Job 12:4 Commentary and Bible Study

Job refers to himself both by using the first person, and then the third person. He says, ‘I am as one mocked by his neighbour’ – I, ‘the one who calleth upon God, and he answereth him.’ He means that all that he has heard the friends say reveals their contempt for him. But who is it they are contemptuous of? It is one who in the past has, as they well know, been greatly favoured by God, for he called on God and he answered him – not something that God would do for a hypocrite. He remembers his spiritual experience and that he has called earnestly on the Lord and been answered. He is a child of God and cannot deny that he has been loved by the God who cannot change his mind, and yet none of this is recognised by his friends and they mock him as if he had no such spiritual experience. Should a just and blameless man be ridiculed like this? They do an injustice not only to Job, but to the Lord who has chosen him. Whereas in the past they would at least have shown respect for his words and his perspective on all issues, now a hardness and a prejudice has developed in them that makes them unable to accept anything that he says. What does their treatment of him amount to? It is a case of a just and upright man being laughed to scorn by those who have never matched his closeness to God. That is shocking. For all their pious statements they are seriously in error. Job is not for a moment going to give way to the pressure they are exerting to make himself confess to them – it would be an utterly false confession.‘He that is ready to slip’ – Job himself – ‘is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.’ The comforters are completely failing to put themselves in Job’s position. A man who is in the light and in no danger of tripping or falling does not set much value on a lamp. If he was in the dark, having to negotiate a slippery or precipitous path, he would look on that lamp very differently. In the same way, what Job is going through is of very little consequence to the comforters, because it is not something which is affecting them. They are not in trouble; they do not feel the great waves of fear that overwhelm him; they do not sense the foundation of their existence threatened, nor face the terrible conclusions about God that thrust their way into his thoughts. Therefore, being so far from his position, they cannot appreciate his longing for light from God on his situation. They can afford to distance themselves from his suffering, and make pompous statements about the cause of his suffering and the remedy for it, without having any real sympathy. If they were in the same position they would not be able to dismiss the difficulties of the case so lightly.