Eliphaz’s third speech
22
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, 2 📚“Can a man be of benefit to God, as a wise man may benefit himself? 3 📚Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous? Or would he gain something, if you made your ways perfect?22:2-3 Eliphaz is saying that even if a man lived a righteous life it would not put God under obligation to him. God would not withhold punishment for sin for fear of losing some benefit.⚜
4 📚“Is it because of your fear of God that he rebukes you, that he enters into judgment with you? 5 📚Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquities without limit? 6 📚For you have taken a pledge from your brother for nothing, and stripped the clothing from the naked. 7 📚You have not given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. 8 📚But this mighty man possessed the land, and this honourable man lived in it! 9 📚You have sent widows away empty-handed, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
10 📚Therefore snares surround you, and sudden terror alarms you,
11 📚Or darkness so that you cannot see, and a flood of waters covers you.
12 📚“Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how high are the highest stars!
13 📚And you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the dark clouds?
14 📚Thick clouds cover him so that he cannot see, and he walks above the circle of the heavens.’
22:4-14 Eliphaz has already made up his mind. The truth of what Job said in chapter 21 should have been obvious to all, but it has no effect on Eliphaz. One idea has fastened itself in his mind – God does not send calamities on the innocent. He is so sure of this that though he does not know of any sins Job has done he is driven to invent some. In Job 13:4 this is just what Job said his friends were doing. These friends were all doing something God hates. It is described in Prov 17:15 – “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of these are abomination to the LORD”. They were afraid of committing the first of these errors but they fell easily into the second. Later Job answers all of Eliphaz’s accusations in Job 29:12-17; 31:5-40.⚜
15 📚Will you keep to the old way that wicked men trod,
16 📚Those who were cut down before their time, whose foundations were washed away by a flood?
17 📚They said to God, ‘Leave us! What can the Almighty do for people?’
18 📚Yet it was he who filled their houses with good things. So the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
19 📚“The righteous see all this, and are glad. And the innocent laugh them to scorn, saying,
20 📚‘Surely our enemies 📖 are cut off, and fire consumes their remnant.’
22:15-20 Eliphaz here probably refers to the wicked who lived in Noah’s day and were cut off in the great flood (Gen 6:5-7). He brings it forward to prove that it is not the righteous but the wicked who suffer great disasters. However, one example does not overthrow the facts as Job has stated them in chapter 21. In v 20 Eliphaz may be referring to what happened to Job’s prosperity in Job 1:14-17.⚜
21 📚Become acquainted with him and be at peace. Good will come to you through that.
22 📚Please receive instruction 📖 from his mouth, and store up his words in your heart.
23 📚If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; you will remove iniquity far from your tents.
24 📚Then you will lay your gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brook.
25 📚Yes, the Almighty will be your gold 📖, and your choicest silver.
26 📚For then you will delight in the Almighty, and will lift your face up to God.
27 📚You will pray to him, and he will hear you; and you will pay your vows.
28 📚You will decide a thing and it will be established for you. And light will shine on your ways.
29 📚When men are cast down, then you will say, ‘Lifting up will come.’ Then God will save that humble person. 30 📚He will deliver even one who is not 📖 innocent; and he will be delivered because of the purity of your hands”.
22:21-30 Eliphaz may have realized that in the preceding verses he has gone too far in his accusations, and been too harsh in his condemnation of Job. Now he softens his words and gives a beautiful appeal to Job to repent and turn to God. However, just as his first appeal in chapter 5, so this one does not at all suit Job’s condition. See note on Job 5:17-18.⚜