NOTES for Job 22:1-30
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, |
2 Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself? |
3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? |
4 Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment? |
5 Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite? |
6 For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. |
7 Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. |
8 But as for the mighty man, he had the earth; and the honourable man dwelt in it. |
9 Thou has sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. |
10 Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee; |
11 Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters cover thee. |
12 Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are! |
13 And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud? |
14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven. |
15 Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? |
16 Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood: |
17 Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them? |
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: and the innocent laugh them to scorn. |
20 Whereas our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth. |
21 Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. |
22 Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. |
23 If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles. |
24 Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. |
25 Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver. |
26 For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. |
27 Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. |
28 Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways. |
29 When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person. |
30 He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands. |
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Apparently, of Job's three friends, Eliphaz was the one who understood what danger Job's words posed to the traditional religious worldview: that no reward for the righteous and no punishment for the wicked should be expected either during life or after death. And his reaction to Job's words was paradoxical. On the one hand, he puts forward an argument that, in essence, ought to have confirmed his friend's worst fears. He says to Job: what concern is your righteousness to God? What difference does it make to Him whether you are righteous or sinful? Your righteousness benefits you, and your sins are your problems; no one but you will be worse off because of them. And why should God answer your questions and contend with you as a man would (vv. 2-4)?
Speaking this way, Eliphaz in essence confirms precisely what Job feared so much: that God has no concern for the human world, for its problems, its righteousness, and its sins. But immediately, as if catching himself, Eliphaz begins accusing Job of every sin, implying that the disasters that overtook him were punishment for wickedness (vv. 5-11). Having said that God has no concern for Job's righteousness or sinfulness, Eliphaz at once, contradicting himself, claims that this very view of God caused the destruction of antediluvian humanity (vv. 12-18). Apparently his statement that God has no concern for Job's righteousness or sinfulness was only his first, immediate reaction to Job's words, words that frightened Eliphaz so much that he seized on the first argument at hand without seriously thinking about its meaning or the consequences that follow from it.
In reality, Eliphaz evidently does not think at all that God is too distant from human beings to be interested in their righteousness or sinfulness. If that were so, he would not have appealed to Job to abandon lawlessness, be cleansed, and turn again to God in order to restore the relationship destroyed by sin (vv. 19-30). Eliphaz seems not to notice that, in making such an appeal to Job, he is essentially breaking down an open door: Job himself wants nothing so much as to find the living God, meet Him face to face, and receive from Him the answer to all his questions. Perhaps this misunderstanding is connected with different experiences of communion with God and with the differences in their ideas about God, differences that Job and Eliphaz had. For Eliphaz, it appears, the God of religion and the experience gained within religious boundaries were still enough. For Job those boundaries had already become too narrow.
Readings for 6 February 2025
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