Job 15:11

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.