Job 5:13

5:13 He catches ¹  the wise in their own craftiness, ² 

and the counsel of the cunning ³  is brought to a quick end. ⁴ 

Job 12:2-3

12:2 “Without a doubt you are the people, ⁵ 

and wisdom will die with you. ⁶ 

12:3 I also have understanding ⁷  as well as you;

I am not inferior to you. ⁸ 

Who does not know such things as these? ⁹ 

Job 28:28

28:28 And he said to mankind,

‘The fear of the Lord ¹⁰  – that is wisdom,

and to turn away from evil is understanding.’” ¹¹ 

Proverbs 30:2-4

30:2 Surely ¹²  I am more brutish ¹³  than any other human being, ¹⁴ 

and I do not have human understanding; ¹⁵ 

30:3 I have not learned wisdom,

nor do I have knowledge ¹⁶  of the Holy One. ¹⁷ 

30:4 Who has ascended into heaven, and then descended? ¹⁸ 

Who has gathered up the winds in his fists? ¹⁹ 

Who has bound up the waters in his cloak? ²⁰ 

Who has established all the ends of the earth? ²¹ 

What is his name, and what is his son’s name? ²²  – if you know!

Romans 12:16

12:16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. ²³  Do not be conceited. ²⁴ 

Romans 12:1

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ²⁵  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²⁶  – which is your reasonable service.

Colossians 3:18-20

Exhortation to Households

3:18 Wives, submit to your ²⁷  husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.

James 3:13-17

True Wisdom

3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct he should show his works done in the gentleness that wisdom brings. ²⁸  3:14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfishness in your hearts, do not boast and tell lies against the truth. 3:15 Such ²⁹  wisdom does not come ³⁰  from above but is earthly, natural, ³¹  demonic. 3:16 For where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is disorder and every evil practice. 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, ³²  full of mercy and good fruit, ³³  impartial, and not hypocritical. ³⁴ 

[5:13]  ¹ tn The participles continue the description of God. Here he captures or ensnares the wise in their wickedly clever plans. See also Ps 7:16, where the wicked are caught in the pit they have dug – they are only wise in their own eyes.

[5:13]  ² sn This is the only quotation from the Book of Job in the NT (although Rom 11:35 seems to reflect 41:11, and Phil 1:19 is similar to 13:6). Paul cites it in 1 Cor 3:19.

[5:13]  ³ tn The etymology of נִפְתָּלִים (niftalim) suggests a meaning of “twisted” (see Prov 8:8) in the sense of tortuous. See Gen 30:8; Ps 18:26 [27].

[5:13]  ⁴ tn The Niphal of מָהַר (mahar) means “to be hasty; to be irresponsible.” The meaning in the line may be understood in this sense: The counsel of the wily is hastened, that is, precipitated before it is ripe, i.e., frustrated (A. B. Davidson, Job, 39).

[12:2]  ⁵ tn The expression “you are the people” is a way of saying that the friends hold the popular opinion – they represent it. The line is sarcastic. Commentators do not think the parallelism is served well by this, and so offer changes for “people.” Some have suggested “you are complete” (based on Arabic), “you are the strong one” (based on Ugaritic), etc. J. A. Davies tried to solve the difficulty by making the second clause in the verse a paratactic relative clause: “you are the people with whom wisdom will die” (“Note on Job 12:2,” VT 25 [1975]: 670-71).

[12:2]  ⁶ sn The sarcasm of Job admits their claim to wisdom, as if no one has it besides them. But the rest of his speech will show that they do not have a monopoly on it.

[12:3]  ⁷ tn The word is literally “heart,” meaning a mind or understanding.

[12:3]  ⁸ tn Because this line is repeated in 13:2, many commentators delete it from this verse (as does the LXX). The Syriac translates נֹפֵל (nofel) as “little,” and the Vulgate “inferior.” Job is saying that he does not fall behind them in understanding.

[12:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “With whom are not such things as these?” The point is that everyone knows the things that these friends have been saying – they are commonplace.

[28:28]  ¹⁰ tc A number of medieval Hebrew manuscripts have YHWH (“Lord”); BHS has אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “Lord”). As J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 383) points out, this is the only occurrence of אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “Lord”) in the book of Job, creating doubt for retaining it. Normally, YHWH is avoided in the book. “Fear of” (יִרְאַת, yir’at) is followed by שַׁדַּי (shadday, “Almighty”) in 6:14 – the only other occurrence of this term for “fear” in construct with a divine title.

[28:28]  ¹¹ tc Many commentators delete this verse because (1) many read the divine name Yahweh (translated “Lord”) here, and (2) it is not consistent with the argument that precedes it. But as H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 185) points out, there is inconsistency in this reasoning, for many of the critics have already said that this chapter is an interpolation. Following that line of thought, then, one would not expect it to conform to the rest of the book in this matter of the divine name. And concerning the second difficulty, the point of this chapter is that wisdom is beyond human comprehension and control. It belongs to God alone. So the conclusion that the fear of the Lord is wisdom is the necessary conclusion. Rowley concludes: “It is a pity to rob the poem of its climax and turn it into the expression of unrelieved agnosticism.”

[30:2]  ¹² tn The particle כִּי (ki) functions in an asseverative sense, “surely; indeed; truly” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §449).

[30:2]  ¹³ tn The noun בַּעַר (ba’ar) means “brutishness”; here it functions as a predicate adjective. It is followed by מֵאִישׁ (me’ish) expressing comparative degree: “more than a man” or “more than any man,” with “man” used in a generic sense. He is saying that he has fallen beneath the level of mankind. Cf. NRSV “I am too stupid to be human.”

[30:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “than man.” The verse is using hyperbole; this individual feels as if he has no intelligence at all, that he is more brutish than any other human. Of course this is not true, or he would not be able to speculate on the God of the universe at all.

[30:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the understanding of a man,” with “man” used attributively here.

[30:3]  ¹⁶ sn The construction uses repetition to make the point emphatically: “I do not know the knowledge of the Holy One.” Agur’s claim to being “brutish” is here clarified – he is not one of those who has knowledge or understanding of God. C. H. Toy thinks the speaker is being sarcastic in reference to others who may have claimed such knowledge (Proverbs [ICC], 521).

[30:3]  ¹⁷ tn The epithet “the Holy One” is the adjective “holy” put in the masculine plural (as in 9:10). This will harmonize with the plural of majesty used to explain the plural with titles for God. However, NRSV takes the plural as a reference to the “holy ones,” presumably referring to angelic beings.

[30:4]  ¹⁸ sn To make his point Agur includes five questions. These, like Job 38–41, or Proverbs 8:24-29, focus on the divine acts to show that it is absurd for a mere mortal to think that he can explain God’s work or compare himself to God. These questions display mankind’s limitations and God’s incomparable nature. The first question could be open to include humans, but may refer to God alone (as the other questions do).

[30:4]  ¹⁹ sn The questions are filled with anthropomorphic language. The questioner is asking what humans have ever done this, but the meaning is that only God has done this. “Gathering the wind in his fists” is a way of expressing absolute sovereign control over the forces of nature.

[30:4]  ²⁰ sn The question is comparing the clouds of the heavens to garments (e.g., Job 26:8). T. T. Perowne writes, “Men bind up water in skins or bottles; God binds up the rain-floods in the thin, gauzy texture of the changing clouds, which yet by his power does not rend under its burden of waters.”

[30:4]  ²¹ sn The ends of the earth is an expression often used in scripture as a metonymy of subject referring to the people who live in the ends of the earth, the far off and remote lands and islands. While that is possible here as well, this may simply be a synecdoche saying that God created the whole world, even the most remote and distant places.

[30:4]  ²² sn The reference to “son” in this passage has prompted many suggestions down through the years: It was identified as Israel in the Jewish Midrashim, the Logos or demiurge by some of the philosophers and allegorical writers, as simple poetic parallelism without a separate identity by some critical scholars, and as Jesus by Christian commentators. Parallels with Ugaritic are interesting, because Baal is referred to as a son; but that is bound up within the pantheon where there was a father god. Some of the Jewish commentators exhibit a strange logic in expressing what Christians would say is only their blindness to the full revelation: There is little cogency in this being a reference to Jesus because if there had been such a person at any time in the past he would have left some tradition about it through his descendants (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 317). But Judaism has taught from the earliest times that Messiah was preexistent (especially in view of Micah 5 and Daniel 7); and the claims of Jesus in the Gospels bear this out. It seems best to say that there is a hint here of the nature of the Messiah as Son, a hint that will later be revealed in full through the incarnation.

[12:16]  ²³ tn Or “but give yourselves to menial tasks.” The translation depends on whether one takes the adjective “lowly” as masculine or neuter.

[12:16]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Do not be wise in your thinking.”

[12:1]  ²⁵ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ²⁶ tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[3:18]  ²⁷ tn The article τοῖς (tois) with ἀνδράσιν (andrasin, “husbands”) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (“your”); see ExSyn 215.

[3:13]  ²⁸ tn Grk “works in the gentleness of wisdom.”

[3:15]  ²⁹ tn Grk “This.”

[3:15]  ³⁰ tn Grk “come down”; “descend.”

[3:15]  ³¹ tn Grk “soulish,” which describes life apart from God, characteristic of earthly human life as opposed to what is spiritual. Cf. 1 Cor 2:14; 15:44-46; Jude 19.

[3:17]  ³² tn Or “willing to yield,” “open to persuasion.”

[3:17]  ³³ tn Grk “fruits.” The plural Greek term καρπούς has been translated with the collective singular “fruit.”

[3:17]  ³⁴ tn Or “sincere.”