Job actually repeats the same question he asked in Job 28:12. He asks the friends: “But wisdom – where does it come from? Where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:20 – NET). He has already shown that wherever wisdom comes from, it is not something that can be acquired by working the earth. Men are simply impotent to discover it, or to acquire it through their own efforts. However, why was it important for Job to point this out. Probably, the friends technically knew that wisdom isn’t something men could acquire at will, so why would Job be making a point about something the friends already knew? No doubt, this has something to do with the fact that the friends couldn’t convince Job of wickedness. In other words, they technically lost the debate. If they hadn’t the ability to make their point, then obviously Job was wiser than they, and if this is so, not only had Job proved he wasn’t wicked, but he had proved the friends’ argument wrong through the wisdom that is not of this earth!
It seems Job may be playing the “God is on my side!” card. He won the debate, and to the victor belongs the spoils. I wouldn’t say that Job is ‘rubbing it in’ but I do think he is trying to convince the friends they were wrong, and it seems that they have trouble admitting such a thing could be so. Nothing in their previous replies would convince us that they were coming around to Job’s side. Nevertheless, they understood they had the weaker argument and had nothing more they could say. We see a lot of this in modern Christianity. Some folks simply cannot be convinced of error, no matter how much scripture is offered to show they’re wrong. They can be silenced in that they no longer have any ‘pat answers’ that work for their arguments, but they are unwilling to admit that the better scriptural argument has proved them wrong.
It makes no difference how intelligent a person is or to what heights his thoughts soar, wisdom is not found through intelligence, no, not even by the best and most gifted among us (Job 28:21). The scriptures reveal that the secret things belong to God, alone, but what he has revealed belongs to all of us who hold his word dear (Deuteronomy 29:29). Sometimes only a few understand, or perhaps it comes down to only one person, like the prophet, who knows what God has revealed, Nevertheless, though what the few say or what the prophet declares belongs to all who hear, it is only they who are willing to listen and obey that are affected by the word of God. Only they are aware of the real value of wisdom.
If wisdom can’t be found in the land of the living, it is obvious that the light of the truth couldn’t be found in the darkness of the grave. Here personified, Destruction (Abaddon; cp. Revelation 9:11) and Death, “say” they have heard only rumors of wisdom, but wisdom, itself, cannot be found with them (Job 28:22).
Finally, Job points to God and says: God understands the way of (wisdom). He knows the place (where it resides), and he is able to look to the ends of the earth, and he is aware of all that occurs under the whole of heaven (Job 28:23-24). On the other hand, men have no such knowledge. We are limited in what we know and call truth. We have no idea how the truth we don’t know would affect what we do know. In other words, would the truth we are ignorant of cause the truth we understand to have a different light? We are taught about this manner of looking at things in what Jesus tells us about the word of God in John 10:35. Put simply, it says we must not interpret the word of God in such a manner that it destroys what God says to us elsewhere in scripture.
God sees all, and is able to discern the whole truth. We see only in part and are unable to be certain about the universality of what we know to be true. Not only does God see all, but he understands all and determines and limits of the power of all he has created. Moreover, he determines those limits in proportion to the value or effectiveness of each thing he created, as it is related to the whole of his creation (Job 28:25-27). However, as for man, God declares: “Fear the Lord! That is wisdom, and to depart from evil, that is understanding” (Job 28:28). In other words, think about what the Lord tells us in scripture, and obey. In doing this, one will become wise. Just as all things in creation obey the will of God, vis-à-vis the laws of nature, as each thing relates to the rest of creation, man who has been given free will (something nature does not have) is able to act wisely only when he submits his freedom to the will of God.
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