Job xxviii, 28 | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 26, 1867

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

The venerable book of Job, which in all probability is considerably the oldest in the Sacred Canon, (as will be proved in the sequel,) notices the circumstance of Adam’s hiding himself after his transgression, xxxi, 33; and in another passage seems to have recorded an oracular saying, omitted by Moses, which may thus be more correctly rendered, xxviii, 28.

“And unto Adam He said: Behold, the fear of THE LORD, this is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding.”

The word Adam here, should not be rendered man, in general, as in our public translation; but Adam, our first parent, as it is rendered in the former passage. “Whether it was spoken to him before or after his fall, is not easy to determine. If after the fall, as seems rather more probable, the words carry with them a reproof as well as an instruction highly seasonable, and suited to the circumstances of his unhappy change. As if God had said: You, who in defiance of the prohibition I had given you, have been seeking after another sort of wisdom and knowledge than was proper for you; go learn from sure experience, that your truest wisdom is to fear Me, and to pay an implicit obedience to My commands.”—Peters on Job, p. 460.

Oliver Goldsmith once remarked that true merit consisted, not in a man’s never falling, but in raising as often as he falls.

Job xxviii, 28.