Job 12:24-25

24 He deprives the leaders of the earth ^{▼▼ Heb “the heads of the people of the earth.”}
of their understanding; ^{▼▼ Heb “heart.”}
he makes them wander
in a trackless desert waste. ^{▼▼ The text has בְּתֹהוּ לֹא־דָרֶךְ (b^etohu lo’ darekh): “in waste – no way,” or “in a wasteland [where there is] no way,” thus, “trackless” (see the discussion of negative attributes using לֹא [lo’] in GKC 482 #152.u).}
25 They grope about in darkness ^{▼▼ The word is an adverbial accusative.} without light;
he makes them stagger ^{▼▼ The verb is the same that was in v. 24, “He makes them [the leaders still] wander” (the Hiphil of תָּעָה, ta’ah). But in this passage some commentators emend the text to a Niphal of the verb and put it in the plural, to get the reading “they reel to and fro.” But even if the verse closes the chapter and there is no further need for a word of divine causation, the Hiphil sense works well here – causing people to wander like a drunken man would be the same as making them stagger.} like drunkards.

Job Pleads His Cause to God

^{▼▼ Chapter 13 records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1–5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6–12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13–28).}