Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 15:25

For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty.

25. he stretcheth out ] Rather, stretched. The tenses in the following verses would all be better put in the past, as they describe either distinct or continued past actions. So strengthened, or emboldened himself, lit. behaved himself mightily (Isa 42:13 margin), or, proudly.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25 28. Reason of these terrors of conscience and presentiments of evil his defiance of heaven and sensual life.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For he stretcheth out his hand against God – The hand is stretched out for battle. It wields the spear or the sword against an enemy. The idea here is, that the wicked man makes God an adversary. He does not contend with his fellow-man, with fate, with the elements, with evil angels, but with God. His opponent is an Almighty Being, and he cannot prevail against him; compare the notes at Isa 27:4.

And strengtheneth himself – As an army does that throws up a rampart, or constructs a fortification. The whole image here is taken from the practice of war; and the sense is, that a wicked man is really making war on the Almighty, and that in that war he must be vanquished; compare Job 9:4.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 25. He stretcheth out his hand against God] While in power he thought himself supreme. He not only did not acknowledge God, by whom kings reign, but stretched out his hand-used his power, not to protect, but to oppress those over whom he had supreme rule; and thus strengthened himself against the Almighty.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Now he gives the reason of all the forementioned calamities which befell him, which was his great wickedness in the time of his peace and prosperity.

He stretcheth out his hand against God, i.e. he commonly and customarily sinned against God with a high and out-stretched hand, i.e. boldly and presumptuously, as one that neither desired his favour, nor feared his anger.

Strengtheneth himself, i.e. he putteth his forces in array, as if he would fight with him.

Against the Almighty; which aggravates the madness of this poor contemptible worm that durst fight against the omnipotent God.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

25. stretcheth . . . handwieldingthe spear, as a bold rebel against God (Job 9:4;Isa 27:4).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For he stretched out his hand against God,…. Being an hater of him, an enemy to him, yea, enmity itself against him; an enemy in his mind, which appears by his wicked works, which are so many acts of hostility against God; all sins are against God, his nature, his will, his law, and all his remonstrances, exhortations, cautions, and instructions; but some are more daring and impudent than others, or are committed in a more open, bold, and audacious manner, as were those committed by the inhabitants of Sodom, and those who are similar to them; especially such as strike at the being of God and his perfections, his providence and government of the world; and such as deny these may most truly be said to stretch out their hands against God, and strike at him: and this may regard not only sins committed against the light of nature and the law of God, but against the evangelic revelation, the doctrines of the Gospel, and the ordinances of it; for such who deny the one, and reject the other, openly oppose themselves to God, and expose themselves to his wrath and vengeance; for of how much sorer punishment shall such be thought worthy, who trample Christ and his blood under foot, despise and disobey his Gospel:

and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty; by hardening his heart against him as Pharaoh did; by putting on a bold and brazen countenance, by setting his mouth against God in heaven, and suffering, his tongue to walk through the earth, fearing neither God nor man; by entering into a friendship with the world, and making alliances with the enemies of God, even by making a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell; all which is egregious folly and madness: for a sinful man to oppose himself to God is to set briers and thorns to a consuming fire; for a weak feeble creature to set himself against the Almighty, who can crush him in a moment, and send him down to hell, is the height of folly; let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth, but not man with his Maker; who ever strengthened or hardened himself against him, and prospered?

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

25 Because he stretched out his hand against God,

And was insolent towards the Almighty;

26 He assailed Him with a stiff neck,

With the thick bosses of his shield;

27 Because he covered his face with his fatness,

And addeth fat to his loins,

28 And inhabited desolated cities,

Houses which should not be inhabited,

Which were appointed to be ruins.

29 He shall not be rich, and his substance shall not continue

And their substance boweth not to the ground.

30 He escapeth not darkness;

The flame withereth his shoots;

And he perisheth in the breath of His mouth.

This strophe has periodic members: Job 15:25-28 an antecedent clause with a double beginning ( because he has stretched out, because he has covered; whereas may be taken as more independent, but under the government of the that stands at the commencement of the sentence); Job 15:29, Job 15:30, is the conclusion. Two chief sins are mentioned as the cause of the final destiny that comes upon the evil-doer: (1) his arrogant opposition to God, and (2) his contentment on the ruins of another’s prosperity. The first of these sins is described Job 15:25-27. The fut. consec. is once used instead of the perf., and the simple fut. is twice used with the signification of an imperf. (as Job 4:3 and freq.). The Hithpa. signifies here to maintain a heroic bearing, to play the hero; to make one’s self rich, to play the part of a rich man, Pro 13:7. And expresses the special prominence of the neck in his assailing God , as Dan 8:6, comp. , Job 16:14); it is equivalent to erecto collo (Vulg.), and in meaning equivalent to (lxx). Also in Psa 75:6, (with Munach, which there represents a distinctive)

(Note: Vid., Dachselt’s Biblia Accentuata, p. 816.))

is absolute, in the sense of stiff-necked or hard-headed; for the parallels, as Psa 31:19; Psa 94:4, and especially the primary passage, 1Sa 2:3, show that is to be taken as an accusative of the object. The proud defiance with which he challengingly assails God, and renders himself insensible to the dispensations of God, which might bring him to a right way of thinking, is symbolized by the additional clause: with the thickness ( cognate form to ) of the bosses of his shields. is the back (Arab. dhr ) or boss ( umbo ) of the shield; the plurality of shields has reference to the diversified means by which he hardens himself. Job 15:27, similarly to Psa 73:4-7, pictures this impregnable carnal security against all unrest and pain, to which, on account of his own sinfulness and the distress of others, the nobler-minded man is so sensitive: he has covered his face with his fat, so that by the accumulation of fat, for which he anxiously labours, it becomes a gross material lump of flesh, devoid of mind and soul, and made fat, i.e., added fat, caused it to accumulate, upon his loins ( for ); (which has nothing to do with Arab. gsa , to cover) is used as in Job 14:9, and in the phrase corpus facere (in Justin), in the sense of producing outwardly something from within. reminds one of – (as Aquila and Symmachus translate here), o-pim-us, and of the Sanscrit piai , to be fat (whence adj. pvan , pvara , , part. pna , subst. according to Roth pvas ); the Arabic renders it probable that it is a contraction of (Olsh. 171, b). The Jewish expositors explain it according to the misunderstood , 1Sa 13:21, of the furrows or wrinkles which are formed in flabby flesh, as if the ah were paragogic.

Job 15:28 describes the second capital sin of the evil-doer. The desolated cities that he dwells in are not cities that he himself has laid waste; Job 15:28 distinctly refers to a divinely appointed punishment, for does not signify: which they (evil-doers) have made ruins (Hahn), which is neither probable from the change of number, nor accords with the meaning of the verb, which signifies “to appoint to something in the future.” Hirzel, by referring to the law, Deu 13:13-18 (comp. 1Ki 16:34), which forbids the rebuilding of such cities as are laid under the curse, explains it to a certain extent more correctly. But such a play upon the requirements of the Mosaic law is in itself not probable in the book of Job, and here, as Lwenthal rightly remarks, is the less indicated, since it is not the dwelling in such cities that is forbidden, but only the rebuilding of them, so far as they had been destroyed; here, however, the reference is only to dwelling, not to rebuilding. The expression must therefore be understood more generally thus, that the powerful man settles down carelessly and indolently, without any fear of the judgments of God or respect for the manifestations of His judicial authority, in places in which the marks of a just divine retribution are still visible, and which are appointed to be perpetual monuments of the execution of divine judgments.

(Note: For the elucidation of this interpretation of the passage, Consul Wetzstein has contributed the following: “As one who yields to inordinate passion is without sympathy cast from human society because he is called muqtal rabbuh, ‘one who is beaten in the conflict against his God’ (since he has sinned against the holy command of chastity), and as no one ventures to pronounce the name of Satan because God has cursed him (Gen 3:14), without adding ‘alh el-la’ne, ‘God’s curse upon him!’ so a man may not presume to inhabit places which God has appointed to desolation. Such villages and cities, which, according to tradition, have perished and been frequently overthrown ( maqlbe, muqlbe, munqualibe) by the visitation of divine judgment, are not uncommon on the borders of the desert. They are places, it is said, where the primary commandments of the religion of Abraham ( Dn Ibrhim) have been impiously transgressed. Thus the city of Babylon will never be colonized by a Semitic tribe, because they hold the belief that it has been destroyed on account of Nimrod’s apostasy from God, and his hostility to His favoured one, Abraham. The tradition which has even been transferred by the tribes of Arabia Petraea into Islamism of the desolation of the city of Higr (or Medin Slih) on account of disobedience to God, prevents any one from dwelling in that remarkable city, which consists of thousands of dwellings cut in the rock, some of which are richly ornamented; without looking round, and muttering prayers, the desert ranger hurries through, even as does the great procession of pilgrims to Mekka, from fear of incurring the punishment of God by the slightest delay in the accursed city. The destruction of Sodom, brought about by the violation of the right of hospitality (Gen 19:5, comp. Job 31:32), is to be mentioned here, for this legend certainly belongs originally to the ‘Din Ibrhm’ rather than to the Mosaic. At the source of the Rakkd (the largest river of the Golan region) there are a number of erect and remarkably perforated jasper formations, which are called ‘the bridal procession’ ( el-frida). This bridal procession was turned to stone, because a woman of the party cleaned her child that had made itself dirty with a bread-cake ( qurss). Near it is its village ( Ufne), which in spite of repeated attempts is no more to be inhabited. It remains forsaken, as an eternal witness that ingratitude ( kufrn en-ni’ma), especially towards God, does not remain unpunished.)

Only by this rendering is the form of expression of the elliptical clause explained. Hirz. refers to : in which they do not dwell; but does not signify: to dwell in a place, but: to settle down in a place; Schlottm. refers to the inhabitants: therein they dwell not themselves, i.e., where no one dwelt; but the which would be required in this case as acc. localis could not be omitted. One might more readily, with Hahn, explain: those to whom they belong do not inhabit them; but it is linguistically impossible for to stand alone as the expression of this subject (the possessors). The most natural, and also an admissible explanation, is, that yshbw refers to the houses, and that , which can be used not only of persons, but also of things, is dat. ethicus. The meaning, however, is not: which are uninhabited, which would not be expressed as future, but rather by or similarly, but: which shall not inhabit, i.e., shall not be inhabited to them ( to dwell = to have inhabitants, as Isa 13:10; Jer 50:13, Jer 50:39, and freq.), or, as we should express it, which ought to remain uninhabited.

Job 15:29 begins the conclusion: (because he has acted thus) he shall not be rich (with a personal subject as Hos 12:9, and to be written with a sharpened , like above, Job 12:15), and his substance shall not endure ( , to take place, Isa 7:7; to endure, 1Sa 13:14; and hold fast, Job 41:18), and shall not incline itself to the earth. The interpretation of the older expositors, non extendet se in terra , is impossible – that must be eb tsum taht – elbi ; whereas Kal is commonly used in the intransitive sense to bow down, bend one’s self or incline (Ges. 53, 2). But what is the meaning of the subject ? We may put out of consideration those interpretations that condemn themselves: , ex iis (Targ.), or , quod iis , what belongs to them (Saad.), or , their word (Syr. and Gecatilia), and such substitutions as ( or ) of the lxx, and radicem of Jerome (which seems only to be a guess). Certainly that which throws most light on the signification of the word is (for with Dag. dirimens , as Job 17:2), which occurs in Isa 33:1. The oldest Jewish lexicographers take this (parall. .ll ) as a synonym of in the signification, to bring to an end; on the other hand, Ges., Knobel, and others, consider to be the original reading, because the meaning perficere is not furnished for from the Arab. nal , and because , standing thus together, is in Arabic an incompatible root combination (Olsh. 9, 4). This union of consonants certainly does not occur in any Semitic root, but the Arab. nala (the long a of which can in the inflection become a short changeable bowel) furnishes sufficient protection for this one exception; and the meaning consequi , which belongs to the Arab. nala , fut. janlu , is perfectly suited to Isa 33:1: if thou hast fully attained ( Hiph. as intensive of the transitive Kal, like , ) to plundering. If, however, the verb is established, there is no need for any conjecture in the passage before us, especially since the improvement nearest at hand, (Hupf. ), produces a sentence ( non figet in terra caulam ) which could not be flatter and tamer; whereas the thought that is gained by Olshausen’s more sensible conjecture, (their sickle does not sink to the earth, is not pressed down by the richness of the produce of the field), goes to the other extreme.

(Note: Carey proposes to take = , their cutting, layer for planting; but the verb-group , , (vid., supra, p. 224) is not favourable to the supposition of a substantive in this signification, according to the usual application of the language.)

Juda b. Karisch (Kureisch) has explained the word correctly by Arab. mnalhm : that which they have offered (from nala , janulu ) or attained ( nala , janlu ), i.e., their possession

(Note: Freytag has erroneously placed the infinitives nail and manl under Arab. nl med. Wau, instead of under Arab. nl me. Je, where he only repeats nail, and erroneously gives manl the signification donum, citing in support of it a passage from Fkihat al-chulaf, where ‘azz al-manl (a figure borrowed from places difficult of access, and rendered strong and impregnable by nature or art) signifies “one who was hard to get at” (i.e., whose position of power is made secure). The true connection is this: Arab. nl med. Wau signifies originally to extend, reach, to hand anything to any one with outstretched arm or hand, the correlatum Arab. nl med. Je: to attain, i.e., first to touch or reach anything with outstretched arm or hand, and then really to grasp and take it, gen. adipisci, consequi, assequi, impetrare, with the ordinary infinitives nail and manl. Therefore manl (from Arab. nl med. Je) signifies primarily as abstract, attainment; it may then, however, like nail and the infinitives generally, pass over to the concrete signification: what one attains to, or what one has attained, gotten, although I can give no special example in support of it. – Fl.)

(not: their perfection, as it is chiefly explained by the Jewish expositors, according to = ). When the poet says, “their prosperity inclines not to the ground,” he denies to it the likeness to a field of corn, which from the weight of the ears bows itself towards the ground, or to a tree, whose richly laden branches bend to the ground. We may be satisfied with this explanation (Hirz., Ew., Stickel, and most others): from (with which Kimchi compares , Num 20:19, which however is derived not from , but from ), similar in meaning to the post-biblical , ; the suff., according to the same change of number as in Job 15:35; Job 20:23, and freq., refers to .

In Job 15:30, also, a figure taken from a plant is interwoven with what is said of the person of the ungodly: the flame withers up his tender branch without its bearing fruit, and he himself does not escape darkness, but rather perishes by the breath of His mouth, i.e., God’s mouth (Job 4:9, not of his own, after Isa 33:11). The repetition of (“he escapes not,” as Pro 13:14; “he must yield to,” as 1Ki 15:14, and freq.) is an impressive play upon words.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

(25) For he stretcheth out his hand.It is instructive to note the difference in time indicated here. Because he hath stretched out his hand against God. and behaveth himself proudly against the Almighty. He runneth upon Him with haughty neck, with the thick bosses of his bucklers; fully protected as he supposes against the vengeance of the Most High. (Comp. Psa. 10:6; Psa. 10:11, &c.) The English version, with less probability, represents the armour as being Gods; on the contrary, it is the wicked mans prosperity which hath thus blinded and hardened him. (See Deu. 32:15; Psa. 17:10.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

Second strophe Titans in impiety, they not only rushed madly against God, but fattened themselves upon the ruin of the innocent. If their punishment be aggravated it springs from aggravated sin, Job 15:25-30.

25. Strengtheneth himself Boasteth himself. The first reason given for his wretched doom is his stiff-necked hostility to God. (Job 15:25-26.) “When all vices flee from God, pride alone opposes itself to him.” Boetius.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments