how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!
Eliphaz speaks here for the second time, ending his case with a picture of humanity so dark that no one could stand in it. His words are hard to argue with, yet he aims them at Job — which raises the book's central question: can a true statement still be a wrong thing to say?
The chain of reasoning
Eliphaz builds downward. God finds fault even with His holy ones. Even the heavens fall short of His purity. So man, corrupt and thirsty for wrongdoing, stands further off still. One writer grants the whole chain, then marks where it breaks:
F. B. HoleWhat 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.
True words, wrong target
The verse describes what man is before God. It does not tell you what any particular man has done. The writers quote an older translation, which reads "abominable and filthy." Eliphaz slides from the first to the second, and that slide is the whole problem:
Leslie M. GrantFrom 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.
Eliphaz's missing confession
Notice who is missing from the description. Eliphaz says "man," but he means Job. Had he included himself, the same sentence would have landed very differently:
Samuel RidoutIf 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.
Why misused truth cuts deeper than error
You can dismiss a false claim. You cannot dismiss a true one aimed at the wrong person, and that is what makes it dangerous in the mouth of a comforter:
William KellyTruth 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!
The same heavens, used to humble the speaker
The same picture returns later in the book, from Bildad, another of Job's friends. One writer takes those words as something to humble himself, not as a weapon:
Samuel RidoutBildad 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."
Where this lesson is learned
Job did have to come to this conclusion about himself. But no friend could argue him into it. It took God:
The Bible TreasuryThe 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."
Summary
- True. The doctrine in the verse stands: God's holiness is beyond the heavens, and man before Him is corrupt.
- Misaimed. Eliphaz turns a statement about all people into a verdict on one man, to prove guilt that was not there.
- Unshared. He says "man" and means Job; the word would have carried weight only if he had said it of himself too.
- Dangerous. Truth wrongly applied does more harm than open error, because it lends God's authority to the injury.
- Learned. No argument could force this confession from Job. Only God's light laid his heart bare, and then he owned that he was vile.