What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.
Job has been listening to Zophar, the third of the three friends who came to comfort him and instead accused him. Verse 2 is his answer: they tell him nothing he did not already know, and the question he most wants answered still stands.
An Answer to Zophar
Job's claim comes at the end of a long speech where he described God's power and wisdom himself. He knows the material his friends are lecturing him with.
Leslie M. GrantJob has spoken at length of God's wisdom and power. Now he tells Zophar that his eye has seen all this, and his ear has heard it and understood it. What Zophar knew Job knew also: he was not inferior to his critics (vv.1-2). In fact, what Job has said proves he knows more than they do. So his words in verse 2 are an understatement.
Where had Job learned it? Not from them. He had the same two teachers they did, and they had taught him well.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHe had said in the previous words that he was not an ignorant man. He fully understood everything his wise friends had told him. Both nature and history had taught him the greatness of God that they kept stressing. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. I am just as good as you are. What he desires is not to speak with them but to the Almighty; he wants to reason with God.
The Measure of the Claim
Job's wording is careful. He does not put himself above them. In the same breath he admits that the thing he most wants explained is still beyond him.
F. B. HoleEliphaz had based his condemnation of Job on what he himself had observed. But Job could observe too. He had seen all these things he had just spoken of, as he states in the opening verses of Job 13. He did not claim to be better than his friends, but he was certainly not beneath them. Still, he admitted that God's dealings puzzled him. They were far above him and out of his sight.
Shared Knowledge, Useless Comfort
If both sides know the same things, knowledge was never the issue. The friends had settled on a verdict and bent the evidence to fit it.
Samuel RidoutNext, Job 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. Then 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! Job turns from them in disgust (Job 13:1-5). And poor Job himself is the victim of the same false theory. He is in danger of blasphemously charging God with injustice.
From Arguing with Men to Reasoning with God
Verse 2 clears the ground for verse 3. Job turns from his friends and asks for God — but he had no idea how such a meeting could happen.
William KellyBut now he says (Job 13), "You have been boasting of what the ancients had all thought" — "Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God." That is just what he was doing. But how? He did not know. There was not the 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. If he could only find Him; if he could only be before Him! He knew very well what he would find there — a faithful God. But somehow there were difficulties and riddles between God and his soul that he could not understand.
Hearing About God and Seeing Him
Job rests his case here on what his ear has heard. By the end of the book he sets that against something else, and the difference measures everything he gained.
F. B. HoleJob gained a greater knowledge of God Himself, for he said, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." In these words he contrasted his old knowledge, which came by report only, with the knowledge he had now gained by direct sight. He had, if we may so put it, exchanged knowledge acquired at second hand for knowledge of a first-hand sort. Formerly he knew about Him but now he knew Him.
Summary
- Heard. Job's ear had already taken in everything his friends were telling him. Nature and history had taught him the greatness of God they kept repeating.
- Equal. He claims no superiority — only that he is not beneath them. Commentators note the claim is an understatement of what he had just proved.
- Useless. Shared knowledge healed nothing. They fixed the diagnosis first and bent his symptoms to fit it, which left them useless as physicians.
- Beyond. Job admits one thing is still out of his sight: God's dealing with him. So he turns from his friends to ask for God, not knowing how a man could reach Him.
- Seen. What finally changed him was not more information but a first-hand sight. He had known about God; at the end he knew Him.