Job 27:1

Parable - An utterance that involves a comparison.

Continued his parable - After having delivered the preceding discourse, Job appears to have paused to see if any of his friends chose to make any reply; but finding them all silent, he resumed his discourse, which is here called משלו meshalo, his parable, his authoritative weighty discourse; from משל mashal, to exercise rule, authority, dominion, or power - Parkhurst. And it must be granted that in this speech he assumes great boldness, exhibits his own unsullied character, and treats his friends with little ceremony.

Job continued - Margin, as in Hebrew "added to take up." Probably he had paused for Zophar to reply, but since he said nothing he now resumed his argument.

His parable - A parable properly denotes a comparison of one thing with another, or a fable or allegorical representation from which moral instruction is derived. It was a favorite mode of conveying truth in the East, and indeed is found in all countries; see the notes at Matthew 13:3. It is evident, however, that Job did not deliver his sentiments in this manner; and the word rendered "parable" here (משׁל mâshâl) means, as it often does, a sententious discourse or argument. The word is used in the Scriptures to denote a parable, properly so called; then a sententious saying; an apothegm; a proverb; or a poem or song; see the notes at Isaiah 14:4. It is rendered here by the Vulgate, parabolam; by the Septuagint, προοιμίῳ prooimiō - "Job spake by preface;" Luther, fuhr fort - Job continued; Noyes, discourse; Good, high argument. The meaning is, that Job continued his discourse; but there is in the word a reference to the kind of discourse which he employed, as being sententious and apothegmatical.

27:1 Parable - His grave and weighty discourse.