Job 12:7

Knowledge of God’s Wisdom

12:7 “But now, ask the animals and they will teach you,

or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

Job 28:21

28:21 For it has been hidden

from the eyes of every living creature,

and from the birds of the sky it has been concealed.

Job 35:11

35:11 who teaches us more than the wild animals of the earth,

and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’


sn As J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 216) observes, in this section Job argues that respected tradition “must not be accepted uncritically.”

tn The singular verb is used here with the plural collective subject (see GKC 464 §145.k).

tn The vav on the verb is unexpressed in the LXX. It should not be overlooked, for it introduces a subordinate clause of condition (R. Gordis, Job, 310).

tn The form in the text, the Piel participle from אָלַף (’alaf, “teach”) is written in a contracted form; the full form is מְאַלְּפֵנוּ (mÿallÿfenu).

tn Some would render this “teaches us by the beasts.” But Elihu is stressing the unique privilege humans have.