Job opens his mouth in empty talk; he multiplies words without knowledge.”
Elihu ends this chapter with a verdict, not an argument. He has spoken about God's greatness and God's patience. Now he sums up Job's talk as empty and uninformed. The verse makes two charges. One is about the quality of what Job said. The other is about how much he said.
Vanity behind the words
The two halves of the verse work as cause and effect. The emptiness came first. The flood of words followed.
F. B. HoleElihu said these things to drive the point home to Job's heart, as he did in the last verse of the chapter. Job had opened his mouth "in vain," or "in vanity," and so, although his words were many, they were without knowledge. The excellence of Job's outward life had betrayed him into an inward spirit of vanity, and that lay at the root of his lack of a true knowledge of himself.
The complaint Elihu is answering
This verdict answers what Job had been saying for chapters. Job looked at a world where evil men do well and a good man suffers. Then he drew conclusions about God from it.
Leslie M. GrantJob had criticised God for allowing the wicked to prosper while he, a righteous man, was suffering. So Elihu tells him the reason. God had not punished the wicked quickly in anger, and He seemed to take little notice of man's folly. That is why Job had opened his mouth in vain criticism. He had not even paused to consider wisely what he was saying, and his many words lacked knowledge.
Reasoning from self to God
The fault was not a bold claim about his own righteousness. It was the direction Job's reasoning ran.
William KellyElihu did not accuse Job of anything so bold as claiming outright that his own righteousness was greater than God's. But what about questioning God's ways because your conscience is clear under heavy trial? What about complaining that His dealings are hard toward you, or careless toward others? That is a criticism of the way He governs. It puts your own thoughts above His. To judge from yourself, or from anything here, up to God is always false ground. That is even more true now that sin has come into the world, with all its bitter results and darkening effects. Job needed to learn this, and his friends needed it even more, with less excuse. Only one way is wise, fitting and even safe: to reason from God and His revelation of Himself down to ourselves and to everything else.
God repeats the charge
Elihu's closing sentence is not just one man's opinion. God puts the same question to Job later, and Job's silence here may be the first sign that it is landing.
Samuel RidoutSo Job has opened his mouth in vain; he has multiplied his words without knowledge. This is what God will later press on his conscience with that terrible opening question: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" This prepares Job to listen to that Voice. Elihu really is answering Job's desire for a mediator, and Job's silence may well be a sign of conviction beginning.
Delay is not approval
Elihu has said that God does not punish the wicked at once. That delay gives Job no licence to speak boldly.
William KellyJudgment is before Him. The believer's part is to wait on Him and for Him. Insolent speech is no less hateful because He has not yet punished it. So Job had spoken to no purpose, and his words were multiplied without knowledge. It was sad to speak that way, but it was true.
Where the verdict takes Job
Job later says the same thing about himself that Elihu says here. What does such a moment do to a man?
C. H. MackintoshHere, then, was the turning point. All his earlier statements about God and His ways now stand as "words without knowledge." What a confession! What a moment in a man's history, when he discovers that he has been all wrong! What a complete breakdown! What deep humiliation! ... To get right thoughts about God is to begin to get right about everything. If I am wrong about God, I am wrong about myself, wrong about my fellows, wrong about everything.
Summary
- Vanity first. The emptiness is the root; the many words are the symptom. A good outward life had bred an inward vanity that kept Job from knowing himself.
- Words next. Job spoke without weighing his words. Quantity replaced knowledge. He criticised God's timing and called it argument.
- Direction wrong. Reasoning up from a clear conscience to a verdict on God's rule is false ground. The safe order runs the other way, down from God's revelation of Himself to us.
- Verdict confirmed. God's patience is not approval, and God later puts the same question to Job. Elihu's closing sentence is not his private opinion.
- Silence, then confession. Job's silence is conviction beginning. It ends with Job admitting that he had spoken without knowledge. That is the turning point of the book, because right thoughts about God are where being right about everything else begins.