Job 11:11 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 11:11

Comments

‘God sees through deceitful men like you, Job, and he sees wickedness in people like you, Job. Do you think he is going to ignore your hidden sins and not consider and act against them? You make yourself out to be innocent, but God will find you out, though you have got away with your hypocrisy for a long time.’ It is a vicious attack on Job by one who had supposedly come to comfort him. These statements left Job isolated and bruised. We rightly expect to sympathy and support from our friends and, although we don’t depend on them as we depend on God, yet God ministers help to us in part through fellow believers. They are one of the channels through which he lifts up our hearts. But Job had to battle alone and all that they said only added to his woes. Zophar took the place of Satan in becoming a false accuser, and by falsely accusing him, gave him further work to do in settling his own conscience. Job was not without fault, but what Zophar charged him with was false. He pretended that he was on God’s side and claimed the authority of God for what he said, but this was all counterfeit. He made this claim to add impact to his words and make Job the opponent of the Lord. This was not a battle from which Job could easily exempt himself because the argument was so bound up with his personal circumstances.The word ‘vain’ comes from a Hebrew verb meaning to hollow out, and here describes someone who appears to be solid, but it really hollow inside and therefore worthless. This is applied to the mind and so means empty-headed or vain. Job is such a man and yet he claims to be wise. The word ‘wise’ comes from the Hebrew for ‘heart’. The phoney man wishes to appear to have a heart. This charade is going to be unmasked by God. The last phrase is sheer rudeness. What can you expect, asks Zophar, when a wild ass’s colt is born a man. You may appear to be a man, but people like you have the nature of a wild ass’s colt. The ass was renowned for its wildness and inability to tame. What can be expected of such a nature? Is that sort of individual really going to behave sensibly and wisely in the way that someone blessed with human nature ought to behave? Though a vain man tries to be wise, he can no more succeed than a wild ass’s colt can be mastered.

Application

The effect of all this on Job would have been to make him question further the very real work that God had done in his heart. Was he all that Zophar said he was? Was Zophar right in saying that this was why God treated him so harshly? Satan’s intention was to crush his faith, but faith is a shield which we must always hold up as we are instructed. We trust in God. We trust in his promises. We trust that what he has done for us will never be undone, and that he cannot abandon his children. If we have real sin, we confess it and repent of it, but we remember that Satan is a false accuser. The remedy for al our sorrows is to come to the throne of grace and ask God who know us better than we know ourselves to have mercy on us. If God be for us, who can be against us? As is clear from the outcome of Job’s trial, the Lord was with him and for him even in the midst of his suffering.

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Job 11:11 Commentary and Bible Study