, for I have done very foolishly
The nations will see and be shamed because of all their strength; they will put their hands on their mouths, their ears will be stopped.
O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.
We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:
And there is no one who makes prayer to your name, or who is moved to keep true to you: for your face is veiled from us, and you have given us into the power of our sins.
Against you, you only, have I done wrong, working that which is evil in your eyes; so that your words may be seen to be right, and you may be clear when you are judging. Truly, I was formed in evil, and in sin did my mother give me birth.
I was quiet, and kept my mouth shut; because you had done it.
I would put my cause in order before him, and my mouth would be full of arguments. I would see what his answers would be, and have knowledge of what he would say to me. Would he make use of his great power to overcome me? No, but he would give attention to me. There an upright man might put his cause before him; and I would be free for ever from my judge.
So that he may give decision for a man in his cause with God, and between a son of man and his neighbour.
Then you will have me pushed into the dust, so that I will seem disgusting to my very clothing. For he is not a man as I am, that I might give him an answer, that we might come together before a judge. There is no one to give a decision between us, who might have control over us. Let him take away his rod from me and not send his fear on me: Then I would say what is in my mind without fear of him; for there is no cause of fear in myself.
But still, you have been in the right in everything which has come on us; you have been true to us, but we have done evil:
O Lord God of Israel, righteousness is yours; we are only a small band which has been kept from death, as at this day: see, we are before you in our sin; for no one may keep his place before you because of this.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 40
Commentary on Job 40 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 40
Many humbling confounding questions God had put to Job, in the foregoing chapter; now, in this chapter,
Job 40:1-5
Here is,
Job 40:6-14
Job was greatly humbled for what God had already said, but not sufficiently; he was brought low, but not low enough; and therefore God here proceeds to reason with him in the same manner and to the same purport as before, v. 6. Observe,
God begins with a challenge (v. 7), as before (ch. 38:3): "Gird up thy loins now like a man; if thou hast the courage and confidence thou hast pretended to, show them now; but thou wilt soon be made to see and own thyself no match for me.' This is that which every proud heart must be brought to at last, either by its repentance or by its ruin; and thus low must every mountain and hill be, sooner or later, brought. We must acknowledge,
Job 40:15-24
God, for the further proving of his own power and disproving of Job's pretensions, concludes his discourse with the description of two vast and mighty animals, far exceeding man in bulk and strength, one he calls behemoth, the other leviathan. In these verses we have the former described. "Behold now behemoth, and consider whether thou art able to contend with him who made that beast and gave him all the power he has, and whether it is not thy wisdom rather to submit to him and make thy peace with him.' Behemoth signifies beasts in general, but must here be meant of some one particular species. Some understand it of the bull; others of an amphibious animal, well known (they say) in Egypt, called the river-horse (hippopotamus), living among the fish in the river Nile, but coming out to feed upon the earth. But I confess I see no reason to depart from the ancient and most generally received opinion, that it is the elephant that is here described, which is a very strong stately creature, of very large stature above any other, of wonderful sagacity, and of so great a reputation in the animal kingdom that among so many four-footed beasts as we have had the natural history of (ch. 38 and 39) we can scarcely suppose this should be omitted. Observe,