Bible Commentary - Job 11

In this chapter, Zophar the Naamathite takes his turn to rebuke Job.

I would divide this chapter into roughly three parts. The first part is verses 1-4. In this part, Zophar claims that Job is trying to justify himself by “scoffing” at God by claiming his own innocence.  In a sense this is true, Job is indeed claiming innocence and implying that God is treating him unfairly.  The part where I disagree with Zophar is that he is imputing negative moral character onto Job, because Zophar sees Job as “scoffing” or “boasting” as an act of pride, while I think a fair rendering of Job’s speech is that Job is speaking out of “the bitterness of his soul” (Job 10:1), which he has said several times.  Zophar is misinterpreting Job’s motives and emotional state for the simple reason that under Zophar’s theology, Job must be sinning in order to be punished like this, and therefore Job is a sinner in the same way as “false men” or “idiots” (v. 11-12).  This attitude is entirely consistent with Job’s other two friends.

The second part is verses 5-12, which is Zophar poetically describing the extent of Job’s wisdom and knowledge.  The reason for this section is that Job was previously questioning God’s judgment and God’s fairness.  Basically what Zophar is trying to say is that God has great wisdom, God knows all of Job’s sins, and that God is better at judging who is righteous and who is a sinner than Job.  Job has no place to question God’s judgment, because God is greater than he is.  It’s a strange thing for Zophar to say because Job all but said the exact same thing when claiming that nobody could stand before the LORD (Job 9:2-4).  Anyway, it’s clear that Zophar expects this to end the argument, because God has great wisdom and no one can dispute his judgments.  It’s a reasonable point but it ignores the reality of Job’s existence.

The third and final section is verses 13-20, which is a renewed call for Job to repent.  We’ve had a couple of these in Job already, and this one is much the same.  The formula is pretty much the same as chapter 8 where repentance is followed by a resurgent glory and greatness in Job’s life.

Verse 14 is the key to this third section, because once again Zophar is making a presumption of Job’s guilt.  This presumption is a natural consequence of the second section, which is a presumption of the supremacy of God’s judgment, and the assumption that God would only punish sinners.  From these two assumptions, Zophar can confidently claim that Job must be a sinner, because he suffers in this way.  This is typical of the whole book.

Zophar concludes with a call for Job’s repentance; in the next chapter, Job replies to his third friend.