Job 12:2 wisdom shall perish When you die, all wisdom shall perish with you because all wisdom is in you, but I too have intelligence like you.
Job 12:3 and with whom are there none comparable to these? (Who is it who does not know like these) that the Holy One, blessed be He, has power to perform His will and to allow the tranquility of the wicked to last? You are only mocking me, and I am...
Job 12:4 a laughingstock to his friend He calls to the Holy One, blessed be He, and He answers him concerning the pain of their provocation. Now what does He answer him? To give the righteous laughter. completely Heb. תָּמִים, perfectly.
that the completely righteous will have laughter That is the answer that He will reply with, and I know that it is as you said (8:21), (“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,”) for...
Job 12:5 A brand of contempt The fire of Gehinnom stands for one who is tranquil in his thoughts, saying, “I will have peace.”
prepared The one who is tranquil in his thoughts is destined to be among those who stumble, whose foot slips.
Job 12:6 prosper I know that at times tents will prosper, namely those of the Kedarites who dwell in tents in the deserts, and who are robbers, as it is stated (Gen. 16:12): “a free man among men; his hand shall be against every man.”
are secure Those who provoke God have perfection, anyone to whom the Rock brought peace with His hand, whether he is good or bad.
Job 12:11 Does not the ear discern words So why did the listeners not know this, as the palate tastes to eat?
Job 12:12 In elders there is wisdom etc. to know that with Him is wisdom.
Job 12:15 He sends it away and it overturns the earth As His agents, as He did to the generation of Enosh, when He inundated a third of the world.
Job 12:16 His are the misled The man who is misled.
and the misleader The Adversary, who misleads.
Job 12:17 madness Heb. שולל. It is a noun, ‘madness.’ He leads them away with madness when He wishes to confuse and destroy their wisdom, as in (Isa. 59: 15), “and he who turns away from evil is considered mad (משתולל)”; (Ps. 76:6), “The stouthearted became mad אשתוללוּ.” The “tav” in משתולל and in אשתוללוּ [is inserted because] so is the structure of the Hebrew language: in a word that has a radical “shin” or “sammech,” and which is used in passive or reflexive conjugation, a “tav” is placed after the first radical, like (Ecc. 8:10), “and they will be forgotten (וישתכחו) in the city”; (Micah 6: 16), “For the statutes of Omri are kept (וישתמר)”; (Exod. 9:17), “You still exalt yourself very high (מסתולל) above My people”; (Ecc. 12:5), “and the grasshopper shall drag himself along (ויסתבל).”
Me makes...fools Heb. יהולל, He makes mad, an expression of folly and foolishness.
Job 12:18 He loosens the bond of kings He removed the bond of the yoke from Nebuchadnezzar and dethroned him.
and He binds a girdle to their loins At his start, when He desired him, He girded his loins, and imbued him with strength for kingship.
Job 12:19 princes Heb. כהנים, like (Exod. 3:1), “the prince (כהן) of Midian”; (Gen. 41:45), “the prince (כהן) of On.”
Job 12:20 from trusty men Even from trusty men. (Even to those who believe in Him. Etz Chayim ms.) Sometimes his lips become confused, speaking improper words, e.g. Abraham (about whom it is written:] (Gen. 15:6), And he believed in the Lord.” And later, he stumbled [by saying,] “How will I know?”
Job 12:21 and loosens the belt of the strong And He loosens the belt of the strong. He opens their belt to weaken them, like (Ps. 109:19), “and for the girdle (ולמזח) wherewith he is girded continually.”
the strong Heb. אפיקים, like (below 40:18), “as strong as (אפיקי) copper; (ibid. 41:7), “He is proud of the strength of (אפיקי) His scales.”
Job 12:23 He makes nations great and destroys them Heb. משׂגיא. Some say, as He did to the Egyptians when they overtook Israel before Baal-zephon (Exod. 14:9). They erred and said, “You should know that He agreed with us, to drown them in the sea as we decreed, ‘Every son that is born you shall cast into the river’ (ibid. 1:22), and [they also said] that their deity Baal-zephon is mighty, seeing that no acts of judgment were performed upon it, as [they were upon) all the [other] gods of Egypt, and the Omnipresent caused them to be misled in order to drown them. But this explanation is not the main one, for were it so, it should have been dotted on the right, מַשְׁגִיא like שׁוגֶה, the misled. This is the main explanation: It means making great, an expression of שׂגיא כֹח, having great strength. He makes the nations great and causes them to prosper, and their heart becomes haughty with their prosperity, so that [the fact] that they prosper is their destruction.
He spreads out He multiplies them to spread them out over the earth and to cover them.
Job 12:24 in a wasteland not a road In a wasteland that is not a road.</html