Albert Barnes Commentary Job 12:11

"Doth not the ear try words, Even as the palate tasteth its food?" — Job 12:11 (ASV)

Does not the ear try words? – The literal meaning of this, which is evidently a proverbial expression, is plain; but its application here presents more difficulty. The literal sense is that it is the function of the ear to distinguish sounds and convey their meaning to the soul. But regarding the exact application of this proverb to the matter at hand, commentators have not agreed. Probably the meaning is that there should be diligent attention to the significance of words and to the meaning of a speaker, just as one carefully tastes food. Job, perhaps, may be inclined to complain that his friends had not given the attention they should have to the true design and significance of his remarks. Or it may mean that man is endowed with the faculty of attending to the nature and qualities of objects, and that he should exercise that faculty in judging the lessons taught concerning God or His works.

And the mouth – The margin notes, as in the Hebrew, חך (chêk) – “palate.” The word means not only the palate but also the lower part of the mouth (according to Gesenius) and is especially used to designate the organ or the seat of taste (Psalms 119:103; Job 6:30).

His meat – Its food – the word “meat” being used in Old English to denote all kinds of food. The meaning is, man is endowed with the faculty of distinguishing what is wholesome from what is unwholesome, and he should, in like manner, exercise the faculty God has given him of distinguishing the true from the false on moral subjects.

He should not suppose that all that has been said, or that could be said, must necessarily be true. He should not suppose that merely stringing together proverbs and uttering commonplace suggestions is a mark of true wisdom. He should separate the valuable from the worthless, the true from the false, and the wholesome from the injurious. Job complains that his friends had not done this. They had shown no power of discrimination or selection.

They had uttered commonplace apothegms, and they gathered adages from former times without any discrimination, and had urged them in their arguments against him, whether pertinent or not. It was by this kind of irrelevant and miscellaneous remark that he felt that he had been mocked by his friends (Job 12:4).