Eliphaz Supplies the Crimes His Argument Requires

Eliphaz opens the third round, and this is his last speech in the book. Teman was a town of Edom with a reputation for wisdom; Jeremiah 49:7 asks, “Is wisdom no more in Teman?” The oldest and most measured of the friends is about to say the harshest things of all.

The verb for profitable, sakan, means to be of use or service. Eliphaz's point is that wisdom benefits the wise man himself, the way a skill profits its owner, and never the God who has need of nothing. What Job does, good or bad, costs or earns God nothing.

The rhetorical answer Eliphaz expects is no. The reader knows otherwise: in 1:8 God himself raised Job's righteousness unprompted, “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” and plainly took pleasure in it. “Makest thy ways perfect” uses the root of tam, the word for Job's integrity.

“For fear of thee” is literally “for thy fear”, and fear is the word Eliphaz used for Job's piety in 4:6, “Is not this thy fear, thy confidence?” The sting is sarcastic: is it for your godliness that he disciplines you? And Job has asked to be taken into judgment (13:18).

In chapter 4 Eliphaz began by reminding Job that he had strengthened the weak. Now the same man says there is no end to his iniquities, which is what “infinite” renders: literally, there is no limit. Two speeches have taken him from gentle hint to open charge.

“For nought” is chinnam, the word Satan used in 1:9: “Doth Job fear God for nought?” The accusation turns the prologue inside out. A pledge was a garment or tool held as security for a loan; to strip the naked is to take the last clothing from someone already poor.

Water for a weary traveller and bread for the hungry were the bare minimum of hospitality in a dry land, owed even to strangers. Eliphaz is not accusing Job of refined crimes but of the most elementary failures of decency, which makes the charge all the more wounding.

Literally “the man of arm, his is the land; the lifted of face dwells in it.” The lifted face is the favoured one, the man shown partiality. Eliphaz implies Job ran his land for the strong. The arm returns in the next verse, where the arms of the fatherless are broken.

Widows and the fatherless were the classic unprotected, with no man to plead their case. “Sent away empty” is the phrase Deuteronomy 15:13 forbids even for a released slave. Job will answer point for point in 29:13, “I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.”

Snares are Bildad's image from 18:8–10, gin and trap and noose. “Sudden fear” pairs pachad, dread, with a word for the unexpected; Job had said in 3:25, “the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me”. Eliphaz reads that dread as a symptom of guilt.

“Abundance of waters” is a precise phrase that returns in the mouth of God in 38:34: “Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?” Eliphaz uses the flood as punishment; God will use the same waters to show who commands the sky.

“The height of the stars” is literally “the head of the stars”, the very top of them. Eliphaz points upward to establish God's distance and vantage, a lofty place from which everything below is visible. God's own speeches will also point to the stars, but for a different purpose.

The words Eliphaz puts in Job's mouth, “How doth God know?”, are almost exactly those Psalm 73:11 gives to the arrogant wicked: “How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?” He is filing Job's words under a known kind of scoffer.

“The circuit of heaven” renders chug, the curved rim or vault of the sky; Isaiah 40:22 uses it for the circle of the earth. The imagined scoffer pictures God pacing that far edge, well above a cloud layer he cannot see through.

“The old way” is literally the path of antiquity, the road long ago walked. Jeremiah 6:16 urges Israel to ask for the old paths as good ones; Eliphaz points to an ancient road trodden by the wicked and asks whether Job intends to keep to it.

“Cut down out of time” means snatched away before their time. A foundation washed out by a river or flood very likely points to the generation of Noah, though Eliphaz does not name them; the inference is widely drawn from the image.

The last clause is awkward in Hebrew, “what can the Almighty do for them?”, and the Greek Septuagint reads “to us”, which keeps the scoffers speaking in the first person. Either way the words reproduce what Job said the wicked say in 21:14–15.

In passing Eliphaz concedes the very fact Job had pressed: God did fill their houses with good things. The prosperity was real and it came from God. He simply moves the end of the account forward to the flood that took them.

“Laugh them to scorn” is the verb laag, the same verb as Job's “mock on” in 21:3. Job told the friends they would mock, and here is the mockery, framed as the proper joy of the innocent. Psalm 52:6 has the same scene: the righteous see and laugh.

The Hebrew behind “our substance” is uncertain; many render it “our adversaries are cut off”. The fire consuming what remains of the wicked is a cruel image to use before Job, whose sheep and servants were burned up by “the fire of God” from heaven in 1:16.

“Acquaint now thyself” is sakan again, the verb of verse 2. A man cannot be of service to God, but he can become familiar with him. The call is to intimacy, and then “be at peace”, shalom, with good coming as the result.

“Lay up his words in thine heart” is exactly what Job will insist he has done, in 23:12: “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” Eliphaz offers as a cure the practice Job claims was already his daily bread.

“Thou shalt be built up” uses the picture of a house rebuilt, and Job's household literally fell down in 1:19. “Tabernacles” means tents, the dwellings of a man with flocks. The condition sits at the front: if thou return, a word that implies Job has gone away.

Ophir was the source of the finest gold, reached by Solomon's ships (1 Kings 9:28), probably on the Arabian or East African coast. The Hebrew can mean gold made as common as dust, or gold thrown down in the dust as worthless; the second reading sets up the next verse.

The word for “defence” is the same as the word for gold ore in verse 24, betser. The Almighty himself becomes Job's gold, and his silver is literally silver of peaks, heaped high. The wordplay hands over treasure and replaces it with God in the same breath.

“Delight” is the verb Isaiah 58:14 uses: “thou shalt delight thyself in the LORD.” Job will take up this exact phrase in 27:10 and ask of the hypocrite, “Will he delight himself in the Almighty?” He hears Eliphaz's promise and turns it into a test he himself can pass.

A vow was typically made in trouble and paid after deliverance, with an offering in thanks (Psalm 66:13–14 describes it). To promise that Job will pay his vows is to promise that the rescue he prays for will actually come.

Light shining on his ways answers the darkness of verse 11 within the same speech, and it answers Job's complaint in 19:8 that God “hath set darkness in my paths.” Eliphaz offers to reverse the very image Job used for his condition.

“The humble person” is literally “the one lowly of eyes”, whose gaze is cast down. The first half is difficult in Hebrew; the King James takes “lifting up” as a word of encouragement Job will be able to speak over those who have fallen.

Clean hands were Job's own language. In 16:17 he claimed no injustice in his hands, and in 17:9 he said “he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.” Eliphaz takes up the phrase as something Job might one day have, not something he has.