The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
Job 15:20 comes in the second speech of Eliphaz. He paints the wicked man as someone whose whole life is torment — and he says it to a man lying covered in sores. The verse raises two questions: where did Eliphaz get this rule, and who did he mean it to describe?
The source of the claim
Eliphaz introduces this description as inherited wisdom, handed down and never contradicted.
Leslie M. GrantHe says, "I will tell you, hear me," implying that this was the instruction Job needed. He was leaning on what wise men had said, passed down to them from their fathers. This shows again that tradition mattered most to Eliphaz. He says, "No stranger passed among them," that is, there was no one to disagree with their conclusions.
What the torment is
The torment Eliphaz describes starts inside the man, not in his circumstances.
William KellyEven now the wicked man has a tormentor inside him, his own conscience, and it makes his short allotted time bitter. In the middle of life he keeps dreading death; in the middle of plenty he keeps dreading poverty. The voice of alarm never leaves his ears. Even in peace the destroyer is closing in on him.
Aimed at the man in front of him
Eliphaz aimed the words at the man in front of him. Job was already writhing in pain, just as the old saying said the wicked do.
Leslie M. GrantSo tradition said, "The wicked man writhes in pain all his days" (v.20). Of course Job was writhing in pain, so this was another cruel thrust at Job. "And the number of years is hidden from the oppressor." Did he mean that Job did not know how many years he would writhe in pain? And that the reason was his guilt as an oppressor?
Grant quotes a version reading "hidden from the oppressor." The ESV instead has "the years that are laid up for the ruthless."
Terror — or an echo?
One writer raises a further possibility: that the speech says as much about the speaker as about Job.
Samuel RidoutThis wisdom, he assures Job, has discovered the wretchedness of the wicked. A sword hangs over their guilty head at all times. Even while they prosper on the outside, the dreadful bell of doom rings in their ears. The evil man has no hope of escaping the darkness... Is Eliphaz trying to terrify Job, or is it an echo of the distant fears of his own heart?
The assumption underneath
Behind the picture lies a common assumption: that being godly should pay off in this life.
F. B. HoleThis idea of Eliphaz and his friends is a very common one. It turned up in a far worse form when Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy. Paul speaks there of people who are "depraved in mind" and who love arguments about words, because they imagine "that godliness is a means of gain" (1 Tim. 6:5)... Now this was pretty much the opinion of Eliphaz, and there are not a few people today who would agree with him. They would say, What is the use of being pious if it does not guarantee things of profit in this life? Ideas of that kind were less to be blamed in the days of Job, since things of eternity and heaven were then only dimly known.
Where the rule breaks
Job answers by pointing to how differently wicked men end. The mistake is not the observation. It is making it a rule with no exceptions.
The lesson the book is teaching
The friends' mistake is one the book was written to save us from.
William KellyThere cannot be a more instructive lesson to us of the danger of judging by appearances. It is beyond question a main point in this marvellous book. A quick glance is never the way to form a righteous judgment, as the Lord Himself warned in His day. If it was wrong in them then, it is far more blameworthy in us. Here we find an entire book devoted to the purpose of guarding us from such a snare.
Summary
- Source — Eliphaz speaks from tradition handed down to him, out of a circle where "no stranger passed among them" to disagree.
- Sense — The torment is inward: a conscience that dreads ruin even while all is at peace.
- Sting — Eliphaz fired it at a man already writhing in pain, turning that pain into proof of guilt.
- Slip — Commentators differ on whether Eliphaz meant to frighten Job or was voicing his own buried fears. Either way, his rule allows no exceptions, and that is where it fails.
- Safeguard — The whole book warns us not to judge by appearances, and not to pass a verdict before God's time.