Job 11:1

ZOPHAR’S FIRST ADDRESS. 1. Then answered Zophar Eliphaz had modestly confirmed his views by an appeal to the revelation of a spirit; Bildad, by recourse to the wisdom of the ancients; Zophar, the youngest of the three, relies upon himself. “At first,” says Jahn, “his discourse is characterized by rusticity; his second address adds but little to the first; and in the third dialogue he has no reply to make.” The other two friends had looked upon Job’s sufferings as the chastenings of God, rather than punishments. Zophar, on the other hand, regards them as solely punitive. The address opens with painful vituperation, but proceeds in noble language to describe the infinite wisdom of God a wisdom that comprehends and arraigns the human heart. In contrast man at best is, as Zophar says, but hollow-headed and perverse from his birth. With beautiful imagery he portrays the happiness and security of the just, and concludes, like Bildad, with the doom of the wicked.