Ver. 1. Lo, mine eye hath seen all this] sc. All those effects of God’s providence, declared in the former chapter. I have not discoursed about God’s powerful and wise dispensation by rote, or without book; I have not blurted out what I believe not, or am not able to prove, as you have accused me; I have spoken both that which I have seen (and what is more sure than sight?) and that which I have heard and received from our ancestors and doctors (to whom you have frequently referred me, for better information). Mine ear, that sense of discipline, by which not learning only, but life also, entereth, Isaiah 55:3, hath heard it, and understood it too; which he addeth for further assurance. Job was a weighing hearer, as Mr Bradshaw was called the weighing divine (Mr Clark, in his Life). Let us learn by his example heedfully to observe God’s works, laying up experiences, and diligently to listen and learn the things that are taught us, or written for us by others, that we may grow to a right and ripe understanding of divine truths, and be able confidently to commend the same to others, as being upon sure grounds. See Matthew 13:51,52.
Ver. 2. What ye know, the same do I know also] Heb. According to your knowledge I also know. This may seem an unseemly boast; which, if his friends had taxed him for, he might have answered, as Paul did in a like case, Ye have compelled me, 2 Corinthians 11:5. The rule is, “Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves,” Philippians 2:3. Non est tamen prodenda Dei veritas, aut integritas nostra, &c., Nevertheless, no man ought to betray the truth, or his own integrity, lest he should be counted contentious (Merlin in loc.). See Job 12:3, where we have the same in effect as here; whence some do gather that Job’s friends had a very high opinion of their own knowledge, and a very low one of Job’s. He that is thus proud of his knowledge, the devil careth not how much he knoweth.
Ver. 3. Surely I would speak to the Almighty] It were far better for me to speak to God than to you, and much fairer dealing from him I might expect. “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he,” Deuteronomy 32:4; but ye are forgers of lies, and ye load me with false accusations, depraving my speeches, as thou, Zophar, especially hast done, wishing withal that God himself would speak with me face to face; which, if it should come to pass, thou saidst my misery and affliction would be redoubled. But oh that I might commune with the Almighty! surely and seriously I would rather do it than with you, my friends; and should hope so to defend mine innocence against your slanderous accusations; yea, to maintain God’s justice against you, in the presence and judgment of God himself. Oh the confidence of a good conscience! see it in Abimelech, Genesis 20:5, but much more in David, Psalms 7:8,4 139:23,24 Jer 12:1; in every strong believer, 1 Peter 3:21; those that walk uprightly, and speak uprightly, Isaiah 33:15. Not so every ungirt Christian or profligate professor, Job 13:14. The sinners in Sion are afraid, fearfulness surpriseth the hypocrites, &c., but good Job was none such; and God knew it to be so; what if to the wicked he be a devouring fire? yet to those that fear his name he is a reviving sun, Malachi 4:1,2. And upright Job feareth not to reason with him. Upon the same ground John Huss, and other martyrs, cited their persecutors to answer them by such a time before God’s tribunal. And I desire to reason with God] If he please (Si voluerit). So the Septuagint adds, and makes out Job’s meaning; as if he had used the like modesty and humility as Nehemiah, and after him Esther, did in their suits unto the king of Persia, when they said, If it seem good to the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, Nehemiah 2:5 Es 5:4. Others think that Job here desireth to plead with God as with a party that had dealt too hardly with him, &c.; that he challengeth God into the schools, as it were, there to crack an argument with him, and by reason to reduce him to milder dealing. And, indeed, the Hebrew word here used signifieth to dispute or argue, and from it the Rabbis call logic the art of arguing. This boldness is that, say our large annotations, which both Elihu and God blame Job for in the end of the Book, though neither of them condemn him for a hypocrite; and that shows that Job did speak amiss of God in his passion, and is not altogether to be excused; much less in everything to be commended.
Ver. 4. But ye are forgers of lies] i.e. Ye create false maxims to judge me by; ye gather up without any order, and to no purpose, whatsoever cometh in your way to strengthen and maintain your false accusation against me. You are not only cencinnatores, forgers, but compactors, botchers, such as, by sewing one lie to another, do patch up a false and frivolous discourse, Mendacia mendaciis assuitis. So David, Psalms 119:69, The proud have forged (or pieced together, made it up as of many shreds) a lie against me. David saith of hypocrites, that their tongue frameth deceit, Psalms 50:19; and of Doeg, that his tongue devised mischief, like a sharp razor, doing deceit, Psalms 52:2. Jeremiah saith of his countrymen, that they had taught their tongues to speak lies, and were grown artists at it, Jeremiah 9:5; yea, that they had taken fast hold of deceit, and could not be got off without striving, Jeremiah 8:5. But these countrymen of Job were none such, for God said, “Surely they are my people, children that will not lie,” Isaiah 63:8. And although every man be a liar, either by imposture or by impotence; yet it must be understood that these good men aimed at truth, and intended not to deceive Job, but to undeceive him rather. They maintained errors, but unwittingly; they charged him also (but unjustly) with hypocrisy. Hence this so severe a high charge, Ye are forgers of lies, such as our ruffians would revenge with a stab. But we must know, saith Merlin, that in those better times it was not so harsh a business in a serious disputation to call that a lie which was safely alleged by an adversary as today it is in this corrupt age of ours, wherein the greatest liars, though taken in the manner, yet take it extremely ill to be told of their fault. Besides, in the defence of God’s cause, and the labouring truth, plain-dealing, even with our best friends, is best; so that the apostle’s rule, Ephesians 4:31, be observed, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Ye are all physicians of no value] Because you go to work upon wrong principles, and mistakenly ministered. Physicians he acknowledgeth them, and that they came with a good intent to comfort him; but, for lack of skill, instead of curing, they had well nigh killed him, because they judged amiss of his disease, and used corrosives instead of cordials. By the way, observe that God’s word is not only the food, but the medicine of the soul, and may far more fitly be so called than the library of Alexandria was of old: for as the diseases of the body are healed by medicine seasonably and rightly used, so are the distempers of the soul by Scriptural consolations; neither shall we ever have cause to complain of them, as Cicero did of philosophical comforts, Nescio quomodo, &c., I know not how it cometh to pass, but this I find, that the disease is too hard for the medicine; or as the Romans did of Sulla’s bloody government, that the remedy was worse than the malady. “How forcible are right words!” said Job, Job 6:25. And fair words, as physicians, cure the mind distempered with passion, saith the poet, Οργης νοσουσης εισιν ιατροι λογοι (Aeschyl.). Once, when Luther was in a great heat about something that had crossed him, Melancthon pacified him by repeating this verse, Vince animos, iramque tuam, qui caetera vincis. But Job’s friends, as they were botchers of lies, so they were bunglers at healing him; they did, saith Lavater, as a surgeon who applieth a plaister to the hand of him whose grief is in his foot; or as that country mountebank in France, who was wont to give in writing to his patients for curing all diseases (Becan. sum. Theol., part 1, cap. 16), Si vis curari de morbo nescio quali, Accipias herbam, sed qualem nescio, nec quam: Ponas neseio quo, curabere nescio quando. These verses are rendered in English by one in the following way: Your sore I know not what, do not foreslow To cure with herbs, which whence I do not know: Place them (well pounced) I know not where, and then You shall be perfect whole, I know not when. Such ουτιδανοι, nullities in the world, such no physicians, such idols, such extreme nothingnesses, good for nothing (as that rotten girdle in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 13:7, those vine branches in Ezekiel 15:6,7, that idol in St Paul, 1 Corinthians 8:4), were Job’s friends to him, miserable comforters, Job 16:2, adding to his affliction instead of easing it, and pushing at him as the whole herd of deer doth at that one that is wounded.