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Job 15: Eliphaz Sharpens His Charge

Opening the second cycle of speeches, Eliphaz accuses Job of irreverence and paints the dreadful fate that always overtakes the wicked.

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Job 15 (WEB)

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

2 “Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?

3 Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches with which he can do no good?

4 Yes, you do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God.

5 For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.

6 Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.

7 “Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought out before the hills?

8 Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?

9 What do you know, that we don’t know? What do you understand, which is not in us?

10 With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father.

11 Are the consolations of God too small for you, even the word that is gentle toward you?

12 Why does your heart carry you away? Why do your eyes flash,

13 That you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?

14 What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

15 Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight;

16 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!

17 “I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare:

18 (Which wise men have told by their fathers, and have not hidden it;

19 to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them):

20 the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.

21 A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come on him.

22 He doesn’t believe that he shall return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.

23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

24 Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

25 Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty;

26 he runs at him with a stiff neck, with the thick shields of his bucklers;

27 because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.

28 He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.

29 He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall their possessions be extended on the earth.

30 He shall not depart out of darkness. The flame shall dry up his branches. By the breath of God’s mouth shall he go away.

31 Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness shall be his reward.

32 It shall be accomplished before his time. His branch shall not be green.

33 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree.

34 For the company of the godless shall be barren, and fire shall consume the tents of bribery.

35 They conceive mischief, and produce iniquity. Their heart prepares deceit.”

Summary

Eliphaz the Temanite opens the second round of debate with a sharper edge than before. He accuses Job of answering with vain knowledge and empty wind, of using crafty speech that does away with the fear of God. Where once he appealed gently, now he charges that Job's own mouth condemns him. He mocks the idea that Job alone has heard God's secret counsel or holds a monopoly on wisdom, reminding him that gray-headed elders stand with the friends. Eliphaz returns to his fixed conviction that no human being can be clean before God, since even the heavens are not pure in his sight, how much less a man who drinks iniquity like water. He then launches into a long and vivid portrait of the wicked man: writhing in pain all his days, haunted by terrors, dreading darkness, and finally consumed because he stretched out his hand against the Almighty. The implication is unmistakable and cruel, that Job's suffering proves his guilt. Eliphaz mistakes a true principle, that sin brings ruin, for a rigid formula that condemns an innocent sufferer.

Voices

  • Eliphaz the Temanite — The eldest friend, who reopens the debate with a harsher accusation, charging Job with irreverent speech and describing the doom of the wicked as a mirror of Job's plight.
  • Job — The suffering man addressed throughout, accused of pride and hidden sin, though the reader knows he is upright.
  • The Almighty (God) — The holy One in whose sight even the heavens are not clean, invoked by Eliphaz to crush Job's claim to innocence.

Key Verse

Job 15:14 (WEB)

What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

Lessons Learned

  • A true doctrine, like human sinfulness, can be twisted into a weapon when applied without love.
  • Pressing a hurting person harder rarely produces repentance; more often it produces despair.
  • We must be careful not to read suffering as automatic proof of someone's secret guilt.
  • Appeals to tradition and the wisdom of elders are not the same as listening to the truth before us.
  • Words can do away with the fear of God. Eliphaz warns that Job's speech could “do away with fear, and hinder devotion before God” (Job 15:4, WEB), yet he himself is the one speaking without compassion.
  • No one is clean of himself. “What is man, that he should be clean?” (Job 15:14, WEB). The principle is true, but Eliphaz uses it to deny that an innocent person could ever suffer.
  • Even the heavens are not pure in God's sight. “the heavens are not clean in his sight” (Job 15:15, WEB) magnifies God's holiness, pointing forward to our need for a righteousness we cannot manufacture.
  • Fear can masquerade as a portrait of the wicked. Eliphaz describes how “the wicked man writhes in pain all his days” (Job 15:20, WEB), drawing a picture meant to corner Job rather than comfort him.
  1. How has Eliphaz's tone changed since his first speech, and what do you think hardened it?
  2. Eliphaz says no one born of woman can be righteous (15:14). Is the statement true, and how is he misusing it?
  3. What is the effect on Job of being told that his suffering proves his guilt?
  4. Where does Eliphaz appeal to age, tradition, and the consensus of the elders, and why is that not enough?
  5. When you are sure you are right, how can you avoid using true ideas to wound a person who is already hurting?
  1. In his first speech Eliphaz spoke of a vision and offered cautious comfort; now he flatly charges Job with crafty, irreverent talk (15:2-6). Help the group see that frustration at being contradicted can curdle counsel into accusation.
  2. It is true that no fallen human is sinless before a holy God, a truth the whole Bible affirms. Eliphaz's error is in concluding that Job's particular suffering therefore proves particular, hidden sin. The doctrine is right; the application is cruel and false.
  3. Being told that his agony is simply the wages of secret wickedness adds shame to grief and isolates Job further. It is the opposite of bearing one another's burdens; it crushes rather than carries.
  4. Eliphaz boasts that “the gray-headed and the very aged men” stand with the friends (15:10) and appeals to what wise men told by their fathers (15:18). Tradition has value, but here it is marshaled to silence rather than to discern the actual case before them.
  5. This is a personal-application question. Invite members to recall a time their correct point became a club. As leader, model gentleness, noting that truth spoken without love can still do real harm.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), the King James Version (KJV), and the American Standard Version (ASV), all of which are in the public domain.