Verses 6-24. - Job's confession not having been sufficiently ample, the Divine discourse is continued through the remainder of this chapter, and through the whole of the next, the object being to break down the last remnants of pride and self-trust in the soul of the patriarch, and to bring him to complete submission and dependence on the Divine will. The argument falls under three heads - Can Job cope with God in his general providence (vers? 6-14)? can he even cope with two of God's creatures - with behemoth or the hippopotamus (vers. 15-24); with leviathan, or the crocodile (Job 41:1-34)? Verse 6. - Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said (comp. Job 38:1). The storm still continued, or, after a lull, had returned.

40:6-14 Those who profit by what they have heard from God, shall hear more from him. And those who are truly convinced of sin, yet need to be more thoroughly convinced and more humbled. No doubt God, and he only, has power to humble and bring down proud men; he has wisdom to know when and how to do it, and it is not for us to teach him how to govern the world. Our own hands cannot save us by recommending us to God's grace, much less rescuing us from his justice; and therefore into his hand we must commit ourselves. The renewal of a believer proceeds in the same way of conviction, humbling, and watchfulness against remaining sin, as his first conversion. When convinced of many evils in our conduct, we still need convincing of many more.Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind,.... Some think that the whirlwind ceased while the Lord spake the words in Job 40:2; which encouraged Job to make the answer he did; but others are of opinion that it continued, and now increased, and was more boisterous than before. The Targum calls it the whirlwind of tribulation: comfort does not always follow immediately on first convictions; Job, though humbled, was not yet humbled enough: God will have a fuller confession of sin from him: it was not sufficient to say he was vile, he must declare his sorrow for his sin, his abhorrence of it, and of himself for it, and his repentance of it; and that he had said things of God he ought not to have said, and which he understood not; and though he had said he would answer no more, God will make him say more, and therefore continued the whirlwind, and to speak out of it; for he had more to say to him, and give him further proof of his power to his full conviction;

and said; as follows.