An angry Eliphaz rejoins the conversation, and this time he openly accuses Job of impiety...
An angry Eliphaz rejoins the conversation, and this time he openly accuses Job of impiety. In Eliphaz's view, Job's words contain nothing but pride, which makes him forget the fear of God. Eliphaz's reproaches sound impressive, and much of what he says seems just. But he does not answer Job on the substance of the matter; his criticism is directed against the very fact that Job dares to cry out to God. We are no worse than you and know no less, Eliphaz says—and this is precisely where he departs from the truth. There is an obvious answer to his question to Job: ‘What have you learnt that we do not know?’ Unlike his friends, Job has come to know real suffering, and that alone justifies his boldness.
In essence, Eliphaz's speech contains nothing new compared with what he and Job's other two friends have already said. He again says that Job is a sinner ‘by definition’, since no one born of a woman can be righteous before God. In the heat of the argument, Eliphaz portrays God as distrustful and vindictive, loathing the whole human race. The image of God behind Eliphaz's speeches is, admittedly, extremely unattractive; the distrust ‘even of the holy ones’ that he attributes to God contains none of the majesty Job's friends so zealously defend. This image of God is cut to a petty human measure. Eliphaz ascribes to God a kind of disgust towards people, like people's own attitude towards creatures such as slugs. Clearly, his words are theory through and through, for it is impossible to live and pray with such an idea of God.
Compared with what Eliphaz says at the beginning of the chapter, the second part of his speech, devoted to the deserved punishment of the wicked, is elaborately poetic and detailed. This is a common psychological effect: in religious matters, people find it easiest and most comfortable to speak about other people's sins and punishments. The book's author evidently knows this type of religiosity well. Eliphaz lectures Job that the wicked person is the author of their own misfortunes, believing that this explains Job's suffering. This lengthy argument echoes what Israel's great prophets said several centuries before the Book of Job was written. Then, in the pre-exilic period, they told the people heading towards destruction that God was not arbitrarily sending punishment upon them, but that punishment was the fruit of human thoughts. For the prophets, however, this idea was only a prelude to the immense revelation that, for a person perishing through their own wickedness, God becomes the Saviour, the only Hope and Consolation. To Eliphaz, by contrast, this message of the Creator's mercy is alien. God's words through the prophet Ezekiel, that the Lord desires not the sinner's death but their conversion and salvation, directly contradict Eliphaz's reasoning.
15 Eliphaz reproves Job for justifying himself, Job 15:1-13.
Persuades him to humble himself before God, Job 15:14-16.
Describes the misery of wicked men, Job 15:17-35.
15:2 Fill - Satisfy his mind and conscience. East wind - With discourses not only unprofitable, but also pernicious both to himself and others; as the east - wind was in those parts.
15:4 Castest off - Heb. thou makes void fear; the fear of God, piety and religion, by thy unworthy speeches of God, and by those false and pernicious principles, that God makes no difference between good and bad in the course of his providence, but equally prospers or afflicts both: thou dost that which tends to the subversion of the fear and worship of God. Restrainest prayer - Thou dost by thy words and principles, as far as in thee lies, banish prayer out of the world, by making it useless and unprofitable to men.
15:5 Uttereth - Thy words discover the naughtiness of thy heart.Crafty - Thou speakest wickedly, and craftily: thou coverest thy impious principles with fair pretences of piety.
15:11 Are - Are those comforts, which we have propounded to thee on condition of thy repentance, small and contemptible in thine eyes?Secret - Hast thou any secret and peculiar way of comfort which is unknown to us, and to all other men?
15:12 Why - Why dost thou suffer thyself to be transported by the pride of thine heart, to use such unworthy expressions? Wink - Why dost thou look with such an angry, supercilious, and disdainful look?
15:13 Against God - Eliphaz here does in effect give the cause on Satan's side, and affirms that Job had done as he said he would, Curse God to his face.
15:15 Saints - In his angels, chap.Job 4:18, who are called his saints or holy ones, Deu 33:2 Job 15, Psa 103:20, . Who though they were created holy, yet many of them fell. Heavens - The angels that dwell in heaven; heaven being put for its inhabitants. None of these are pure, simply and perfectly, and comparatively to God. The angels are pure from corruption, but not from imperfection.
15:16 Who - Who besides his natural proneness to sin, has contracted habits of sinning; and sins as freely, as greedily and delightfully, as men, especially in those hot countries, drink up water.
15:17 I - I will prove what I have affirmed, that such strokes as thine are peculiar to hypocrites. Seen - I speak not by hear - say, but from my own experience.
15:18 Hid - They judged it to be so certain and important a truth, that they would not conceal it in their own breasts.
15:19 To whom - By the gracious gift of God: this he alleges to make their testimony more considerable, because these were no obscure men, but the most worthy and famous men in their ages; and to confute what Job had said, chap.Job 9:24, that the earth was given into the hand of the wicked. By the earth he means the dominion and possession of it. Stranger - No person of a strange nation and disposition, or religion. Passed - Through their land, so as to disturb, or spoil them, as the Sabeans and Chaldeans did thee. God watched over those holy men so, that no enemy could invade them; and so he would have done over thee, if thou hadst been such an one.
15:20 Pain - Lives a life of care, and fear, and grief, by reason of God's wrath, the torments of his own mind, and his outward calamities.Hidden - He knows not how short the time of his life is, and therefore lives in continual fear of losing it. Oppressor - To the wicked man: he names this one sort of them, because he supposed Job to be guilty of this sin, in opposition of what Job had affirmed of the safety of such persons, chap.Job 12:6, and because such are apt to promise themselves a longer and happier life than other men.
15:21 A sound - Even when he feels no evil, he is tormented with perpetual fears. Come upon him - Suddenly and unexpectedly.
15:22 Believeth not - When he falls into trouble, he despairs of deliverance, by reason of his guilty conscience. Waited for - Besides the calamity which is upon him, he is in constant expectation of greater; the sword is used for any grievous affliction.
15:23 Knoweth - From his own guilty conscience.
15:25 For - Now he gives the reason of all the fore - mentioned calamities, which was his great wickedness. Against God - He sinned against God with an high hand. The Almighty - Which aggravates the madness of this poor worm that durst fight against the omnipotent God.
15:26 He - The wicked man. Neck - As a stout warrior who cometh close to his adversary and grapples with him. He acts in flat opposition to God, both to his precepts and providences.Bosses - Even where his enemy is strongest.
15:27 Because - This is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage towards God, because he was fat, rich, potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deu 32:15 Job 15, Job 15, Psa 78:31, Job 15, Job 15, Jer 46:21, .His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men. Fat - His only care is to pamper himself.
15:28 But - This is fitly opposed to the prosperity last mentioned, and is the beginning of the description of his misery.
15:29 Substance - What he had gotten shall be taken from him.
15:30 Depart - His misery shall have no end. Flame - God's anger and judgment upon him. Branches - His wealth, and power, and glory, wherewith he was encompassed, as trees are with their branches.His mouth - And this expression intimates, with how much ease God subdueth his enemies: his word, his blast; one act of his will is sufficient. Go - Heb. go back: that is, run away from God faster than he ran upon him, ver. Job 15:26. So it is a continuation of the former metaphor of a conflict between two persons.
15:31 Vanity - In the vain and deceitful things of this world, he subjoins a general caution to all men to take heed of running into the same error and mischief. Vanity - Disappointment and dissatisfaction, and the loss of all his imaginary felicity. Recompence - Heb. his exchange; he shall exchange one vanity for another, a pleasing vanity for a vexatious vanity.
15:32 Accomplished - That vanity should be his recompence.Before - When by the course of nature, and common providence he might have continued much longer.