Eliphaz Hears Rebellion Where Job Asks for a Hearing

The second round begins, and Eliphaz again speaks first. His first speech opened with a tentative question about whether Job could bear a word (4:2); this one opens with contempt.

“Vain knowledge” is literally “knowledge of wind”. The belly is where Hebrew places inward thought. The east wind, qadim, is the scorching desert sirocco, useless for winnowing; Hosea 12:1 says Ephraim “feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind”.

“Unprofitable” is from sakan, to be of use, the verb Eliphaz returns to in 22:2: “Can a man be profitable unto God?” He treats words as tools, and Job’s as tools that do nothing.

“Fear” is yirah, the fear of God that defined Job in 1:1 and that Eliphaz himself called Job’s confidence in 4:6. “Prayer” here is siach, the word Job used for his complaint in 7:11. Eliphaz says Job’s complaint is destroying prayer.

The Hebrew is literally “thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth”: the guilt is the teacher, the words its pupils. “The crafty” are arumim, from the root of the serpent who was “more subtil” (Genesis 3:1).

Eliphaz borrows Job’s own fear from 9:20, “mine own mouth shall condemn me”, using the same verb, and turns it into a verdict. What Job dreaded in an unequal court, Eliphaz declares done.

“Made before the hills” is the phrase Wisdom uses of herself in Proverbs 8:25, “before the hills was I brought forth”. The first man may be the primal Adam of legend, pictured as wise in Eden (Ezekiel 28:13).

“The secret of God” is sod, the inner council, the circle of advisers around a throne (Jeremiah 23:18, “who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD?”). Neither Eliphaz nor Job heard the council of chapters 1 and 2.

Job twice said, “What ye know, the same do I know also” (13:2, and 12:3). Eliphaz turns the sentence round and asks what Job could possibly know that they do not.

“Very aged men” are yeshishim, the word from Job’s own proverb in 12:12, “with the ancient is wisdom”. Eliphaz takes the proverb Job had corrected and plants it back on his own side.

The second half is literally “and a word dealt gently with thee?” Eliphaz considers his earlier speech tender, and in its opening lines (4:2–6) it partly was. “Small” means too slight to bother with.

“Wink” translates razam, found only here, probably the flashing or rolling of the eyes in anger. The heart “carries away” like a runaway animal.

“Spirit” is ruach, which also means wind. The east wind of verse 2 is now turned against God: Job’s breath, his words, blowing in God’s face.

“Born of a woman” is the opening phrase of Job’s own poem in 14:1, and the question repeats the night vision of 4:17. Eliphaz combines Job’s words with his own vision into a single charge.

This sharpens 4:18. There God trusted neither his servants nor his angels; now “the heavens” themselves are not clean. The phrase may mean heavenly beings, or the bright sky itself, clear as sapphire in Exodus 24:10.

“Filthy” is ne’elach, gone sour or corrupt, the word of Psalm 14:3, “they are all together become filthy”. Elihu borrows the drinking image in 34:7, of a man “who drinketh up scorning like water”.

Eliphaz again stakes his authority on his own eyes, as he did in 4:8, “even as I have seen”. “Shew” is a formal word for declaring what a witness has observed.

Psalm 78:3–4 describes the same chain: “which our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children.” Eliphaz’s wise men received from their fathers and hid nothing.

“No stranger passed among them” is the phrase Joel 3:17 uses of a purified Jerusalem. The claim is that this teaching grew up in a land undisturbed by foreign ideas, a pure tradition.

“Travaileth with pain” is chul, to writhe as in labour, setting up the conception image of verse 35. “The oppressor” is arits, the ruthless man, and his years are a number stored up, counted out and limited.

“The destroyer” is a raider. In the middle of prosperity the raiders come, as Sabeans and Chaldeans came for Job’s oxen and camels (1:15–17). The sound of terror is in his ears before anything arrives.

“Waited for of the sword” means marked out for it, destined, the sword keeping watch for him. He does not believe he will ever come back out of the dark.

“Where is it?” is ayyeh in Hebrew. The Greek translation read ayyah, a kite or vulture, giving “he is appointed as food for vultures”, a grimmer and perhaps more original line.

“Trouble and anguish” are tsar and metsuqah, narrowness and distress, being hemmed in. The word behind “ready to the battle” is rare, perhaps a ring of siege troops or a battle line.

“Strengtheneth himself” is hithgabber, to act the gibbor, the mighty warrior; the only other use is Isaiah 42:13, where the LORD himself goes out as a mighty man. The wicked man plays at God’s own role.

He charges “on his neck”, head down, like a bull or a stiff-necked soldier. The “bosses” are gab, the thick centre of a shield, the word Job used in 13:12 of the friends’ “bodies of clay”, their clay bulwarks.

Fat stands for insolent prosperity, as in Deuteronomy 32:15: “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.” “Collops” in 1611 meant thick slices or folds of flesh. The face is buried in its own excess.

Living in cities left desolate may mean squatting in ruins under a curse, as Jericho was not to be rebuilt (Joshua 6:26). Job had envied kings who “built desolate places” and now rest (3:14); Eliphaz puts the wicked there instead.

“The perfection thereof” translates an obscure word. Some read it as his crop not bending to the ground, the heavy ears of grain that never come; the wealth never reaches harvest weight.

“The breath of his mouth” is God’s breath, as in 4:9, where the blast of God consumed the wicked. The flame drying his branches recalls “the fire of God” that burned Job’s flocks (1:16).

“Vanity” is shav, emptiness, twice: trust in emptiness and emptiness is the payment. “Recompence” is temurah, an exchange; he trades for nothing and gets exactly what he traded for.

“Accomplished before his time” means paid out, or withered, before his day comes. “Branch” is kippah, a palm frond, the “branch and rush” of Isaiah 9:14.

“Unripe grape” is boser, the sour grape of Jeremiah 31:29. Olives shed much of their blossom, and in poor years bear little; Eliphaz takes an orchard’s common disappointment and makes it judgment.

“Desolate” is galmud, barren, the word Job used of his birth night in 3:7. The “tabernacles of bribery” are tents paid for with shochad, the bribe Job said he had never asked anyone to give (6:22). Fire consumes them.

Isaiah 59:4 uses the same words: “they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.” The belly returns from verse 2, so the speech opens and closes there: a belly full of east wind, and a belly pregnant with deceit.