Imagine you are sitting in church. Zophar is the guest preacher. What do you think? ‘Pretty good sermon – God is great (vs 7–9); he is our judge (vs 10,11); we need to turn from our sin (v 14), God brings security and hope (v 18). Brilliant!’ Then, at coffee-time you learn all this truth is misplaced. Zophar is convinced he is preaching to a sinner who needs to be reminded just how guilty he is (vs 4–6). But God disagrees: Job is ‘blameless’, a God-fearer who ‘shuns evil’ (1:1; 2:3). What are we to make of that? 

Zophar demonstrates our limited understanding of how God works. He assumes that a righteous person will not suffer like Job. He sees the problem and delivers his formula to solve it. But what if ‘God gives blessings of hope and security but also allows unpredictable and seemingly unfair suffering’?* We must allow God to be God, not thinking we have all the ready-made answers. Being slow to come up with the answers, sitting silently with sufferers, and trusting the God whose mysteries we sometimes cannot fathom (v 7) needs to be our posture.

*Lindsay Wilson, Job: Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary, Eerdmans, 2015

‘My sin, not in part but the whole, / is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more; / praise the Lord … O my soul!’¹

If Zophar had been on social media, just imagine what he might have done with it. In this day of internet availability, it is too easy to comment on other people’s lives in ways that are not always helpful. Zophar has fallen into the trap that awaits those who lecture others about their sufferings. He exaggerates the problem and over-simplifies the remedy. Job has not claimed that his beliefs are flawless or that he is pure in God’s sight (v 4). Crucially, although Job has been both honest and vulnerable in challenging God’s actions,² he has not mocked God. Zophar’s scathing accusation of Job shows that he has neither listened to his heart, nor considered his situation closely enough. ‘Job’s bewilderment and his outbursts are natural; in them we find his humanity, and our own.’³ 

Through decades of chronic ill health, I faced similar reproach from well-meaning friends. Suffering is presumed to be linked either to hidden sin or else to lack of faith. That heaps pain on struggling believers who are waiting for God’s intervention and trusting him for grace to persevere. 

Job’s friend longs that God would speak (v 5), but God had already spoken about Job⁴ – just not to him. Zophar also accurately foretells a little of what God would say in the future (vs 7,8),⁵ but without realising the implications. His call for Job to repent might seem sensible at first, but sometimes our spiritual solutions to problems are limited. His rose-tinted outlook on the benefits of soul-searching and repentance are not realistic. We are not promised a life brighter than the noonday here, though there is one to come. Job was, instead, being called to trust in the dark.

Lord, help me to hear what you are saying. Open my eyes to the hurts and heart feelings of those who I know are suffering today.

¹ H Spafford, 1828–88, ‘When peace like a river’  ² Job 10:9–22  ³ Francis Andersen, Job, Tyndale, IVP, 1976, p169  ⁴ Job 1:8; 2:3  ⁵ Job 38–42