Zophar is just a nasty friend. I think perhaps he is the worst of them all.
After Job gets raw before God, Zophar accuses him of just “babbling” and saying he is “ridiculing” and needs someone to “humiliate” Job (Job 11:2-3). Serious? How could Job have ever been friends with this guy? Except that you see the reality of friends most when suffering goes on for an extended time. It gets worse. He openly insults Job.
“Surely He [God] knows which people are worthless. If He sees iniquity, will He not take note of it? But a stupid man will gain understanding as soon as a wild donkey is born a man!” (Job 11:11-12).
He then tells Job to repent of his sin and stop allowing injustice. If he does that, surely God will bless him again.
The last thing you need when you are down and out is someone who beats you down even further. Sure, Job may not have been theological precise but he wasn’t making a theological treatise in chapter 10, he was just being raw before God how he felt. But Zophar attacks him.
‘A stupid man will gain understanding as soon as wild donkey is born a man’ is the same way of saying ‘a stupid man will come to his sense only when a cat can jump over the moon.’ It was a proverb of impossibility.
Zophar ends with a promise of sugar-coating it all with all the good things God will do if he just repents. But it doesn’t take away what was said previous.
How in the world did Job have a friend like this? I’m probably sure he asked the same question. But when those who prosper greatly suddenly move to suffering, the truth of what others think tends to be unveiled.
It makes me think of a story I heard in Haiti. A multi-billionaire man was dying and his few friends gathered around him. His one wish was that he would have friends to the very end that loved him as a friend and not for his money. But in the last hours, his closest friend asked him if he would leave him some money. The billionaire was devastated and died heart-broken.
