Job 13:4

Ye are forgers of lies - Ye frame deceitful arguments: ye reason sophistically, and pervert truth and justice, in order to support your cause.

Physicians of no value - Ye are as feeble in your reasonings as ye are inefficient in your skill. Ye can neither heal the wound of my mind, nor the disease of my body. In ancient times every wise man professed skill in the healing art, and probably Job's friends had tried their skill on his body as well as on his mind. He therefore had, in his argument against their teaching, a double advantage: Your skill in divinity and physic is equal: in the former ye are forgers of lies; in the latter, ye are good-for-nothing physicians. I can see no reason to depart from the general meaning of the original to which the ancient versions adhere. The Chaldee says: "Ye are idle physicians; and, like the mortified flesh which is cut off with the knife, so are the whole of you." The imagery in the former clause is chirurpical, and refers to the sewing together, or connecting the divided sides of wounds; for טפלי topheley, which we translate forgers, comes from טפל taphal, to fasten, tie, connect, sew together. And I question whether טפלי topheley here may not as well express Surgeons, as רפאי ropheey, in the latter clause, Physicians. Ye are Chirurgeons of falsity, and worthless Physicians.

But ye are forgers of lies - The word lies here seems to be used in a large sense, to denote sophisms, false accusations, errors. They maintained false positions; they did not see the exact truth in respect to the divine dealings, and to the character of Job. They maintained strenuously that Job was a hypocrite, and that God was punishing him for his sins. They maintained that God deals with people in exact accordance with their charactor in this world, all of which Job regarded as false doctrine, and asserted that they defended it with sophistical arguments invented for the purpose, and thus they could be spoken of as "forgers of lies."

Physicians of no value - The meaning is, that they had come to give him consolation, but nothing that they had said had imparted comfort. They were like physicians sent for to visit the sick, who could do nothing when they came; compare Job 16:2.