Job 13 · a question people ask
Can someone be wrong while speaking up for God?
Job says so, to his friends. "Will you speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him?" (13:7) (tap unrighteously). "Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God?" (13:8). "Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive him?" (13:9). "He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality" (13:10). In Job's words, speaking unrighteously or deceitfully is no less wrong when it is done for God, and God himself will reprove it. These are Job's words, spoken to men who had said a great deal about God (5:8-27, 8:3-7, 11:5-20). At the end the LORD says to Eliphaz, of him and his two friends, "you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), and he also asks Job, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2). The book doesn't say which words either verse has in view, and these notes don't decide.
The verses
“Will you speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him? Will you show partiality to him? Will you contend for God? Is it good that he should search you out? Or as one deceives a man, will you deceive him? He will surely reprove you if you secretly show partiality.”
“Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert righteousness? If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience. If you want to seek God diligently, make your supplication to the Almighty. If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you, and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase.”
“It was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”
““Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”