John Gill Commentary Job 20

Then answered Zophar the Naamathite
Notwithstanding the sad distressed condition Job was in, an account of which is given in the preceding chapter, enough to pierce a heart of stone, notwithstanding his earnest request to his friends to have pity on him, and notwithstanding the noble confession of his faith he had made, which showed him to be a good man, and the excellent advice he gave his friends to cease persecuting him, for their own good, as well as for his peace; yet, regardless of these things, Zophar starts up and makes a reply, and attacks him with as much heat and passion, wrath and anger, as ever, harping upon the same string, and still representing Job as a wicked man and an hypocrite;

and said ,
as follows.

Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer
Or "to return" ^F1 and appear upon the stage again, and enter the lists once more with his antagonist; he suggests as if he had intended to have said no more in this controversy, but observing what Job had said last, could not forbear replying:

"therefore" because he had represented him and his friends as cruel persecutors of him, as men devoid of all humanity, pity, and compassion, and endeavoured to terrify them with the punishments of the sword, and the judgment of God to come;

these occasioned many "thoughts" in him, and those thoughts obliged him to give an answer; they came in so thick and fast upon him, that out of the abundance, his heart suggested to him he could not but speak, he was full of matter, and the spirit within him, the impulse upon his mind, constrained him to make a reply;

and he seems desirous of having it understood that his answer proceeded from thought; that he did not speak without thinking, but had well weighed things in his mind; and what he was about to say was the fruit of close thinking and mature deliberation:

and for [this] I make haste ;
because his thoughts crowded in upon him, he had a fulness of matter, an impulse of mind, promptitude and readiness to speak on this occasion, and for fear of losing what was suggested to him, he made haste to give in his answer, perhaps observing some other of his friends rising up before him.

The Targum is, ``because my sense is in me;'' and so other Jewish writers ^F2 ; he apprehended he had a right sense of things, and understood the matter in controversy full well, and therefore thought it incumbent on him to speak once more in it:

Gussetius ^F3 renders it, "because of my disquietude"; the uneasiness of his mind raised by what Job had said, that he would have them know and consider there was a judgment; and he intimates he had considered it, and was fearful that should he be silent, and make no reply, God would condemn him in judgment for his silence; and therefore he was in a hurry to make answer, and could not be easy without it;

and for his reasons for so doing he further explains himself in (Job 20:3) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: (ynwbyvy) "reducunt me, q. d. in scenam"; Cocceius, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius.
• F2: Ben Gersom, Bar Tzemach, Sephorno; and so Montanus.
• F3: Ebr. Comment. p. 246.

I have heard the check of my reproach He took it that Job had reproached him and his friends, by representing them as hardhearted men, and persecuting him wrongly in a violent manner; and he had observed the "check" or reproof given for it, by bidding them beware of the sword, and lest the punishment of it should be inflicted on them; and if that should not be the case, yet there was a righteous judgment they could not escape. Now Zophar heard this, but could not hear it with patience; he could not bear that he and his friends should be insulted, as he thought, in this manner; and therefore it was he was in such haste to return an answer; though some ^F4 think he here pretends to a divine oracle, like that which Eliphaz makes mention of in the beginning of this dispute, (Job 4:12) which he had from God, and from which he had heard the "correction [of his] reproach" ^F5 , or a full confutation of the thing Job had reproached him with; and being thus divinely furnished, he thought it his duty to deliver it:

and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer ; or his rational spirit, his natural understanding, furnished him at once with an answer; he had such a clear insight into the controversy on foot, and such a full view of it, that he thought himself capable of speaking very particularly to the matter in hand, and to the conviction and confusion of Job; nay, his conscience, or the spirit of his conscience, as Mr. Broughton renders it, not only readily dictated to him what he should say, but obliged him to it; though some think he meant the Holy Spirit of God, by which he would be thought to be inspired; that he "out [of his] understanding" ^F6 , enlightened by him, caused him to answer, or would answer for him, or supply him with matter sufficient to qualify him for it; and this he might observe to Job, in order to raise his attention to what he was about to say.

FOOTNOTES:

• F4: Schmidt.
• F5: (ytmlk rowm) "correctionem ignominiae meae", Pagninus, Montanus; so Schmidt, Michaelis.
• F6: (ytnybm) "ex intelligentia mea", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus, Drusius, Schmidt, Michaelis.

Do you know [not] this of old
Or "from eternity" ^F7 , from the beginning of time, ever since the world was; as if he should say, if you are the knowing man you pretend to be, you must know this I am about to observe; and if you do not know it, you must be an ignorant man, since it is an ancient truth, confirmed by all experience from the creation; not that Job could know it so early, he was not the first man that was born, nor was he made before the hills, but was of yesterday, and comparatively knew nothing; but the sense is, that this about to be delivered was an old established maxim, of which there had been numerous instances,

since man ,
or "Adam",

was placed upon earth ;
referring to the putting of Adam in Eden to dress the garden, and keep it; and every man, ever since, is placed on earth by the ordination, and according to the will of God, where and for purposes he pleases: the instances Zophar might have in view are perhaps the expulsion of our first parents out of paradise, the vagabond state of Cain, the destruction of the old world by a flood, and of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven; which show that God, sooner or later, gives manifest tokens of his displeasure at sin and sinners, by his punishment of them for it. What he means is as follows.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: (de ynm) "ab aeterno", Junius & Tremellius, Drusius, Codurcus, Schmidt, Michaelis.

That the triumphing of the wicked [is] short
Their outward prosperity and felicity, of which they make their boast, and in which they glory and triumph for a while; at first Job's friends started with the notion that the wicked never flourished or prospered, but always fared ill in Providence. Being dislodged from that view, they admitted the wicked might be for a small time in flourishing and prosperous circumstances, but it is but for a small time; which may be true in many instances, but it is not invariably the case.

The sense is, it is but a little while that they are in so much mirth and jollity, and triumph over their neighbours, as being in more advantageous circumstances than they; this is said in the original text to be "from near" ^F8 ; it is but a little while ago when it began; and, as the Targum paraphrases it, it will be quickly ended:

and the joy of the hypocrite [but] for a moment ;
the word "wicked", in the former clause, may signify the same person here called the "hypocrite"; however, since that signifies one restless and troublesome, one that is ungodly, and destitute of the fear of God, that has nothing in him but wickedness, who is continually committing it, and is abandoned to it, it might be thought not to apply to the character of Job, whom Zophar had in his view, and therefore this is added as descriptive of him: an hypocrite is one who seems to be that he is not, holy, righteous, good, and godly; who professes to have what he has not, the true grace of God, and pretends to worship God, but does not do it cordially, and from right principles; and who seeks himself in all he does, and not the glory of God: now there may be a joy in such sort of persons; they may hear ministers gladly, as Herod heard John, and receive the word with joy, as the stony ground hearers did, (Mark 6:20) (4:16) ; they may seem to delight in the ways and ordinances of God, and even have some tastes of the powers of the world to come, and some pleasing thoughts and hopes of heaven and happiness; as well as they triumph in and boast of their profession of religion and performance of duties, and rejoice in their boastings, which is evil; but then this is like the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, or like the crackling of thorns under a pot, which make a great noise and blaze, but soon over, (Ecclesiastes 7:6) ;

and so their joy in civil as well as religious things. It is possible Zophar might be so ill natured as to have reference to Job's triumph of faith, (Job 19:25) ; and by this would suggest, that his faith in a living Redeemer, and the joy of it he professed, would be soon over and no more; which shows what spirit he was of.

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: (bwrqm) "de propinquo", Pagninus, Montanus