Job 22:1

JOB 22

THE THIRD SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ:

HIS FALSE CHARGES ACCUSING JOB OF SPECIFIC SINS

"The only thing new in this speech of Eliphaz was the list of specific sins he charged him with committing."[1] In this evil speech, "We have the most brutal, the most harsh, and the most unjust words spoken against Job in the whole book."[2] Satan's malicious campaign against Job is about to fail, and this accounts for the increased savagery and injustice of his attacks through his instruments, the alleged friends of Job. Not for one moment can we agree with Blair that, "What Eliphaz said, in the main, was good."[3] How can a Christian writer refer to the malicious lies which Eliphaz uttered against Job's character as `good,' with no evidence or support whatever, except the prompting of his own evil imagination, - how can any of that be `good.'?

"It was one of the unhappinesses of Job, as is the case with many an honest man, to be misunderstood by his friends."[4] "The lamentable fact is that the friends endorsed Satan's view of Job as a hypocrite. Thinking to defend God, they became Satan's advocates, insisting that he (Job) whom God designated as his servant, actually belonged to the devil!"[5]

"The second cycle of these dialogues had practically exhausted all the real arguments."[6] And in the third cycle that begins here, only Eliphaz tried to clinch the discussion by his barrage of shameful sins with which he shamelessly charged Job. Bildad replied with what some have called "a short ode," and Zophar apparently withdrew from the contest.

Job 22:1-3

THE IRRELEVANT PRELUDE TO ELIPHAZ' SPEECH

"Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said,

Can a man be profitable unto God?

Surely he that is wise is profitable unto himself.

Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous?

Or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect?"

Rawlinson referred to these lines as "irrelevant";[7] but actually, there was a terribly wicked thrust in these words. "Eliphaz here thinks that it is for man's sake alone that God created him,"[8] and that God laid out the rules, which if a man follows them, he shall be happy and prosperous, and that if he does not follow them, illness, misfortune and destruction shall be his portion.

That view expressed here by Eliphaz completely ignores God's love of mankind (John 3:16), the passionate desire of God Himself that man should love his Creator (Mark 12:30), and the joy in heaven over one sinner that repents (Luke 15:7). It is impossible to imagine a more evil proposition than the one Eliphaz advocated here.