Job Answers
Job answers sarcasm with sarcasm, wisdom will die with you, then says even the animals and birds know our Father's hand did this. His poem is no comfort: God strips counselors, judges, priests and kings, and leaves the leaders of the earth groping in the dark.
12 1Then Job answered: 2"No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. 3But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know things like these? 4I have become a laughingstock to my friends—I, who called on God and he answered me; a just and blameless man, now a laughingstock. 5The comfortable look down on misfortune—a ready blow for those whose feet are slipping. 6The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure—those who carry their god in their own hand. a a v6 Those who carry their god in their own hand: people who trust entirely in their own strength rather than God. 7But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you; 8or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; and the fish of the sea will explain it to you. 9Who among all these does not know that the hand of our Father has done this? b b v9 Through long debate with his three friends, this is the one place Job names our Father by name — the relational name his friends will never use. His heart, even in protest, is reaching toward the Father he once knew. 10In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. 11Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes its food? 12Wisdom is found with the aged, and understanding with length of days. 13With him are wisdom and might; his are counsel and understanding. 14What he tears down cannot be rebuilt; the one he shuts in cannot be released. 15If he holds back the waters, they dry up; if he releases them, they overwhelm the land. 16With him are strength and sound wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are both his. 17He leads counselors away stripped, and makes fools of judges. 18He loosens the bonds imposed by kings and ties a loincloth around their own waists. 19He leads priests away stripped and overthrows those long established. 20He silences the lips of the trusted and strips the elders of discernment. 21He pours contempt on princes and strips the strong of their power. 22He uncovers deep things out of darkness and brings deep shadow into the light. 23He makes nations great, then destroys them; he enlarges nations, then leads them away. 24He strips away the reason of the earth's leaders and sends them wandering in a trackless waste. 25They grope in darkness with no light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man."
