(20) В¶ Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? (21) Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. (22) Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears. (23) God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof. (24) For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven; (25) To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure. (26) When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder: (27) Then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out. (28) And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
These are all so many sweet verses to the same effect. It should seem as if the mind of Job himself was so led out in the contemplation, that he knew not how to answer his own question, nor how to give it over unanswered. The manner in which he concludes gives the whole, if possible, more of a gospel form than anything which went before. By comparing scripture with scripture, as we are commanded, 1 Corinthians 2:13. we can best form our conclusions of the several expressions we meet with. Job saith in this place, That 'the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.' Now as in other scriptures we are told, That the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; and that CHRIST is made of GOD, to us, wisdom; it should seem to follow, that in the knowledge of CHRIST, as the wisdom of GOD, for salvation, consists the whole of what is here expressed in this holy and childlike fear. I refer to those scriptures: 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Psalms 111:10; Jeremiah 32:40. And, as a collateral proof, the prophet Isaiah had it in commission to tell the Church, that the 'people of no understanding' would have no mercy nor favor shown them: Isaiah 27:11. Isaiah not this want of understanding an ignorance and despising of that wisdom of GOD in salvation by his dear Son?