The Sage Advice Should Match Reality
Job 21:27-30 (ESV)
27 “Behold, I know your thoughts
and your schemes to wrong me.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
and do you not accept their testimony
30 that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
To understand the above verses taken from chapter 21 of Job, we should really know what Job is responding to out of chapter 20. Zophar, one of Job’s three friends, gives his second and final speech to Job. Zophar is no longer in the mode of “comforting” Job (that was the three friends original plan upon on traveling together to meet Job). Zophar, in chapter 20, has simply turned to what he knows, his own bias experience. He sees Job’s pain and suffering through the framework that only the wicked suffer this way. He has no room in his mind for suffering for those who are innocent (as Job clearly is as stated in chapters one and two).
In response to Zophar, Job starts to challenge him and his two other friends. Job tells them, “I know your thoughts.” He then uses sarcasm to say to them, in essence, if you were listening to the people on the street you would know that the wicked do prosper. Zophar refused to see the obvious of reality. Chapter 21 is Job telling them all that the wicked DO prosper. So, their arguments about Job suffering because he is wicked does not past the test of reality.
Zophar and his friends are the classic Sage who thinks they know things. Note how Zophar started his speech:
Job 20:2-4 (ESV)
2 “Therefore my thoughts answer me,
because of my haste within me.
3 I hear censure that insults me,
and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.
4 Do you not know this from of old,
since man was placed on earth,
Zophar has “aged” wisdom. Yet, he is stuck in his own bias as he can’t see the reality around him. Again, he has NO context for the suffering of the innocent. His “wisdom” does not meet the reality of life.” Such is the wisdom of the world.
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