Third Discourse of Eliphaz
The third series in the discussion opens with a discourse from Eliphaz, in which he sets forth the superiority of God to all results from the service of man, however noble in his own eyes. Provoked by the pertinacity of Job in the denial of hidden sin, he launches out first into questions, then into direct charges, which betrayed his conviction that Job, far from the righteous man he assumed to be, was really hard, selfish, unfeeling, and unjust, himself really the mere man of might and arrogance, who had sent away widows and orphans, till he was caught in his own meshes and troubled by fear. Indeed he does not hesitate to impute freethinking to Job, heedless of the warning God has given even in this world, that they may not shut out Himself and His oversight, cheated by the serpent to think that He is too high to notice mere worms of the earth. But as the wicked cannot thus act even now with impunity, so the righteous rejoice at His dealings however solemn. To Him therefore Eliphaz commends Job. Acquaintance with Him, and repentance in His sight, would soon be followed by outward and inward blessings; so that he should not only be relieved from the divine pressure now upon him, but be used to intercede for others, and should deliver the guilty through his integrity.
And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Can a man [a hero] then profit God?
For, being wise, he profiteth himself.
Is it then a pleasure to the Almighty if thou art righteous,
And gain if thou makest thy ways perfect?
Will He out of fear of thee argue with thee,
Enter into judgment with thee?
Is not thy wickedness great,
And no end of thine iniquities?
For thou distrainedst thy brother without cause,
And didst strip off the clothes of the naked;
To the weary thou gavest no water,
And from the hungry didst withhold bread.
And the man of might—his was the land,
And the accepted of face dwelleth in it.
Widows didst thou send empty away,
And the arms of the fatherless were broken.
Therefore round about thee are snares,
And sudden fear overpowereth thee.
Or seest thou not the darkness,
And the flood of waters covering thee?
Is not God [Eloah] in the height of the heavens?
And see the top of the stars, how high they are!
And thou sayest, What knoweth God
Will He judge through the darkness?
Thick clouds [are] a covering to Him, and He seeth not,
And He walketh on the circle of the heavens.
Wilt thou keep to the old way
Which men of iniquity trod,
Who were snatched away untimely:
A flood was poured on their foundation;
Who were saying to God, Depart from us,
And what could the Almighty do for them?
And He filled their houses with good!
But the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
The righteous will see and rejoice,
And the innocent mock at them:
Is not our adversary cut down?
And the fire devoureth their residue.
Acquaint thyself, I pray thee, with Him, and be at peace;
Thereby shall good come to thee.
Receive, I pray thee, law from His mouth,
And lay up His words in thy heart.
If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up;
([If] thou put iniquity far away from thy tent),
And put precious ore on the dust,
And that of Ophir as stones of brooks;
And the Almighty shall be thy precious ores,
And silver of toilings to thee.
For then in the Almighty shalt thou delight,
And lift up thy face to God [Eloah].
Thou shalt pray to Him, and He shall hear thee,
And thou shalt pay thy vows,
And thou shalt decree a thing, and it is established to thee,
And light shall shine on thy ways.
When they are dejected, then shalt thou say, Lift up,
And He will save him of downcast eyes;
He will deliver him that is not guiltless,
And he is rescued by the cleanness of thy hands.
Thus does Eliphaz press on Job the inquiries whether God could derive benefit from the worth of any man, be he who he may, because his prudence benefits himself—whether Job's righteousness was a pleasure to the Almighty, or the blamelessness of his ways a gain to Him. He resents the notion as absurd and insolent, that God could be influenced to swerve from His unbending rectitude, and therefore infers extreme wickedness from the extreme dealings of His hand. Was it not monstrous for Job to challenge Him to an action at law? It was not to be thought of that He would argue with Job through fear of him. There was but one reasonable conclusion: Job was suffering greatly because his wickedness was great, and his iniquities not ended. Warming with indignation, he ventures to specify the sins he conceived to be judged of God in the case. Stripped of his goods, had he furnished water to the weary, or bread to the famished? Had he not been inhuman enough to take a pledge of his brother causelessly, yea, to deprive the naked of their clothing? His course had really been a mingled one of power on the one hand, and of favor on the other, arrogant, yet fawning, so as to settle himself in the earth which he sought, whatever he might aver to the contrary. And if he sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless were not held up but broken, who could wonder that snares were all around him, and sudden fear confounding him? Was it not the awful foreboding of coming and worse judgment?
It is a fair question whether verse 11 be more correctly taken as concluding the first part of the chapter, as is most obvious and commonly understood, or as introducing a new and still worse imputation. If the latter, the sense would run thus: Job had already owned in chapter 19 that God had fenced up his way that he could not pass, and had set darkness upon his paths. Eliphaz now turns the confession against him, by asking if he did not see the darkness and the flood of waters covering him. So not a few, from Ewald to Delitzch. The Septuagint has τὺ φῶς σοι είς σκότος ἀπέβη, κ. τ. λ. (“the light hath turned out darkness to thee"), whence it would appear that these Greek translators must have read [Hebrew word] rather than the opening particle, [Hebrew word], on the correctness of which assumption Michaelis acts in adopting it as the true text.
There can be no doubt that the charge which follows is one of deadly skeptical impiety; as if the incomparable glory of God excluded His concerning Himself with the actions and thoughts of man on earth. Job had indeed dwelt on the unsearchable wisdom and might of God as sovereign and irresistible; he had complained of severe dealings, but nothing could be less true, or more undeserved, than that he denied His government. The insinuation was duo only to the perverse hypothesis of Eliphaz. Job was at dealt as far as himself from saying, What doth God know? Will He judge through the darkness? Thick clouds are a covering to Him, and He seeth not, and He walketh on the circle of the heavens. Such language and such thoughts were foreign to Job. Certainly Eliphaz could not be more opposed to the old path trodden by the antediluvian sinners, who had been swept away before the time, when their foundation was poured away in a flood (or a flood poured on it). And most justly; for did they not say to God, Depart from us; and what could the Almighty do for them, though He had filled their houses with good? In vain then did Eliphaz retort on Job his own saying here, as at the beginning of his discourse. (Compare chap. 21:14-16) Job was as sincere in his abhorrence of the sentiment as Eliphaz, who had no real ground for thus reflecting on Job. It was the bitter fruit of his hard, and narrow, and misleading theory of present affliction, as if it could flow from no source but God's estimate of our evil.
Not that God does not mark, when and where He pleases, His sense of man's impiety; and when He does, Job joins Eliphaz and the righteous generally in setting it to his seal that God is wise and just: above all will it be manifest in that day when divine judgment will deal definitively with all that is opposed to God's will and to His people. But the memory is apt to be treacherous in controversy, else Eliphaz could not have forgotten how impressively Job had brought before his friends that day, and without the least hesitation of heart or conscience. So that we might apply to him the spirit of the New Testament word, and affirm that he was one of those who love the Lord's appearing, when evil shall no more oppress nor defile, but vanish before the light and joy of day.
Next comes the exhortation. It is well when, in love and with a sound judgment, we are admonished; but was it so here? A word fitly spoken, how good it is! But the call in this case assumed that Job was a wicked man, and we may find occasion to admire the patience he manifests, as well as see where he falls short. It is delightful to hear the message of love go forth, but what where it implies that a true believer is a hypocrite?
In truth Job was better acquainted with God than any of his friends: how painful to have the gravest of them so speaking as to impute worse than ignorance! “Acquaint thyself, I pray thee, with him, and be at peace: thereby shall good come to thee. Receive, I pray thee, law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thy heart.” There are those to whom such a call would be loving and appropriate. The mistake was as to Job's state. The friends might have learned much; they had presumed to judge, and they had judged wrongly. They had no right notion of God's gracious work with souls to humble them, breaking self down, and making His grace infinitely precious. Hence, as they saw nothing but retributive dealing with hidden wickedness, the extraordinary trials of Job gave them the fullest possible impression; and Eliphaz, regarding him as a renegade, exhorts him to return to the Almighty, and he shall be built up, and to put iniquity far away from his tabernacles: a faithful saying, if addressed to one far away from God; but how galling to a deeply-tried saint to be exhorted to lay his precious ore on the dust, and that of Ophir as pebbles of the brooks, and Shaddai should be to him his precious ores and hard-won silver! “For then in Shaddai shalt thou delight, and lift up thy face to Eloah: thou shalt pray to him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. And thou shalt decree a thing, and it is established to thee, and light shall shine on thy ways."
This seemed needed and wise advice, doubtless, to Eliphaz, and in many a case it would be most applicable; but it was wholly out of place for Job, to whom gold or silver were as the dust of the balance, and the favor of God everything. There was no solution of the trial as yet. Hidden sin was not in question, nor consequently repentance of it, but a deep submission to God's will, who could employ the enemy to bring out the patience of the sufferer, and his friends to lay bare his impatience. Eliphaz did not so much as touch the true question. He misjudged Job, and would have aggravated the malady instead of curing it. There was no lack of practical righteousness in the ways of Job, nor did his failure lie in the neglect of kindness to others, nor even of prayer to God. But was he nothing in his own eyes? Was grace everything to him? Did a word that Eliphaz had said tend to teach him either lesson?
It is remarkable, however, that the close of Eliphaz's discourse was yet to be verified before the book ends, in the efficacy of Job's intercession for Eliphaz himself. “When they are dejected, then shalt thou say, Lift up, and He will save him of downcast eyes; He will deliver him that is not guiltless, and he is rescued by the cleanness of thy hands."
It may be observed here that [Hebrew word], which the Authorized Version takes in the more common sense of “island,” or “house,” as Good prefers, is really a negative particle, which reappears in Ichabod (not-glory): so Gesenius clearly proves, with a discussion on its origin, in his Hebrew and Chaldee Thes. i., 79, 80. Dathe follows Reiske's proposal to read [Hebrew word], a man; but, even if allowable in itself, this enfeebles the idea; for if intercession rescues one who is not guiltless, it is more to the purpose than availing only for the innocent. Indeed the true version had been given long ago by Tremellins and Junius, and even in the Chaldee paraphrase, and followed by Schultens and others.