Zophar: Can You Find Out God?
1 Then Zophar, the Naamathite, answered, 2 “Shouldn’t the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified? 3 Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, will no man make you ashamed? 4 For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.’ 5 But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against you, 6 that he would show you the secrets of wisdom! For true wisdom has two sides. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves. 7 “Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty? 8 They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know? 9 Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. 10 If he passes by, or confines, or convenes a court, then who can oppose him? 11 For he knows false men. He sees iniquity also, even though he doesn’t consider it. 12 An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey’s colt. 13 “If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him. 14 If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away. Don’t let unrighteousness dwell in your tents. 15 Surely then you will lift up your face without spot. Yes, you will be steadfast, and will not fear, 16 for you will forget your misery. You will remember it like waters that have passed away. 17 Life will be clearer than the noonday. Though there is darkness, it will be as the morning. 18 You will be secure, because there is hope. Yes, you will search, and will take your rest in safety. 19 Also you will lie down, and no one will make you afraid. Yes, many will court your favor. 20 But the eyes of the wicked will fail. They will have no way to flee. Their hope will be the giving up of the spirit.”
The third friend is the first to state a figure for Job's guilt, and he does it by claiming access to wisdom nobody has.
Zophar has no preamble and no sympathy. Job is a man full of talk whose boastings should not silence people Job 11:2–3.
He then quotes Job, and the quotation is not accurate. For you say, 'My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes' Job 11:4. Job has said he is blameless, which is what the narrator and God have said; he has never claimed to be sinless, and he has twice asked to be shown his error Job 6:24 Job 10:2. The reply is aimed at a position Job does not hold.
The wish that follows is the boldest thing in the first cycle: oh that God would speak, and open his lips against you Job 11:5. Zophar wants God to enter the debate on his side. God eventually does speak, and the verdict is against Zophar Job 42:7.
Then the sentence that gives the speech away. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves Job 11:6.
This is the first quantified claim in the book. Not that Job has sinned, but that his suffering is a discount — that what he deserves is worse than ten dead children and a body covered in sores. Zophar has no evidence and does not offer any. He has a rule, and he is now running arithmetic with it.
What makes the arrogance remarkable is that he says it two verses after asking can you fathom the mystery of God? Job 11:7. God's ways are high as heaven and deeper than Sheol, unknowable and unmeasurable — and Zophar has just measured them well enough to price a man's punishment. The humility is for other people.
His prescription is the standard one, put as a sequence of conditions. Set your heart right, stretch out your hands, put away the iniquity in your hand, keep unrighteousness out of your tents Job 11:13–14. The third condition assumes the thing to be proved.
The promises are lovely and they are the same promises Eliphaz made. Misery forgotten like waters that have passed away; life clearer than the noonday; darkness turning to morning; lying down unafraid Job 11:16–19.
They are also, once again, a description of Job's life before chapter 1. Each friend in turn offers him back what he had when he was blameless, on condition that he confess he was not.
And the alternative is stated without softening in the last verse. The eyes of the wicked fail, they have nowhere to run, and their hope will be the giving up of the spirit Job 11:20 — which is precisely what Job has been asking for since chapter 3. The threat held out to the impenitent is the thing the man in front of him has been praying for.
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