ZOPHAR, the youngest of the three friends, now attempts to answer Job, and he treats Job with contempt. It is sad when we fail to treat with due respect those who are older than we are. According to Zophar whatever God allows now in this world is really the judgment of God. He would make Job out to be a bad man, inferring that Job’s calamities are God’s judgment on him. But as we have seen from the first, this was not the case; in fact it was the very opposite of God’s thoughts about Job. Ignorant of God’s ways with His children, Zophar accuses Job very unjustly and declares that he is full of talk and fictions.
“Should not the multitude of words be answered?” he says; “and should a man full of talk be justified? Should thy lies make men hold their peace?” How far he went in his unmerciful treatment of Job! He seemed to feel that it was his duty to make Job feel ashamed. This is often done today, but now that God’s ways are fully revealed in His Word, such a one will have more to answer for than Job’s friends had, as we shall see. Not only did they unjustly accuse God’s servant Job, but they misrepresented God in speaking of His ways with His people. God’s anger would have fallen upon them had Job not prayed for them, as instructed by Him.
Zophar says, “Oh that God would speak, and open His lips against thee.” He would show Job how his iniquity called for double of what he had suffered. Well, God in His own due time did speak, and it was not to the credit of Zophar, or any of the three friends.
However, Zophar does say some things which were true, but they did not fit Job’s case at all. He asks, “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?” We know now that if God was to be known, then He must reveal Himself. We see Him revealed in part in creation; and He made known His ways unto Moses and His acts unto the children of Israel. (Psa. 103: 7). But in the Person of His beloved Son we find Him revealed in all His glory and grace. The Lord Jesus could say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” John 14.9.
Zophar says, “It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell” (Sheol—the unseen world); “what canst thou know?” Which was really true, as man must receive the testimony which God has given. It is evident that Job’s three friends had not fully received the testimony of God which was in the world at the time. In Acts 17 the Apostle in speaking to the Athenian philosophers of how they were attempting to search out God, he adds, “Though He be not far from every one of us.” Man, in neglecting what testimony God has given, only drifts farther away from God by his reasonings.
Zophar tells Job to let not iniquity dwell in his tabernacles, “For then thou shalt lift up thy face without spot... and then thou shalt take thy rest in safety.” But he also says that the wicked shall not escape, their refuge shall vanish, and their hope shall be as the giving up of life. Zophar did not know that his reasonings were only taking him farther and farther from God’s truth.
ML-03/13/1960