Carefully Examining the Text

Job 12:13-25

Tommy Peeler

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 12:13-25 God reverses people’s fortunes (I Sam.2:1-10; Ps. 113:5-8) and does so in the life and death of Jesus (Luke 1:46-56).  Job has stressed the sovereignty of God in bringing disaster upon the greatest of men. But the sovereign one stepped into history in the person of Jesus and man have insulted, rejected, and murdered the King and the LORD.  

 12:13 All these terms for wisdom, strength, counsel, and power are used of the ideal Messianic ruler from the stem of Jesse in Isa. 11:2. Isaiah 11:1-5 paints a beautiful picture of the ruler from David’s line who was to come. 

 12:14 The word for rebuilt in the LXX is also used in John 2:20. The context is that Jesus prophesied of His resurrection (John 2:19-22). There what Jesus rebuilds cannot be destroyed. 

 12:14 Jesus opens a door that cannot be shut and shuts a door that cannot be open (Rev. 3:7). The same terms in the LXX of Job 12:14 are used in Rev. 3:7.

 12:17-21 Mary’s prayer in Luke 1 shows that in the very act of God sending Jesus into the world He “brought down rulers from their thrones, and He has exalted those who were humble” (Luke 1:52).

 12:19 The word used for captives in the LXX, priests are led away captive, is used of those that Jesus set free in Luke 4:18. By enduring the pain and anguish of the cross Jesus set free the captives. 

 12:20 Jesus was silent before Pilate (Matt. 27:12-14; Mk. 15:4-5; Jn. 19:9-10) and Herod (Lk. 23:9). The most eloquent of men was speechless. 

 12:22 As God brings darkness out of light so at the cross, darkness engulfed the land in the brightest moments of the day (Matt. 27:45; Mk. 15:33; Lk.23:44-45).

 12:22 These two terms used for the darkness and deep darkness here were used in 10:21-22 to describe the darkness of Sheol. It is Jesus through His resurrection who gives the ultimate victory over Sheol (Acts 2:27-31).

 12:25 While He is made to grope in the darkness, through these events of His death and resurrection, the light of the world (John 1:4; 8:12) transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to light (Col. 1:12-14).

 Think of how Christ, the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords (Rev. 19:16), experienced Job 12, especially vs. 17-21, in the events surrounding the cross. Job complained that God humbles the great, wise, and noble and robs them of all their dignity. In Jesus God became a man and humbles Himself (Phil. 2:7-8) to become a subject of mockery and reproach upon the cross (Matt. 27:38-44; Mk. 15:27-32; Lk. 23:35-39). They truly poured contempt on Him He was stripped and goes barefooted (I assume) to the cross. By experiencing the cross, Jesus gives a whole new meaning to suffering and shame (II Cor. 8:9; Heb. 12:1-2). He makes it possible for the captives to be set free from their prisons (Luke 4:18).

In the cross God utterly confounds human wisdom- (I Cor. 1:18-2:5).