Job 25:5

5 Lo! also the moon shineth not, and [the] stars be not clean in his sight; (Lo! to his eyes, the moon shineth not, and the stars be not pure;)

Job 25:5 Meaning and Commentary

Job 25:5

Behold, even to the moon
If all things that are glorious and illustrious in the lower world, and which are between that and the region of the moon, are beheld; or all from the seat of the Divine Majesty, down to that glorious luminary, are viewed, they lose all their lustre and brightness, when compared with the Divine Being;

and it,
even that itself

shineth not;
it is darkened, confounded, and ashamed; it hides its beautiful face, and draws in its borrowed and useful light, at the approach of him, who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness at all: or it tabernacles not ^F14; has no tabernacle to abide in, as is said of the sun, ( Psalms 19:4 ) ; or does not expand and spread its light, as a tent ^F15 or tabernacle is spread; it does not diffuse, but contracts it. No mention is made of the sun, not because that shines in its own light, which the moon does not; but perhaps because the controversy between Job and his friends was held in the night, when the moon and the stars were only seen, and therefore only mentioned; otherwise, what is here observed equally holds good of the sun as of the moon; see ( Isaiah 24:23 ) ;

yea, the stars are not pure in his sight;
as there are spots in the sun and in the moon, seen by the eye of man, aided and assisted, so such may be seen by God in the stars also, and in these, both in a natural and in a mystical sense; as by them may be meant the angels of heaven, even those are not pure in the sight of God, and in comparison of him, the most perfectly pure and holy Being; see ( Job 4:18 ) ( 15:15 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 (lyhay alw) "et non ponet tabernaculum", Montanus, Bolducius; so Schmidt, Schultens.
F15 "Non expandet lumen suum in modum tentorii", Complutenses apud Bolduc.

Job 25:5 In-Context

3 Whether there is (a) number of his knights? (Can his host be counted?) and upon whom shineth not his light?

4 Whether a man comparisoned to God may be justified, either a man born of a woman may appear clean? (Can a man be justified when compared to God, or can a man born of a woman ever be pure, or innocent?)

5 Lo! also the moon shineth not, and [the] stars be not clean in his sight; (Lo! to his eyes, the moon shineth not, and the stars be not pure;)

6 how much more man, that is rot, and the son of a man, that is a worm, is unclean, (and vile,) in comparison to God. (and so how much more a man, who is but rot, and the son of a man, who is but a worm, be unclean, and vile, when compared to God.)