Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? i.e. "Who hath laid me under any obligation, so that I should be bound to fall in with his views, and take such a course as he might prescribe?" The allusion is to Job's persistent demand for a hearing—a controversy (Job 9:34, Job 9:35; Job 10:3; Job 13:3, Job 13:22; Job 23:3-7, etc.
)—a trial, in which he shall plead with God, and God with him, upon even terms as it were, and so the truth concerning him, his sins, his integrity, his sufferings, and their cause or causes, shall be made manifest.
God resists any and every claim that is made on him to justify himself and his doings to a creature. He is not a debtor to any. If he explains himself to any extent, if he condescends to give an account of any of his doings, it is of pure grace and favour.
It has been observed that we might have expected this to be the conclusion of the entire discourse begun in Job 38:1-41; and that no doubt would have been, according to ordinary laws of human composition, its more proper place.
But Hebrew poetry is erratic, and pays little regard to logical lawn If anything important has been omitted in its more proper place, it is inserted in one which is, humanly speaking, less proper. The details concerning the crocodile, which are calculated to deepen the general impression, having been passed over where we might have expected them, are here subjoined, as filling out the description of Job 38:1-10.