Job 15:8-9

15:8 Do you listen in on God’s secret council? 1 

Do you limit 2  wisdom to yourself?

15:9 What do you know that we don’t know?

What do you understand that we don’t understand? 3 

1 tn The meaning of סוֹד (sod) is “confidence.” In the context the implication is “secret counsel” of the Lord God (see Jer 23:18). It is a question of confidence on the part of God, that only wisdom can know (see Prov 8:30,31). Job seemed to them to claim to have access to the mind of God.

2 tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”

3 tn The last clause simply has “and it is not with us.” It means that one possesses something through knowledge. Note the parallelism of “know” and “with me” in Ps 50:11.