The Sin of a Judgmental Spirit - Job 12-13

Job 12:1-4 (ESV)

Then Job answered and said:

“No doubt you are the people,

and wisdom will die with you.

But I have understanding as well as you;

I am not inferior to you.

Who does not know such things as these?

I am a laughingstock to my friends;

I, who called to God and he answered me,

a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.

In the story of Job we must constantly remember the reason his three friends showed up.   Note:

Job 2:11 (ESV)

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.

Their version of “comforting” him is suspect, however.   Each one of them, up to this point, has taken a turn to tell Job why he is in such pain.  They have each taken the stage and told him basically the same thing:  God ONLY does this to people who are deep sinners and He does not do this to the righteous.  

We also have to remember how this book opens:

Job 1:1 (ESV)

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

This is why Job says what he says in the opening of chapter 12.  He is, in essence, mocking his three friends.   Zophar, the third friend, has just given Job a scathing rebuke that he is suffering because of his terrible sins.   Zophar was not kind in his delivery.   Job, in turn, addresses all three of them in a mocking and sarcastic tone.   To paraphrase his opening taunt lets read it in the Amplified Version:

Job 12:2 (AMP)

No doubt you are the [only wise] people [in the world], and wisdom will die with you!

Since they have been addressing Job as though they are smartest people in the room Job returns with this sarcastic statement.  Job uses this thought to launch his own “I am equally as wise as all of you” statement.   Job even agrees with them that “God does punish the wicked.”   But this is not Job’s issue.   He thinks they are coming across as no-it-alls, but he has no issue with a philosophy that is born our in all Scripture:  God does punish the ungodly.   That is NOT Job’s argument.  He has no desire to go against the observations and knowledge he has about the character of God.  BUT he also knows HE IS INNOCENT.  This is the part that does not square with these pompous wind bags and his own knowledge of God’s retributive judgment.   At this point neither Job nor his friends had a place for the suffering of the innocent.   Job wants to go to court to argue his case before God:

Job 13:3 (ESV)

But I would speak to the Almighty,

and I desire to argue my case with God.

He wants to prove to God (and maybe these three men) that he has no reason to be suffering IF THE SUFFERING WAS DUE TO SIN.   Perhaps the hardest thing in the human spirit is to understand suffering.  It is even more complex and confusing when it is the “innocent” who are suffering.   In the book of Job this topic is not really ever addressed.   God never addresses the suffering of the innocent.  But what is addressed is the mocking, human reasoning that condemns all who suffer as though they have sinned.  This is a theme of the book of Job.  These three friends were not comforting him.  They were judgmental of him.   This is a major theme of the book.   We might not completely understand why Job suffered.  But we can see the sinfulness of a judgmental spirit toward his suffering.  Something that is still happening today.   And that is sinful and deserves God’s retributive judgment.  In the end of the book these three men are judged for this judgmental spirit they bring in their “comfort.”