that you turn your spirit against God and bring such words out of your mouth?
Eliphaz is speaking, and by verse 13 his questions have hardened into a verdict. He reads Job's flashing eyes and hot words as proof that Job has set himself against God — but is that what they prove?
The charge behind the question
Eliphaz had offered what he called God's consolations. Job would not take them, and Eliphaz treats that refusal as turning against God.
Samuel RidoutJob 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.
The charge denied
Earlier in the same speech Eliphaz had said Job was casting off fear and holding back prayer. One writer denies the charge outright. He also explains why Job sounded the way he did.
William Kelly"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.
The quote above uses an older wording of Job 15:4. The ESV reads, "you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God."
Words held against him
Eliphaz points to what comes out of Job's mouth. Earlier in the chapter he makes that mouth his whole proof, judging Job from the surface.
William KellyThere 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.
True statements, wrong target
What Eliphaz says about God here is true. The fault lies in where he aims it.
F. B. HoleFurther 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.
The assumption that made him sure
One mistaken principle stands under every accusation the three friends make.
William KellyTheir 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.
Where the heart turns
Eliphaz named something real, even if he aimed it wrongly. Under God's hand, complaint turns upward before it turns toward the people who caused the loss.
The Bible TreasuryThe 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.
Summary
- Surface. Eliphaz judged Job by what he could see: flashing eyes and hot words. There is no more instructive lesson in the book on the danger of judging by appearances.
- Assumption. One false idea sat under that judgment: that what happens to a person now shows God's verdict on his ways.
- Charge. From it came the accusation in this verse: refusing what the friends said counted as turning against God.
- Misread. What Eliphaz said about God's holiness was right. What he drew from it was wrong: Job hid no secret evils, and he had never stopped praying.
- Lesson. The pull to argue with God, not with people, is real, because chastening touches the conscience. The real danger is not rough words, but missing God's voice in the chastening.