ZOPHAR THE ORDINARY SOUL

Zophar is the last speaker in each of the first two cycles. In the third he does not appear. It is reasonable to suppose that he is the youngest of the three friends and the least important. But it must be remembered that all three are great men, representative of what is wisest and best in the life of their day and country. Job is a man "born out of due season," a man in advance of his time, a path-finder and a banner-bearer. In their eyes he is worse than an innovator. He is an iconoclast He is irreverent, profane, a blasphemer whose sufferings are the result of sin and the cause of deeper sin. We know that the friends are deeply in error. Jehovah testifies that they have said of Him the things which are not right But they are wise with the wisdom of their time. And they thought they did God service.

All this must be remembered as we come to the study of Zophar. He is not a man to be despised, however much we may, on Job's behalf, resent the things he says. He is not a seer like Eliphaz, nor a sage like Bildad; but the Church must have its ordinary souls as well as its seers and sages, its heroes and saints. If the things that he says are not new, at least he says them marvellously well, and some it would be difficult even now for any of us to say better. What can be liner than his outburst of wonder and awe in the presence of the divine omniscience?

"Canst thou by searching find out God?

Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?

It is high as heaven; what canst thou do?

Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know?1

The man through whose lips the author of Job speaks these noble lines is not to be dismissed as a contemptible person noticeable only by reason of his odious vulgarity and bigotry.2

Zophar's First Speech.

Zophar's opening words (chap. xi. vers. 1-6) cannot be defended. He is harsh from the very outset. He comes as a friend: he speaks as a foe. Read even in English his words have the effect of shots from a quick-firing gun. Job is a "babbler," a man "full of talk," literally "a man of lips" whose wild words come neither from brain nor heart, a "boaster" and a "mocker." Job has longed to hear God speak, but Zophar is satisfied that if Job should find himself cursed by the burden of a granted prayer he would be exposed and abased.

There follows the glowing tribute to the unspeakable wisdom of God already quoted, and then preaching which shows that this average man of a forgotten day has learned what we need always to remember that there is no "evangel" except preaching with promise. He exhorts Job (vers. 13, 14) to "set the heart right" and "stretch out the hands" to God. He bids him —

"If iniquity be in thy hand, put it far away,

And let not unrighteousness dwell in thy tents."

And if he will do this,

"Surely then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot;

Yea, thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear:

For thou shalt forget thy misery;

Thou shalt remember it as waters that are passed away.

And thy life shall be clearer than the noonday;

Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning.

And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope;

Yea, thou shalt search about thee, and shalt take thy rest in safety.

Also thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid."3

He has spoken well, once the harshness of his opening words has been laid aside. The pity is that he should have prejudiced us against his message by the bitterness of his spirit. Herein is matter of grave concern. The preacher who "nags" is not by any means more admirable than the "nagging" husband or the "nagging" wife. It is depressing to "worship" in an atmosphere of fault-finding. It is intolerable to live in an atmosphere of "snarl." We cannot denounce people into goodness. We cannot coerce them to Christ. There are times when the world needs a son of thunder with his fiery tongue and prophet's heart of flame. But not all of us are called to an apostolate of protest or ministry of rebuke. Not all of us are fitted for it. The mighty hater may be a servant of God — but only on condition that he has first proved himself a heroic lover. The ethics of denunciation must be studied with greater care than we have yet bestowed upon it. Hate is too precious a thing to be wasted. It must be kept for the supreme moment and the Christ-like mood.4 The Angel of the Church at Ephesus is praised because he hates "the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." If we hate nothing which we are satisfied the Risen Christ does not hate we shall not go far wrong. And even then our "hate" must be so pure, so white-hot in its holiness, that it can live side by side with a love like His.

Zophar's Second Speech

Zophar's second speech (chapter xx) passes all bounds. It follows close upon the marvellous appeal of Job from the injustice of earth to the justice of heaven. It is Zophar's coarse and cruel reply to Job's passionate "I know that my Vindicator liveth," and his assurance that his cause will triumph after his death. Zophar bids him believe (ver. 5) that "the triumph of the wicked is short" and the "joy of the godless for a moment" To us who know the facts Zophar's description of Job as an epicure in sin is merely foolish. To Job himself, sick in body and in mind and heart-sick, too, bereaved, abandoned, such wild and wicked charges are maddening. They lash his spirit. Zophar rushes on (vers. 12, 13):

"Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth.

Though he hide it under his tongue,

Though he spare it, and will not let it go,

But keep it still within his mouth" —

rolls it under his tongue, that is to say, as a sweet morsel, this sin in which he delights! 8 7

The Divine Drama of Job

No wonder Job refuses to recognise himself in so monstrous a description. "Hast thou considered my servant Job?" — we have not forgotten Jehovah's question, nor His account of die man of Uz: "There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil" — not one that "sups full of horrors" and of infamies until the surfeit of them nauseates him (ver. 15)! Has Job challenged the verdict of heaven? Heaven and earth alike condemn him, Zophar says:

"The heavens shall reveal his iniquity,

And the earth shall rise up against him."

And once again, lest any should miss the personal application of all this, the formula is spoken:

"This is the portion of a wicked man from God,

And the heritage appointed unto him by God."

Gospel-hardened.

We know that Job's daring and glorious appeal did not fail in heaven. It is painful to observe how it failed on earth. Coarseness and cruelty, we have seen, are Zophar's answer to the "Vindicator" passage — and not only to that immortal plaint but to a cry as sad, as heavily charged with anquish, as ever broke from a suffering heart:

"Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends?

For the hand of God hath touched me."5

How can this human nature of ours be so in-human, so callous, so wolfish? There is no answer to such a question. It is the tragedy of all redemptive work amongst men. It is the tragedy of Redemption. "What hast thou done?" Pilate demanded of the pale Prisoner at his judgment bar. And the answer might have been: Deeds of love and mercy without end! He was Pity incarnate, He was divine Compassion, He was ineffable Goodness and Gentleness. But priests conspired His death; the crowd clamoured for Barabbas; the soldiers lashed Him with whips, played a hideous game with Him as they blindfolded Him and demanded, "Prophesy who struck thee," pressed thorns upon His brow — and they crucified Him! Age by age the terribly sad word of Isaiah, quoted by Jesus, quoted again by Paul, has been fulfilled in the lives of men and women.6 They have grown harder and coarser, as the word of God has been proclaimed to them. The heart has become fat, and the ears heavy, and their eyes have been closed. Browning attempts an answer to Shakespeare's question:

"'Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts!' O Lear,

That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear";

but the horror of great darkness falls upon us when we discover that the "reason out of nature" incarnate in the Son of God fails at times to "turn them soft."

In a way there is a measure of sad comfort for the preacher in a remembrance of these facts. We fail. Our preaching fails. Our prayers fail. The man or woman we have agonised for lives in sin and dies in sin. And we reproach ourselves with the failure and say that if we had lived nearer to God and with an importunity of prayer that would not be denied besought Him for this life, the effectual fervent prayer would not have returned unto us void. Yes, perhaps, in some particular case. But Isaiah knew that failure was sometimes inevitable, and Paul knew it; and our Lord affirmed that such experiences partake of the nature of law. These things are too high for us; we turn away from them with a heavy heart. But the measure of self-blame is reduced, and each of us is able to find relief in the reflection,

                               "I am glad to think

I am not bound to make the world go right;

But only to discover and to do.

With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.

                                I will trust' in Him

That He can hold His own."7

The Triple Blunder.

Now that the speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are before us, it is easy to see the rocks on which each went to grief. We may speak of a "triple blunder" and be twice right, for each one of the three is guilty of the same three mistakes, any one of which would have made shipwreck of intentions as good as theirs.

1. Personal resentment warps their views. It must ever be remembered that they come to Job with honest hearts, anti that they speak to him the things which they sincerely believe. Job has been their friend. They have honoured and loved him. We shall lose half the value of Job if we forget this. When he takes the course along which they vainly try, for a time at least, to follow him, they are surprised, grieved, overwhelmed. They remonstrate in all singleness of purpose, thinking they do God service. He takes their remonstrances in bad part, and for the reason we have seen: there was not enough of the milk of human kindness in the philosophy with which they sought to sustain his failing spirit. He replies to them, it must be admitted, roughly, contemptuously. From the first he is so hurt by their academic discussion of his sorrows that he does not once manifest gratitude for their visit or respect for themselves. And they allow themselves to be carried off their feet by chagrin, mortification, offended pride. They are carried out of themselves by these emotions. They cease to be theologians, philosophers, teachers of truth. They are merely very angry men who say things which are not only spiteful but silly.

It would not be superfluous to point the moral. The overseer of souls "must be without reproach . . . temperate, sober-minded, orderly . . . apt to teach, no brawler, no striker, but gentle, not contentious"8 — in short, just such a one as neither Eliphaz nor Bildad has proved himself to be.

2. They fail to heed their own teaching. Through long speeches which for very weariness one forbears to quote they have declared that "God" is too vast a conception for the mind of the creature to grasp. It is not only Zophar who exclaims, "Heights of heaven, what canst thou do!" as he contemplates man's feeble attempt to express the infinite. The vision of Eliphaz deepens his intuitive conviction that man is insignificant in the presence of the Most High. And all the learning of Bildad does but confirm his belief that man is a worm.9 Oh, the pity of it, the pity of it, the pity that they did not remember something of their over-great protesting! Then they might have bethought themselves of the possibility that in a scheme of things so vast, a universe of thought so truly immeasurable, controlled by a God whose thought can never be less than infinite, there might be room for theories or truths or facts and laws which they have not yet taken into account. It may be true, as Mr. Chesterton would have us believe, that the "I may be wrong" attitude of many a weakly apologetic soul is a blasphemy against the God within us and without. But unless the strong man is to become a brute, crushing human hearts beneath his knee of prayer, he must be willing to add to his assurance that "I am right" the large and luminous and beautiful belief that his neighbour who differs from him may be as right as he is! He must be ready, and not only ready but glad, to believe that there are still more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy.

3. They allow their theories to over-ride their humanity.

Admitting that their theories are conscientiously held, ought they to treat a bereaved and suffering man, that man their friend, as they have done? If the reader is inclined to answer, "Starting from their premises they could do no other," he may well begin to ponder the entire problem of Job afresh. And the answer which the present writer suggests — and it is only a suggestion — may carry the thinker for. There are certain root-instincts of our human nature which are supreme over any theory of life no matter how intellectually conceived or conscientiously held. Davidson finds that under the first speech of Zophar lies the question, "If the affirmations of a man's conscience or of his consciousness be contradicted by the affirmations of God, what does it become a man to do?"10 This question underlies every question in Job. It is the ground of the problem of Job. And Davidson says that it is wise in such a case to "raise the prior question, * Is this supposed affirmation of God really His affirmation?' or to raise the prior question on the other side, 'Is this affirmation of conscience, which seems opposed to the intimations of God, a true affirmation of conscience?'" This is wise, but when the prior question has been raised, and still the apparent contradiction waits, waits and will not go away, is theory (the "supposed affirmation of God") or what has just been termed "a root-instinct of our human nature" (the "supposed affirmation of conscience") to be given right of way? We shall be better and wiser men and women for believing that tenderness, sympathy, compassion, generosity, brotherly love, and a flaming pity will still be counted Godlike when every theory about them has crumbled into dust. "The heart has its reasons," and the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no "theory" — and no law.11

1 Job xi. 7, 8.

2 The reader who is interested may turn with profit to Cox's vituperative characterisation of Zophar in his commentary on Job; and then he should open Joseph Parker's People's Bible, vol. 11, "Job," and note how Cox's denunciation of Zophar drove Parker into a eulogy of the "fearlessly critical, deeply religious" Zophar more unreasonable than Cox's bitterness. It is more than entertaining. It is significant. To preachers it is a warning.

3 Job xi. 15-19.

4 Frederick William Robertson relates a conversation in which he took part. Someone maintained that "the indignation expressed by Christ against hypocrisy was no precedent for us, inasmuch as He spoke as a Divine person." And Robertson goes on: "I contended that it was human, and if a man did not feel something of the same spirit under similar circumstances, if his blood could not boil with indignation, nor the syllable of withering justice rise to his lips, he could not even conceive His spirit. Mr. E agreed to this, to my surprise, and told an anecdote. 'Could you not have felt indignation for that, Robertson? * My blood was at the moment running fire — not at his story, however; and I remembered that I had once in my life stood before my fellow-creature with words that scathed and blasted; once in my life I felt a terrible might; I knew, and rejoiced to know, that I was indicting the sentence of a coward's and a liar's hell." — Life and Letters of the Rev. W. Robertson, p. 141.

5 Job xix. 21.

6 Isaiah vi. 9, 10. See George Adam Smith's wonderful note on this passage and his striking quotation from Mazzini.

7 Jean Ingelow.

8 1 Timothy iii. 2, 3.

9 Job xxv. 6.

10 A. B. Davidson, Job ; comment on chapter xi.

11 Galatians v. 22, 23.