Job 15:11–16

What does Eliphaz mean by asking, "Are the consolations of God too small for you, and the word spoken gently with you?" (v.11). No doubt he meant that he and his friends had brought the consolations of God to Job, and Job did not appreciate such help. Also, he says that they had spoken the word gently to Job. Why did Job not respond to this gentleness? Of course Job did not think their words were gentle, nor did he consider that they were showing him "the consolations of God." No wonder Job said in chapter 16:2, "Miserable comforters are you all!"

Job is no wiser than anyone else. So why does he refuse the "consolations of God" that these friends were offering him? You need a stretch of imagination to call their stinging words — like vinegar poured on soda — by such a tender name. The second part of this verse probably repeats the first: "And the word gently spoken to you?" Why, Eliphaz asks, do Job's eyes flash with the rebellion of his stubborn heart? Why does he not bow to the charges of his friends? Eliphaz counts this as turning away from God. That is a charge of false teaching against a man who will not bow to his accusers, and it is a common charge.

Eliphaz considered that Job's heart was carrying him away and he was turning his spirit against God (vv.12-13). Why? Because Job had set his spirit against what his friends were saying, and Eliphaz thought they were speaking for God. He was ready to rebuke Job sharply for ever letting such words leave his mouth. But he never stopped to think that he needed to hold back the words coming out of his own mouth.

Job 15 gives the second speech of Eliphaz, and we can hear a harder tone in it. The friends had come to comfort. But their efforts soon turned into argument. Their tempers rose and bitterness spoiled their spirits, as each man argued to prove his own point of view. How often, over the centuries, has this tragedy ended in quarrels and division and spoiled the witness of God-fearing people, right down to our own day.

What he says about the holiness of God is quite right. Satan's presence has defiled the lower heavens, and they really are "not clean in His sight." What he says about the filthiness of man is just as true. But he then concluded that Job must be guilty of secret evils which he closed his eyes to instead of admitting. That conclusion was completely wrong.

Eliphaz had claimed to be giving Job "the consolations of God," and this moves Job to reply bitterly, "Miserable comforters are you all!" (v.2). Instead of comfort, they had given heartless accusations, which Job terms "words of wind." He says that if they were in his place, he could heap up words against them in similar cruel accusation, but he would not do so: he would use his words to strengthen and encourage them in order to give them some relief. He longed for this himself, but they had nothing for him.

His three friends clearly cared about Job and wanted to help him in his hour of sorrow. But the cause of Job's suffering completely baffled them... They might have been useful in an ordinary case. But here was an outstandingly righteous man, stripped of everything he owned in a way no one had ever seen, and they had nothing to say. They did not understand God's ways with His own people at all. So their false and unworthy suggestions only made Job feel how little they could help him, and they threw him back on God Himself.

If He is "the God of all comfort," there is no comfort outside of Himself. It is one of the sad failings of His people that they so often turn to other sources for relief in times of grief. By doing so they miss the rich lessons He wants to teach them through what they go through under His discipline.

Eliphaz considered that Job's heart was carrying him away and he was turning his spirit against God (vv.12-13). Why? Because Job set his spirit against what his friends were saying, and Eliphaz thought they were speaking for God. He could sharply rebuke Job for ever letting such words come out of his mouth. But Eliphaz did not stop to consider that he needed to restrain such words as came from his own mouth.

What does Eliphaz mean by asking, "Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?" (v.11). No doubt he meant that he and his friends had brought the consolations of God to Job, and Job did not appreciate such help. Of course Job did not think their words were gentle. He did not think they were showing him "the comforts of God." No wonder Job said in chapter 16:2, "miserable comforters are you all!"

Why, he asks, do Job's eyes flash the rebellion of his wayward heart, instead of bowing to the charges of the friends? He counts this as turning away from God. It is a charge of heresy against a man who will not bow to his questioners, and such charges are common enough.

Job had indeed opened himself to the charge of casting off fear. His wild words were the opposite of prayer or devotion. His own words, says Eliphaz, confirm what the friends suspect and charge him with: wickedness and godlessness. But when he accuses Job of craftiness, he charges what is untrue. The poor sufferer had poured out his misery with no thought of what it would cost him. Whatever he is, Job is no hypocrite.

The second round of debate now opens with the appeal of Eliphaz. He shows more openly the growing sense in his soul that Job must lack integrity. As before, there is weighty truth in what he presses, and he presses it with great force. But applying it to the sufferer had no ground, and so it was unjust in the highest degree.

Here was where they went astray; they assumed that the present state of the world is an adequate expression of His judgment of men's ways. This assumption runs through the speeches of all three friends. At first they express it fairly calmly. In time it ripens into severity, as Job's passionate outburst resents what they point to more and more as the hidden explanation of the facts.

The friends spoke much of God, but they looked on Him only as a judge. This was a great defect, and the correction is the moral of the whole book. Some make the one question before God now to be whether He marks out what we deserve in this present life. They completely miss the truth. God has taken advantage of the evil that is here to show the grace that is in Himself, above the evil.

Job is no wiser than others. So why does he refuse the "consolations of God" that these friends were offering him? It certainly takes a stretch of imagination to call their galling words — like vinegar on soda — by such a tender name. … Why, he asks, do Job's eyes flash the rebellion of his wayward heart, instead of bowing to the charges of the friends? He counts this as turning away from God. That is a charge of heresy against a man who will not bow to his questioners, and such charges are common enough.

"You cast off fear and hold back prayer before God." Now he did nothing of the kind. Job always clung to God, always looked up to God; but he said, "I cannot find Him. He has shut me out, keeping me taken up with this agony I am passing through, so that I cannot get at Him. I know that if I could only get there, I would find goodness and mercy." It was no doubt very inconsistent; but that is always the case with poor man when he is not in the presence of God.

There cannot be a more instructive lesson for us on the danger of judging by appearances. … A surface survey is never the way to reach a righteous judgment, as the Lord Himself warned in His day. … Appearances were against Job. "Your own mouth condemns you," says Eliphaz, pointing to words of Job's that were improper beyond question.

Further questions follow in verses 11-16. His statements about the holiness of God are quite right. Satan's presence has defiled the lower heavens, and they are indeed "not clean in His sight." What he says about the filthiness of man is just as true. But he then concluded that Job must be guilty of secret evils, which he ignored instead of admitting. That conclusion was wide of the mark.

Their error was not a rare one. You find it among righteous people who know God, yet have never been fully broken down about themselves. … Here is where they went astray. They assumed that the present state of the world fully shows God's judgment on men's ways. This assumption runs through the speeches of the three friends. At first they said it calmly enough, but in time it hardened into severity.

The heart rebels more against God than against man. Even Job complained of God more than of the Sabeans and the rest. It is because God touches the conscience. It is a sad thing when His voice is not heard in chastening.

The second round of speeches opens with the appeal of Eliphaz. He now shows more openly what he had felt more and more strongly: that Job must lack integrity. As before, there is weighty truth in what he presses, and he presses it with great force. But applying it to the sufferer had no ground, and so it was unjust in the highest degree.

As the father of the human race, the first man was charged with the interests of all who would come after him. Because he fell, a corrupt nature became the inheritance of the race. So death and judgment became their appointed portion, and the final outcome was not in doubt... "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one," expresses the law. "What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?" "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." The Lord's words in the gospel fully and strongly confirm what these believers of long ago said: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

His assertions as to the holiness of God are quite right. Satan's presence defiles the lower heavens, and they are indeed "not pure in His sight." What he says about the filthiness of man is just as true. But he then concluded that Job must be guilty of secret evils, which he "winked at" instead of admitting. That conclusion was wide of the mark.

In any absolute sense, no man is pure or righteous, as verse 14 implies. But Eliphaz wanted Job to confess to sins that Job had not actually committed. Yet if we think of Job compared to other men, God had said that Job was the most righteous man on earth.

But is not Eliphaz one of these, as well as the poor sufferer? Why then apply it to Job as though it proved him a sinner above all others? ... Let Eliphaz take his place beside Job and confess that he too is "abominable and filthy." The poor sufferer might have responded to that.

To justify a man is to reckon him righteous... To justify someone who has committed no offence is a simple matter, and every court in the world can do it. But to justify a sinner is another matter altogether; this presents a problem that only God can solve. Both Job and his friend Bildad long ago raised the question, "How can a man be in the right before God?" (Job 9; 25). Both had in mind that man is fallen and guilty. Their question found no definite answer in Old Testament times. Here, as with many another riddle, men had to wait until God sent forth His beloved Son. "But now," says the Apostle, "the righteousness of God has been manifested" (Rom. 3:21).

Eliphaz continues, "If God puts no trust in His holy ones (evidently angels), and the heavens are not pure in His sight, how much less man, who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity like water!" (vv.15-16). From God's viewpoint this is true too. But would Eliphaz have liked it if Job called him "abominable and filthy"? So Eliphaz was trying to use a general truth to convict Job of worse guilt than was really true of Job.

qadosh, 'consecrated, set apart, holy.' Deut. 33:3; Job 15:15; Ps. 89:5, 7; Dan. 7:18-27.

The heavens are not guilty, but they are defiled. That is why Christ has gone up "far above all heavens." Everything the creature has had dealings with is defiled. If we think of God as dwelling, in a sense, in His creation, He sees the whole of it defiled. Not where He is in His own being and nature, in unapproachable light. But where He is in connection with His creatures, there is defilement.

The lower heavens, defiled by Satan's presence, are indeed "not pure in His sight."

As before, there is weighty truth in what he presses, and he presses it with great force. But applying it to the sufferer had no ground, and so it was unjust in the highest degree.

Eliphaz repeats what he said in his first speech about the holiness of God (Job 4:17-19). If the very heavens are not pure in His sight, how much less is mortal, sinful man! But is not Eliphaz one of these, as well as the poor sufferer? Why then apply it to Job, as though it proved him a sinner above all others? This, surely, is more like crafty speech than all the heated words of Job. Let Eliphaz take his place beside Job and confess that he too is "abominable and filthy." The poor sufferer might have responded to that.

So the heavenly things here are spoken of as purchased, purified, reconciled, redeemed. In whose eyes were they impure? In the eyes of the One to whom alone all true sacrifice was ever offered. It was the nature of God that required atonement, His holiness that needed satisfaction in it. In a deeper sense than Eliphaz probably knew, it could be said, "the heavens are not pure in His sight" (Job 15:15).

Heaven itself must be purified by blood. Creation was God's first work, and the sinner's work did not pollute it only in part. The taint of sin reached heaven as well as earth... The heavens now are clean, through Jesus' blood; although they were not always so.

But God is holy. Now holiness has to do with nature. God has a nature that cannot tolerate sin. Sinful flesh cannot stand in His presence. "The heavens are not pure in His sight" (Job 15:15). That which marks sinful man cannot stand before Him.

What he says about the holiness of God is quite right. The lower heavens, defiled by the presence of Satan, really are "not clean in His sight." What he says about the filthiness of man is equally true. But he then concludes that Job must be guilty of secret evils that he had ignored instead of admitting — and that conclusion was wide of the mark.

From God's viewpoint this is true. But would Eliphaz have appreciated it if Job had called him "abominable and filthy"? So Eliphaz was trying to use a general truth to convict Job of worse guilt than was actually true of Job.

If the very heavens are unclean in His sight, how much less is mortal sinful man! But is not Eliphaz one of these, as well as the poor sufferer? Why then apply it to Job as though it proved him a sinner above all others? This is surely more like crafty speech than all the hot words of Job. Let Eliphaz take his place beside Job and confess that he too is "abominable and filthy." The poor sufferer might have responded to that.

Truth held in the abstract is of no use to the saints of God. Things that are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, may do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth gives an error the apparent authority of God, and that error carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth. People despise a foolish saying, or one clearly false; but no believer can slight the truth of God. So when someone uses the truth of God wrongly — when he applies it to crush a person who is an object of intense interest to God at that moment — how foreign and offensive to His mind!

Bildad seems to be repeating the words of Eliphaz (Job 4:18; Job 15:15-16), but his closing words go far beyond his own thoughts and suspicions. We will rest in what he says, rather than in what he thinks of his poor, suffering friend. We will not charge him with weakness or copying. Instead we will humble our own spirits under the quiet light of those heavens, which show us our nothingness and turn us to Him who is our "Strength and our Redeemer."

The Lord said of Job that he had no equal on earth, not even his three friends, and that he was perfect and upright. Then disaster burst on him and overwhelmed his body and his circumstances. He did not know God's love and unsearchable wisdom, so he spoke rash words. Yet even then he knew enough of himself to say, "If I wash myself with snow water and make my hands ever so clean, yet You will plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes will abhor me." He did not know the utter vileness of his nature. That is learned only in the presence of God, whose divine light lays the heart bare. When brought to that light, he says, "Behold, I am vile."