Job 15:1-2 - Exposition

Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said, Should a wise man utter vain knowledge! literally, knowledge of wind—knowledge, i.e. ' which is vain, idle, inflated, without solidity or substance. Job, as setting up to be "a wise man," should not have indulged in such empty and foolish speaking. It is observable that Eliphaz does not point out what part of Job's discourses he considers objectionable, but condemns the whole of them under this broad and general description, which even he could not have regarded as applicable to more than a portion of what Job had said. And fill his belly with the east wind? The east wind was regarded as the worst of winds. In Palestine it blew from the great Syrian and North Arabian desert, and was of the nature of a sirocco. (On its deleterious effects, see Genesis 41:6 , Genesis 41:23 ; Jeremiah 18:17 ; Ezekiel 17:10 ; Ezekiel 19:12 ; Ezekiel 27:26 ; Hosea 13:15 , etc.)