Beloved, I am pleased to share with you today the above theme from Job 20:1-2 and following. Indeed, to these remarkable words of faith that the Spirit of God dictated to Job, Tsophar responds with his own intelligence (vs. 2:3). Taking up the theme of Eliphaz and Bildad (Jb 15:20-35; Jb 18:5-21) he elaborates at length on the fate that awaits the wicked, thus indirectly and mercilessly attacking his poor friend (Pr 12:18). Did Job’s confession touch the hearts of his friends? On the contrary, it is followed by a particularly bitter speech by Tsophar. He seems to have been the lowest of the three morally, and as usually happens, the most presumptuous in his words and the least broken in spirit. “That’s why my thoughts inspire an answer.” In truth, it was so: he gives us his “thoughts”. It was by no means the fear of God that moved his lips, nor a holy desire to defend his grace and truth.
Here we have Tsophar’s own thoughts. “And because of this the ardor of my mind acts in me.” He acts in haste, which faith does not do. “I hear a reprimand that covers me with shame, and my mind responds with my intelligence. Do you know well that, at all times, since man was put on the earth, the exultation of the wicked is short.” This is Tsophar’s dominant thought. “The joy of the ungodly is only for a moment.” Job was the ungodly and the hypocrite. “If his height rises to the heavens, and his head touches the clouds, he will perish forever like his garbage; those who have seen him will say: Where is he? It flies away like a dream.” He continues until the end of his speech this unbridled attack on a man incomparably better than him. What is all this if not a persevering, laborious and extravagant effort to hurt as much as possible by their words the one they had neither been able to convince nor confuse. The words of their mouths were naked swords.
The book of Job offers us the example of the relationship with God of a pious man outside Israel and, no doubt, before this people appeared on the scene. We see how God works for good towards men in this evil world; but, as a result, this book clearly becomes a type of Israel: The ways of God, as presented to us in Job, are fully manifested in the history of this people. And it is worth noting that when Job practically feels the impossibility of man being righteous before God (Job 9:2, 30, 31), he complains of being in terror and of having no arbiter between God and him (vs. 33:34). Elihu, who places himself on this ground in the place of God, does not expose redemption, but God’s government and chastisement (chapters 33, 36). This is how God often acts with man.
The great saying that vivifies our faith and carries thought into a higher world has not transmitted any divine meaning to the man of Naamah. The author must have intended to cast contempt on Tsophar’s hidden intelligence and gross bigotry, to show him overshadowed by his contentment and zeal not conforming to knowledge. When Job affirmed his sublime confidence in a divine righter of wrongs, Tsophar grasped only the idea of an avenger. What is this notion of a Goel on whose support a convict dares to rely, who will judge in his place? And his resentment was heightened by Job’s last words: “If you say, ‘How can we pursue him? If they continued to declare that the root of the matter, that is, the true cause of his affliction, lay in his own bad life, let them beware of the vengeful sword of divine justice. He certainly implies that his Goel can become their enemy if they continue to persecute him with false accusations. For Tsophar, the suggestion is intolerable. Without little irritation and anger, he begins: – “For this, my thoughts answer me, And because of this there is haste in me – I hear the reproach that shames me, And the spirit of my understanding answers me.”
He speaks more warmly than in his first speech, because his pride is touched, and this prevents him from distinguishing between a warning and a personal threat. For a Tsophar, every man is blind who does not see as he sees, and every offensive word that invites him to take a break. Believers of his kind have always liked to appropriate the defense of the truth, and they have rarely done anything other than harm. Conceive of the stupidity and stubbornness of someone who has heard an inspired statement entirely new to human thought, and immediately turned into resentment about the man from whom he comes. He is an example of a bigot in the presence of genius, a little uncomfortable, very offended, very sure to know the thought of God, and very determined to have the last word. Such were the scribes and Pharisees of our Lord’s time, most of them religious and zealous for what they considered sound doctrine. His light shone in darkness, and their darkness did not understand it; they killed him by accusing him of impiety and blasphemy: “He became the Son of God,” they said.
Tsophar’s entire speech is yet another example of the dogmatic harshness that the writer was attacking, the closure of the mind, and the stiffening of thought. This speaker cannot be unjustly accused of neglecting the moral difference between the layman whose triumph and joy he declares short, and the brave man whose career is full of years and honor. It can almost be said that for him external success is the only mark of inner grace, and that prosperous hypocrisy would be taken by him for the most beautiful piety. His whole creed about providence and chastisement is such that he is about to become completely confused. Well, he said to himself that Job is a wicked and false man, whose striking characteristic is frank truthfulness, whose integrity is the pride of his divine Master. And if Tsophar once accepts as indisputable that Job is neither good nor sincere, what will be the end for himself? With increasing confidence, he will judge by a man’s prosperity that he is just, and by his afflictions that he is a reprobate.
Will there come a time in the history of the race when criticism of the prophet will no longer be necessary and his cloak will fall on him? This can only be when all the Lord’s people are prophets, when everywhere the earthly will be counted for nothing in the eyes of the celestial, when men continually seek a new revelation of the good, and the criticism of Christ will be so recognized that no one needs to repeat after him: “How can you believe those who receive honor from one another, and do not seek honor: it comes from God alone? By heavenly means only heavenly ends will be assured, and the relentless pursuit of the earthly good will never bring the race of men into the paradise where Christ reigns.
In all sincerity, Tsophar speaks, with righteous indignation against the man whose rum he paints, persuades that he is following step by step the march of divine judgment. His eye catches fire, his voice resonates with poetic exultation. He succeeded for a time, hiding or fortifying himself in the mountains. He has in reserve silver and gold and clothes taken by violence, cattle and sheep captured in the plain. But the neighborhood is buzzing. Gradually, it is pushed back into the uninhabited desert. His supplies are cut off and he is pushed to the limit. His food becomes for him like the fiel of aspics. With all his ill-gotten riches, he is in misery, because he is driven from one place to another. Not for him now the luxury of the green oasis and the freshness of the flowing streams. He is an outlaw, in constant danger of being discovered. His children wander in places where they are not known and beg for bread. Reduced to an abject fear, he returns the goods he had taken by violence, trying to buy the enmity of his pursuers. Then comes the last skirmish, the clash of arms, the ignominious death.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
The triumph of the wicked does not last:
- Worldly ambition, examples of
-Men after the flood Gen 11:4 They said again: Let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose summit touches heaven, and make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered on the face of the whole earth.
-Absalom 2 S 15.1, 2, 4 After that, Absalom obtained a chariot and horses, and fifty men who ran before him. 2 He got up early in the morning, and stood at the side of the doorway. And whenever a man with a dispute went to the king to get a judgment, Absalom would call him, and say: What city are you from? When he answered: I am of such a tribe of Israel, 4 Absalom said: Who will establish me as a judge in the land? Any man who had a challenge and a trial would come to me, and I would do him justice.
-Adonias 1 Kings 1:5 Adonija, son of Haggith, let himself be carried away by pride to the point of saying: I will be king! And he procured a chariot and horsemen, and fifty men who ran before him.
-The mother of James and John Mt 20:21 He said to her: What do you want? Order, she said, that my two sons, behold, be seated in your kingdom, one to your right and the other to your left.
-The disciples Luke 22:24 There was also a dispute among the apostles: which of them was to be considered the greatest?
-The Jews Jn 5:44 How can you believe, you who derive your glory from one another, and who do not seek the glory that comes from God alone?
- Heredity, general references
Ex 34:7 who retains his love for up to a thousand generations, who forgives iniquity, rebellion and sin, but who does not hold the guilty person innocent, and who punishes the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the children of children up to the third and fourth generation! Ps 51:7 Behold, I was born in iniquity, and my mother conceived me in sin. Ps 58:4 The wicked are perverted from the womb, Liars go astray out of their mother’s womb. Ez 8:2 I looked, and behold, it was a figure with the appearance of a man; from his kidneys below, it was fire, and from his kidneys at the top, it was something bright, like polished brass.
- God’s Revenge
Dt 32:35 Revenge and retribution to me, When their foot falters! For the day of their misfortune is near, and what awaits them will not be long in coming. Ps 94:1 God of vengeance, Jehovah! God of vengeance, seems! Rom 12:19 Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but let anger work; for it is written: To me vengeance, to me retribution, says the Lord. 2 Thess 1:8 in the midst of a flame of fire, to punish those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Hb 10:30 For we know the one who said: Vengeance to me, retribution to me! and again: The Lord will judge his people.
- The Wages of Sin Brings No Gain
Jb 15:31 If he trusts in evil, he is mistaken, for evil will be his reward. Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but God’s free gift is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Hb 2:2 For if the word announced by angels has had its effect, and if every transgression and disobedience has received just retribution, 2 Pet 2:13 thus receiving the wages of their iniquity. They find their delights in indulging in pleasure in broad daylight; Men tarred and defiled, they delight in their deceptions, making good food with you.
From all of the above, we note that vain is resistance when it is undermined by its enemies: A moment of overwhelming terror, and it is gone. His tent ignites and burns, as if the breath of God was warming the vengeful flame. Within him, his wife and children perished. Heaven seems to have called for its destruction and earth to obey the call. Thus, the art and strength of the buccaneer, living from the flocks and harvests of industrious people, are measured in vain by the indignation of God, who has ordered the punishment of wickedness. A powerful word image: Yet if Tsophar and the others taught such a doctrine of retribution, and put to that, could not find another; if they were saying, “This is the fate of a wicked man on behalf of God,” how far the divine judgment must have been from ordinary life, from the lies spoken daily, from harsh words and blows to the slave, from the jealousies and selfishness of the harem. Under the pretext of showing the just Judge, Tsophar makes it impossible, or almost impossible, to realize his presence and authority. Men must be excited in the name of God or His judicial wrath will not be felt. It is, however, when we apply the picture to the case of Job that we see its falsity. Compared to the facts of his career, Tsophar’s account of divine judgment stands out as a flat heresy, a filthy slander imputed to God’s providence. For he means that Job wore in his own colony the hypocritical habit of piety and benevolence and that he had to make brigandage his profession elsewhere, that his servants who died by the sword of the Chaldeans and Sabaeans and the fire of heaven had been his army of laughter, that the cause of his ruin was the intolerance of heaven and hatred of the earth for such a vile life. Tsophar describes poetic justice and returns to Job. Now it becomes a blatant injustice against God and man. We cannot argue from what is sometimes to what needs to be. Although Tsophar took charge to condemn someone truly and unquestionably a disbeliever, truth alone would have served the cause of justice. But he supposes, conjectures, and is infinitely unjust and cruel to his friend. Our prayers are with you all.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom as I walk in your ways.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I’d be happy to respond to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow “Job’s Reply: Why Do the Bad Guys Thrive? (Jb 21)
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.