Answering Eliphaz, Job says that he would gladly turn to God, if only God would agree to hear him (Job 23:3-5). He is completely sure that he has something to answer God with: after all, he is a righteous man, he has always tried to follow the Torah in everything, and he has nothing with which to reproach himself. If only God would agree to stoop to his human weakness and limitation, because if He begins to compare Job with Himself, not only Job but no one else could stand the comparison (Job 23:6-12). But for now God frightens Job with His power more than He speaks with him face to face (Job 23:13-17). Meanwhile the wicked live calmly, thinking nothing about God, and God does not disturb them with His presence (Job 24:1-22).

Job evidently understands that everything happening to him is somehow conditioned by his righteousness and his relationship with God. In fact, already in the preexilic period, judging by the hymns that have come down to us and been included in the Book of Psalms, many understood that God's judgment concerns the righteous person first of all, that it is precisely the righteous person who seeks this judgment, while the wicked person runs from it. But traditional ideas about God's judgment were connected with the thought of the triumph of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked, even though both were often postponed until the end of time. In that case it became clear that the righteous person who seeks God's judgment and has found it is happier than the wicked person who runs from this judgment because nothing good awaits him there. But God's judgment opens itself to Job in a completely different way. He suddenly understands that one must still obtain judgment, that getting through to God is not at all simple, and that relationships with Him may turn out to be far more difficult for a person than he can expect, even if that person is righteous.

Relations with God turn out to be risky, exhausting, and sometimes even destructive, while the coming triumph turns out, even for the righteous person, to be not only far from near, but even entirely uncertain: it is not at all obvious to Job that meeting God will be precisely a just judgment. What had once seemed clear and unambiguous within the framework of traditional religiosity suddenly became vague, incomprehensible, and threatening. Instead of joy and triumph, relations with God brought only problems. And Job begins to look with bewilderment at the wicked, who live calmly, thinking nothing about God and not facing the problems Job has faced. There was something here to think about.