But oh that +God would speak, and open his lips against thee;
Zophar is the third of Job's friends to speak. He opens with a wish: that God would break His silence and answer Job. It sounds devout. But older translations render the second half "open his lips against you," and that one word changes everything.
Zophar has no doubt what God would say if He spoke. One writer shows him filling a silence he thinks God should have filled Himself:
He accused Job of mocking, which was not true. Job was in far too much distress to mock. But Zophar thought Job needed a rebuke (v.3). Job had said his teaching was pure and his conduct clean. So Zophar was really accusing God of failing to speak out against Job! (v.4). Then Zophar does what he thinks God ought to have done! He knew Job had criticised God, but now he was doing the same without realising it!
The wish shows what Zophar believed about God. If God's only word to a broken man is a rebuke, the fault lies with the man who imagines it:
These words are full of legalism. They prove that Zophar had no right sense of God's character. He did not know God. No one who truly knows God could speak of Him as opening His lips against a poor suffering sinner. No one could speak of Him as demanding anything from a needy, helpless creature. God is not against us, but for us, blessed for ever be His Name! He is not a stern collector of debts, but a generous giver… Zophar and everyone who thinks like him know God only as a stern collector — as One who, if He opens His lips, can only speak against the sinner.
Each of the three friends reached his verdict by a different route:
Eliphaz used his eyes; Bildad used his ears; and Zophar used his brains. Not one of them found the solution to this problem by human wisdom, no matter how they came by that wisdom.
Zophar wanted God to open His lips and show Job "the secrets of wisdom" (v.6). But such secrets never come from a sharp mind:
Behind the world we can see, God is working out something that natural eyes cannot see and the natural mind cannot understand. Everyone can observe nature all around us. But only those whom God teaches can receive the spiritual things that lie underneath the created world: "the secrets of wisdom … double to that which is."
The wish was granted, but not on Zophar's terms. Job had asked for the same thing, and neither man guessed what God would do:
Job insisted that he was sound in faith and in life, and this irritated Zophar greatly. So he only wanted God to speak, as Job had dared to ask. Like the rest of them, he never expected the intervention God was about to grant — 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 really judge ourselves.
When God answered, He spoke of Himself, not of Job's supposed crimes:
In the end God Himself spoke to the suffering man. He did not use the soft, tender tones we hear in the New Testament; the time for that had not yet come. Jehovah spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, not once but twice, and with a thunderous voice, telling of His power, His majesty, His providence.
Zophar could say what a man without sin might expect. He could not answer how a sinner is justified — counted right before God:
He cannot show Job how a man can be a sinner and yet be justified. He can say that if Job were not a sinner, all would be well with him. That is all that Zophar, or mere human light, can do. This is human religion. I must try not to be a sinner, and then I shall be happy, and God will not be against me.
- The wish — Zophar asks God to speak, but only as a prosecutor. He treats God's silence as a mistake he must correct himself.
- The God behind the wish — a God who, if He opened His lips, could only speak against a sufferer. Commentators answer that this is not the God of Scripture, who is for us and gives freely.
- The method — eyes, ears and brains gave Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar three confident answers and no solution. God alone gives the secrets of wisdom; no mind reasons them out.
- The answer — God did speak, out of the whirlwind. He said nothing Zophar predicted. The man who was sure of the verdict never imagined what God would do.
- The lesson — our judgments of others end up judging us. Zophar could describe God's greatness; he could not tell a sinner how to be justified.
And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, how that they are the double of what is realised; and know that +God passeth by [much] of thine iniquity!
Zophar is the last of Job's three friends to speak. He wishes God Himself would break the silence and expose Job — and he is sure what the verdict would be. His words hold a real truth: God's wisdom runs far deeper than anything we can see. But he wraps that truth around a charge the book itself has already contradicted.
Zophar does not weigh Job's case. He pronounces on it.
In Job 11 we have the brief speech of Zophar, the third of Job's friends. Reading it, we note that his tone is a little more severe even than Bildad's was. Perhaps he was irritated because Job had not accepted the charges and arguments of the other two. But it went too far, and it was unfriendly, to charge him with a "multitude of words," with being "full of talk," with uttering "lies," and with mocking. Zophar does not yet show us where he stands. Yet he declared, as though from an oracle, that Job deserved harsher punishment from God's hands than he was getting. But Job's suffering was greater than any other on record. And the discussion centred on how God disciplines people in this life, not on eternity. So this again strikes us as harsh and dogmatic in the extreme.
Zophar wishes God would show Job the "secrets of wisdom." An older rendering calls them "double to that which is" — twice as much as we can see.
Behind this material creation, God is working out something that natural eyes cannot see and natural intellect cannot understand. Anyone can observe the natural world all around us. But only those whom God teaches can receive the spiritual things that lie under the material creation: "the secrets of wisdom … double to that which is." God is not only seeking to interest us in the material creation, where anyone with ordinary intelligence can be taught. He has also given us light as to why He brought this creation into being. He is teaching us today about what lies behind it all: the working out of His eternal plan for His own glory and the glory of Christ. That plan includes the blessing and final glory of each one of us. I believe these things to be "the double."
Zophar pictures a God who opens His lips only to accuse, and who collects every debt.
These words have a strong flavour of legality. They prove very clearly that Zophar had no right sense of the divine character. He did not know God. No one who truly knows God could speak of Him as opening His lips against a poor afflicted sinner. No one could speak of Him as demanding anything from a needy, helpless creature. God is not against us, but for us, blessed for ever be His Name! He is not a legal exactor, but a generous giver.
Zophar has no facts. He infers Job's guilt from Job's pain, then makes God the author of the sentence.
He has no proof. Yet he charges Job with being such a grievous sinner that even his present sufferings were less than he deserved, and he would tie God to this dreadful charge. It is perfectly true that divine wisdom is double our highest thoughts of it. But he cannot join that wisdom to unfair suspicions or unjust charges.
The reader already knows heaven's verdict. It is the opposite of Zophar's.
God was not exacting anything from Job; that is not God's character at all. All the comforters agreed with Zophar that God was dealing with Job because of his sins, but we know very well that God has already said of this man that he was righteous (1:8; 2:3).
Zophar was certain of the sentence before God ever spoke.
He had not learnt that we should not judge, lest we be judged, and that our judgments really judge ourselves. If they are solid and gracious, they prove that we dwell in God, dwelling in love and walking according to light. If they are harsh, they show in the same measure that thoughts and feelings with no source higher than self are ruling us. Job would find, he was sure, that the secrets of wisdom are double when you look into them, and that God was not exacting from him what his iniquity deserved: he held the gravest fears about his friend.
- Speaker. Zophar is the third and harshest friend. He declares, as if from an oracle, that Job's suffering is lighter than he deserves.
- Truth. The "secrets of wisdom" really are double what we see. God's eternal plan lies behind the visible creation, and only those He teaches receive it.
- Error. Zophar assumed he already held those secrets. He turned them into evidence against a man he could not prove guilty.
- God. He is not a legal exactor demanding payment from the helpless, but a generous giver — a God for us, not against us.
- Warning. Our judgments of others judge us; harsh verdicts expose a source no higher than self.