Eliphaz: Is Not Your Wickedness Great?
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 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 that you are righteous? Or does it benefit him that you make your ways perfect? 4 Is it for your piety that he reproves you, that he enters with you into judgment? 5 Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities. 6 For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing. 7 You haven’t given water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from the hungry. 8 But as for the mighty man, he had the earth. The honorable man, he lived in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. 10 Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you, 11 or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you. 12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven? See the height of the stars, how high they are! 13 You say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness? 14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he doesn’t see. He walks on the vault of the sky.’ 15 Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden, 16 who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream, 17 who said to God, ‘Depart from us!’ and, ‘What can the Almighty do for 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 ridicule them, 20 saying, ‘Surely those who rose up against us are cut off. The fire has consumed their remnant.’ 21 “Acquaint yourself with him now, and be at peace. By it, good will come to you. 22 Please 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 put away unrighteousness far from your tents. 24 Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. 25 The Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you. 26 For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty, and will lift up your face to God. 27 You will make your prayer to him, and he will hear you. You will pay your vows. 28 You will also decree a thing, and it will be established to you. Light will shine on your ways. 29 When they cast down, you will say, ‘be lifted up.’ He will save the humble person. 30 He will even deliver him who is not innocent. Yes, he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.”
Running out of argument, the friends invent the crimes, and the charges they fabricate are the ones Job will answer under oath.
The third cycle opens with a premise that has to be handled carefully, because it is half true. Can a man be profitable to God?... Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous? Job 22:2–3.
God gains nothing from human virtue in the sense of needing it, and Elihu will say something similar later Job 35:7. But Eliphaz draws a conclusion the text will not support: that since God has no stake in Job's righteousness, the reproof cannot be about righteousness at all, so it must be about sin. The first two chapters say the opposite. God had a stake in this man's integrity so direct that he raised the subject himself Job 1:8.
Then the accusation, and it is the moment the friends' case collapses into invention. Isn't your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities Job 22:5.
And for the first time, specifics: taking pledges from a brother for nothing, stripping the naked of clothing, withholding water from the weary and bread from the hungry, sending widows away empty, breaking the arms of the fatherless Job 22:6–9.
None of this is evidence. Eliphaz has not investigated anything, has no witnesses, and has just spent two cycles arguing from a general rule. The charges are reverse-engineered: the punishment is severe, therefore the crimes were severe, and these are the crimes a rich man would commit. He has worked backward from the disaster to a list of plausible sins.
It is worth noting exactly which sins he picks. Every one concerns the destitute — the widow, the orphan, the naked, the hungry. That is what Eliphaz believes God punishes most heavily, and he is right about that. What he does not have is any reason to think Job did it, and chapter 31 is Job's sworn answer to this list, item by item.
Eliphaz also puts words in Job's mouth. You say, 'What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?' Job 22:13. Job has said nothing of the kind. His entire complaint is that God sees him too closely and will not look away Job 7:19. Being accused of thinking God blind, by men who cannot hear what he is actually saying, is the exact inversion of his position.
And then, having invented the charges, Eliphaz offers terms — and they are genuinely beautiful. Acquaint yourself with him now, and be at peace Job 22:21. Lay your treasure in the dust, and the Almighty will be your treasure, and precious silver to you Job 22:24–25. Prayer heard, light on the ways, the humble saved Job 22:27–29.
This is the highest religious language in the friends' speeches, and it is offered as the reward for confessing to crimes that were made up four verses earlier. The theology is admirable. The transaction is a lie, and it is a lie about the man's life.
settled What this mark means