(10) If he cut off.--It is the same word as "a spirit passed before me" (Job 4:15); and as Job himself used (Job 9:11): "he passeth on, but I perceive him not." "If, then," says Zophar, "God acteth thus, or if He delivers up a man into the hands of his enemies, or if He calls together a multitude against him--alluding apparently to Job 9:11-12; Job 10:17, where the word rendered changes is a derivative of the word here rendered "cut off"--then who can turn Him back from His intent?" adopting Job's own question at Job 9:12 : "Who can hinder Him?" Some understand the three terms forensically: "if He arrest, and imprison, and hold assize; "but it is probable that Job's own statements are alluded to.

Verse 10. - If he cut off; rather, if he advance (comp. Job 9:11). And shut up; or, imprison. Or gather together; rather, and call to judgment (see the Revised Version). If God, that is, advance against a man in hostile fashion, seize and imprison him, and then call him to judgment, what is to be said or done? who can interfere with him? Matters must take their course. There is no ground for complaint It is simply God's mode of administering justice on the earth. Who can hinder him? literally, who can turn him sway? i.e. interfere with his action, interrupt it, divert it.

11:7-12 Zophar speaks well concerning God and his greatness and glory, concerning man and his vanity and folly. See here what man is; and let him be humbled. God sees this concerning vain man, that he would be wise, would be thought so, though he is born like a wild ass's colt, so unteachable and untameable. Man is a vain creature; empty, so the word is. Yet he is a proud creature, and self-conceited. He would be wise, would be thought so, though he will not submit to the laws of wisdom. He would be wise, he reaches after forbidden wisdom, and, like his first parents, aiming to be wise above what is written, loses the tree of life for the tree of knowledge. Is such a creature as this fit to contend with God?If he cut off,.... The horns, power, dominion, and authority of the wicked; or the spirits of princes, or kingdoms and states, whole nations, as he did the seven nations of Canaan; or families, as Job's, his servants, and his children; or particular persons, by diseases, or by judgments, by famine, sword, and pestilence; there is none can hinder him; he will do what he pleases: or, as others render it, "if he changes" (l); if he makes revolutions in governments, changes in families, and in the estates of men, as in Job's; or changes men's countenances by death, and sends them out of time into eternity, there is no opposing him: or, "if he passes through" (m), as the word is sometimes used; see Isaiah 8:8; if he comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth, and goes through a kingdom and nation, making or suffering to be made devastations everywhere, as he went through the land of Egypt and smote all the firstborn in it, there is no stopping him: or, "if he passes on" (n), or "from" hence, or goes away; see 1 Samuel 11:3; or departs from a people or particular person, even his own people, and hides his face from them, and is long, at least as they think, before he returns; who can behold him, or find him out, or cause him to show himself? see Job 23:3; or, "if he subverts" (o) and overturns things, or should reduce the world and all things in it to a chaos, as at the deluge, or as he overturned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or should set on fire the whole course of nature, and burn up the whole world and all in it, and reduce it to ashes, as he will; there is none can stay his hand, and obstruct him in his designs and measures:

and shut up; should he do so; shut up in a civil sense, either in a prison, as Gersom, or in the hands of an enemy, by giving them unto them, to be enclosed and straitened by them, there is none can deliver; Psalm 31:8; or to shut them up as he did Noah in the ark, by protecting them by his power and providence, and so appear to be on their side, and for them; who then can be against them? or what does it signify if any are, if the Lord shuts them up and keeps them close? or in a spiritual sense, if he concludes men in sin, and shuts them up in unbelief, and under the law; who but himself can set them free? or, if good men are shut up in their frames, and straitened in their souls, that they cannot come forth in the lively exercise of grace, and free discharge of duty; there is no opening for them till he pleases, Psalm 88:8,

or gather together, then who can hinder him? either gathers them into one place, in a civil sense; or in a gracious manner, with great mercies and everlasting kindness to himself, to have communion with him; to his son, to participate of the blessings of his grace, and to his church and people, to enjoy all spiritual privileges with them; or, gathers men at and by death; see Job 34:14; and as he will gather them at the last day, even all nations, before him, the tares, and burn them and his wheat, and put them into his garner; and when he does any and every of these things, who can hinder him or turn him back from doing what he pleases: Job says much the same in Job 9:12; the Targum is,

"if he passes through and shuts up the heavens with clouds, and gathers armies, who can turn him back?"

(l) "si permutet proprie", Mercerus, Heb. "si mutabit locum", Piscator. (m) "Si transmeabit", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "si pervadat", Cocceius; "si transiverit", Michaelis. (n) "Si abierit", Schmidt. (o) "Si subverterit omnia", V. L.