Job 11 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Job 11 Short Summary:

In Job 11, Zophar, the last of Job’s 3 friends speaks up. He shared the same opinion about the reason for Job’s suffering as his other 2 friends. He harshly rebuked Job for babbling and questioning the all wise God. He was confident that God was punishing Job less than he deserved. He told Job his only way out of his misery was to repent of his hidden sin.

Job 11 Bible Study

SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

• Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan

• Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution

• Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.

• Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost

WHEN:

• The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).

• I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.

• Zophar – The last of Job’s 3 friends to speak. He is described as a Naamathite (an inhabitant of Naamah).

WHERE:

• Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.

OUTLINE:

• ZOPHAR SPEAKS (11:1-12):

  • Zophar, the last of Job’s 3 friends, finally took his turn to speak.

  • He was as harsh as the other 2 towards Job.

  • He accused Job of being full of talk and babble, and felt it was his duty to shame Job for his foolish words.

  • “Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you?” (11:3).

  • Zophar wished God would come down and rebuke Job.

  • He said, “For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God’s eyes.’ But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you” (11:4-5).

  • Zophar was convinced God was punishing Job less than he deserved (11:6).

  • He rebuked Job for thinking that he understood God. Zophar knew God was wiser than any man and His thoughts were higher than any man’s thoughts, so who was Job to be so confident that he was innocent.

  • In Zophar’s mind, if God allowed Job to be punished, the case of Job’s guilt was closed, Job was guilty, and he deserved whatever he got.

  • These statements by Zophar reveal that he shared an oversimplified understanding of God’s nature with his friends, Eliphaz and Bildad.

  • In verse 12, Zophar seems to lump Job into a category with stupid men, saying “But a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey’s colt is born a man” (11:12).

  • It seems he was saying that some men are so stupid that a wild donkey will give birth to a man before the stupid man acquires any wisdom.

• ZOPHAR CALLS JOB TO REPENTANCE (11:13-20):

  • Like his other 2 friends, Zophar ended his discourse encouraging Job to repent of whatever sin he was hiding so that God could bless him again.

  • He told Job that when he purged his sins, his misery would be forgotten, and he would remember it only as water that had flowed away.

APPLICATION

• Zophar was right when he said that God is too big to be understood by men.

• His mind is superior to ours and His limits are unmeasurable.

• The conclusion he should have drawn from his own statement was that the reason for Job’s suffering was a mystery.

• Instead, he confidently concluded that he understood the mind of God perfectly and declared Job a guilty sinner. He contradicted his own logic by speaking so confidently about God’s reasons for permitting Job to suffer.

• The application for us is that “I don’t know” is sometimes the wisest response a person can give.

• There are many questions, especially questions about the spiritual realm, that we don’t have much insight into, we don’t have enough information to speak confidently one way or the other.

• Some people think a wise man is one who has a black-and-white answer to every question, but I would suggest that a wise man is one who speaks confidently where he is informed but is also able to answer “I don’t know” to the questions he is uniformed about.

• A wise man will not draw a definitive conclusion on insufficient information.