Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
Job's friends came to comfort him and ended up accusing him. His reply opens with a request rather than an argument: hear me out first, and mock afterwards if you must.
A hearing offered in place of comfort
Job asks his friends for very little here. One writer explains why.
Samuel RidoutHe begins by pleading that they will at least listen to him. That will take the place of the comfort they refuse to give him. After that they can go back to their taunts. As for himself, he says he has stopped expecting any fair judgment from man — and no wonder, if man were all his hope. This implies he has turned to God, which is itself a sign of the faith at the bottom of his heart.
The edge in "mock on"
Job's tone here is not gentle. So where does the sting lie?
F. B. HoleOne translation of verse 2 reads, "Listen carefully to my speech, and let this replace your consolations." To sum up the speeches of the three friends as "consolations" was of course sarcasm. How he really viewed their words is plain at the end of the next verse, when he told them that after he had spoken they might "mock on!" He felt the full force of what they said. They meant that he must have been guilty of terrible unrighteousness and sin, while all along looking like a man of great godliness.
Was Job wrong to speak like this? One writer says no, and points to what lay under the sharpness.
William KellyIt was severe, but it was no more than they deserved. Through all of this Job has a deep sense of dealing with God, and that is true godliness.
Self-control under provocation
Sarcasm is not the whole of Job's reply. Notice how he handles himself.
Leslie M. GrantJob does not reply in the same argumentative spirit his friends had used. He appeals to them to weigh what he is saying. That self-control should have impressed them enough to give him a serious hearing. Yet he had little hope of changing their minds, however earnestly he spoke.
Why good men mock a sufferer
How could sincere, religious men treat a suffering friend like this? One writer traces it to their religion itself.
William KellyNo one makes stranger mistakes than godly people who are not walking in dependence on God. Their very godliness gives them a stronger hatred of evil. They need the power of God's grace to guard them, and they need to feel that need. Without that, no one will be more severe and no one less just. This is a serious warning.
Where failed comfort drives a man
So the mocking went on. Did any good come out of it?
The Bible TreasuryThey could not understand why such a perfect and upright man as Job should be tried so severely. So they sat silent for seven days. Then their hints and misrepresentations drove that patient man to cry out from the bitterness of his soul, "Miserable comforters are you all." They might have been of help in an ordinary case. But when a deeply righteous man was stripped of every earthly possession in a way no one had ever seen, they had nothing to say. They did not understand God's ways with His own people at all. Their false and unworthy suggestions only made Job feel how useless they were to him, and threw him back on God Himself. In the end he said, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you."
Summary
- Listen. Job asks for a hearing in place of the comfort his friends refused. Attention is the least you can give a sufferer, and they withheld even that.
- Sarcasm. Calling their speeches "consolations" and inviting them to mock afterwards is a deliberate jab. Job knew they were accusing him of hidden sin behind an outward show of godliness.
- Restraint. He does not argue back. He asks them to weigh his words, and that self-control should have won him a serious hearing.
- Warning. Godly people can be the harshest of all. Hatred of evil without dependence on God's grace produces severity, not justice.
- Result. Their empty comfort threw Job back on God Himself, and that road ended in "now my eye sees you."