Will ye speak unrighteously for God? and for him speak deceit?
Job has been listening to three friends explain his suffering. Now he turns the charge around. The men defending God are the ones twisting the truth. His question unsettles anyone who speaks about God. Can a man lie in God's name and call it service to God?
Job's friends were not inventing new doctrine. They were taking true things about God and bending them to fit a verdict they had already reached about him.
Next, Job boldly charges his friends with being false witnesses for God. They used well-known truths, familiar to everyone, 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, 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! Job turns from them in disgust. He warns them of how unrighteous their course is. They presume to lie for God!
The next verse asks whether they will show partiality toward God. One writer takes that as favouritism based on appearances, and says the friends were doing it.
"Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for Him?" That is what they had been doing. They pretended it was for God… "He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality" — and that is what they were doing. They were showing partiality falsely, going by appearance.
Job's confidence rests on something simple: God knew the accusations were false.
They were speaking wickedly on God's behalf, using deceit in claiming to speak for God. Job knew God was fully aware that his friends' charges 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… Men should deeply fear to misrepresent God, whose glory is so high above the heavens.
Behind their speeches lay a method: judge a man's standing with God by his circumstances. One writer compares it to Gamaliel, a teacher in Acts. Gamaliel advised waiting to see how a movement turned out before judging it. That test fails, and here is why.
His judgment by the outcome leaves him a doubter until that outcome arrives. And when, and what, may that outcome be?… Who can pierce the clouds and darkness that are around Him? Who can give a trustworthy account of all His doings? The Psalmist complained about the prosperity of the wicked. He had to follow them beyond death before he found satisfaction. Job's friends argue like Gamaliel here, and the sufferer rebukes them for speaking deceitfully for God (Job 13:7). He too has seen the wicked spend their days in prosperity.
Job's warning that God would rebuke them was not empty. When God speaks at the end of the book, the men who had defended Him are the ones in trouble.
So it is no surprise that God turns to Eliphaz and his friends with stern rebuke for their part in the dispute… He addresses Eliphaz, the leader of the three. The Lord 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 case had seemed to be for God's righteousness!… Zealous for God's honour! — that had been their one theme.
Job stops trading arguments with men. He asks for a hearing from God Himself, even though God's dealings baffled him.
He did not claim to be better than his friends, but at any rate he was not beneath them. Still, he admitted that God's dealings mystified him. They were far above him and out of his sight. So, as verse 3 shows, he wanted to speak to the Almighty and reason with God, instead of spending his time reasoning with his friends.
- The charge. Job accuses his friends of being false witnesses for God. They used true statements to prop up a false diagnosis of him.
- The motive. They "pretended it was for God," taking sides by appearances, not by fact.
- The error. They judged a man by how his life turns out. Job answers that the wicked also prosper.
- The danger. God knew their charges were untrue, so He was not backing them. Misrepresenting God is a thing to fear, not a service to Him.
- The verdict. Zeal for God's honour was their one theme, yet God rebuked them for not speaking rightly of Him. Job turned from arguing with men to reasoning with God, and God said Job had spoken what is right.
Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
Job is answering friends who have taken up God's side in the argument and used it against him. His question turns their own devotion into a charge: defending God with a lie is no defence at all.
Older translations read the first half of the verse as "will you accept his person?" To accept someone's person is to decide by appearance — by who stands in front of you, not by the facts. One writer follows Job's words in that older wording, and notes how the warning that follows came true:
"Hear now my reasoning, and listen to the pleadings of my lips. Will you speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for Him?" That is what they had been doing. They pretended this to be for God. "Will you accept His person? Will you contend for God? Is it good that He should search you out?" Well, that is what He did. "Or as one man mocks another, do you so mock Him? He will surely reprove you." How remarkably that was fulfilled! "He will surely reprove you, if you do secretly accept persons" — and that is what they were doing. They were accepting persons falsely — according to appearance.
Job's friends were not inventing new doctrine. They bent well-known truths about God into evidence against a man they had already judged.
Next, Job boldly charges his friends with being false witnesses for God. They used well-known truths, familiar to everyone, 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, and they misrepresent his symptoms to fit their diagnosis! And they bring in their theory that God always punishes sin in this life, to prove that Job is a sinner! … He warns them that the course they are taking is wrong. They presume to lie for God! For are they not falsely accusing an innocent man? Are they not afraid to treat truth so lightly, and will not God deal with them? — for they are only men. Poor Job, he is the victim of the same false theory, and he is in danger of blasphemy himself — of charging God with injustice.
Notice what Job assumes: God has not asked for this service. Their "pleading for God" was volunteer work, and it would end badly for the volunteers.
Job reckoned that they were speaking wickedly and deceitfully for God. God had given them no such authority, and He would surely reprove them — as in fact He did.
The friends built their whole case on zeal for God's honour. That is why the verse cuts so deep — and why God's verdict finally went against them, not against Job.
But 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? Such a defence brands a man as wicked and hypocritical. Yet of that very man He Himself had declared, "There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil." Can He let so monstrous a theory of suffering pass — the one these men have built, that suffering is always the sure sign of wickedness? That it is all in wrath? What then becomes of His testing of His own people, or of the way His discipline makes them holy?
Job has finished with his friends as counsellors. That does not mean he understands what God is doing.
He did not claim to be better than his friends, but he was certainly not beneath them. Even so, 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, not to spend his time reasoning with his friends.
- Partiality. To "accept a person" is to judge by appearance, not by fact. Job charges his friends with doing it on God's behalf, condemning him because he looked guilty.
- Falsehood. They took true statements about God and forced them into a false verdict on a man. That is lying for God.
- No commission. God never asked them to plead His case. So Job could warn them that He would reprove them — and He did.
- Honour refused. God will not take honour at the cost of truth. He rejects any defence of Himself that rests on a false charge.
- Better direction. Job's response is the model: stop arguing about God with men who cannot help, and take the case to God Himself.