Job 12:11-13 New English Translation
11 Does not the ear test words,
as[a] the tongue[b] tastes food?[c]
12 Is not wisdom found among the aged?[d]
Does not long life bring understanding?
13 “With God[e] are wisdom and power;
counsel and understanding are his.[f]
Footnotes
- Job 12:11 tn The ו (vav) introduces the comparison here (see 5:7; 11:12); see GKC 499 §161.a.
- Job 12:11 tn Heb “the palate.”
- Job 12:11 tn The final preposition with its suffix is to be understood as a pleonastic dativus ethicus and not translated (see GKC 439 §135.i).sn In the rest of the chapter Job turns his attention away from creation to the wisdom of ancient men. In Job 13:1 when Job looks back to this part, he refers to both the eye and the ear. In vv. 13-25 Job refers to many catastrophes which he could not have seen, but must have heard about.
- Job 12:12 tn The statement in the Hebrew Bible simply has “among the aged—wisdom.” Since this seems to be more the idea of the friends than of Job, scholars have variously tried to rearrange it. Some have proposed that Job is citing his friends: “With the old men, you say, is wisdom” (Budde, Gray, Hitzig). Others have simply made it a question (Weiser). But others take לֹא (loʾ) from the previous verse and make it the negative here, to say, “wisdom is not….” But Job will draw on the wisdom of the aged, only with discernment, for ultimately all wisdom is with God.
- Job 12:13 tn Heb “him”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Job 12:13 sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 91) says, “These attributes of God’s [sic] confound and bring to nought everything bearing the same name among men.”
New English Translation (NET)
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