Zophar Describes Wickedness as a Meal That Turns Poisonous

Zophar’s second speech is his last. Apart from one question in verse 4, it never addresses Job as “thou”; it is a single sustained portrait in the third person, and every line of it is aimed at the man listening.

“Thoughts” is seippim, the disquieting thoughts Eliphaz had before his night vision (4:13). “For this I make haste” is literally “because of my agitation within me”: Zophar admits he is stirred up.

“The check of my reproach” is literally “the correction that insults me”, musar, the word Eliphaz used for the Almighty’s “chastening” (5:17). Zophar feels Job has been disciplining him, and he will not take it.

Bildad appealed to the fathers (8:8) and Eliphaz to grey-haired men (15:10). Zophar goes further back, to the day adam was placed on the earth: this knowledge is as old as mankind.

“Triumphing” is renanah, a ringing shout of joy. “For a moment” is rega, the blink of an eye. Psalm 37:35–36 says the same: “I have seen the wicked in great power... Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not.”

“Excellency” translates a word found only here, meaning height. A head reaching the clouds recalls the tower whose top would reach heaven (Genesis 11:4) and the king of Babylon’s boast, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds” (Isaiah 14:14).

Dried dung was burned as fuel and vanished into smoke; 1 Kings 14:10 speaks of sweeping away a royal house “as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone”. “Where is he?” is Job’s own question about mortal man in 14:10, now aimed at the wicked.

Psalm 73:20 uses the same picture: “As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord... thou shalt despise their image.” “Chased away” is from the root of Job’s restless “tossings” (7:4).

Zophar is quoting Job almost verbatim. “The eye... shall see him no more” is 7:8, and “neither shall his place” is 7:10. What Job said about his own death, Zophar hands to the wicked.

His children must go begging to the poor, the very people he robbed, and his own hands give back his wealth. “Goods” here is on, strength or wealth. The oppressor’s family ends up petitioning his victims.

“The sin of his youth” is the King James reading of a word most now take as youthful vigour: his bones are full of young strength, and it goes down to the dust with him. He dies in his prime.

Holding a sweet under the tongue makes the taste last. Proverbs 20:17 has the sequel: “Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.”

“Spare it” is chamal, to pity, to be unable to part with something. “Within his mouth” is literally “within his palate”, the palate Job said tests food (6:30, 12:11). Here the palate savours evil instead of judging it.

“Turned” is haphak, the overturning verb of 12:15. The gall of asps is cobra venom, which ancient people thought was stored in the gall. Deuteronomy 32:33 speaks of wine that is “the cruel venom of asps”.

Proverbs 23:8 uses the same picture: “The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up.” This is one of only two verses in the speech that name God outright; the other is the last.

“Suck” is yanaq, the verb for a nursing infant. He takes poison as a baby takes milk. The viper is ephe, perhaps the sand viper of the southern desert (Isaiah 30:6).

Streams of honey and curds are the language of the land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). “Butter” is chemah, curds or ghee. Job will remember a time when he “washed my steps with butter” (29:6).

“Restore” is the language of legal restitution, as in Exodus 22:1–4. “According to his substance” means in proportion to the profit of his trade. He cannot swallow what he must hand back.

Deuteronomy 6:10–11 gave Israel “great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not” as a gift. The oppressor takes such a house by force. “Oppressed” is ratsats, to crush, as a reed is crushed.

“That which he desired” is from chamad, the verb of the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet”. What he coveted he cannot keep. The belly, never quiet, recalls Proverbs 13:25: “the belly of the wicked shall want.”

“None of his meat be left” is literally “there is no survivor of his eating”: he devoured everything and left no leftovers. “Survivor”, sarid, is a battle word, as if his appetite took no prisoners.

“In straits” is literally “it is narrow for him”. The Hebrew for “the wicked” is amel, the wretched or the sufferer: “every hand of the miserable shall come upon him”, the poor he crushed turning against him.

Psalm 78:30–31 describes the quail in the wilderness: “while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them”. “Rain” is the verb the psalm uses for raining down that same food (78:24, 27).

“Steel” in 1611 meant bronze here, nechushah, as in Psalm 18:34, “a bow of steel is broken by mine arms”. He flees one weapon and runs onto another.

The arrow is drawn out through his back. “Glittering sword” is baraq, lightning: the flashing point comes out of his gall. “Terrors” are emim, dread, the word Job asked God to take off him in 9:34 and 13:21.

The Hebrew plays on tsaphan, to store up: darkness is stored up for his stored treasures. “Him that is left” is sarid again, the survivor, so not even a remnant of his household escapes.

“Rise up” is qum, the verb Job used of his redeemer standing up on the earth (19:25). Zophar has the earth rise as a witness for the prosecution instead.

The Hebrew puns: “depart” is galah, to go into exile, the same verb as “reveal” in verse 27. Heaven reveals and his harvest is deported. “Flow away” pictures goods poured off like torrents.

“The heritage appointed” is literally “the inheritance of his word”, decreed by God’s saying. Job quotes this closing formula back almost exactly in 27:13, “This is the portion of a wicked man with God.”