The Pulpit Commentary on Job 42:3

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? As these are nearly the words of God in Job 38:2, some suppose that they must be his words again here, and imagine a short dialogue in this place between Job and the Almighty, assigning to Job verse 2, the latter half of verse 8, and the whole of verses 5 and 6, while they assign to God verse 4 and the first clause of verse 8.

But it is far more natural to regard Job as bringing up the words which God had spoken to him, to ponder on them and answer them, or at any rate to hang his reply upon them, than to imagine God twice interrupting Job in the humble confession that he was anxious to make.

We must understand, then, after the word "knowledge," an ellipse of "thou sayest." Therefore have I uttered that I understood not. Therefore, because of that reproof of thine, I perceive that, in what I said to my friends, I "darkened counsel,"—I "uttered that I understood not," words which did not clear the matter in controversy, but obscured it.

I dealt, in fact, with things too wonderful for me—beyond my compre-hension—which I knew not, of which I had no real knowledge, but only a semblance of knowledge, and on which, therefore, I had better have been silent.

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