Verse 12
12. For And or so. The transition of thought is, according to Hirtzel, “Over against this infinite knowledge of God man appears as a born fool.” Its drift, rather, is to show the effect of the divine arraignment upon men meaning Job who shows himself so ready to refer his case to God. This verse contains several ambiguous words, and has given rise to a great variety of interpretations. Thus Gesenius, Olshausen, and others: “But empty man is devoid of understanding, and (like) the foal of an ass man is born.” Others interpret it: “Before an empty man will become wise, a wild ass would be born a man.” (Oehler, Delitzsch.) Others yet, (Schultens and Dathe:) “Let, then, vain man be wise, and the wild ass’s colt become a man.” The rendering of most moderns approaches that of our translators, though with a modified sense. So would a witless man become wise, and a wild ass’s foal be born a man. In other words, were God to summon him before his tribunal, the most senseless man must get understanding, and the wildest and most stubborn sinner (here compared to a wild ass) become a man. “We have here,” says Hengstenberg, “the first passage of Scripture which speaks of a regeneration.” In the expressions, naboub, “hollow” (headed,) and yillabeb, “get wisdom,” (literally, heart,) there is, as Hitzig has remarked, a play on Job’s name, Iyyob, a personality which Job appreciates. See note on Job 12:3. “The void in his head is to be filled up, as it were, by a new heart.”
Vain man נבוב , hollow-headed. The word is used of a pillar. Jeremiah 52:21. Wild ass’s colt This is evidently a proverbial expression, and as such is still used by the Arabs, who employ the terms, “an ass of the desert,” or “wild ass,” to describe an obstinate, indocile, and contumacious person. KITTO, Pictorial Bible. “A young wild ass is the wildest and roughest of creatures.” Wetzstein. Among classic writers Oppian describes the ass as “swift, rapid, with strong hoofs, and most fleet in his course.” Thus Confucius: “The Master said, Men all say, ‘We are wise;’ but being driven forward and taken in a net, a trap, or a pitfall, they know not how to escape. Men all say, ‘We are wise,’ but happening to choose the course of the mean, they are not able to keep it for a round month.” The Doctrine of the Mean, section 7. Plato introduces the poets as “mentioning man’s predisposition to vice, and saying:
How vice at once and easily we choose,
The way so smooth, its dwelling, too, so nigh!
Toil before virtue, thus forewilled the gods.”
Republic, ii, chap. 7.
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