8 Dost thou also make void My judgment? Dost thou condemn Me, That thou mayest be righteous?
and burn doth the anger of Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram; against Job hath his anger burned, because of his justifying himself more than God;
Is it good for Thee that Thou dost oppress? That Thou despisest the labour of Thy hands, And on the counsel of the wicked hast shone?
let it not be! and let God become true, and every man false, according as it hath been written, `That Thou mayest be declared righteous in Thy words, and mayest overcome in Thy being judged.'
God liveth! He turned aside my judgment, And the Mighty -- He made my soul bitter. For all the while my breath `is' in me, And the spirit of God in my nostrils. My lips do not speak perverseness, And my tongue doth not utter deceit. Pollution to me -- if I justify you, Till I expire I turn not aside mine integrity from me. On my righteousness I have laid hold, And I do not let it go, My heart doth not reproach me while I live.
Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, And done the evil thing in Thine eyes, So that Thou art righteous in Thy words, Thou art pure in Thy judging.
For Jehovah of Hosts hath purposed, And who doth make void? And His hand that is stretched out, Who doth turn it back?'
Brethren, as a man I say `it', even of man a confirmed covenant no one doth make void or doth add to,
and this I say, A covenant confirmed before by God to Christ, the law, that came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not set aside, to make void the promise,
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,