Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo

Job 12

Job challenges his friends' confidence by describing God's rule over a world where the blameless suffer and robbers prosper.

Job answers his friends with sarcasm, rejecting their claim to superior wisdom. He describes the humiliation of being mocked while robbers prosper and those who provoke God live secure. Turning to the animals and the earth, he declares that every life rests in God's hand. His speech then moves through scenes of God's overwhelming rule: waters withheld or unleashed, counselors stripped, rulers overthrown, and nations enlarged or destroyed. Human understanding offers no protection against that power.

injustice and angerdoubt
Read
2“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?
4I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
5In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.
6The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands.
7“But ask the animals now, and they will teach you; the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
9Who doesn’t know that in all these, the LORD’s hand has done this,
10in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
11Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food?
12With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.
13“With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.
14Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.
15Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
16With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
17He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
18He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt.
19He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty.
20He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.
21He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.
22He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.
23He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.
24He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
25They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Job 12:10Every creature's life and every human breath depend on God, whose rule Job's friends cannot explain through his suffering.
Job 12:14Job portrays God's actions as beyond human reversal, introducing examples that unsettle confidence in human power and wisdom.
Job 12:16Even the deceived and the deceiver remain under God's authority, extending Job's claim beyond visible strength to human schemes.
Where this chapter reaches

Job's claim that every living thing depends on God's hand shares with Acts the theme that God sustains human life and breath. His descriptions of rulers overthrown and nations changed share with Daniel the theme of God's authority over earthly kingdoms.

Job 12's chapter linksAll strongest linksHover or tap a book
Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What does Job's contrast between comfortable observers and mocked sufferers help you notice about responses to misfortune?

Write on this

Which image of God's rule in verses 13–25 most challenges your understanding of wisdom or security?

Write on this

Questions people ask about Job 12

Why does Job say wisdom will die with his friends?

Job is using sarcasm. His next statement, that he has understanding equal to theirs, makes the point clear: they do not possess all wisdom. He objects to being treated as a joke and challenges their account of the world by pointing to robbers who prosper while the blameless suffer.

What does Job 12:16 mean by saying the deceived and the deceiver are God's?

The verse asserts God's rule over both parties in deception. It does not explain why he permits deception or say that deceit is good. In the surrounding verses, Job describes God overturning human counsel and power; even people who manipulate others remain under his authority.

Read it. Now write it.

Start an entry on Job 12. Your words go beside the text, and you get one next step for the week.

Job · 42 chapters
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142
What the Bible says about anger →What the Bible says about doubt →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).