Thomas Aquinas Commentary Job 12:11-25

"Doth not the ear try words, Even as the palate tasteth its food? With aged men is wisdom, And in length of days understanding. With [God] is wisdom and might; He hath counsel and understanding. Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again; He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening. Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up; Again, he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth. With him is strength and wisdom; The deceived and the deceiver are his. He leadeth counsellors away stripped, And judges maketh he fools. He looseth the bond of kings, And he bindeth their loins with a girdle. He leadeth priests away stripped, And overthroweth the mighty. He removeth the speech of the trusty, And taketh away the understanding of the elders. He poureth contempt upon princes, And looseth the belt of the strong. He uncovereth deep things out of darkness, And bringeth out to light the shadow of death. He increaseth the nations, and he destroyeth them: He enlargeth the nations, and he leadeth them captive. He taketh away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, And causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light; And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man." — Job 12:11-25 (ASV)

Job asserted above (verse 2) that what Zophar had said about the excellent greatness of God was evident to all people. Here, he intends to show that people can come to understand these things through the experience of divine power and wisdom in human affairs. First, he shows how people arrive at knowledge from experience, saying, Does not the ear judge words... and the palate of one eating distinguish flavor? Since experience comes from the senses, he fittingly shows the power of experience through the judgment of the senses, especially hearing and taste.

Since hearing is the most teachable of all the senses, it is therefore most valuable in the contemplative sciences. Taste, however, perceives food, which is necessary for human life. Therefore, through the judgment of taste, he expresses the experience one has about things in the active life. Because of this, through the judgment of these two senses, he shows the power of experience in speculative as well as practical matters. When he then says, There is wisdom in the ancients, this expresses the contemplative life, because the old have heard many things. Prudence comes with advanced age. This expresses the active life, because people experience many things in a long life, both helpful and harmful.

After showing the power of experience, he adds what people can know about God through experience, saying, With him is wisdom and courage, he has counsel and understanding. Here he attributes four things to God, which have an order among themselves. First is to know hidden things, which pertains to understanding. Second, from the things one understands, one discovers in actions the means that are fitting for an end. This pertains to counsel, just as in speculative matters, a person also deduces reasons from what he understands to know certain conclusions. Third is to have a right judgment about the things a person investigates, which pertains to wisdom. Fourth is to vigorously execute those things which one judges ought to be done, and this pertains to fortitude.

Since experience proceeds from sensible things—which, although prior in our way of knowing, are in their nature posterior—he therefore begins to show how people can know divine power by experience. He does this first in human affairs. For we can see that some people are totally destroyed—either by death, concerning their natural being, or by complete humiliation, concerning their life in civil society—even though they have many protectors. So, when they cannot be helped by others to escape destruction, it is clear that this happens from some concealed cause that is both divine and superior to human power, since human power cannot resist it. This is what he says: If he destroys, there is no one who rebuilds.

In the same way, we see that some are hindered in their projects, even if they are not completely destroyed, although they may have many counselors. Thus, it is clear that this obstruction also results from some more excellent power. So he then says, if he closes a man in—by involving him in different kinds of difficulties—there is no one to free him; that is, no one who can set him free. For according to Ecclesiastes, No one can correct him whom God has despised (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

Then he shows how people can experience divine power in natural things, especially in rains and droughts. So he says, If he will withhold the rain—so that it does not fall—everything will dry up that grows on the earth. If he will send the rain—in great abundance—it will cover the earth, as in floods. Although rain sometimes ceases to the point of a complete drought or falls so heavily that it floods the earth due to natural causes, this still does not detract from the divine power that has ordered these natural causes to their proper effects. Thus, as a conclusion from these premises, he says, With him is strength.

Then he begins to progress to the second point, saying, and wisdom, as if proposing what he intends to clarify. For it is a property of wisdom that through it one may have right judgment about things. The person who can discern how someone is deceived in turning away from the truth is the one who judges correctly about the truth of things. Thus, to show that wisdom is in God, he then says, he knows the one who deceives and the one who is deceived. This means that God, by His right judgment, discerns the deception by which someone neglects the truth from a right understanding of it. He supposes this from what he and his friends hold in common: that human affairs are subject to divine judgment. God could not exercise this judgment unless He knew human sins, among which frauds and deceptions hold a great place.

Next, he shows that there is counsel in God by what appears in human affairs. On this point, consider that while God knows the principles and conditions of the speculative sciences and their order to one another, He does not acquire knowledge of the conclusions through the principles. Instead, He knows all things in a single, simple glance. In the same way, in practical matters, we know the end, the things that lead to the end, and the most efficient ways to attain it. But God does not inquire about the means to an end as we do when we take counsel. Therefore, just as one says there is reason in God—insofar as He knows the order of principles with respect to their consequences—it is not His nature to investigate anything by the method of reasoning as we do. Thus, counsel is attributed to Him not through a method of investigation, but by way of simple and absolute knowledge.

The depth of a person's counsel can be seen in two ways. First, when by the ingenuity of his counsel, he leads his adversaries—even those who seem skilled in counsel—to the necessary outcome that they must arrive at an unfitting conclusion when all their means prove inadequate. Regarding this, he says, He leads counselors to a foolish end, when by the depth of His counsel He keeps them from the means by which they seek to attain their end. Second, someone shows the depth of his counsel when he can lead his adversaries, by the subtlety of his counsel, to ignore what they ought to do. Regarding this, he says, and judges to dullness. He calls "judges" those wise people who usually have the habit of right judgment about what should be done. Just as in speculative disputes someone is called a skilled debater who can lead his adversary to an erroneous conclusion, or can prove a proposition so well that nothing can be said against it, so God does against His adversaries. By the very ways they themselves have chosen, He both leads them to perdition and strengthens His truth, working so that it cannot be shaken by His adversaries.

Having said this in a general way, he now clarifies it with specific examples, showing how all things that seem excellent in human affairs are brought by the depth of divine counsel to a foolish end and to dullness. In human affairs, kings excel in power. Regarding them, he says, The belt of kings he loosens—that is, their swordbelt, for their power is designated by it, according to Psalm 44:4, Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one—and he girds their loins with ropes, when they are led into captivity, in which he notes the complete failure of their power. Priests excel by the reverence in which they are held, and concerning them he adds, he makes the priests inglorious. The leading men and counselors in a kingdom or city seem to excel in the prudence of their advice, and regarding them he says, and he dispossesses the nobles, that is, he deceives them.

Philosophers excel in the consideration of truth. Regarding them, he says, He alters the truth from their lips, that is, the lips of those who are eager to speak the truth. For God sometimes darkens the minds of such people by taking away His grace, so that they cannot find the truth and, consequently, cannot speak it. As Romans says, Saying that they were wise, they have become foolish (Romans 1:22). The old also excel in directing the young, and in their regard he continues, he takes away instruction from the elders. This happens either because the old are made foolish or because they are completely removed from society, as Isaiah says, the Lord will take away from Jerusalem the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder (Isaiah 3:1). Princes excel in the authority they have for ruling others, and about them he says, he pours contempt on princes, so that they are despised by those who should obey them.

All these things seem to relate to what he had said: He leads counselors to a foolish end (Job 12:17). But the fact that some are sometimes advanced from a lower state to the highest seems to relate to what he had said: and judges to dullness (Job 12:17). Regarding this, he then says, and those who have been oppressed he relieves. This refers to the weak who are oppressed by the power of greater men and are sometimes elevated to a state of power after their oppressors are cast aside. As for those who have no prestige but live hidden in the lowest state, he then says, he reveals those deep in darkness. This refers to people placed in a lower state who are unknown because of it, as if existing in darkness. He leads them to glory by revealing them to others.

As for those who are thought foolish and ignorant, he then says, he kindles the light where death’s shadow lay. For the shadow of death seems to be ignorance or stupidity, since the living are distinguished from the non-living especially by knowledge. Thus, he kindles the light where death’s shadow lay when He gives wisdom to the ignorant or reveals the wisdom of those who were wise but previously unknown. What he has just said, Those who had been oppressed he relieves, is in opposition to his other statement, he removes the belt of kings (Job 12:18). When he added, he reveals those deep in darkness, he says this in opposition to he makes the priests inglorious (Job 12:19). When he next said, he kindles the light where death’s shadow lay, he says this in opposition to everything that follows.

Just as he had said that such alternation of exaltation and dejection happens to particular persons from God, he shows this same thing among all peoples, saying of them, who brings growth to the races, so that they increase in number, and ruin to them, when He destroys them by wars or pestilence. And when they have been overturned—either by these things or by the oppression of one or many who rule unfairly—he restores them to integrity, for He returns them to a good condition.

After showing there is strength, wisdom, and counsel in God, he finally shows that God is intelligent. By this, he means the knowledge God has of hidden things, which above all seems to designate what is hidden in the heart. He shows that God knows these things by the fact that He works in the hearts of people, and thus He knows the hidden things of hearts as His own effects. So he says, It is he who changes the heart of the leaders of the people of the land, with respect to their wills. As Proverbs says, The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, who will incline it to whatever he wills (Proverbs 21:1). Although God inclines the wills of all people, special mention is made of kings and princes because their wills carry more weight, for many follow their will.

As to the intellect, he adds, he deceives them. This certainly does not mean that He leads them into falsehood, but that He takes His light away from them so that they may not know the truth, and clouds their reasoning power so that they cannot find suitable means to do the wicked deeds they propose. So he then says, so that they proceed in vain and along a trackless way, that is, they proceed by unfitting ways through which they cannot arrive at their end. One errs in action in two ways. First, by ignorance, and regarding this he says, they will grope in the darkness and not in the light, so that ignorance is designated by darkness and knowledge by light. Some grope in ignorance like blind men, considering only what they can feel is right in front of them, as if by touch. Others err in their actions because of their passions, by which their reason is bound in particular choices, so that they do not apply universal knowledge to their actions. Regarding this, he adds, and he will make them wander like drunkards, for their reason is so bound by passion that it is like a kind of drunkenness.