Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 15:15
Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
15. his saints ] his holy ones, i. e. His angels, cf. on ch. Job 5:1.
the heavens ] These are here the material heavens, not the celestial inhabitants, cf. ch. Job 25:5. So Exo 24:10, “And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven in its clearness”; see also Eze 1:22.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints – In Job 4:18, it is, in his servants, but no doubt the same thing is intended. The reference is to the angels, called there servants, and here saints qodeshym, holy ones; see the notes at Job 4:18.
Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight – In Job 4:18, and his angels he charged with folly. The general idea is the same. God is so holy that all things else seem to be impure. The very heavens seem to be unclean when compared with him. We are not to understand this as meaning that the heavens are defiled; that there is sin and corruption there, and that they are loathsome in the sight of God. The object is to set forth the exceeding purity of God, and the greatness of his holiness. This sentiment seemed to be a kind of proverb, or a commonplace in theology among the sages of Arabia. Thus, it occurs in Job 25:5, in the speech of Bildad, when he had nothing to say but to repeat the most common-place moral and theological adages –
Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not;
Yea, the stars are not pure in his sight:
How much less man, that is a worm,
And the son of man, which is a worm!
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 15. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.] The Vulgate has, “Behold, among his saints, none is immutable; and the heavens are not clean in his sight.”
Coverdale. – Beholde, he hath found unfaithfulnesse amonge his owne sanctes, yea the very heavens are unclene in his sight.
Eliphaz uses the same mode of speech, Job 4:17-8; where see the notes. Nothing is immutable but GOD: saints may fall; angels may fall; all their goodness is derived and dependent. The heavens themselves have no purity compared with his.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
In his saints, i.e. in his angels, as appears by comparing Job 4:18, who are called his saints or holy ones, Deu 33:2; Psa 103:20; Dan 4:13,23; Mt 18:10; 24:36; who though they were created holy, yet he could not be confident in them, nor they be confident in themselves that they would continue in their integrity if they were left to themselves, and not upheld by Gods special grace and assistance. See Poole “Job 4:18“.
The heavens, Heb. and the heavens, i.e. either,
1. The heavens properly so called; which though they be free from those drossy mixtures which are and appear in heavenly bodies, yet are not absolutely pure, but have some spots and blemishes in them; as philosophers have discovered, and the all-seeing God knoweth. Compare Job 25:5, where the stars are said not to be pure; unless the stars also there be metaphorically put for the angels, as they are Job 38:7, and for other holy ministers of God, as Dan 8:10; Rev 1:16,20; 12:1,4.
2. The angels that dwell in heaven; heaven being oft put for its inhabitants; either for God, as Psa 73:9; Dan 4:26; Luk 15:18,21; or for the angels that dwell in heaven, as Psa 89:5; 148:1,2. So this is a repetition of the same thing in other words. And these are not pure, to wit, simply and perfectly, and comparatively to God; in which and such like respects God only is said to be good, and wise, and immortal. The angels are pure from corruption, but not from imperfection, nor from a possibility of sinning, if God should withdraw his help from them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. Repeated from Job4:18; “servants” there are “saints” here;namely, holy angels.
heavensliterally, orelse answering to “angels” (see on Job4:18, and Job 25:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints,…. In holy men, set apart for himself by his grace, whose sins are expiated by the blood of his Son, and whose hearts are sanctified by his Spirit, and who live holy lives and conversations, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; these, though he trusts many of them with much, as the prophets of old with the messages of his grace and will, and the ministers of the word with treasure, in their earthen vessels, the sacred “depositum” of the glorious Gospel, with gifts of grace, fitting them for their work, and with the care of the souls of men; yet he trusts none of them with themselves, with the redemption and salvation of their souls, with the regeneration and sanctification of their hearts, and with their preservation to eternal glory; he has put those into the hands of his Son and Spirit, and keeps them by his power through faith unto salvation: the Targum renders it, in his saints above, in the saints in heaven, in glorified men; he is there their all in all; as their happiness, so their safety and protection; see an instance of his care and preservation of them after the resurrection, when in a perfect state, Re 20:8; or this may be understood of the angels, who sometimes are called saints, De 33:2; who though they have been trusted with many things to impart to the sons of men, yet not with the salvation of men, nor even with the secret of it; they were not of God’s privy council when the affair was debated and settled; nor with other secrets, as the day and hour of the last judgment, the coming of the Son of Man: or the sense may be, “he putteth no perfection or stability” d in them, that is, perfection in comparison of his; for if theirs were equal to his, they would be gods, which it is impossible to be, or for God to make them such; and likewise such stability as to have been able to have stood of themselves, which it appears they had not, since many of them fell, and the rest needed confirming grace, which they have by Christ, the Head of all principalities and powers:
yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight; heaven born men, partakers of the heavenly calling, whose hearts and affections are set on heavenly things, and have their conversation in heaven; yet these, in the sight of a pure and holy God, and in comparison of him, are impure and unholy; or they of heaven, as Mr. Broughton renders it, the inhabitants of heaven; the angels on high, as the Targum paraphrases it; these are charged by him with folly, and they, conscious of their imperfection with respect to him, cover their faces with their wings, while they celebrate the perfection of his holiness, who is so glorious in it; though the natural heavens may be intended, at least not excluded, and the luminous bodies in them, as Bildad seems to explain it, Job 25:5; the stars are reckoned the more dense and thick part of the heavens, the moon has its spots, and by later discoveries it seems the sun is not without them, and the heavens are often covered with clouds and darkness, and the present ones will be purified with fire at the general conflagration, which supposes them unclean, and they shall pass away, and new ones succeed, which implies imperfection in the former, or there would be no need of others; this is the proof Eliphaz gives of what he had suggested in Job 15:14.
d “non posuit stabilitatem”, Pagninus; “immutabilitatem, sive perfectionem absolutam”, Vatablus; “firmum opus non produxit”, Tigurine version; “non crediturns esset firmitatem”, Junius & Tremellius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(15) Behold.Comp. Job. 4:18; Job. 5:5.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. Saints Holy ones. See Job 5:1. The belief in a defection among the angels was very ancient. Thus in the Veda, as extracted by Sir Wm. Jones, (vol. vi, page 418,) “But what are they? Others yet greater. companies of spirits have we seen destroyed. But what are they? Others still greater have been changed even the sufees, or angels, hurled from their stations.”
The heavens The blue heavens, with their glittering stars, have ever been an emblem of purity, but, compared with God, they are not clean. Most commentators, however, regard the word as a trope for “the hosts of the heavens.” But this is needless.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
Ver. 15. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints ] Here he proceedeth to prove that which Job never denied; and Bildad also hath the same, Job 25:1-6 Lege eius verba, nam non male huc quadrant, saith Lavater; lay his words to these, and they will lend light to each other. See Trapp on “ Job 4:18 “ There they are called his servants, here his saints or holy ones; these were the old patriarchs, say the Septuagint, with whom God at some times was angry; and although he was a God that forgave them, yet took he vengeance of their inventions, Psa 99:8 . Others understand it to be the saints in heaven, or the holy angels.
And the heavens are not clean in his sight
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
trust = faith. Hebrew. ‘aman. Compare Job 15:31. App-69.
saints = holy ones. Here = angels. Compare Job 4:18.
sight = eyes.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
trust
(See Scofield “Psa 2:12”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
he putteth: Job 4:18, Job 25:5, Isa 6:2-5
Reciprocal: Job 5:1 – and to which Job 26:11 – are astonished Psa 113:6 – humbleth Hab 1:13 – of Rom 3:20 – in his sight Col 1:22 – in his