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 nakeda 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 mightyb man, he had the earth; and the honourable man dwelt in it.
9 Thou hast 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,c 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 substanced is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth.
21 Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace:e 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,f and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks.
25 Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence,g 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 humbleh person.
30 He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.
Job 22:5. Is not thy wickedness great? This speech of Eliphaz is cruel, and very much embittered; for it was mere suspicion that Job had robbed the widow, and stripped the naked. Job replies to it more fully in chap. 29., especially with regard to the widow and the destitute.
Job 22:7. Thou hast not given water to the weary, to the traveller, when he and his beasts were fainting with thirst, in a dry and parched land. Withholding water in such a case was reckoned a cruelty of the worst description.
Job 22:15. Wicked men whose foundation was overflown with a flood, in the days of Noah. The general succession of biblical critics are agreed on this reference, which is more fully noted in Job 26:5.
Job 22:30. He shall deliver the island of the innocent. What island? The Hebrew is obscure. The LXX read, “He shall deliver the innocent, and save thee because of the purity of thy hands.” Eliphaz thought that Job might yet regain perfect rectitude.
REFLECTIONS.
“My goodness extendeth not unto thee, but to the saints that are in the earth.” Eliphaz, by pleading for the poor, cuts Job to the quick; for the aged and the sick have a right to bread, the earth being the Lord's. Religion is love, and charity is the first fruit of love. But before he pierced his friend with those deep wounds, he should have been sure that he was guilty. The angels are afraid of railing accusations.
The next argument of Eliphaz is founded on the deluge of Noah, which happened when the earth was in the greatest prosperity. “Hast thou marked the way of wicked men, whose foundations were overflown with the flood?” Oh what a time to an atheistical and epicurean world! They scoffed at the ark, and filled up the measure of their sins. The finest day turned black with rain and tempest, never known before, and the rising tides on gaining the hills washed them away, blaspheming against God, and cursing their seducers to atheism and crimes. Take heed, oh infidel christian age, for those thunderbolts of Jehovah are for the warning of posterity. From these awful characters of God, in his longsuffering goodness in the days of Noah, in his great mercy and faithfulness to that patriarch, and in his righteous vengeance on the wicked, we may learn what are his moral perfections, as discovered in the government of the world. Let us therefore aim at a life conformable to his laws, to become acquainted with the glorious person and offices of Christ, and with his work of regeneration: “for this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”