Job 13:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The Lord is a God of truth; he does not accept human flattery. Do men think that if they say something apparently to the praise of God that he will be pleased whether it is true or not? Far from it; he values truth much more highly than the smooth talk of shallow sycophants. Therefore a man who praises God falsely is worse than one who genuinely and reverently questions God’s ways. Such was the case here, and such was the judgment of God at the end of the book. Satan, who we must remember has sought God’s permission to attack Job, has skilfully reversed the roles of Job and the three comforters. They have set themselves up as defenders of God’s honour, and Job is cast in the role of a questioner and critic of God’s working. The outside observer would naturally judge the friends to be in the right. But they have falsely made themselves the advocates of God. Job, although he spoke rashly and without due submissiveness under the extreme trial which he faced, nevertheless spoke sincerely, not flinching from the hard facts of the case. But the three comforters bent the facts in order to make a defence for God which he did not ask them to make. Why should God need anyone to act in his defence when he can defend himself perfectly adequately? Is he ashamed the moment anyone momentarily doubts his good intention? Is he so insecure that he cannot wait for the truth about his wisdom and glory to come out? Can he not put up with human misunderstanding in the meantime? God’s verdict at the end of the book on the three friends says all we need to know – ‘Ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job’ (Job 42:8).The false praise of the comforters was wickedness and deceit. They knew that what they said was not true. They were aware that there were facts in Job’s case that they could not account for. Their apparent concern for the glory of God was a charade, and the real reason that they expressed such zeal for God was that their own acceptance with God was at stake. Job dismissed the God they believed in as a fiction – a God who accepts men on the basis of the best that they can do. Their standing was so entangled with this fictitious God, that they could not have him faulted without feeling threatened themselves.