Zophar rises to eloquence in declaring the unsearchableness of Divine wisdom.
"_Canst thou find the depths of Eloah? Canst thou reach to the end of Shaddai? Heights of heaven! What canst thou do? Deeper than Sheol! What canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, Broader is it than the sea._"
Here is fine poetry; but with an attempt at theology the speaker goes astray, for he conceives God as doing what he himself wishes to do, namely, prove Job a sinner. The Divine greatness is invoked that a narrow scheme of thought may be justified. If God pass by, if He arrest, if He hold assize, who can hinder Him? Supreme wisdom and infinite power admit no questioning, no resistance. God knoweth vain or wicked men at a glance. One look and all is plain to Him. Empty man will be wise in these matters "when a wild ass's colt is born a man."
Turning from this, as if in recollection that he has to treat Job with friendliness, Zophar closes like the other two with a promise. If Job will put away sin, his life shall be established again, his misery forgotten or remembered as a torrent of spring when the heat of summer comes.
"_Thou shalt forget thy misery; Remember it as waters that have passed by; And thy life shall rise brighter than noonday; And if darkness fall, it shall be as the morning. Thou shalt then have confidence because there is hope; Yea, look around and take rest in safety, Also lie down and none shall affray thee, And many shall make suit unto thee. But the eyes of the wicked fail; For them no way of escape. And their hope is to breathe out the spirit._"
Rhetoric and logic are used in promises given freely by all the speakers. But not one of them has any comfort for his friend while the affliction lasts. The author does not allow one of them to say, God is thy friend, God is thy portion--now; He still cares for thee. In some of the psalms a higher note is heard: "There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." The friends of Job are full of pious intentions, yet they state a most unspiritual creed, the foundation of it laid in corn and wine. Peace of conscience and quiet confidence in God are not what they go by. Hence the sufferer finds no support in them or their promises. They will not help him to live one day, nor sustain him in dying. For it is the light of God's countenance he desires to see. He is only mocked and exasperated by their arguments; and in the course of his own eager thought the revelation comes like a star of hope rising on the midnight of his soul.
Though Zophar fails like the other two, he is not to be called a mere echo. It is incorrect to say that, while Eliphaz is a kind of prophet and Bildad a sage, Zophar is a commonplace man without ideas. On the contrary, he is a thinker, something of a philosopher, although, of course, greatly restricted by his narrow creed. He is stringent, bitter indeed. But he has the merit of seeing a certain force in Job's contention which he does not fairly meet. It is a fresh suggestion that the answer must lie in the depth of that penetrating wisdom of the Most High, compared to which man's wisdom is vain. Then, his description of the return of blessedness and prosperity, when one examines it, is found distinctly in advance of Eliphaz's picture in moral colouring and gravity of treatment. We must not fail to notice, moreover, that Zophar speaks of the omniscience of God more than of His omnipotence; and the closing verse describes the end of the wicked not as the result of a supernatural stroke or a sudden calamity, but as a process of natural and spiritual decay.