Bible Commentaries
Job 11

Verses 1-20

When Job had ceased, Zophar, the last of the three friends, answered him. His method was characterized by even greater plainness than that of Bildad. Indeed, there was a roughness and directness about him absent from his friends' manner. This may either reveal a man of different temperament, or that now, with greater definiteness and daring, Job had denied their philosophy by affirming his innocence.

He first affirmed the necessity for answering, describing Job as "a man full of talk," and declaring that his boastings could not silence his friends. Zophar's complaint against him is expressed in the words:

Thou sayest, my doctrine is pure, And I am clean in thine eyes.

He wished that God would speak. If He would, then Job would know that all his suffering was less than his iniquity. Job had affirmed the wisdom of God, and yet, in the thinking of Zophar, had questioned it. Therefore, in a passage full of beauty, he reaffirmed it, and insisted that this God of wisdom knows men. He intended to declare to Job that even though he might not be conscious of his own sin, yet sin was there, and God saw it.

This is again a restatement of the same philosophy as that of his friends. He was arguing from the suffering of Job to his sin. If Zophar was rough of manner, his desire and hope for Job may be observed, for his description of the prosperity which will come if he but set his heart right is longer and more beautiful than that of either Eliphaz or Bildad.