And your life will be brighter than the noonday; its darkness will be like the morning.
Zophar ends his first speech with a picture of the future. Put away your sin, he tells Job, and your darkest days will shine like midday. That raises two questions. Is the promise true? And is Zophar offering it to the right man, for the right reason?
Where the promise sits in the speech
This verse sits in the closing part of Zophar's speech, where he paints the reward. One writer thinks little of that picture:
Samuel RidoutThe conclusion is like singing songs to someone with a heavy heart. Zophar paints a beautiful outcome — as imaginary as the sins he charged Job with. He would then forget his present troubles, which would slip by him like passing waters. His darkness would be turned to light. He would have security and prosperity, and those who had slandered him would bow before him.
The picture is of a life rising, not just a life improving. An older translation brings that out more strongly. Where the ESV has the darkness becoming like the morning, it reads:
William KellyAnd the future shall rise brighter than noonday; you shall soar — you shall be as the morning.
A good remedy for the wrong illness
Zophar never names a single sin. He assumes one is there, then prescribes a cure. This verse is the result he promises:
Leslie M. GrantZophar thought he was giving Job the remedy for his depressed condition. But his diagnosis was completely wrong, so his remedy was not what Job needed.
Good advice, wrong assumption
Zophar's counsel has real truth in it. The trouble is the charge hidden underneath it:
F. B. HoleZophar's final words of counsel (verses 13-20) also have truth in them. Verse 14 in the New Translation begins, "If you put far away the iniquity which is in your hand." That is, he again assumes, like the others, that Job is after all an evil man, holding tight to his sins. Here he was wrong. His counsel to put away evil and turn to God was still good, and his description of the happy result of doing so was correct enough.
Human religion
Reduce this verse to a formula and you get a bargain: behave, and life turns bright. One writer names that bargain for what it is, and shows where it collapses:
C. StanleyHe can tell that if Job were not a sinner, then things would be most blessed with him; and 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. It is still a useless effort, isn't it? You are a sinner. How then can you stand before a holy Judge? There is the difficulty.
What Job actually needed
Zophar aimed his counsel at hidden sin. One writer says Job's real trouble lay somewhere else:
William Kelly"If iniquity be in your hand" — that was not what it was. It was not a question of iniquity, but of God dealing with Job's satisfaction with himself. Job was a truly godly, God-fearing man; but he had a high idea of his own character. That is what no soul should ever allow.
The morning came — by another road
The book does end with Job's darkness turning to light. But the order of events undoes Zophar's formula:
F. B. HoleGod blessed Job abundantly, turning his captivity and giving him twice as much as he had before. He did this when Job had prayed for his friends — and not till then… Yet God held back that tide of blessing. It came only after Job had been changed deep down, in spirit and character.
Summary
- Position. This verse is the payoff of Zophar's speech. It is the reward he promises if Job repents of sins Zophar cannot name.
- Picture. This is not mild relief. It is sunrise: trouble remembered like water already gone, life rising brighter than noonday.
- Prescription. The remedy sounds right, and the outcome is real. But the diagnosis behind it is wrong, so the counsel misses the man.
- Problem. Turn the verse into a rule and you get human religion: stop sinning and be happy. It leaves the real question untouched. How can a sinner stand before a holy Judge?
- Proof. Job's morning did come. But it came only after a deep change in him, and after he had prayed for the friends who accused him — God's route, not Zophar's.