Job 15--Eliphaz Accuses: Job Does Not Fear God

Eliphaz Accuses: Job Does Not Fear God
15 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

2 “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
    and fill his belly with the east wind?
3 Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
    or in words with which he can do no good?
4 But you are doing away with the fear of God
    and hindering meditation before God.
5 For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
    your own lips testify against you.

7 “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought forth before the hills?
8 Have you listened in the council of God?
    And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9 What do you know that we do not know?
    What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
    older than your father.
11 Are the comforts of God too small for you,
    or the word that deals gently with you?
12 Why does your heart carry you away,
    and why do your eyes flash,
13 that you turn your spirit against God
    and bring such words out of your mouth?
14 What is man, that he can be pure?
    Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
15 Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones,
    and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
16 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
    a man who drinks injustice like water!

17 “I will show you; hear me,
    and what I have seen I will declare
18 (what wise men have told,
    without hiding it from their fathers,
19 to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them).
20 The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21 Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
    in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
22 He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
    and he is marked for the sword.
23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
24 distress and anguish terrify him;
    they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
25 Because he has stretched out his hand against God
    and defies the Almighty,
26 running stubbornly against him
    with a thickly bossed shield;
27 because he has covered his face with his fat
    and gathered fat upon his waist
28 and has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses that none should inhabit,
    which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
29 he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
    nor will his possessions spread over the earth;
30 he will not depart from darkness;
    the flame will dry up his shoots,
    and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
32 It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green.
33 He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
    and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
34 For the company of the godless is barren,
    and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35 They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
    and their womb prepares deceit.”

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Well, Job's friends did not stay silent as he requested, but it does seem like Eliphaz at least is willing to talk a little less this time.

Eliphaz calls Job's wisdom "hot air" again (the east wind came of the desert and was hot).  He also called Job's words "unprofitable" (worthless) and "good for nothing."  Then Eliphaz takes it a step further and says he knows exactly what sin Job is being punished for--Eliphaz claims that Job lacks the fear of the Lord and has a crafty (read this as "lying") tongue.

Eliphaz then seems to call Job a "young whipper-snapper" as apparently there are men among Job's friends that are as old or older than Job's father.  There is a connection between age and wisdom in the Bible, but just because someone is older does not necessarily mean they are wiser, and while there is also a connection between youth and folly, not every young man is foolish.  In this case, Eliphaz makes the mistake of ageism in saying that Job can't possibly understand things because he is too young and needs to let the "grown folk" talk now. 1 Timothy 4:12 comes to mind here, "Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." 

Eliphaz then claims that it is impossible for a man to be pure and for anyone born of a woman to be righteous--almost correct with the exception of Jesus and neglecting the power of God's redemption and justification.  It is true that all men born through Adam are born with a sin nature and are fall, but all of us born again in Christ have a new nature which is holy and blameless in the sight of God.  It is understandable that Eliphaz did not understand this given that the majority of the Old Testament hasn't even happened yet (these are probably contemporaries with Abraham and the other patriarchs), but Job does seem to have some kind of understanding of this as we've seen him using the language of redemption and penal substitutionary atonement already.  Eliphaz continues to say that even the heavens (probably talking about the sun, moon and stars, but possibly talking about the angelic host of heaven) have been corrupted by sin and are not pure in his site, and that a corrupt man who seems to drink injustice like water must be an abomination to the Lord--where in the world does Eliphaz get off accusing Job of loving injustice when all Job has been doing is crying out for justice (with the exception of asking God to have mercy on him and overlook this transgressions that he doesn't know that he's committed and doesn't know how to confess or atone for)?

Then Eliphaz says that since he is older than Job, he will pass on ancient knowledge from his ancestors that perhaps Job doesn't know or understand yet.  The wicked man lives in pain, and suffering and darkness and imagines that he will never return from it.  Since these seem to be Job's words, Eliphaz's only conclusion is that Job must be a wicked man too.

Such a man finds it hard to find his daily bread or have his basic needs met according to Eliphaz's wisdom, and he makes himself an enemy of God assuming that he can stretch out his hand against the Almighty, but what harm can a mortal man do to God?  The wicked man is stubborn and arrogant because he has been well-fed (he has a fat face and a fat waistline which was a sign of someone who was rich and had little need to do any physical labor at the time).

God seems to punish the man by taking away all that he holds dear--his friends and family (the cities become desolate), food, wealth, and possessions.  All this man will know is darkness and emptiness because he has made God his enemy.  His crops will be unfruitful so that he can gather no harvest and their lives are marked by barrenness (possibly an indication to Job's children dying) and the fiery judgment of God.

So what's wrong with Eliphaz's statement?  First is that he assumes right after saying that no man is righteous that some of the unrighteous men have it within themselves to be friends of God and that we have to intentionally make ourselves enemies of God and that we aren't at enmity with God by nature.  While Eliphaz is correct that God sometimes uses judgment to punish or correct the wicked, and it was a common occurrence for such things to happen before there was a Law to help teach people what was right and what was wrong (God blessed those that did what was right in His eyes and punished the wicked in many of the ways that Eliphaz is speaking of), we are not to assume that every bad thing that happens to a person is because of their sin--it can all be traced back to the sin of Adam, but sometimes bad things just happen to people because we live in a fallen world and other times (like we know is going on here), God permits us to be tested to prove our love and faith and to refine us.  It seems apparent that God understood that although Job was righteous, he could use a little more refinement and could learn more about Him through this time of pain and suffering, and God permitted it for Job's good and for His glory.  Eliphaz doesn't seem to be able to grasp this concept and many of us have trouble with this one too.​