Job 11 · a question people ask

Is Zophar right that no one can fathom God?

In the text

Zophar asks, "Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?" (11:7), and says, "They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?" (11:8). Other Scripture says the like of God. "His greatness is unsearchable" (Psalm 145:3), and "His understanding is unsearchable" (Isaiah 40:28), where the Hebrew behind unsearchable has cheqer, the word behind Zophar's mystery (tap mystery). Paul writes, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!" (Romans 11:33); Paul doesn't name Job or Zophar, and nothing more is claimed. In this book the others say it too. Eliphaz: "who does great things that can’t be fathomed" (5:9). Job: "He does great things past finding out" (9:10), and later "these are but the outskirts of his ways" (26:14). Elihu: "The number of his years is unsearchable" (36:26). The LORD asks Job, "Or have you walked in the recesses of the deep?" (38:16), where recesses is Zophar's word again, and Job at the last says he had spoken of "things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know" (42:3). What Zophar does with his question comes on either side of it: "God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves" (11:6), and "If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away" (11:14). What the book says of the friends' words is 42:7, and it doesn't say which words it means.

The verses

““Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?”
Job 11:7-8 · World English Bible
“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.”
Psalm 145:3 · World English Bible
“Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.”
Isaiah 40:28 · World English Bible
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!”
Romans 11:33 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 11

Job 11: Can you fathom the mystery of God?

Zophar's words about God, "high as heaven" and "deeper than Sheol" (11:8), are the kind other Scripture says of God too (Psalm 145:3). But he said them to a man the LORD had called "blameless" (1:8), with "God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves" (11:6).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions