First Discourse of Zophar.
THE third speaker now advances, who manifests the least knowledge of himself or consideration for Job, and therefore yields forthwith to a more violent tone of censure.
And Zophar, the Naamathite, answered and said,
Shall not the multitude of words be answered?
And shall a man of lips be justified?
Thy babbling puts men to silence:
And thou mockest, and no one saith, Shame!
And thou art to say, My doctrine [is] pure,
And I am clean in Thine eyes!
But O that God would indeed speak,
And open His lips against thee,
And make known to thee the secrets of wisdom,
That they are doubled by inspection,
And God remitteth to thee of thine iniquity.
Canst thou, searching, find out God?
Canst thou the Almighty find out to perfection?
Heights of heaven, what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell, what canst thou know?
Longer than the earth [is] its measure,
And broader than the sea.
If He pass by, and arrest,
And gather together, who can hinder Him?
For He knoweth men of vanity,
And seeth wickedness without considering [it].
But empty man would be wise,
Yet is man born a wild ass’s colt.
If thou direct thy heart,
And spread out thy hands to Him;
If iniquity [be] in thy hand, put it far away,
And let not evil dwell in thy tents;
For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot,
And shalt be stedfast without fearing.
For thou shalt forget trouble,
Shalt remember [it] as waters passed away;
And the future shall arise brighter than noonday;
Thou shalt soar—shalt be as the morning.
And thou shalt trust, because there is hope,
And thou shalt search, thou shalt rest securely,
And thou shalt lie down, and none shall cause trembling,
And many shall caress thy face.
But the eyes of the wicked waste,
And refuge vanisheth away from them,
And their hope [is] a breathing out of the soul.
Thus Zophar gives Job credit for nothing beyond a multitude of words and idle talk. The unanswerable grounds against their hypothesis of strict present retribution were to him only babbling, and the bold affirmation that the wicked are allowed of God to prosper in this world seemed but a mockery of those who really could not answer, whatever their replies. He yields to great irritation because of Job’s assertion of his soundness in the faith and in his life, and only desired that God would speak as Job had ventured to ask as little as any expecting that interposition which He was about to vouchsafe, not only for them, but for our sakes. Zophar had not a doubt what the sentence would be. He had not learnt that we should not judge, lest we be judged, and that our judgments do really judge ourselves: if solid and gracious, proving that we dwell in God, as dwelling in love, and walking according to light; if harsh, in the like degree manifesting how far we are governed by thoughts and feelings which have no source higher than self. Job would find, he was sure, that the secrets of wisdom are doubled by looking in, and that God did not exact of him what his iniquity deserved: he held to the gravest fears of his friend.
Next, Zophar descants grandly on the absolute and infinite perfection of God. The heights of heaven, the depths of hell, the length of the earth, the breadth of the sea, fail to measure His wisdom. How disastrous for man to stand before Him, were He to institute proceedings, as Job had so rashly challenged. How soon he would find out the folly of his wisdom, let his heart vie in obstinacy with that of a wild ass!
Finally, Zophar exhorts to supplication and repentance as the only door of escape for Job, but a sure opening into a bright and prosperous and secure life, if lie would avoid the inevitable doom of the wicked.
In all this, it is plain, that as the ground of peace was feebly seen, so the reality and the nature of God’s righteous government of His own was not at all understood. Ignorance in a saint is not wonderful; but it is sad when one forgets the need of light from above and dares to judge anything before the time, until the Lord come, who shall also both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts, when each shall have his praise from God.