Job 11

Job 11:1-20

ZOPHAR, THE CRITICJob_11:1-20.WHEN, in my consecutive studies of Job, I came to this 11th chapter, I hastily glanced at its discussion in Joseph Parker’s “Peoples’ Bible”, and was led to announce as my subject, “Zophar’s Sound Counsel”. Never was a theme more inappropriate to a text. Parker, commonly correct, here illustrates the fact that we cannot follow blindly the most competent of mortals. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Psalms 118:8).The proper interpretation of this chapter, Zophar’s first speech, follows the consideration of certain probabilities. The first of these is the likely youth of this man. In patriarchal days, age determined order. Eliphaz, the first spokesman, was unquestionably the eldest man; Bildad younger; Zophar the youngest.

That he was educated, a full “graduate” of a good university, further equipped by a theological seminary course, is most probable. The man who imagines that high grade schools are modern, needs to consider Moses and Daniel, Isaiah and Paul.

What present-day products compare with them? “The school of the prophets” was an established institution, and no man knows how aged, in Elijah’s day. If one would know the rise of the university idea, let him read Genesis 4:19-22.Yes, Zophar was a full university “graduate” and probably had the full seminary course, and was egotistical, irreverent and insulting, as his words abundantly illustrate. His speech to this great and grand old man reminds one of the rowdy conduct of the Rochester, N. Y. theological students, when at Buffalo Baptist Convention, Modernism was justly pilloried by middle aged and mighty men.His name is suggestive. Four definitions are given in the dictionaries. The Oxford Bible says it means “a chatterer”; Joseph Parker’s Peoples’ Bible says “the yellow one”; Young’s Analytical Concordance, “rough”, and Smith’s Dictionary says “a sparrow”.

You can take your choice. My judgment is, in this instance, he was all four—a light weight chatterer, with a yellow streak in him, and uncouth in his attitude.JOB’S HIMHe took exception to Job’s torrent of words.“Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,“Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified”? (Job 11:1-2).A correct translation of his sentence would be, “Then answered Zophar the Naamathite and said, Should not the torrent of words be answered?” Bildad had made a comparatively brief speech in explanation of Job’s suffering.

It is recorded in the twenty-two verses of the 8th chapter. Job had replied at length, requiring two full chapters, the 9th and 10th, in which to express himself. It was to that fact that Zophar referred, and doubtless to the additional one that he spake not only at length but spake rapidly and eloquently—a “torrent” of words.Such an answer from Job was all unexpected. He was a farmer. What right has a farmer to be an orator? Zophar was a scholar, and a farmer’s eloquence is a scholar’s irritation!What right has Magnus Johnson, United States Senator from Minnesota, to be a speaker to whom thousands will listen, when, as the politicians and newspapers tell us, he is nothing but a “dirt farmer”?

It must have been a great trial to Douglas, the educated and illustrious politician, to hear Abraham Lincoln speak, and speak so well—Abraham Lincoln, the uncouth looking; Abraham Lincoln, the graduate of no university; Abraham Lincoln, the raw-boned, ungainly farm-product. To this day it must be difficult for university men to properly appraise and keenly appreciate the Gettysburg speech.

What right had a man, without university training, to deliver the most finished oration of American history?You recall how, when Christ once healed a blind man, he was brought to the Pharisees and they questioned him as to how he had received his sight. He told them in the simplest way of the Master’s miracle. They responded, “Give God the praise: we know that this Man is a sinner”. He answered, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see” (John 9:24-25). Later when he practically admitted that he would be a disciple of Jesus, they reviled him and said, “We are Moses’ disciples”, and the man made a remarkable answer, “Herein is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth” (John 9:28; John 9:30-31).

This argument exasperated them. They answered and said unto him, “Thou wast altogether born m sins, and dost thou teach us”? the meaning of which was, “Who are you, anyhow?

You are a social nobody; you are without scholarly attainments or official station. Why such presumption?” and “they cast him out”.The aristocracy of learning is the truest aristocracy on earth. It represents personal merit and prodigious endeavor, and is not to be brought to the low level of the aristocracy of wealth or inherited station; but, while it is the truest aristocracy on the earth, it is the most egotistical, overbearing and intolerant. It is never unconscious of its own attainments, and Zophar is not only a university “graduate”, but an ancient illustration of that egotism.He made out that Job was all mouth (Job 11:2). The King James version says, “Should a man full of talk be justified”?Joseph Parker translates it, “Should a man all mouth be justified?” The disrespect and irreverence of such a speech becomes evident when one remembers the character and attainments of the man to whom it was addressed. We have a saying, “What you are speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say,” a sentence supposed to represent supreme sarcasm, but even that pales before Zophar’s supercilious speech, “Should a man who is all mouth be justified?” The remark reminds one again of what the defeated politicians had to say concerning Magnus Johnson.

They nicknamed him “Magnavox” and said that he did not need to go to Washington in order to be heard when he spoke, as he was wholly capable of yelling across the country and making himself understood, all of which sarcasm has a certain suggestive basis, but it also represents exasperation, and voices disgruntled defeat.It is a rule that people who talk all the time are shallow; and people who talk too much, say what were better left unsaid; but here again the law of the English language obtains, “Every rule has its exceptions”. We know people who are incessant talkers and yet seldom speak either an idle or a thoughtless word.

Mr. Bryan was an illustration of that fact. His opponents said that he could wind up his mouth and set it going and leave it for two hours and find it working perfectly when he returned. A sufficient retort is that, even in Mr. Bryan’s absence, his mouth would say more sensible things than the average man’s mouth is able to express, he being present. This defense applies to Job. His answer to Bildad is supremely effective, so much so that Zophar realized its sufficiency and sought to minimize its effect by holding it to scorn. It is the trick of the mere debater.

Yea, it is the attempt of the immature to turn the laugh on age, experience and wisdom.He concluded by reminding Job that boasting is not brain (Job 11:3). The King James version reads, “Should thy lies make men hold their peace? and when thou mockest, shall no man make thee ashamed”? The word “lies” should be translated “boasting” or “devices”. “Should thy boasting make men hold their peace?” “Is thy boasting such a proof of brains that you imagine there is no answer, and your mockery an evidence of your lack of modesty?”It is easy to see why the “graduate” makes this grave charge. In the 9th chapter, Job acknowledged the truth of what Bildad had said as to his sinfulness, but justly reminded his critic of the fact that all his charges applied to himself and all other men; that we are all gone astray, that there is none that doeth good, no, not one; and while he kept up the personal pronoun through the whole procedure, he so perfectly generalized the principles, that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar all realized that Job’s remarks applied to them, and that they were in no sense either free from sin or exempt from judgment.That is where the worm turns. That is where an argument becomes a boomerang and, gaining velocity in its circuit, strikes a heavy blow on its back journey. It is amazing how many men there are who feel insulted if you bring their wisdom or conduct or character to the level of your own.

The Pharisee in God’s Temple was perfectly willing to have the publican pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner”, but would be offended to have him change the plea to, “God be merciful to us sinners.”A certain university professor once attempted to prove to me that evolution was true by stating that the brighter students of his class uniformly accepted it, showing how it appealed to open and logical minds. When I remarked that if he would permit me to come into his class and present the other side, he might find half of them rejecting it, he answered, “You think highly of yourself,” to which I felt impelled to retort, “Yes, I might prove almost as bright as you are!”I am not sure that Zophar was a university professor, but I should not be at all surprised to have it so proven.

One strong argument in favor of the notion is the answer Job will give when once this professor has come to silence and given the old man a chance, “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you”!JOB’S ANGERED HIMHe objected to the claim of orthodoxy in language and life. “For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes” (Job 11:4). One searches in vain through Job’s speech to discover these words. They are doubtless Zophar’s interpretation of Job’s remark, “Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things” (Job 6:30)? It is not altogether an unfair interpretation. Job did mean to say that he was teaching the truth and that he not only knew the difference between right and wrong, but was seeking to do the former and eschew the latter. The claim carried for Zophar a double offense.

Some men cannot brook the claim of orthodoxy. They hate the very term. “Doctrine” to such men is a synonym for “dogma”, and they bristle against both.The day in which we live is peculiarly opposed to “doctrine” and has set its face like a flint against “orthodoxy”.

Both terms are everywhere spoken against. We are told that the period of dogmatism is past forever, and that doctrinal preaching is non-acceptable. The uneducated prefer anecdotes to doctrines, and slang phrases to elaborate eloquence, and the scholarly demand smooth words in essay form, suggesting possibilities, yea even probabilities, but asserting nothing!If Christ were here with us, His “I say unto you” would be charged to braggartism and self-assertion —an uncultured cock-sureness. If John were alive and writing “We know”, he would be taken in hand and told that a little more modesty became the mortal mind. If Paul were back thundering his declarations or penning his positives, that Apostle would be a marked man and the whole denominational machinery would be set in order to silence “this disturber of the peace”, “this independent propagandist”, “this ecclesiastical Bolshevist”.But the fact remains that where no “doctrine” is taught, no true teaching is done. The relation of truth to life is positive and logical.

As a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he”. Orthodoxy, in conception, is basal to orthodoxy in conduct.

The man who entertains wrong philosophy, fills his mind with mistaken convictions, and follows slavishly, “science falsely so-called”, cannot keep the path of the just, nor practice the greater virtues of a Christian life. The greatest single need of the Church of God at this time is the revival of doctrinal preaching, which is only another way of saying that we need Biblical teaching.He was the proponent of philosophy vs. theology (Job 11:5). Like many a scholar, he did no independent thinking, but accepted the current opinion of the day. With Eliphaz and Bildad, he shared the mistake of the millenniums, namely, the belief that a man’s affliction suggests God’s frown, and that sickness and suffering are God’s sore judgments against sin. The whole Book of Job has as its main point the disproving of that falsehood, and the Scriptures are replete with illustrations of that mistake. The disciples of Christ’s day were still entertaining the same philosophy, hence the question, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind”?

Jesus answered them, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him”, but to this moment men have not apprehended His meaning. In other words, the devil’s sorest afflictions only suffice to provide opportunity for God’s grace.

When the devil has done his worst against us, then God often comes in to do His best for us. It was not God who saw to it that Joseph was hated, thrust into the pit, sold into slavery, cast into prison, forgotten and neglected and lied about—that was the devil’s doing; but it was God who brought him forth from prison, provided proofs of his innocence, and secured his appointment to the office of Egyptian premier.It was not God who smote Peter’s wife’s mother with a fever, but it was God, in Christ, who rebuked the fever and imparted health.It was not God smiting Christ, afflicting Him with sufferings and death, but it was God who gave Him a victory over the grave and raised Him to His own right hand. It was not God who tied the feet of Judson and, swinging them into the air, left him for twenty-three months to sleep in a mud-hole at Oung-pen-la with only his shoulders touching the ground, and it was not God who brought sickness to his wife, and finally death in the very time when these trials were on, but it was God who brought him out of that prison and made him to be an apostle of faith to his persecutors and “a lamp” to India —the precursor of the coming light “that lighteth every man that cometh into the world”.Let us be done forever with this wretched, false, devilish philosophy that afflictions are God’s frowns against sin, and let us learn that even when Satan smites, God is great enough and gracious enough to take the devil’s blow and so change it as to make it a mere “chastening”, for our good, compelling “all things to work together” to the believer’s blessing.Zophar sought by definition to destroy Job’s God (Job 11:5-11). In ancient literature there is no more perfect piece of modernism! Dr. Parker not only misjudged Zophar, counting him a conservative, when he is a radical, but utterly misinterprets this tribute to God, in regarding it an eloquent expression of “the Gospel”.

It is a deliberate attempt to so define God as to confuse Job. It is one of those elaborate definitions of God that leads nowhere and practically loses the thought of personality.“O, that God would speak, and open His lips against thee;“And that He would show thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is!

Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.“Canst thou by searching find out God? const thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?“It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?“The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.“If He cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder Him?“For He knoweth vain men: He seeth wickedness also; will He not then consider it”?This is a description of an infinite thing rather than of an individual—the language of philosophy rather than of theology; high sounding—not satisfactory ! Paradoxical as it may sound, this is a piece of ancient modernism and reminds one of Lyman Abbott’s “force”, and Gerald Birney Smith’s “God twined in nature”, and of a piece with the pantheism of the Rig-Veda. It is more and more a question as to whether modernists have any God. I finished reading a few days since a volume entitled, “The Evolution of Man”, produced by Prof. Richard Swann Lull, Chair of Vertebrate Paleontology, Yale; Harry Burr Ferris, professor of Anatomy, Yale; George Howard Parker, professor of Zoology, Harvard; James Rowland Angell, president of Yale; Albert Galloway Keller, professor of Science of Society, Yale, and Edwin Grant Conkling, professor of Biology, Princeton. In the volume of over 200 large pages, treating upon a subject that would involve God, if any theme under heaven could, they complete their work and never call His Name, and the only remote reference to Him is involved in a scornful statement concerning what they claim to be Dr.

Lightfoot’s account of “the creation by the Trinity”. “God is not in all their thoughts”, and yet these are men holding professorships and drawing salaries from schools, two of which, at least, were founded by most ardent orthodox and believing men! To be sure, Professor Conkling has, in a tract, taken up the question of God, and announced that He made the amoeba first, and out of that simple, single-celled life, through an infinite stretch of time, developed all living things; and Professor Conkling believes that the God who did that is greater than the God of the Genesis conception.

All of which reminds one again of the statement some one recently made, namely, that an educated man can argue eloquently any conceivable proposition.The evolutionary hypothesis, insofar as it relates to God, seems to think that God has been experimenting for a few septillions of years to discover what He could do. Having worked from the simple to the complex, He finally reached the chimpanzee stage of development; then, splitting that family into two branches, He left one to go its wild way in animal form, dumb tongued, and with undeveloped brain; but He worked on the other to see what He could make out of it, and after 500,000 to a million years, He accomplished “homo sapiens”, and reached the end of His inventive genius. Certainly these gentlemen, as William Jennings Bryan says, “carry their quivers full of aeons”. Dealing with an eternity, they are generous in their use of time. Their common talk in millions, billions and trillions of years, reminds one of the Illinois farmer who visited his brother in the Ozarks. Seeing some lank, gaunt animals racing the woods, he asked, “What are they?” “Hogs,” was his brother’s reply. “What kind?” “Razor backs, we call ‘em.” What’s that one doing—rubbing that tree?” “He’s a stroppin’ hisself.” “How long does it take to fatten a hog like that?” “Four or five years.” “Why.

John, why don’t you get Poland China hogs and in six months you could produce a pig that would weigh more than that kind in five years.” “Well, suppose I could. What’s time to a hog anyhow?” Modernists argue after a kindred manner concerning their god.

To them, time is nothing. If he wants to spend an eternity working up from an electron to an amoeba, what’s it to us? We answer, “Not a thing ! That’s with Him.” Our objection to the time question is two-fold:First, nature’s testimonies do not demand such aeons for man’s history, nor even hint that he has had an existence upon the earth for a longer space than Genesis accords him; and second, the Scripture statement as to the method of his creation, while it in no sense descends to details, is clear, and teaches that he was made directly, and practically instantly, by the wisdom and will of God, and bore the Divine image from the beginning.But Zophar’s speech continues:JOB’S ORIGIN AND DESTINY HIMHe was an advocate of the theory of the animal origin of man. “Vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass’s colt” (Job 11:12)—in other words, though he begins like the beast.This is modernism again—3500-year-old modernism. It would be an interesting procedure if it were not such a pathetic endeavor, this tracing of man to his animal origin. It is the custom now with books on science to prove this animal origin by embryonic parallelisms.

It just so happens in nature that there are certain similarities between the foetus of a pig, rabbit, monkey and man. Tracing these out elaborately, they conclude that they came from a common origin, forgetting what Professor Albert Galloway Keller of Yale has admitted in his chapter on “Societal Evolution”, “An analogy is no proof of anything.

Consider the enthusiast who described the life cycle of the butterfly and wound up triumphantly, ‘Now, who shall say there is no proof of immortality?’ Proof demands facts; ever more facts; all sorts of facts bearing on the subject”.Unfortunately for the animal origin of man, facts are wanting. We agree absolutely with Professor Keller that an analogy is a specifically selected fact or relation picked out of many possibilities because it is thought most vividly to set forth some idea already developed and fixed in the mind. It is not the search for truth that the analogy user is after; it is the exposition of a position already taken.That is the exact truth concerning the expositors of Darwinism. They are forever on the search for something that will hint or illustrate or suggest the possibility of their propaganda.It is well known that Professor Du Bois, two years before he found the bones of the “missing link”, told his friends he was going to find it, and it is admitted that Haeckel was so keen for evidence that he manufactured the same!But Zophar’s animal origin of man leaves the uses of life still to be considered, and a further study of the text will show thatHe held that life’s evolution was by way of self-help.“If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward Him;“If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.“For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear:“Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away:“And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning” (Job 11:13-17).This again is the mark of the modernist. He will not have the Gospel truth, salvation by grace, but like his early predecessors, he proposes to work out his own salvation, preparing his own heart, putting away his own “iniquity”, letting “not wickedness dwell” in his tabernacles, lifting up a “face without spot”, being steadfast, fearless, and coming to old age clear as the noon day sun, shining as a cloudless morning. It is a pleasing prospect—it is the appeal of materialism.

It is a gospel with God left out. It is a salvation without a Saviour.

It is a new gospel with a vengeance. And yet it is a gospel against which Paul inveighed, writing to the Ephesians, (Ephesians 2:8-9), “For by grace cure ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast”. And later to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:9), “Saved * * * * not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”.Tennyson writes, “We hold it truth with him who sings,To one clear harp in divers tones,That man may rise on stepping stones of their dead selvesTo higher things.”But the Scriptures know no such doctrine, so far as the soul’s salvation is concerned. Our own energy brings us a certain claim to temporal success. Our conduct determines our standing with men. Our works bring their social, political and financial rewards, but salvation is of grace; though an angel preach else, it is not the Gospel!Finally, Zophar regarded temporal success the soul’s sufficient victory.“And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety.“Also thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid; yea, many shall make suit unto thee.“But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost” (Job 11:18-20).Personal security, rest and safety, sleep undisturbed—these are commonly supposed to be the characteristic features of the upright in contrast to the failures and fears of the wicked, but as presented by Zophar, they seem to refer to this life only. That is another expression of his modernism. Many modernists are now telling us we have nothing to do with eternity.

Our position is “to make the most of time”. Materialism takes little stock in “immortality” and seldom concerns itself with what shall lie beyond the grave.

Let it be understood that the saved man need not be indifferent to temporal success. It is a great thing to stand in the midst of your fellows with no spot on your face; to be regarded by them as steadfast and fearless; to keep oneself serene and let all sorrows pass over as “the waters that pass away,” and one’s age “clear as the noon day”, and one’s countenance “bright as the morning;” but while the reading of Wm. Matthews’ “Getting on in the World”, or “Self Help” by Smiles, is an admirable thing for boys and girls, and has stirred and enthused hundreds of them to industry, frugality and nobleness of endeavor, they fall short of “the Gospel”! God doesn’t propose a plan for this life only, but presents also the program for eternity. The Gospel talks of “Heaven” and of “hell”. The Gospel everywhere recognizes a hereafter.

The Gospel even questions that temporal success is anything if followed by eternal failure, as in the instance of Dives; and temporal failure is not so terribly regrettable if succeeded by eternal success, as illustrated by Lazarus.We are told that Philip Deneri, the great teacher, had a brilliant student who confessed to him that he had chosen his profession for life. He would take the course that fitted him for law and graduate from the same.

Deneri said, “Then what?” “Select my place of practice and secure patrons.” “And then what?” “Rise to position among barristers and be honored by my fellows.” “And then what?” “Make my calling a medium of value and grow rich as well as honored.” “And then what?” “In old age, retire and live out my life in comparative ease.” Thereupon Philip Deneri raised his voice and cried, “And then WHAT?”That is the point at which the Gospel steps in, the place at which orthodoxy speaks; the problem for which conservatism has a solution in the terms of God, Heaven, eternity. Zophar had no gospel!