If he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him?
Ver. 10. If he cut off, and shut up] Heb. If he change, viz. his course or way of proceedings toward men, either to shut them up close prisoners, or otherwise to put them to such straits that (Job-like) they know not what to do, or which way to turn themselves.
Or gather together] viz. His witnesses, say some, against an offender; his armies and military forces, saith the Chaldee paraphrast, to ruin his enemies; his outcasts, say some interpreters, according to that, Psalms 147:2, "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel." If he do any or all of these to show his sovereignty, as well he may,
Then who can hinder him?] Heb. Turn him away, or put a stop to him? If God should do and undo, confound all things, turn the world upside down, who shall contradict him or question him? May he not do with his own as he pleaseth? And might not Zophar have spared thus to have spoken to Job, since Job had said the same to him in effect before? Atqui non erat necesse haec a Zophar dici, quum de his iam et eadem dixisset Iob (Merc.). But Zophar's design was to prove hereby that he who is by God brought into straits is a wicked liver. He therefore in the two following verses glanceth at him as vain, wicked, brutish, and not unlike to a wild ass's colt, such as God would surely tame and tutor to better things by afflictions, and so bring him to hand.