JOB 42:5-7

"The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that if they continue we shall soon know nothing at all about it." – Mark Twain

And some Bible commentaries do just that, but many can be helpful in pointing out aspects of the text that you hadn't considered before. I decided as an experiment to open my Bible randomly to an OT passage and then see what kind of comments I could collect regarding these two passages from the internet or in my own collection of commentaries. Below are the results with my own comments appended to each one.

The random passage I selected starts at Job 42:5-6 when Job says to God, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”  The background to this statement, as you probably know, is this: Job has been complaining to God and demanding that he be told why he is suffering. In response, God confronts Job with several chapters exposing Job's ignorance of the workings of the world and impressing him with the fact that only He, God, can comprehend the mysteries of the universe.

There are two apparent problems with verse 5: (1) in the previous chapters, it only says that God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind, not that He visibly appeared to him, and (2) elsewhere in the Bible it is stated that a person can't actually see God face to face without dying. Here are the comments I found regarding this verse:

1. “Somehow, through the grand vision of God's creation, Job's profound desire to be in the presence of God has been fulfilled.” Kathryn Schifferdecker, Luther Seminary  

This is a typical liberal interpretation, which in effect denies that Job experienced anything supernatural at all. It was all in his mind.

2. It wasn't God the Father who appeared to Job, but the pre-incarnate Christ. James Clark, Inverness

On the other hand, this is a typical fundamentalist interpretation which sees Jesus throughout the OT, for example every time an angel of the Lord appears. This is one way to be technically literal but still get around the literal implications of seeing God the Father.

3. “Yahweh was veiled in a whirlwind. However, his presence was so real that Job could say “now my

eyes have seen him.” John Hartley, The Book of Job 

This sounds like a reasonable interpretation.

4. “Job can rejoice in a fully personal religious experience.” New Bible Commentary

OK, but it really avoids addressing the problem. This is what you may run across in a one-volume commentary where there just isn't enough space to go into explanations very deeply.

5. Job now understands that God's love, wisdom and power are “inextricably linked.” New International Dictionary of the Old Testament, 2,448 

 Again, this may be very true but it also doesn't address the problem.

6. Several sources quote scholars who feel that God appeared to Job visibly in the original story but that detail was edited out later on. 

An  example of source criticism in which the text is felt to be flawed.

 

Then the passage continues in v. 7: 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 what is right, as my servant Job has.” The problem here is that often what the friends say seems to be actually more correct theologically than Job's rantings against God. There are even more comments on this verse:

1. “There are errors in each of the friends' speeches.” Internet source. 

OK, as far as it goes.

2. The words of the friends “are rejected by God, not because they are untrue, but because they are too narrow.” New Bible Commentary

This source goes a little further in identifying the friends' errors, but still leaves it a little vague.

3. “The Book of Job in its present form can hardly be regarded as a consistent and unified composition by a single author.” Marvin Pope, Anchor Bible, Job 

In other words, source criticism teaches that we don't need to reconcile the prose opening and beginning with the dialogs in between since they were composed by different authors with differing theological ideas. Most evangelical Christians would rightly reject this explanation.

4. “In a time of suffering, talk merely about God is folly; only a calling upon God, however bitter and violent, can be right, for it paves the way to an encounter with God.” David J. A. Clines

Comment #5 below agrees with this approach.

5. Kathryn Schifferdecker translates “you have not spoken to me rightly.”  

Their problem was not in what they said, but in not addressing God directly as Job did. Now this particular translation is supposedly based on the Jewish Bible, but the latter actually reads “Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right.” So much of the interpretation of this verse depends on the exact meaning of the Hebrew preposition involved.

6. Jubilee Bible “Ye have not spoken by me in uprightness.”

The next source should resolve the issue since it comes from the Jubilee Bible which attempts to be consistent by translating each Hebrew word the same way each time it appears. The problem with this “literal” approach is that words have a whole range of meanings depending on the context in which they are used in a sentence. In this case, I'm not sure what the phrase “Ye have not spoken by me” means even in English.

7. “They had cast God in an unfavorable light, saying He was punishing Job for obvious sins...a false accusation against God.” Anonymous internet source. 

I am not sure that I follow this logic. It appears to me that their accusations were strictly against Job and defending God...which is what source #8 says.

8.Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary   God is indignant because the friends purposely told lies in order to defend God's actions.

This comment makes a totally unwarranted judgment on the friends' underlying motives.

9. The friends are faulted for their unkind spirit toward Job and justifying themselves by using lies. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 

Now this opinion is that they were trying to defend themselves, not God.

10. Job was more correct than his friends, who were good men, in referring more to future judgment. Matthew Henry's Commentary 

Clarke's Commentary agrees that this was their only error. One of the common motives for twisting Scripture is to try to justify the actions of Bible characters. These two commentaries from an earlier generation appear to share that characteristic. However, I think Matthew Henry did do a good job of recognizing one of the major theological errors the friends made -- they couldn't see beyond this present life and therefore expected complete judgment from God, bad and good, to be carried out in the here and now, and that is what led them astray.

11. Barnes' Commentary  states that lack of comforting to Job was the friends' problem.

12. The friends are rebuked for being insensitive and arrogant. Ken Cayce, bible-studys.org

And finally, the last two commentators zero in, not on doctrinal errors at all, but on the friends' overall attitude toward Job. They may be correct in their assessment, but that wasn't at all what God accused them of; it was instead their teachings regarding Him.