Job 15:17-35

2. The destiny of the ungodly shows the retributive justice of God. (Job 15:17-35)

TEXT 15:17-35

17 I will show thee, hear thou me;

And that which I have seen I will declare

18 (Which wise men have told

From their fathers, and have not hid it;

19 Unto whom alone the land was given,

And no stranger passed among them):

20 The wicked man travaileth with 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 upon him.

22 He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness,

And he is waiting for the sword.

23 He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where Is it?

He knoweth 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 hath stretched out his hand against God,

And behaveth himself proudly against the Almighty;

26 He runneth upon him with a stiff neck,

With the thick bosses of his bucklers;

27 Because he hath covered his face with his fatness,

And gathered fat upon his loins;

28 And he hath dwelt in desolate cities,

In houses which no man 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,
And by the breath of God'S mouth shall he go away.

31 Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself;

For vanity shall be his recompense.

32 It shall be accomplished before his time,

And 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 bring forth iniquity,

And their heart prepareth deceit.

COMMENT 15:17-35

Job 15:17Here again is Eliphaz's favorite theme, the destiny of the wicked. Once more the doctrine is supported by reference to the accumulated wisdom of the ages. (Compare Eliphaz's claim with Psalms 73). Eliphaz's unbridled eloquence is still not very convincing, though he claims revelation (hazahprophetic gazing) as source for his message.

Job 15:18Eliphaz is here claiming that his convictions are confirmed by the observation of past generations. Tradition confirms the accuracy of Eliphaz's judgment. Where have we heard that claim before? (Even Tevye, from Fiddler on the Roof, knew both the power of tradition and change.) Eliphaz, like his many successors, never learned that tradition is never to be necessarily identified with truth, either human or divine.[177]

[177] The verse might contain a clue to the date of the book of Job. If the land is Canaan, which the text does not claim, Israel had undisputed control up to the fall of Samaria ca 722-1 B.C.; or perhaps the fall of Judah 586-5 B.C. Surely Delitzsch's views are still appropriateEliphaz has reference to his own country and tribesee Joel 3:17.

Job 15:19The tradition of wisdom has been transmitted pure, uncontaminated by foreign influences.-' Edom was the proverbial home of wisdomJeremiah 49:7. Eliphaz's provincialism shines forth in his belief that the purest wisdom is that in the possession of his own people. Remember, he is not a member of the covenant nation.

Job 15:20Job has earlier asserted that robbers prosperJob 12:6. Eliphaz responds to Job that the wicked are in constant agonyIsaiah 57:20 ff. The prosperity of the unrighteous man is hollow because he is tortured psychologically, by a guilty conscienceall his days.- The Hebrew text has mispar, which means a number, i.e., a few, but the parallelism calls for all his daysall his years. The word translated oppressor in the A. V., in Job 6:23; Job 27:13, comes from the root to terrify, or to inspire awe and means here a ruthless person. The verse means that the unrighteous are miserable and short-lived, but the pious are happy and long-lived.[178]

[178] For analysis of critical problems with the grammar, see M. Dahood, Biblica, 48, 1967, 428ff; A. C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job, Biblica et Orient alia, 22, 1969. This indispensable study follows Dahood's analysis.

Job 15:21Eliphaz continues to describe the frightful calamities that come upon the corrupt man. The imagination of the wicked condemns himProverbs 28:1. Peace is an illusion to the impious. Prosperity is only temporal security to the wicked. There is a constant dread of coming destruction.

Job 15:22Darkness (hosek), the figure of misfortune, hovers over the life and possession of the wicked. The condemning conscience of the wicked is haunted by the finality of darkness. The sword is waiting[179] for the wicked. The threat of assassination generates constant dread. An evil conscience creates a constant apprehension of disaster.

[179] See analysis of grammar by G. R. Driver, Vetus Testamentum, Supplement III, 1955, 78, renders this phrase he is marked down for the sword.

Job 15:23The verse means that the wicked-prosperous is always haunted by fears of poverty. This gnawing dread graphically portrays the frustration of the wandering wicked (so LXX). They expect the worst and receive the worst. The LXX attaches the phrase a day of darkness to Job 15:24, so others follow. The unbearable tyranny of a pessimistically conceived day of darkness is ever lurking at hand to bring all of existence crashing down.[180]

[180] For technical discussion, see Dhorme, Job, pp. 217-8.

Job 15:24A day of darkness (from Hebrew of Job 15:23) terrifies him. Anguish and sickness unto death prevail against him. Misfortune is pictured as an army of vultures prepared for attack.

Job 15:25A divine assault is imminent. Suddenly, Eliphaz switches to imagery portraying an attack on God. Job is here projected as one attacking God. An outstretched hand is a symbol of a threatIsaiah 5:29; Isaiah 9:21; Isaiah 10:4; Proverbs 1:24.

Job 15:26The picture of Job's foolish defiance continues. Job stubbornly (stiff neck, insolently; LXXhybrispride) opposes God with the thickness of the bosses of his shields, i.e., the bosses (or convex side of shield turned toward the enemy) of his shields are set closely together for more protection against the Almighty.

Job 15:27The image is one of gluttonous fatness, the characteristic of spiritual insensibilityDeuteronomy 32:15; Jeremiah 5:28; and Psalms 73:7; Psalms 119:70. This wicked insensitive person sits around and gets fatter. The Hebrew pimah means blubber or a superabundance of fat on the man's loins. This imagery stands in marked contrast to Job's present physical condition.

Job 15:28Formerly inhabited cities, now desolate, were considered to be so because of God's judgment. Again the same theology appearsfailure means judgment; success means blessingJoshua 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34; Isaiah 13:20 ff; and Isaiah 34:13 ff. The wicked man, according to Eliphaz, is prepared to risk God's curse in his idolatrous confidence in his own prosperity.

Job 15:29Here we return to the theme of the fears of the wicked. Though there are lexical problems in this verse, the sense is clear enough. Dahood[181] yields a relevant meaning. The stretching out of the shadow is a figure of the extent of a person's influencePsalms 80:8 ff. The A. V. makes little sense, and does speak to several important grammatical issues in the verse. The essence of the verse is that a wicked man's influence will not long endure on the earth.

[181] See M. Dahood, Northwest Semitic Philology and Job, in The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, ed. by J. L. McKenzie, 1962, pp. 60ff; also M. Dahood, Biblica, 50, 1969, 343.

Job 15:30Here the fate of the wicked is described. Darkness is an image of misfortuneJob 15:22 ff. The destiny of the wicked is not an accident, but rather it is set by God. The Hebrew text reads ruahbreath or spirit of Godand does not require repointing as some suggest. The verse describes the swift disaster of the unrighteous, whose security through prosperity will vanish like flames that reduce a forest to ashes.

Job 15:31The verse might be -congruous with a series of images based on plant lifeJob 15:29-30; Job 15:32-33. He who trusts in emptiness will be rewarded by emptiness. The image of the tree from Job 15:30 continues into this verse. All of the promised greatness will not reach fulfillment, rather it will be rewarded with destructionJob 4:8.

Job 15:32The subject it refers to his recompense which will be demanded of him before his number of years is finished, i.e., his end will be premature. If we take the LXX reading, it will be withered, rather than the Hebrew text, it will be paid in full, we continue the parallel, which speaks of palm tree and not a trading profit. His branchIsaiah 9:13supports the view that the palm tree should be supplied in the first line of the verse; therefore, the A. V. translation is probably not an adequate rendering of the verse. The metaphor becomes more vivid when we recall that the palm tree is the symbol of longevity.

Job 15:33Delitzsch correctly observes that the vine does not cast off (Heb. lit. treat with violenceIsaiah 18:5) its unripe fruit. What then can be the sense of this verse? The tree will not produce mature fruitJeremiah 31:29 ff and Ezekiel 18:2. The second line of the verse beautifully symbolizes the point at stake. The Syrian olive tree bears during its first, third, and fifth years, but rests during the second, fourth, and sixth years. It also sheds many of its blossoms like snowflakes.[182]

[182] See Dhorme, Job, p. 223, for tree imagery.

Job 15:34The word translated company of impious in A. V. is the Hebrew term for congregation and is here used in a derogatory senseJob 13:6; Job 17:8; Job 20:5; Job 27:8; Job 34:30; Job 36:13. Bribery is frequently condemned in scripture and is here used as a general term for injustice. The word rendered barren in A. V. appears also in Job 3:7 and should be translated sterile. The phrase tents of bribery carries the meaning that the wealth of the wicked has been obtained through deceptive and unjust means by either giving or receiving bribes. How appropriate an image for twentieth century industry and multi-national industrial combines 1

Job 15:35At the beginning of his speech, Eliphaz attacked Job for filling his belly with the hot east windJob 15:1.

Here, once more, their belly (lit. their belly, though translated heart in A. V.) produced only deceit. Eliphaz's conclusion is that misfortune is self-entailed. The penalty of the ungodly is premature deathJob 15:31-33, and lack of prosperityJob 15:34.