8 “But you have said in my hearing—I heard the very words—9 ‘I am pure, I have done no wrong; I am clean and free from sin.
Don’t you just love when people put words in your mouth! This would not be so bad if the things they were putting in your mouth made you look good. But this almost never happens. Usually, they are putting words in your mouth in order to get you in trouble. Elihu in his attack on Job attributes things said by his three friends to Job himself. Take the words about being pure. Job does not say these words. At least they are not recorded in the Scriptures. In fact, the LORD does not charge Job with claiming to be pure. In the last chapter He says that his friends have not spoken of Him what is right like Job has. The LORD affirms Job’s uprightness, which he affirmed at the beginning of the book. I am certainly not saying that you or I are as righteous as Job. I know I have fallen short! But to have someone make up stuff about us in order to win an argument—that is downright dirty. Maybe they are just twisting your words, or taking them out of context, but the result is the same. I notice this with couples every day. In the heat of an argument out comes a quote to prove a point. The other person says, “I never said that,” and off to the races we go. Whether the words were actually said or not makes little difference; the bomb has been dropped and the battlefield has been defined. We see it happening in the political arena daily in an effort to define the other candidate by some small piece of a quote taken out of context, some action projected from a certain angle. It does little good to try to defend. Without video and audio of your entire life you could never defend it. And even if you had the video, the argument moves so fast, you would never have a chance to introduce the evidence. All we can do is not throw quotes into the argument, especially quotes meant to harm the other person.
The Arnold Journey 