Job 11:3

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹ Then Zophar, the Naamathite, answered, ² "Shouldn't the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified? ³ Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, shall no man make you ashamed? ⁴ For you say, 'My doctrine is pure, I am clean in your eyes.' ⁵ But oh that God would speak, And open his lips against you, ⁶ That he would show you the secrets of wisdom! For true wisdom has two sides. Know therefore that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

thy lies: or, thy devices, Job 13:4, Job 15:2, Job 15:3, Job 24:25

mockest: Job 12:4, Job 13:9, Job 17:2, Job 34:7, Psalms 35:16, Jeremiah 15:17, Jude 1:18

make thee: Psalms 83:16, 2 Thessalonians 3:14, Titus 2:8

Reciprocal: Job 6:28 - if I lie Job 8:2 - How long Job 13:5 - General Job 16:2 - heard Job 19:3 - ye reproached Job 19:4 - I have erred Job 34:8 - General Job 34:37 - multiplieth Jeremiah 9:5 - deceive

Cross-References

Genesis 11:4
They said, "Come, let's build us a city, and a tower, whose top reaches to the sky, and let's make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth."

Genesis 11:6
Yahweh said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing will be withheld from them, which they intend to do.

Genesis 11:7
Come, let's go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

Genesis 11:18
Peleg lived thirty years, and became the father of Reu.

Genesis 14:10
Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, and those who remained fled to the mountain.

Exodus 1:14
and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

Exodus 2:3
When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank.

2 Samuel 12:31
He brought forth the people who were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick kiln: and thus did he to all the cities of the children of Ammon. David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

Psalms 64:5
They encourage themselves in evil plans. They talk about laying snares secretly. They say, "Who will see them?"

Proverbs 1:11
If they say, "Come with us, Let's lay in wait for blood; Let's lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Should thy lies make men hold their peace?.... By which he means, either lies in common, untruths wilfully told, which are sins of a scandalous nature, which good men will not dare to commit knowingly; and to give a man, especially such a man, the lie, is very indecent; and to charge a man falsely with it is very injurious: or else doctrinal ones, errors in judgment, falsehoods concerning God and things divine; which not only are not of the truth, for no lie is of the truth, but are against it; and indeed where the case is notorious in either sense, men should not be silent, or be as men deaf and dumb, as the word u signifies, as if they did not hear the lies told them, or were unconcerned about them, or connived at them: David would not suffer a liar to be near him, nor dwell in his house, Psalms 101:7; a common liar ought to be reproved and rejected; and doctrinal liars and lies should be opposed and resisted; truth should be contended for, and nothing be done against it, but everything for it: it is criminal to be silent at either sort of lies; nor should the bold and blustering manner in which they are told frighten men from a detection of them, which perhaps is what may be hinted at here w; some render the words x, "should thine iniquity frighten men?" they are not so strong and nervous as to appear unanswerable, and deter men from undertaking a reply unto them:

and, when thou mockest, shall no man make thee ashamed? here Job is represented as a mocker of God, which is inferred from Job 10:3; and at his friends, and the arguments they used, and the advice they gave, which is concluded from his words in Job 6:25; and as one hardened, who was not, and could not be made ashamed of what he had said against either, by anything that had been offered for his reproof and conviction: to make a mock of God, or a jest of divine things, or scoff at good men, is very bad; indeed it is the character of the worst of men; and such should be made ashamed, if possible, by exposing their sin and folly; and if not here, they will be covered with shame hereafter, when they shall appear before God, the Judge of all, who will not be mocked, and shall see the saints at the right hand of Christ, whom they have jeered and scoffed at: but this was not Job's true character; he was no mocker of God nor of good men; in this he was wronged and injured, and had nothing of this sort to be made ashamed of.

u So Ben Melech. w בדיך "jactantias tuas", Cocceius. x "Tuane argumenta mortales consternabunt?" Codurcus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Should thy lies - Margin, “devices.” Rosenmuller renders this, “should men bear thy boastings with silence?” Dr. Good, “before thee would man-kind keep silence?” Vulgate, “tibi soli tacebunt homines?” “Shall men be silent before thee alone? The Septuagint tenders the whole passage, “he who speaketh much should also hear in turn; else the fine speaker (εὔλαλος eulalos) thinketh himself just. - Blessed be the short-lived offspring of woman. Be not profuse of words, for there is no one that judges against thee, and do not say that I am pure in works and blameless before him?” How this was made out of the Hebrew, or what is its exact sense, I am unable to say. There can be no doubt, I think, that our present translation is altogether too harsh, and that Zophar by no means designs to charge Job with uttering lies. The Hebrew word commonly used for lies, is wholly different from that which is used here. The word here (בד bad) denotes properly “separation;” then a part; and in various combinations as a preposition, “alone separate.” “besides.” Then the noun means empty talk, vain boasting; and then it may denote lies or falsehood. The leading idea is that of separation or of remoteness from anything, as from prudence, wisdom, propriety, or truth. It is a general term, like our word “bad,” which I presume has been derived from this Hebrew word (בד bad), or from the Arabic “bad.” In the plural (בדים badı̂ym) it is rendered “liars” in Isaiah 44:25; Jeremiah 50:36; “lies” in Job 11:3; Isaiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:30; and “parts” in Job 41:12. It is also often rendered “staves,” Exodus 27:6; Exodus 25:14-15, Exodus 25:28, et sap, at. That it may mean “lies” here I admit, but it may also mean talk that is aside from propriety, and may refer here to a kind of discourse that was destitute of propriety, empty, vain talk.

And when thou mockest - That-is, “shalt thou be permitted to use the language of reproach and of complaint, and no one attempt to make thee sensible of its impropriety?” The complaints and arguments of Job he represented as in fact mocking God.

Shall no man make thee ashamed? - Shall no one show thee the impropriety of it, and bring thy mind to a sense of shame for what it has done? This was what Zophar now proposed to do.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 11:3. Should thy lies make men hold their peace? — This is a very severe reproof, and not justified by the occasion.

And when thou mockest — As thou despisest others, shall no man put thee to scorn? Zophar could never think that the solemn and awful manner in which Job spoke could be called bubbling, as some would translate the term לעג laag. He might consider Job's speech as sarcastic and severe, but he could not consider it as nonsense.