Job 27:1

1. Job waits for an answer. The friends are silenced. He is now master of the field. The mists that surrounded his opponents had served to magnify them and their cause. Job now stands forth in the clear sunlight of truth, alone and conqueror. He confirms his integrity by the most solemn appeal to God and his conscience. No one, he says, could maintain such hope in the sight of death, such trust in God’s help, such joyous confidence in him, and be conscious of such guilt as they had charged. (Job 27:8-10.) Now that he has driven his friends from their extreme positions, he reviews the ground he has gained, and brings out into stronger relief some principles he himself had advanced, at least in theory, one of which was that the prosperity of the wicked was apparent, and could not endure, (Job 21:16; Job 21:21, etc.,) but which, in the heat of the controversy, had not received their proper attention. (See note on Job 27:13.) His argument throughout had assumed a future adjustment of wrong and sin, (Job 27:8.) But this is not sufficient. The doctrine of future awards lacks substantial basis if there be no retributive government of the wicked in this life.

Parable Mashal: a discourse conveying important truth in language concise and to a high degree poetical. Balaam took up his parable. Numbers 23:1. “The introduction of the ultimatum, as mashal, reminds one of ‘ the proverb ( el-methel,) seals it,’ in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech.” Delitzsch. The phrase Job “continued to take up his parable,” serves to mark the pause that must have ensued upon the close of his reply to Bildad, while he waited in vain to hear from the discomfited Zophar.