Job 11:4

For thou hast said Better, and sayest, explaining what his mockery consists in.

My doctrine is pure Job had not used precisely such words. Zophar gives what he understands as the gist of his contention.

and I am clean in thine eyes Perhaps rather, I was clean, when plunged into my afflictions. The words are those of Job addressed to God, which Zophar recalls, cf. ch. Job 9:21; Job 10:7. It is probable that this clause explains what Zophar means by the preceding clause, "my doctrine is pure." Job's "doctrine," which Zophar considers an example of "mockery," is not his general principles, but this particular point, that God afflicts a man whom He knowsto be righteous. Zophar quite justly discovers here a novel doctrine to which he certainly had not been accustomed. But connected with this particular assertion of Job's were his views on human destiny in general, ch. Job 7:1, and on the character of God's government, ch. Job 9:1-23. The two preceding speakers had assumed that Job's principles were identical with their own, and anticipated that a few good advices in the line of these principles would bring the man to a right mind. Zophar begins to surmise that they have a more obstinate disease to cure than they had looked for, and that Job's principles, instead of being identical with theirs, cut clean athwart them. This discovery accounts for the rather unworthy tone of his language. His irritation was natural. He had never met a man with such ideas as those of Job before, and he is driven out of patience and decorum by his new theories. Elihu is even more shocked, and thinks that such another as Job does not exist, ch. Job 34:6.