Job 42:1

JOB’S SECOND AND LAST REPLY, Job 42:2-6.

In recognising the almightiness of God his infinite power in its relations not only to the diversified types of evil, but to evil itself Job declares God to be just and wise, and in all things governed by the highest principles of right. At the contemplation of the inmost harmony in the divine Being between almightiness, justice, goodness, and wisdom, and by contrast his own rampant folly and wickedness, he abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes, Job 42:2-6.

The reply links itself for the most part with Job 40:7-14, which contains the challenge of the Almighty respecting the control and government of the world, in connexion with which the amplification in Job 40:15-24 and chap. 41 furnishes living criteria ugly touchstones for the proudest human reason. “If even that which is apparently most contradictory, rightly perceived, is so glorious, his affliction is also no such monstrous injustice as he thinks. On the contrary, it is a profoundly elaborated thought, (mizimmah,) a well-digested counsel, (‘ heisah,) of God.” Delitzsch.