to hide (by covering over) · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
heart
לִ֭בָּםLi.bom
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
understanding
מִּשָּׂ֑כֶלmi.Sa.khel
H7922
intelligence · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
exalt
תְרֹמֵֽםte.ro.Mem
H7311
to be high actively · verb, piel imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and…
Matthew 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
2 Samuel 17:14 And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the LORD had app…
Isaiah 19:14 The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man stag…
1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
2 Chronicles 25:16 And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be…
2 Samuel 15:31 And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahit…
Romans 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;)…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 17:1-9
Job's discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads: -
I. The deplorable condition which poor Job was now in, which he describes, to aggravate the great unkindness of his friends to him and to justify his own complaints. Let us see what his case was.
1. He was a dying man, Job 17:1. He had said (Job 16:22), "When a few years have come, I shall go that long journey." But here he corrects himself. "Why do I talk of years to come? Alas! I am just setting out on that journey, am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. My breath is a…
their heart--The intellect of his friends.
shalt . . . exalt--Rather imperative, "exalt them not"; allow them not to conquer [UMBREIT], (Isa 6:9-10).
John Gill on Job 17:4
For thou hast hid their heart from understanding,.... That is, the hearts of his friends, and therefore they were unfit to undertake his cause, or be sureties for him, or be judges in it. It is the same thing as to hide understanding from their hearts, which God sometimes does in a natural sense; when men like not the knowledge of him, as attainable by the light of nature, he gives them up to reprobate minds, minds void of knowledge and judgment in things natural; and sometimes, in a spiritual sense, he hides men's hearts from the knowledge of things divine and evangelical, and even this he does from the wise and prudent of this world; yea, sometimes he hides the knowledge of his providentia…
3 Lay down now, be bondsman for me with Thyself;
Who else should furnish surety to me?!
4 For Thou hast closed their heart from understanding,
Therefore wilt Thou not give authority to them.
5 He who giveth his friends for spoil,
The eyes of his children shall languish.
It is unnecessary, with Reiske and Olsh., to read ערבני (pone quaeso arrhabonem meum = pro me) in order that שׂימה may not stand without an object; שׂימה has this meaning included in it, and the ארבני which follows shows that neither לבך (Ralbag) nor ידך (Carey) is to be supplied; accordingly שׂים here, like Arab. wḍ‛ (wâḍ‛), and in the classics both τιθέναι and ponere, signifies alone the laying down of a pledge. Treated…
The Church Fathers
"You have closed their hearts to wisdom; You prevented them from recognizing him. "Therefore you will not glorify them. They have not humbled themselves, it is the cause of their blindness, and they may have been exalted in the humility of Christ.
Ver. 4. Thou hast removed their heart far from discipline. For if they had been acquainted with the keeping of discipline, nor ever despised the precepts of our Redeemer, the mere mortal condition of their flesh by itself would have excited them to the love of the life immortal; for this very thing, even our being subject to corruption in this life, is of the scourge of discipline. For to be made to feel annoyance from heat and cold, from hunger and thirst, to be afflicted with diseases, and one day even to be put out of existence, what else are all these, but the scourges of sin? Now there are some that both undergo scourges, and yet never fashion anew their life by the fear of Him Who scourges them. Whence it is rightly said now, Thou hast removed their heart far from discipline; in that though the body is under discipline, yet the heart is not under discipline, so long as a person is stricken with the rod, and yet not brought back to humbleness of mind. Nor yet is this spoken in such a sense, as if the Almighty and Merciful God 'removed the heart of man far from discipline,' but that having fallen away of his own accord, there in executing judgment He suffered him to remain, where he had fallen; as we also say to Him in praying, And lead us not into temptation. i.e. 'do not ever suffer us to be led into temptation.' It proceeds; Therefore they shall not be exalted. For if the heart were under discipline, it would seek after things above, it would not be openmouthed to obtain transitory good things. Of those, then, whose heart is not under discipline, it is rightly said, Therefore they shall not be exalted, in that while let go at large in the lowest enjoyments, they are ever longing for the good things of earth, they never lift the heart to the delights of heaven; for they would be exalted, if they lifted their minds to the hope of the heavenly country; but they, who do not make it their business to guard their way by discipline, ever in their desires lie grovelling in things below and what is more grievous, in lying low set themselves up, in that they are uplifted on the ground of things transitory. And they may be uplifted, but cannot be exalted, in that they are sunk the deeper below, by the very act by which they are rendered higher to themselves; and so the heart that is without discipline cannot be exalted, in that the human mind, as when elevated…
defend my innocence, O God (literally please keep my pledge with yourself): A pledge (Hebrew ‘erabon) can be a deposit guaranteeing payment (Gen 38:17-20; Exod 22:26-27; Deut 24:10-14; see Prov 20:16; 27:13), so this might suggest atonement. It might also be another reference to Job’s desire for an advocate to plead his case (see study note on Job 16:19-21).
Rashi on Job 17:4
For Behold. You have hidden their hearts from understanding Therefore, Your glory will not be exalted through them.
