Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
Eliphaz has just finished his second speech and called his advice "the consolations of God." Job has now heard the same charge from three men, and he asks whether such words ever come to an end.
Words made of wind
Job's complaint is not that his friends said nothing. It is that their words carried no substance and nothing new. One writer sets Job's verdict against the claim Eliphaz had made for himself:
Samuel RidoutEliphaz had called their speeches to Job "the consolations of God" — meaning, no doubt, the part that promised restoration if he repented. Job describes them as "miserable comforters." Is there to be no end of windy words? Had the friends not exhausted their stock of accusations? What stirs up Eliphaz to speak further, with nothing new to say?
What provokes the answer
The second half of the verse asks about motive, not content. Job wants to know what drives Eliphaz to keep going. One writer hears in the question a plea for a different tone:
William KellyJob proved patient, but he does not spare his stubborn friends. They could not prove their unkind conclusions, and they would not take them back. So he begins his second reply to Eliphaz with a sharp complaint about their worn-out comments. There was no consolation in the words of any of them, only extreme trouble. So he longed for an end of words of no more weight than the wind. It would be better to answer calmly, if they must speak at all, and not with the sharpness of irritation.
Treatment that made the wound worse
Empty words are not neutral. The same writer puts the failure in medical terms:
William KellyAnd no doubt Job was speaking the plain truth. He would have been a comforter of sorrow; he would not have been a physician without any medicine. They brought poison into his wounds instead of something to soothe them.
Speech that opens debate instead of closing it
Job asks whether the words will ever end . They never do, because each answer only starts another round:
C. H. MackintoshSo the three friends failed to convince Job. Their ministry was one-sided. Instead of silencing Job, they only led him out into a discussion that seemed almost endless. He gives them word for word, and far more.
Genuine friends, useless words
The rebuke is sharp, but these men were not strangers who had wandered in:
J. G. BellettEliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were true friends, though they turned out to be only "miserable comforters." They came to Job when everyone else had deserted him. They were sincere-hearted friends, who said they would go and comfort their suffering brother. And they did go; and they sat with him in his place of ashes and broken pottery for seven days.
Why it collapsed — and what it produced
Sincerity was not the missing ingredient; understanding was. One writer explains why their comfort failed, and what good came out of the failure:
The Bible TreasuryAll merely human efforts to comfort, apart from God and the truth, fall short. They are more or less ignorant. And the failure shows more clearly the more bitter the trial is. Job's three friends were sincere in their care for him, and eager to serve him in his hour of sorrow. But the cause of his affliction completely baffled them. They could not understand how such a perfect and upright man could be tried so severely. They might have helped in an ordinary case. But here was a truly righteous man who had lost everything he owned, in a way never seen before. Their tongues fell silent. They did not understand God's ways with His own at all. Their false and unworthy suggestions made Job feel how unable they were to help him, and threw him back on God Himself.
Summary
- Windy — Eliphaz called his speeches the consolations of God. Job found nothing new in them, only the same stock of accusations.
- Provoking — Job asks what drives Eliphaz to answer at all. Tone matters as much as content: if they must speak, let them speak calmly, not out of irritation.
- Poisonous — a comforter with no real help is a physician with no medicine. These friends went further and put poison into the wounds they came to dress.
- Endless — one-sided help never silences a sufferer. It only opens a debate that runs on and on.
- Providential — these were real friends who sat with him for seven days. Even their failure had a use: unable to help, they threw Job back on God Himself.