But oh that God would speak - Hebrew, "and truly, who will give that God should speak." It is the expression of an earnest wish that God would address him, and bring him to a proper sense of his ill desert. The meaning is, that if God should speak to him he would by no means find himself so holy as he now claimed to be.

But O that God would speak - How little feeling, humanity, and charity is there in this prayer!

But O that God would speak,.... To Job, and stop his mouth, so full of words; convict him of his lies, reprove him for his mocks and scoffs, and make him ashamed of them; refute his false doctrine and oppose it, and show him his folly and vanity in imagining it to be pure, and in conceit thinking himself to be free from sin, and even in the sight of God himself: Zophar seems by this wish to suggest, that what his friends had as yet spoke had had no effect upon Job, and signified nothing; and that he despaired of bringing him to any true sense of himself and his case, but that God only could do it; and therefore he entreats he would take him in hand, and speak unto him; as he had by his providences in afflicting him, so by his spirit in teaching and instructing him; and he adds:

and open his lips against thee; or rather, "with thee", or "to thee" (a); converse with thee; speak out his mind freely; disclose the secrets of his wisdom, as in Job 11:6, and that for thy good; fully convince thee of thy sins, mistakes, and follies: for, notwithstanding all the heat and warmth of Zophar's spirit, yet, being a good man, as it cannot be thought he should wilfully and knowingly slander Job, and put a false gloss on his words, so neither could he desire any hurt or injury to be done him, or that God would deal with him as an enemy; only convince and reprove him for his sin, and justify himself and his own conduct, which he imagined Job had arraigned.

(a) , Sept. "tecum", Pagninus, Montanus, Beza, Vatablus, Mercerus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis; "tibi", V. L. "ad te", Piscator.

With ואולם, verum enim vero, Zophar introduces his wish that God himself would instruct Job; this would most thoroughly refute his utterances. יתן מי is followed by the infin., then by futt., vid., Ges. 136, 1; כּפלים (only here and Isaiah 40:2) denotes not only that which is twice as great, but generally that which far surpasses something else. The subject of the clause beginning with כּי is היא understood, i.e., divine wisdom: that she is the double with respect to (ל( ot, as e.g., 1 Kings 10:23) reality (תושׁיה, as Job 5:12; Job 6:13, essentia, substantia), i.e., in comparison with Job's specious wisdom and philosophism. Instead of saying: then thou wouldst perceive, Zophar, realizing in his mind that which he has just wished, says imperiously ודע (an imper. consec., or, as Ewald, 345, b, calls it, imper. futuri, similar to Genesis 20:7; 2 Samuel 21:3): thou must then perceive that God has dealt far more leniently with thee than thou hast deserved. The causative השּׁה (in Old Testament only this passage, and Job 39:17) denotes here oblivioni dare, and the מן of מעונך is partitive.

But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee;

11:5 Speak - Plead with thee according to thy desire: he would soon put thee to silence. We are commonly ready with great assurance to interest God in our quarrels. But they are not always in the right, who are most forward, to appeal to his judgment, and prejudge it against their antagonists.

11:1-6 Zophar attacked Job with great vehemence. He represented him as a man that loved to hear himself speak, though he could say nothing to the purpose, and as a man that maintained falsehoods. He desired God would show Job that less punishment was exacted than he deserved. We are ready, with much assurance, to call God to act in our quarrels, and to think that if he would but speak, he would take our part. We ought to leave all disputes to the judgment of God, which we are sure is according to truth; but those are not always right who are most forward to appeal to the Divine judgment.