Job 42:1-6 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Job's Final Withdrawal

Job at last has learned his lesson. The convincing evidences of wisdom, power, and love which God has offered him, have led him to lay aside his pride of intellect and pride of innocence. He feels that he may safely trust, even though he may never fully understand, and with Abraham he may rest convinced that the Judge of all the earth must do right.
The difficulties of Job were the difficulties of the author and of the thoughtful men of his day. 'He had pondered the ethical and religious problem presented by the moral order of the world. With a flaming hatred of wrong and tender pity for the oppressed, he saw the triumph of the wicked and the misery of the just. He was familiar with the current doctrines, and knew how they ignored the most patent facts. A truly religious man, he had found his heart drawn to God by the irrepressible instinct for fellowship with Him, driven from Him by the apparent immorality of His government. He had known what it was to be baffled in his search for God and to feel himself slipping from the fear of the Almighty. An intellectual solution he had not been able to reach. But in humble submission to God's inscrutable wisdom, and in a profounder sense of fellowship with Him, he had escaped into the region of unclouded trust' (Prof. A. S. Peake's 'Job').

2b. RV 'And that no purpose of thine can be restrained.'

Job 42:1-6

1 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,

2 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.

3 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

4 Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.