Job 32:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Lest ye should say; it is a defective speech, and may be thus supplied: Thus it was, or God thus left you to your own weakness, and mistakes, and impertinent discourses, lest ye should say, &c., i.e. lest you should ascribe the conquering or silencing of Job to your own wisdom, age, and experience; or lest you should boastingly say, We have discovered and said all that can or need be said in the cause, the sum and substance of the thing, that which may fully and finally end the controversy, which is contained in the following words. God thrusteth him down, not man: these are alleged by Elihu, in the person of Job's three friends, or as their words. The sense is, The stupendous judgments which are upon Job have not been brought upon him by man solely and originally, for then there might have been some ground for Job's complaints, there might have been injustice or cruelty in them; but immediately by the hand of God, of that God, who being omniscient, and just, and true, and merciful, would never have dealt thus hardly with Job if he were not a hypocrite, and guilty of some very gross, though secret, sins; which is the ground-work of our discourses. But, saith Elihu, this argument doth not satisfy me, and therefore bear with me if I seek for better.