Job 13:7

_WILL YE SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD? AND TALK DECEITFULLY FOR HIM?_ Deceitfully - use fallacies to vindicate God in His dealings, as if the end justified the means. Their 'deceitfulness' for God against Job was, they asserted he was a sinner, because he was a sufferer....

1-12 With self-preference, Job declared that he needed not to be taught by them. Those who dispute are tempted to magnify themselves, and lower their brethren, more than is fit. When dismayed or distressed with the fear of wrath, the force of temptation, or the weight of affliction, we should apply to the Physician of our souls, who never rejects any, never prescribes amiss, and never leaves any case uncured. To Him we may speak at all times. To broken hearts and wounded consciences, all creatures, without Christ, are physicians of no value. Job evidently speaks with a very angry spirit against his friends. They had advanced some truths which nearly concerned Job, but the heart unhumbled before God, never meekly receives the reproofs of men....

Verse Job 13:7. _WILL YE SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD?_] In order to support your own cause, in contradiction to the evidence which the whole of my life bears to the uprightness of my heart, will ye continue to assert that God could not thus afflict me, unless flagrant iniquity were found in my ways; for it is on this ground alone that ye pretend to vindicate the providence of God. Thus ye tell lies for God's sake, and thus ye wickedly contend for your Maker....

WILL YE SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD? - That is, will you maintain unjust principles with a view to honor or to vindicate God? Job refers doubtless to the positions which they had defended in regard to the divine administration - principles which he regarded as unjust, though they had employed them professedly in vindicating God. The sense is, that unjust principles ought not to be advanced to vindicate God. The great cause of truth and justice should always be maintained, and even in attempting to vindicate the divine administration, we ought to make use of no arguments which are not based on that which is right and true. Job means to reproach his friends with having, in their professed vindication of God, advanced sentiments which were at war with truth and justice, and which were full of fallacy and sophistry. And is this never done now? Are sophistical arguments never employed in attemptin...

EXPOSITION JOB 13:1, JOB 13:2 The first two verses of Job 13:1. are closely connected with Job 12:1; forming the natural termination to the first section of Job's argument, that all results, whether good or evil, must be referred to God. Job 13:1 is little more than a repetition of Job 12:9 and Job 13:2 of...

WILL YOU SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD?.... As he suggests they did; they spoke for God, and pleaded for the honour of his justice, by asserting he did not afflict good men, which they thought was contrary to his justice; but: then, at the same time, they spoke wickedly of Job, that he being afflicted of God was a bad man, and an hypocrite; and this was speaking wickedly for God, to vindicate his justice at the expense of his character, which there was no need to do; and showed that they were poor advocates for God, since they might have vindicated the honour of his justice, and yet allowed that he afflicted good men, and that Job was such an one: AND TALK DECEITFULLY FOR HIM? or tell lies for him, namely, those just mentioned, that only wicked men, and not good men, were afflicted by him, and that Job was a bad man, and an hypocrite....

CHAPTER S 12-14 JOB'S ANSWER TO ZOPHAR _ 1. His sarcasm (Job 12:1)_ 2. He describes God's power (Job 12:7) 3. He denounces his friends (Job 13:1) 4. He appeals to God (Job 13:14) 5. The brevity and trouble of life (Job 14:1) 6. The ray of light through hope of immortality (Job 14:7) Job 12:1. He answers not only Zophar but the others as well. Before this Job had expressed his

Job has shown that he can speak of God's working in the world; the friends, however, offer an apology for God, which He Himself must reject. I am not inferior to you in knowledge, says Job (Job 13:2). But I would speak and reason with God this you do not understand (Job 13:3). The friends had failed to diagnose his case (Job 13:4); his want is a fresh Divine revelation. They are plasterers of lies in their zeal for God. Their best wisdom were silence (Job 13:5) si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses. God, however, will not approve their respect of persons, their partiality in becoming His advocate (Job 13:8)

WILL YE... ? Figure of speech, Erotesis. App-6....

Severe rebuke of the three friends, in which (1) they are charged with partiality for God, and with acting the advocate for Him (Job 13:6); and (2) they are threatened with the chastisement of God for their insincerity, and for falsely pleading even in God's behalf (Job 13:9)....