Truth Spoken Without Love Can Crush Someone’s Spirit - Job 20-21

Job 21:31-34 (ESV)

Who declares his way to his face,

and who repays him for what he has done?

When he is carried to the grave,

watch is kept over his tomb.

The clods of the valley are sweet to him;

all mankind follows after him,

and those who go before him are innumerable.

How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?

There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”

The above response of Job is spoken to one of his friends, Zophar.    Zophar, in his last and final speech to Job (chapter 20) simply makes the argument that Job is a sinner and like all sinners deserve what they are getting from the hand of God.  Zophar is throwing away all pretense that he came to comfort Job.  He has had enough. Note his opening words to Job in this round of exchanges:

Job 20:2-5 (ESV)

“Therefore my thoughts answer me,

because of my haste within me.

I hear censure that insults me,

and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.

Do you not know this from of old,

since man was placed on earth,

that the exulting of the wicked is short,

and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

This is not how you respond to a man in Job’s condition and circumstances.  Job has lost everything and now, therapist Zophar, has lost his patience.   But Job, however, in his response starts this way:

Job 21:3 (ESV)

Bear with me, and I will speak,

and after I have spoken, mock on.

Both have had it with each other.  Zophar has one philosophy and that is the wicked are going to be punished for their sins and are suffering for them.  However, the entire 22nd chapter is Job’s response and he states that if you watch the wicked they don’t seem to demonstrate Zophar’s beliefs.   In fact, in the above passage, Job concludes his thought that even in death the wicked have people who show him compassion (something Zophar could no longer show Job).   Job states that the wicked even have someone watching over their grave.   Something Zophar didn’t want to do any longer and Job was still alive.  Job’s point is that Zophar may be right, but the wicked get more care and respect than Job was getting. Job, of course, does not believe he is wicked and therefore Zophar’s philosophy and therapy session are based upon a wrong premise.  Zophar’s philosophy is that people who have bad things happen to them are wicked and are punished.  He has no wiggle room for Job’s claim of innocence and, yet, he suffers.   We, of course, read chapter one and two and know that Job is innocent.   The struggles with Zophar are two things: 

1).  He refuses to consider that the innocent can suffer. 

2).  He does not show compassion to Job, even if he was wicked.  Under the guise of speaking truth, he failed to show love.

We might have good philosophy but we also might apply it to the wrong people.   We might have truth but we might speak it absent love.