Job 22--Eliphaz Speaks: Job's Wickedness Is Great

Eliphaz Speaks: Job's Wickedness Is Great
22 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

2 “Can a man be profitable to God?
    Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.
3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right,
    or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless?
4 Is it for your fear of him that he reproves you
    and enters into judgment with you?
5 Is not your evil abundant?
    There is no end to your iniquities.
6 For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing
    and stripped the naked of their clothing.
7 You have given no water to the weary to drink,
    and you have withheld bread from the hungry.
8 The man with power possessed the land,
    and the favored man lived in it.
9 You have sent widows away empty,
    and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.
10 Therefore snares are all around you,
    and sudden terror overwhelms you,
11 or darkness, so that you cannot see,
    and a flood of water covers you.

12 “Is not God high in the heavens?
    See the highest stars, how lofty they are!
13 But you say, ‘What does God know?
    Can he judge through the deep darkness?
14 Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see,
    and he walks on the vault of heaven.’
15 Will you keep to the old way
    that wicked men have trod?
16 They were snatched away before their time;
    their foundation was washed away.
17 They said to God, ‘Depart from us,’
    and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’
18 Yet he filled their houses with good things--
    but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
19 The righteous see it and are glad;
    the innocent one mocks at them,
20 saying, ‘Surely our adversaries are cut off,
    and what they left the fire has consumed.’

​21 “Agree with God, and be at peace;
    thereby good will come to you.
22 Receive instruction from his mouth,
    and lay up his words in your heart.
23 If you return to the Almighty you will be built up;
    if you remove injustice far from your tents,
24 if you lay gold in the dust,
    and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,
25 then the Almighty will be your gold
    and your precious silver.
26 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty
    and lift up your face to God.
27 You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you,
    and you will pay your vows.
28 You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you,
    and light will shine on your ways.
29 For when they are humbled you say, ‘It is because of pride’;
    but he saves the lowly.
30 He delivers even the one who is not innocent,
    who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”

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Eliphaz still doesn't take the cues that it's time to stop and starts another round of debate.  He asks Job in a rhetorical format what he thinks he'll gain by this.  Does God have to answer to him?  Does He need us on His side?  Does our righteousness, even when we think we are blameless, impress Him?  Eliphaz at least implies and sometimes directly says that the answer to these questions is "No."

He then goes on to continue to make his accusations against Job and how evil he must be.  Since we have seen no evidence of any of this in Job's life, I can only assume this is transference where they assume Job is just like them and that they know the sins they have committed and assume Job is guilty of the same sins.  Eliphaz's accusation now though is that Job did not use his wealth to care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, poor and needy nor specifically for the sojourner or widow.  It seems interesting that these men understand that this is part of what God wants all men to do because there is no Law given to God's people yet and these are some of the things that He tells the Israelites to do that will set them apart from the other nations, but it seems at this point that these men understood enough about God and His will to get this right (though we know that they didn't get everything right about God).

Eliphaz argues that just because God is "far off" and we can't see Him doesn't mean that He doesn't see us and have all knowledge about us and everything going on with us--yet, this is not what Job was arguing.  Job understood that but asked of God allowed it to happen without intervention or if God was causing it to happen and what it would take for God to stop it.  At no time do I recall Job thinking that God didn't see or hear, but rather he wondered if God cared enough to intervene.

We then see that atheism is old--it is even called the "old way" by Eliphaz as there were men who thought they were "post-modern" at the time and no longer needed God and thought they could command Him to depart so that they could be their own gods.  Eliphaz argues that these men met early deaths and that somehow their rebellion and their early deaths are connected, even though it appeared that they still received material blessings while they were alive.  Eliphaz says this should satisfy the righteous and the innocent as they see the enemies of God cut off and getting the fiery judgment they deserve.  Is it possible that these men understood the reality of hell for those that were enemies of God?  Either way, I think that Even though Eliphaz is right that God is vindicated in such judgment and that it will bring glory and honor to Him when He finally judges His enemies, is God really the kind of God that desires to bring a quick end to His enemies without them repenting?  There is no talk of mercy, forgiveness or repentance in Eliphaz's knowledge of God's plan, therefore, Eliphaz does not understand the gospel in the way that Job does.  I think this will be important when we hear from God later--with everything that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar knew about God's attributes, nature and deeds (and there were some things they got wrong), they seemed to miss the most important thing that Job got right, even though Job seemed to get some other things wrong, but in the end God seemed to be more concerned about the gospel than anything else that was said and would give judgment that Job spoke correctly about Him and the other friends did not, because God ultimately desires repentance and wants to forgive men and blot out their sins and transgressions through the coming Redeemer and to provide a Mediator between God and Man--our Great High Priest, Christ Jesus, the Lord.

​"Agree with God" is probably a good translation of the word "Confess" and that's probably what Eliphaz is accusing Job of.  He is saying that Job must have unconfessed sin in his life and he needs to come into agreement with God about that sin--this is the closes that we seem to see any of Job's friends get to calling for repentance, but it still comes short because it is instructions of "just do what is right from this point forward and hope that God see it and you earn favor with Him from here on out."  That's a gospel of works.

It's not wrong for Eliphaz to ask Job to make sure that He loves God more than than his gold, but that was never Job's problem.  It's not wrong to tell Job that God wants him to be willing to put aside all of his treasure and to use it to take care of the poor and needy, but we don't see that being Job's problem.  It is good for Eliphaz to tell Job to delight in the Lord, but I think God was already Job's portion forever--he was just depressed at the moment and had a temporary crisis whereby he couldn't square what was going on in his life with what He thought he knew about God.

Eliphaz tried to tell Job that if he just confesses and does what is right, God will hear his prayers (and the assumption is that there is sin in Job's life right now and the reason Job is suffering is that God is not hearing his prayers).  Eliphaz again returns to money to say that Job's sincerity will be measured by the vows he pays, and while God does sometimes ask for a price of gold or silver to be paid in certain cases, God always has a blood sacrifice made for atonement--so far Eliphaz has made no mention of that.

Eliphaz then says that God will then restore Job's wisdom (as if Job has lost it) and then Eliphaz seems to make some statements about God giving grace to the humble--even those who are not innocent.  I do find that interesting.  He also seems to imply again that Job's hands aren't really clean and asks if his righteousness (cleanness) is enough to save himself or anyone else?  This will be where Eliphaz will end his arguments.  He believes this is his summation of the entire matter.

We'll see Job respond and each of the others take another turn (with Job responding to each of them too) as we wrap up the regular debate before we get to the "bonus round" of what Elihu has to say, since no one has let him talk or asked him if he had anything to say to this point (we're about 10 chapters away from this and he'll speak for about 5 chapters--about the same opportunity to speak that everyone else was given to this point).  Then comes the moment we've all been waiting for--God Himself will speak (this is most of chapters 38-42).