Job 22:4

THAT LIST OF SPECIFIC SINS WHICH ELIPHAZ CHARGED TO JOB

"Is it for thy fear of him that he reproveth thee,

That he entereth with thee into judgment?

Is not thy wickedness great?

Neither is there any end to thine iniquities.

For thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for naught,

And stripped the naked of their clothing.

Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink,

And thou hast witholden bread from the hungry.

And as for the mighty man, he had the earth:

And the honorable man, he dwelt in it.

Thou hast sent widows away empty,

And the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

Therefore snares are round about thee,

And sudden fear troubleth thee,

Or darkness, so that thou canst not see,

And abundance of waters cover thee."

Eliphaz here was sailing through the wicked imaginations of his own heart. Job was guilty of none of these things. The envy and hatred he had for the former estate of Job as a mighty man of wealth and power appear here in the specifics of these imagined sins of Job. They were precisely the things that were usually charged against the rich by those who were envious of them or hated them.

"Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for naught" (Job 22:6). "The law required that a garment taken as a pledge had to be returned before sundown (Deuteronomy 24:10-13)."[9]

"The mighty man, he had the earth" (Job 22:8) "This is an oblique reference to Job as an arrogant land-grabber who dispossessed his weaker neighbors."[10]

"Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee" (Job 22:1). "The very things that Bildad had predicted concerning the wicked in a general sense (Job 18:8-11) were here applied specifically to Job."[11] The thrust of the words of Eliphaz here was the blunt allegation that, you are getting exactly the punishment that your inhuman sins deserve.