Chapter 12

1 Then Job answered: 2 “Without a doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you. 3 I also have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these? 4 I am a laughingstock to my friends, I, who called on God and whom he answered—a righteous and blameless man is a laughingstock! 5 For calamity, there is derision (according to the ideas of the fortunate)—a fate for those whose feet slip. 6 But the tents of robbers are peaceful, and those who provoke God are confident—who carry their god in their hands. 7 “But now, ask the animals and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.⁠ 8 Or speak to the earth and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea declare to you. 9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? 10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all the human race. 11 Does not the ear test words, as the tongue tastes food? 12 Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding? 13 With God are wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. 14 If he tears down, it cannot be rebuilt; if he imprisons a person, there is no escape. 15 If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; if he releases them, they destroy the land. 16 With him are strength and prudence; both the one who goes astray and the one who misleads are his. 17 He leads counselors away stripped and makes judges into fools. 18 He loosens the bonds of kings and binds a loincloth around their waist. 19 He leads priests away stripped and overthrows the potentates. 20 He deprives the trusted advisers of speech and takes away the discernment of elders. 21 He pours contempt on noblemen and disarms the powerful.⁠ 22 He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light. 23 He makes nations great and destroys them; he extends the boundaries of nations and disperses them. 24 He deprives the leaders of the earth of their understanding; he makes them wander in a trackless desert waste. 25 They grope about in darkness without light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 107:40 and Job 12:21

Hebrew Bible

Summary

Job 12 and Psalm 107 describe God overthrowing and humbling the powerful, but Job uses this language with irony rather than praise. The psalm praises divine justice that restores the oppressed, while Job highlights the unpredictability of divine power.

Passages

Psalm 107:40

Hebrew Bible

38 He blessed them so that they became very numerous. He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. 39 As for their enemies, they decreased in number and were beaten down, because of painful distress and suffering. 40 He would pour contempt upon princes, and he made them wander in a wasteland with no road. 41 Yet he protected the needy from oppression and cared for his families like a flock of sheep. 42 When the godly see this, they rejoice, and every sinner shuts his mouth.

600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

Job 12:21

Hebrew Bible

19 He leads priests away stripped and overthrows the potentates. 20 He deprives the trusted advisers of speech and takes away the discernment of elders. 21 He pours contempt on noblemen and disarms the powerful. 22 He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light. 23 He makes nations great and destroys them; he extends the boundaries of nations and disperses them. 24 He deprives the leaders of the earth of their understanding; he makes them wander in a trackless desert waste.

500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

References

"... if “parody” in a given text is established, it should have the following features: (1) “the allusive imitation” of “the precursor text”; (2) the mocking, polemical, or attacking mode of the parodied text. Then, does the claim of Job’s parody over Psalms satisfy those conditions? Firstly, what one needs to confirm concerning “parody” is whether the corresponding author of Job intends to imitate the original work, i.e. specific texts within the Psalms. Will Kynes, for instance, argues that the author of Job 12:21, 24 parodies Psalm 107:40 to mock Eliphaz’s speech. Although part of Job 12 is similar to Psalm 107:40, one may not deny another possibility: both texts may depend on a shared hymn and (more reasonably) Job 12:13–25 sarcastically responds to Job 5:17–26, where Eliphaz states that the one whom God reproves will be delivered and blessed. Essentially, it is more realistic to view such similarities of Job with psalmic texts as the spread of a broad intellectual network in its compositional period rather than as a quotation, an allusion, or an echo in a narrow sense. If the author of Job borrows from Psalm 107, the form of hymn poetry that people generally recognize at the time should be strengthened in its given dialogue of Job 12. However, Job 12:13–24, in general, highlights that the destructive power of the divinity dismantles the power and wisdom of political governors and leaders of all nations without any purpose ..."

JiSeong J. Kwon, “Not Parody, but Irony: Irony in the Book of Job,” in Irony in the Bible: Between Subversion and Innovation, ed. Tobias Häner, Virginia Miller, and Carolyn J. Sharp (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 114–131.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Job42 chapters

Compare Psalm 107:40 and Job 12:21

Summary

Passages

Psalm 107:40

Job 12:21

References

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