Read Job 11 and 12 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions for each man’s speech are like the divisions in the Psalms that we studied in 2014. There is an understood {s} division at the end of each numbered line, with an {n} marking where a new line begins within a numbered line.
Job 11:1-12:25 {s} Division at the end of each numbered line; with these {n} divisions within lines:
Job 11:6a That He would show you the secrets of wisdom! For they would double your prudence. {n}
What is interesting about what Job and his friends say, is that when God arrives on the scene to defend Himself, He calls this discussion they are having:
“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” Job 38:2
All of them, Job included, are rebuked for not knowing what they are talking about. Now in analyzing the speeches, it seems to me that what Zophar says in chapter 11 would be true … if Job were being chastised for sinfulness! That is the erroneous assumption that all three friends have made so far, that Job must have done something to deserve what he is experiencing. This is a warning to us, to take care, and not assume that every man’s calamity has come upon them through their own fault.
Jesus teaches the same:
There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Luk 13:1-5
He was speaking to Jews, to fellow partakers in the covenant of promise, to His followers, to those who were listening to Him teach! He is proclaiming the gospel in calling for repentence:
“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Act 17:30-31
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