Albert Barnes Commentary Job 12:25

"They grope in the dark without light; And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man." — Job 12:25 (ASV)

They grope in the dark – They are like persons who attempt to feel their way along in the dark; compare the notes at Isaiah 59:10.

And he makes them to stagger like a drunken man – Margin, “wander.” Their unstable and perplexed counsels are like the reelings of a drunken man; see Isaiah 19:14, note; Isaiah 24:20, note.

This closes the chapter, and with it the controversy regarding the ability to adduce pertinent and striking proverbial expressions; see the notes at Job 12:3.

Job had shown them that he was as familiar with proverbs respecting God as they were, and that he held such exalted ideas of the control and government of the Most High as they did.

It may be added that these are sublime and beautiful expressions respecting God. They surpass all that can be found in pagan writings; and they show that somehow in the earliest ages, views of God prevailed which the human mind for ages afterward, and in the most favorable circumstances, could not originate.

These proverbial sayings were doubtless fragments of revealed truth, which had come down by tradition, and which were thus embodied in a form convenient to be transmitted from age to age.