Job 27:12
Surely all of you have seen it for yourselves. Why then do you keep up this empty talk?
BSB
ASV
Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it; Why then are ye become altogether vain?
KJV
Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it; why then are ye thus altogether vain?
Ye yourselves have seen it - Your own experience and observation have shown you that the righteous are frequently in affliction, and the wicked in affluence. Why then are ye thus altogether vain? - The original is very emphatical: הבל תהבלו hebel tehbalu, and well expressed by Mr. Good: “Why then should ye thus babble babblings!” It our language would allow it, we might say vanitize vanity.
What he would teach them: " That which is with the Almighty, " that is, "the counsels and purposes of God concerning wicked people, which are hidden with him, and which you cannot hastily judge of; and the usual methods of his providence concerning them." This, says Job, will I not conceal.
The fact is, it is probable that Job tacitly, by giving, in the twenty-eighth chapter, only a general answer, implies, that in spite of the wicked often dying, as he said, in prosperity, he does not mean to deny that the wicked are in the main dealt with according to right, and that God herein vindicates His moral government even here.
"Ye yourselves see" that the wicked often are afflicted (though often the reverse, Job 21:33). But do you "vainly" make this an argument to prove from my afflictions that I am wicked?
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Ecclesiastes 8:14There is a futility that is done on the earth: There are righteous men who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked men who get what the actions of…
leads to
In my futile life I have seen both of these: A righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.
So now we call the arrogant blessed. Not only do evildoers prosper, they even test God and escape.’”
The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both.
So I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God’s hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or…
Through
Job 21:3Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.
leads to