Job11chapter 11

Job 11:1-4

Then answered Zophar the Naamathite opens the harshest of the three friends' speeches, and Zophar alone skips the softening opening Eliphaz and Bildad each give before they accuse. Should not the multitude of words be answered, and should a man full of talk be justified turns Job's grief itself into evidence of guilt, length of speech read as a lack of a good case. Gill notes Zophar answers Job's claim my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes with open scorn rather than argument, the bluntest of the three attacks.

Job 11:5-6

But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee is Zophar's wish that God settle the case directly, confident the verdict would go against Job rather than for him. The secrets of wisdom he imagines God would reveal are double to that which is, hidden depths beyond what any accuser or defendant can see. Barnes notes verse 6's claim, that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth, is the harshest sentence any of the three friends speaks to Job's face, charging him with a debt still unpaid.

Job 11:7-9

Canst thou by searching find out God, canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection states a true doctrine of transcendence and turns it into a weapon, silencing Job's demand for an answer rather than answering him. Henry notes the measure of God's counsel, higher than heaven and deeper than hell, longer than the earth and broader than the sea, is offered here to close off Job's questions where the whirlwind speeches will later ask harder versions of the same kind to open him up instead. The difference is not the doctrine but the use Zophar makes of it, a truth about God's greatness deployed against a sufferer rather than for him.

Job 11:10-12

If he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him states God's sovereign freedom to act without any creature calling him to account, a doctrine none of the speakers in the book dispute. Zophar turns immediately to accusation, for he knoweth vain men, he seeth wickedness also, assuming Job's suffering proves God has already made this judgment against him. Vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt, Clarke notes, reduces Job's claim to understanding to the proverbial folly of an untamed animal, an insult wrapped inside a general statement about mankind.

Job 11:13-15

If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him opens Zophar's call to repentance, framed as counsel but resting on a charge Job has repeatedly denied. If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away assumes the very guilt the friends have not proven, and Henry notes the conditional if carries the whole weight of the appeal without ever specifying an offense. The promise that follows, thou shalt lift up thy face without spot and be stedfast, is only as sound as the diagnosis it is built on.

Job 11:16-19

Because thou shalt forget thy misery opens Zophar's promised restoration, and thine age shall be clearer than the noonday at verse 17 repeats the formula each friend offers Job in turn, a bright future in exchange for repentance. Gill notes the promise is conditioned throughout on sins the friends have assumed rather than shown, the same restoration language the book's own last chapter will use of Job without any such condition attached. Thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid, and many shall make suit unto thee pictures the honored elder Job once was, held out as an inducement to a confession he has no cause to make.

Job 11:20

But the eyes of the wicked shall fail closes Zophar's first speech on a warning rather than a comfort, the fate he leaves hanging over Job if the counsel just given goes unheeded. Their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost sets the wicked man's death against the noonday brightness just promised the repentant, the same pairing of curse and blessing running through the friends' whole argument. Barnes notes Zophar speaks once more at chapter 20 and then falls silent, his promised third reply to Job never coming.