For ye indeed are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
Three friends have explained Job's suffering to him. He answers with two blunt names for them: they invent lies, and as healers they are useless. Can men say true things about God and still be wrong? Does God accept a defence of Himself built on a false charge?
Job calls them physicians. They came because they had heard he was ill. A healer is meant to leave the sufferer better than he found him.
He says, "Worthless physicians are you all." You came to heal me. You had heard of my terrible state. You came to heal and cure me in my dreadful sickness and suffering — and what have you done? You have poured poison on my wounds. You have poured no wine, no oil. You have poured no balm on the poor sufferer.
Israel had a Physician who never failed them.
The LORD Himself was the physician of His people Israel, ready at all times to heal and restore them (Jeremiah 8:22). Job, in the bitterness of his soul, found his friends to be physicians of no value. They did not understand his case, and only added to his misery (Job 13:4).
The friends are not ignorant of true things. Job's charge is forgery: they take real material and shape it into a lie about him.
Next, Job boldly charges his friends with being false witnesses for God. They used well-known truths, familiar to everyone, to confirm their charge that Job was wicked. What kind of physicians were they, to treat a case like this? They have decided what his disease is, and they misrepresent his symptoms to confirm their diagnosis! And they bring in their theory that God always punishes sin in this life, to prove that Job is a sinner!
Their reasoning started in the wrong place.
All their arguments were founded on man and on the world. Everything a believer stands on is what is in God, and what God gives and reveals. And there we find it, in all its perfection, in Christ. But they were resting on man's thoughts and man's experience.
Their failure was not a lack of information. They did not know God's ways, and they did not know the man in front of them.
They did not truly understand God's character, so they could not understand His dealings with a soul. They had no proper sense of sin. So they did not know this: if God is to deal in blessing with man, it must be entirely on the ground of grace. They did not know how to meet his case. They had said many true things, yet not one single right thing that applied to Job, because they did not understand him.
The friends were not simply mistaken. They claimed to speak on God's behalf.
They were speaking wickedly on God's behalf, using deceit in claiming to speak for God. Job knew that God was fully aware that the charges of his friends were not true. So God was certainly not backing them up. Job knew that God was not deceitful, as his friends were proving to be. When the time came, God would search them out and would surely rebuke them. … Men should deeply fear to misrepresent God, whose glory is so high above the heavens.
God does care about His own honour. That is exactly why such a defence fails.
God does not accept honour at the expense of truth. It is His glory that all His attributes blend in one harmonious light. Can He then accept a defence of His character and ways that rests on a false charge? Can He let it brand a man as wicked and hypocritical? Of that same man He Himself had said, "There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil." … What then becomes of His testing of His own, and of the sanctifying effect of chastening?
Job's charge is not just one man's bitterness. The book ends by settling who was right.
The LORD speaks to Eliphaz, the leader of the three. He declares His wrath against them all, because they had not spoken of Him what is right, as His servant Job had. And yet their whole argument had apparently been for God's righteousness! Had they not held to this from the very start, with many a noble description and many a fierce condemnation of evil? Had they not fastened the charge of wrongdoing on Job, despite a total lack of proof and against well-known facts to the contrary? Zealous for God's honour — that had been their one theme.
- Diagnosis — The friends decided in advance what Job's disease was. Then they misread his symptoms to fit their theory: suffering always proves wickedness.
- Forgery — They did not invent their material. They took well-known truths and bent them into a false charge against an innocent man.
- Poison — Men who came to heal poured poison into the wound instead of balm, so Job named them healers of no value.
- Misrepresentation — They spoke for God without knowing His character, His grace, or the man they were treating.
- Verdict — Untruth never honours God. In the end He rebuked the zealous defenders and cleared the man they accused.
Oh that ye would be altogether silent! and it would be your wisdom.
Job has just called his three visitors forgers of lies and worthless physicians. Now he tells them the kindest thing they could do is stop talking. When a friend is suffering and we cannot explain why, does our talking help him or hurt him?
The picture behind Job's words is a sickbed. Men came to treat a case they had already decided, and the treatment made things worse.
"You are all physicians of no value." You came to heal me. You had heard of my terrible state. You came to heal and cure me in my dreadful sickness and suffering. And what have you done? You have poured poison on my wounds. You have poured no wine, no oil. No balm have you poured on the poor sufferer.
Job wanted something else from them, and he kept pressing his request through the chapter.
Still, there his friends were, and by this time they had goaded Job into sharper retorts. What he wanted was truth for his mind and healing for his body. He advised them to keep quiet and listen to what he had to say, and he kept on in this way up to verse 13.
The charge in verse 4 is not that the friends said false things about God in general. They said true things and used them wrongly.
Job boldly charges his friends with being false witnesses for God. They used truths everyone knew to back up their charge that Job was wicked. What kind of physicians were they, to treat a case like this? They have decided what his disease is. They misrepresent his symptoms to confirm their diagnosis! And they bring in their theory that God always punishes sin in this life, to prove that Job is a sinner! Poor Job — he is the victim of the same false theory, and is in danger of blasphemously charging God with injustice.
Job ties their silence to wisdom. One writer reads this as a rule for anyone, not just a jab at three men.
"Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!" And it often is a man's wisdom when he sits quiet and holds his tongue. But the moment he begins to speak about what he does not understand — well, what then? That is exactly where they were.
Job's next move is to warn them. Claiming to defend God is a serious business, and the One being defended is watching.
They were speaking wickedly on God's behalf, using deceit in claiming to speak for God. Job knew that God was fully aware that the charges of his friends were not true. So God was certainly not backing them up. God was not deceitful, as his friends were proving to be. When the time came, God would search them out and would surely rebuke them.
Their words did not close the case. They opened it wider, and one writer draws a caution from it.
The three friends failed to convince Job. Their ministry was one-sided. Instead of silencing Job, they only led him out into a field of discussion that seemed almost boundless. He gives them word for word, and far more… No doubt the friends were wrong, quite wrong. But their being wrong did not make Job right. If Job's conscience had been in the presence of God, he would have made no reply to his friends, even if they had been a thousand times more mistaken and severe.
Cut off from human help, Job looks past the three men in front of him.
Job did not claim to be better than his friends, but he was not below them either. Still, he admitted that God's dealings puzzled him. They were far above him and out of his sight. So, as verse 3 shows, what he wanted was to speak to the Almighty and reason with God, instead of spending his time reasoning with his friends.
Getting to God was the problem.
But how could he reach God? He did not know. There was no New Testament yet. There was not One to stand between God and man, like Christ. So he did not know how to get at Him. Yet he knew very well what he would find there — a faithful God.
- Wound. They came as healers to a suffering man, and poured poison on his wounds instead of oil and balm — no comfort, no cure.
- Diagnosis. They had settled what his disease was. Then they bent his symptoms to fit it, using true statements to prove a false charge. Job was caught in the same false theory.
- Presumption. They argued as if they spoke for God, but He had not sent them. Job warns that God would search them out and rebuke them.
- Silence. It is often a man's wisdom to sit quiet and hold his tongue. The danger starts the moment he speaks about what he does not understand.
- Result. Their talk never silenced Job. It drew him into an endless argument and drove him past his friends to lay his case before God. Yet their being wrong did not make Job right.