Job 20:2

Morally he seems to have been the lowest of the three. As often happens, he was also the most presumptuous in speech and the least broken in spirit. "Therefore my thoughts," he says, "answer me." And truly it was so. He gives us his "thoughts." It was in no way that the fear of God moved his lips, or jealousy for His grace and truth. We have his own thoughts.

Yet applied to Job's case, his words were no more than his own "thoughts." They matched his usual self-importance. They were nothing like the serious wisdom of Eliphaz, or the traditional knowledge of Bildad.

Zophar jumps in to reply, as a young man would. He feels he has plenty of thoughts to answer everything Job has said, and to prove him guilty of the wickedness his friends charged him with. He is not the first man to mistake heat for argument. His haste to pour out his feelings is a sign of poor thinking, not of weighty truth.

"Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me." Yes, and that is just where haste usually lands us. It is easy for those who are not in trouble to speak, and to suspect evil of a man who is in the depths. And that is just what this young man fell into... Was that all Zophar had ever learnt? Did he know nothing of God's dealings for the trial and good of His children here below? Had he no thought of God disciplining us?

Job's triumphant tone stirred up the hasty, self-confident spirit of Zophar. It also stirred deep shame, because of a rebuke full of reproach. He thought his friends had not deserved it. He also thought it ill suited a man who was suffering what his own deeds and condition deserved. So he was burning to speak and reply, and he mistook his own unstoppable urge for a fullness of solid matter.

He was clearly stirred deeply, not by the Spirit of God, but by his own misguided thoughts (v.2). He had heard Job's rebuke that was a reproach to Zophar, but makes it clear that he will accept no rebuke. He fights back with "the spirit of his understanding" (v.3), not by the Spirit of God.

He denounces evil fiercely, and leaves no doubt that he means Job. He describes the certain doom of the wicked in language so violent that it soon uses up all he has to say... All that he says is true; his own unpardonable error is that he seeks to apply it to a righteous man.

Job had pleaded for pity. Not a word of pity comes from Zophar's lips. The whole speech is meant to tell Job, "You are that man!" And the second mistake: he never once weighs Job's words. They could not come from the lips of an ungodly person. They could only come from one who knows God.

We only speak rightly as our thoughts are controlled by God. If we think God's thoughts we shall be able to speak things that are right. But even if we are quick to hear God's thoughts, we will only speak them once we have taken them in for ourselves and made them our own. We take them in slowly, so we should be slow to speak. A healthy sense of how little of God's mind we have grasped will free us. It frees us from the self-confidence and shallow self-assertion that makes men ready to speak at once on any and every subject.