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Atlas of Saints

Job

Chapter 12 · Douay–Rheims / Challoner

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Chapter XII · Location 12 of 42

Chapter 12 · Open to read

From Job · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)

What does Job Chapter 12 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Job disputes his companions' exclusive wisdom, describes mockery and says the mocked caller will be heard. He appeals to animals, earth and fish and speaks of wisdom, discernment and divine power. Job lists the undoing of rulers and counselors and the multiplication, destruction and restoration of nations.

Chapter breakdown

Job answered Sophar and his companions with biting irony, asking whether they were the only men alive and whether all wisdom would perish with them. He maintained that he possessed an understanding mind like theirs and was in no way inferior to them in knowledge. Job said that the mocked man would call upon God and be heard, and lamented that an upright and innocent man is laughed to scorn by his peers, and that the lamp despised in the thoughts of the rich is ready for the appointed time, while the tents of robbers abound and boldly provoke God despite receiving their abundance from His hand. He directed his accusers to the natural world, declaring that beasts, birds of the air, the earth, and the fish of the sea all testify that the hand of the Lord created them, and that in His sovereign hand rests the life of every living creature and the breath of all mankind.

In Job’s continuing speech, just as the ear tests words and the palate discerns food, Job says wisdom is in the ancient and prudence in length of days, and that with God are wisdom, strength, counsel and understanding. Job illustrated God's unconstrained sovereignty across nature and human history: when God tears down, no human power can rebuild; when He imprisons someone, none can open; when He withholds waters, lands wither, and when He releases floods, the earth is overturned. Job says God knows both the deceived and the deceiver, reducing counselors to folly, bringing judges to insensibility, loosening the belts of reigning monarchs to bind their waists with a cord, stripping honor from priests, overthrowing nobles, changing the speech of true speakers, stripping insight from the aged, and pouring contempt on princes while lifting up the downtrodden. Job says God discovers deep things out of darkness and brings the shadow of death to light, multiplies nations, destroys them and restores them again after overthrow, strips national rulers of their sound judgment, and leaves them to grope blindly in pathless darkness, staggering like drunken men.

The story inside

Opening: Job disputes his companions' exclusive wisdom, describes mockery and says the mocked caller will be heard. Development: He appeals to animals, earth and fish and speaks of wisdom, discernment and divine power. Conclusion: Job lists the undoing of rulers and counselors and the multiplication, destruction and restoration of nations.

Lessons worth keeping

  1. 1
    Job disputes his companions' exclusive wisdom, describes mockery and says the mocked caller will be heard.
  2. 2
    He appeals to animals, earth and fish and speaks of wisdom, discernment and divine power.
  3. 3
    Job lists the undoing of rulers and counselors and the multiplication, destruction and restoration of nations.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

  1. Lines 55121–55121

    12:2. Are you then men alone, and shall wisdom die with you?
  2. Lines 55141–55145

    12:9. Who is ignorant that the hand of the Lord hath made all these things? 12:10. In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the spirit of all flesh of man.
  3. Lines 55167–55170

    12:18. He looseth the belt of kings, and girdeth their loins with a cord. 12:19. He leadeth away priests without glory, and overthroweth nobles.

Location: chapter 12 of 42 · 29%

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