a deity or the Deity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
height
גֹּ֣בַהּGoah
H1363
elation · noun, common masculine singular construct
heaven
שָׁמָ֑יִםsha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · noun, common masculine plural absolute
behold
וּרְאֵ֤הu.re.'Eh
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
height
רֹ֖אשׁrosh
H7218
the head (as most easily shaken) · noun, common masculine singular construct
stars
כּוֹכָבִ֣יםko.kha.Vim
H3556
a star (as round or as shining) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
high
רָֽמּוּRa.mu
H7311
to be high actively · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
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
Job 11:8 It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
Psalms 8:3-4 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
Ecclesiastes 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: there…
Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the plac…
Psalms 115:3 But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that i…
Psalms 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 22:5-14
Eliphaz and his companions had condemned Job, in general, as a wicked man and a hypocrite; but none of them had descended to particulars, nor drawn up any articles of impeachment against him, until Eliphaz did so here, where he positively and expressly charges him with many high crimes and misdemeanours, which, if he had really been guilty of them, might well have justified them in their harsh censures of him. "Come," says Eliphaz, "we have been too long beating about the bush, too tender of Job and afraid of grieving him, which has but confirmed him in his self-justification. It is high time to deal plainly with him. We have condemned him by parables, but that does not answer the end; he is…
Eliphaz says this to prove that God can from His height behold all things; gratuitously inferring that Job denied it, because he denied that the wicked are punished here.
height--Hebrew, "head of the stars"; that is, "elevation" (Job 11:8).
John Gill on Job 22:12
Is not God in the height of heaven?.... The heaven is high, it has its name from its height, and is noted for it; some of the heavens are higher than others, as the heaven of heavens, the third heaven, the habitation of angels and glorified saints; and here God dwells, this is the habitation of his holiness, and the high and holy place he inhabits; his throne is in heaven, in the heaven of heavens is his throne, where he in an especial manner manifests his glory, and the lustre of it; he is not indeed continued here, the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, he is everywhere; yet this is his court and palace, where his residence and retinue is and angels behold his face, and wait upon him; a…
12 Is not Eloah high as the heavens?
See but the head of the stars, how exalted!
13 So then thou thinkest: "What doth God know?
Can He judge through the thick cloud?
14 Clouds veil Him that He seeth not,
And in the vault of heaven He walketh at His pleasure."
Because Job has denied the distribution of worldly fortune, of outward prosperity and adversity, according to the law of the justice that recompenses like for like, Eliphaz charges him with that unbelief often mentioned in the Psalms (Psa 73:11; Psa 94:7; comp. Isa 29:15; Eze 8:12), which denies to the God in heaven, as Epicurus did to the gods who lead a blessed life in the spaces between the worlds, a knowledge of earthly things, and…
The Church Fathers
Dost thou bethink thee that God is in the height of heaven, and high above the height of the stars? And thou sayest, How doth God know? and, He judgeth as in the dark. Thick clouds are a covering to Him, that He seeth not our matters; and He walketh in the circuit of heaven. There are very many so dull that they cannot dread aught, saving what they see in a bodily form. Whence it is brought to pass that they do not fear God, in that they cannot see Him. But heretics because they think themselves wise utter words of insult against Catholics, and imagine that He is not feared by them, because they are unable to see Him in a bodily shape, so that as it were from deadness of perception they think that their Maker, because He is higher than heaven and exalted above the tops of the stars, is not able to see from a distance, and that because between ourselves and the seat of heaven the regions of the air are interposed, He, 'as it were buried in a cloud passes judgment out of the darkness,' and intent upon things above, the less considers those below, and whilst He holds together the binges of heaven by encircling them, doth not see into the interior parts. But who that was out of his right mind even, could suspect such things of God. Who indeed, whereas He is always Omnipotent, so minds all things that He is present to each one individually, and so present to each that His Presence is never wanting to all together. For though He forsakes persons when they sin, yet to those very persons He is present in respect of judgment, to whom He is seen to be wanting in respect of aidance. Therefore He so encircles what is without that He yet fills what is within, so fills what is within that He yet encircles what is without, so rules the heights above that He does not quit the depths below, is in such sort present to the parts beneath that He does not depart from those above, is so concealed in His own appearance that nevertheless He is known in His working, so known in His work that yet He cannot be comprehended by the calculation of the person knowing Him; He is in such a way present that yet He cannot be seen, in such a way impossible to be seen that yet His very own judgments bear witness to His Presence, so yields Himself to be understood by us that yet the very ray of the perception of Himself He overclouds to us, and again so holds us in by the darkness of ignorance…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Blasphemy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Heaven · 16:31;21:26; — 16:31;21:26;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
That’s why: Job had not claimed that God can’t see, but others have (Pss 10:11; 73:11; 94:7).
Rashi on Job 22:12
Is not God in the height of heaven and will not lower Himself to see.
and behold the topmost of the stars, which are lofty Heb. וראה, like (above 10:15), “and seeing (וראה) my affliction” at the end of the fifth reply. That is to say, ‘And You gaze upon the topmost stars because they are lofty.’ Therefore, you said...