Job 40:4

Behold, I am vile - I acknowledge my inward defilement. I cannot answer thee. I will lay mine hand upon my mouth - I cannot excuse myself, and I must be dumb before thee.

I am (too) vile (to reply). It is a very different thing to vindicate ourselves before God, from what it is before men. Job could do the latter, not the former. lay . . . hand . . . upon . . . mouth--I have no plea to offer (Job 21:5; Jdg 18:19).

Behold, I am vile,.... Or "light" (a); which may have respect either to his words and arguments, which he thought had force in them, but now he saw they had none; or to his works and actions, the integrity of his life, and the uprightness of his ways, which he imagined were weighty and of great importance, but now being weighed in the balances of justice were found wanting; or it may refer to his original meanness and distance from God, being dust and ashes, and nothing in comparison of him; and so the Septuagint version is, "I am nothing"; see Isa 40:17; or rather to the original vileness and sinfulness of his nature he had now a sight of, and saw how he had been breaking forth in unbecoming expressions concerning God and his providence: the nature of man is exceeding vile and sinful; his heart desperately wicked; his thoughts, and the imaginations of them, evil, and that continually; his mind and conscience are defiled; his affections inordinate, and his understanding and will sadly depraved; he is vile in soul and body; of all which an enlightened man is convinced, and will acknowledge; what shall I answer thee? I am not able to answer thee, who am but dust and ashes; what more can I say than to acknowledge my levity, vanity, and vileness? he that talked so big, and in such a blustering manner of answering God, as in Job 13:22; now has nothing to say for himself; I will lay mine hand upon my mouth; impose silence upon himself, and as it were lay a restraint upon himself from speaking: it looks as if there were some workings in Job's heart; he thought he could say something, and make some reply, but durst not, for fear of offending yet more and more, and therefore curbed it in; see Psa 39:1. (a) "levis sum", Cocceius, Michaelis; "leviter locutus sum", V. L.

4 Behold, I am too mean: what shall I answer Thee? I lay my hand upon my mouth. 5 Once have I spoken, and will not begin again; And twice - I will do it no more. He is small, i.e., not equal to the task imposed, therefore he keeps his mouth firmly closed (comp. Job 21:5; Job 29:9), for whatever he might say would still not be to the point. Once he has dared to criticise God's doings; a second time (שׁתּים = שׁנית, Ges. 120, 5) he ventures it no more, for God's wondrous wisdom and all-careful love dazzle him, and he gladly bows. But how? Is not the divine speech altogether different from what one ought to expect? One expects to hear from the mouth of Jehovah something unheard of in the previous course of the drama, and in this expectation we find ourselves disappointed at the outset. For one need only look back and read Job 9:4-10, where Job acknowledges and describes God as a wise and mighty Lord over the natural world, especially as an irresistible Ruler over everything great in it; Job 12:7-10, where he refers to the creatures of the sky and deep as proofs of God's creative power; Job 12:11-25, where he sketches the grandest picture of God's terrible doings in nature and among men; Job 26:5-14, where he praises God as the Creator and Lord of all things, and describes what he says concerning Him as only a faint echo of the thunder of His might; Job 28:23, where he ascribes absolute wisdom to Him as the Creator of and Ruler of the world. If one ponders these passages of Job's speeches, he will not be able to say that the speech of Jehovah, in the exhibition of the creative power and wisdom of God, which is its theme, would make Job conscious of anything which was previously unknown to him; and it is accordingly asked, What, then, is there that is new in the speech of Je…

Many humbling confounding questions God had put to Job, in the foregoing chapter; now, in this chapter, I. He demands an answer to them (Job 40:1, Job 40:2). II. Job submits in a humble silence (Job 40:3-5). III. God proceeds to reason with him, for his conviction, concerning the infinite distance and disproportion between him and God, showing that he was by no means an equal match for God. He challenges him (Job 40:6, Job 40:7) to vie with him, if he durst, for justice (Job 40:8), power (Job 40:9), majesty (Job 40:10), and dominion over the proud (Job 40:11-14), and he gives an instance of his power in one particular animal, here called "Behemoth," (Job 40:15-24).

40:4 I am nothing (cp. 42:6): Job was not repenting from sin; like Abraham, he recognized his unworthiness (Gen 18:27). • Job had asked his comforters to cover their mouth to acknowledge shock (21:5); here he does so himself in reaction to his own rash words.