Job 28:28 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And unto man he said. — No one can for a moment suppose that this is an historical statement, or is to be treated as being one; but it is nevertheless profoundly and universally true. It is the wisdom of man as man to fear the Lord and to depart from evil; and this is God’s primary revelation to man, which virtually underlies and is involved in all others. When we are told, as we are elsewhere, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, this implies that the fear of the Lord does not supersede, though it may be essential to, any other revelation, or any other development of wisdom, or any other manifestation of it. It is to be observed that the word rendered “the Lord” here is not the four-lettered name Jehovah which was used by Job in Job 12:9, but the other name for the Divine Being (Adonai), which was in later times universally substituted for the name Jehovah by the Jews in reading.