12:12-25 This is a noble discourse of Job concerning the wisdom, power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering all the affairs of the children of men, according to the counsel of His own will, which none can resist. It were well if wise and good men, who differ about lesser things, would see how it is for their honour and comfort, and the good of others, to dwell most upon the great things in which they agree. Here are no complaints, or reflections. He gives many instances of God's powerful management of the children of men, overruling all their counsels, and overcoming all their oppositions. Having all strength and wisdom, God knows how to make use, even of those who are foolish and bad; otherwise there is so little wisdom and so little honesty in the world, that all had been in confusion and ruin long ago. These important truths were suited to convince the disputants that they were out of their depth in attempting to assign the Lord's reasons for afflicting Job; his ways are unsearchable, and his judgments past finding out. Let us remark what beautiful illustrations there are in the word of God, confirming his sovereignty, and wisdom in that sovereignty: but the highest and infinitely the most important is, that the Lord Jesus was crucified by the malice of the Jews; and who but the Lord could have known that this one event was the salvation of the world?

Verse 23. - He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them. God's providence concerns itself, not only with the fate of individual men, bet also with that of nations. With Israel, his "peculiar people" (Deuteronomy 14:2), he especially concerned himself, but not with Israel only. Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Elam, Edom, Ammon, Moab, were likewise objects of his attention, of his guidance, of his chastening hand, of his avenging rod. Particular nations were consigned by God to the charge of particular angels (Daniel 10:13, 20). At his pleasure he can "increase" nations by blessing them with extraordinary fecundity (Exodus 1:7-12), or "destroy" them by internal decay, by civil wars, or by the swords of their neighbours. He enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again; i.e. "enlarges their bounds, or diminishes them." In Western Asia, where Job lived, empires were continually starting up, growing and expanding, increasing to vast dimensions, and then after a while shrinking back again to their original narrow limits Egypt, Elam, Babylon, and the Hittite nation were eases in point.

He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them,.... As he did before the flood, when the earth was tilled, and all over peopled with them, but at the flood he destroyed them at once. Sephorno interprets it of the seven nations in the land of Canaan, which were increased in it, and destroyed, to make way for the Israelites to inhabit it; and this has since been verified in other kingdoms, large and populous, and brought to destruction, particularly in the four monarchies, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman, and will be in the antichristian states and nations of the world:

he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again; or "stretcheth" or "spreadeth out the nations" (c), as he did all over the earth before the deluge, and then most remarkably straitened them, when they were reduced to so small a number as to be contained in a single ark: "or leads them" (d); that is, "governs them", as Mr. Broughton renders the word, rules and overrules them, as large as they are; or leads them into captivity, as some Jewish writers (e), as the Israelites; though they have been enlarged, and became numerous, as it was promised they should, yet have been led into captivity, first the ten tribes by the Assyrians, and then the two tribes by the Chaldeans; the Targum is, "he spreadeth out a net for the nations, and leadeth them", that is, into it, so that they are taken in it, see Ezekiel 12:13.

(c) "extendit", Tigurine version, Drusius, Mercerus; "expandit", Beza, Junius & Tremellus, Piscator, Schmidt; "expandens", Schultens. (d) "et ducit eas", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Schmidt. (e) Kimchi, Ben Melech, Bar Tzemach.

23. Isa 9:3; Ps 107:38, 39, which Psalm quotes this chapter elsewhere. (See on [499]Job 12:21).

straiteneth—literally, "leadeth in," that is, "reduces."

Job 12:23 Parallel Commentaries

Job 12:23 NIV
Job 12:23 NLT
Job 12:23 ESV
Job 12:23 NASB
Job 12:23 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible