Job 15:24

The wicked man has an internal tormentor in his own conscience even now, which does not fail to embitter his brief allotted time. He is always dreading death while he lives, and want while he has plenty. The voice of alarm never leaves his ears. In peace the destroyer is invading him; and, if darkness surrounds him, he has no hope of coming out of it. He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand, full of anguish and distress. And he knows it even while he plays the hero against God, and rushes at Him as if he could fight it out.

A sword always hangs over their guilty head. Even when life looks prosperous, the dreadful bell of doom rings in their ear. The evil man has no hope of escaping the darkness. Even while he looks for his food, he expects the blow to fall — the "king of terrors" will strike him. Is Eliphaz trying to terrify Job, or is it an echo of the distant fears of his own heart?

He speaks of the wicked man wandering in search of bread, that is, looking for some return to his former state. "Distress and anguish terrify him" (v.24). Job had admitted he was afraid because of his great suffering. So Eliphaz considered this further proof of Job's wickedness. "He stretches out his hand against God, and acts defiantly against the Almighty, running stubbornly against Him" (vv.25-26). These were things that Eliphaz saw in Job, so that he felt himself right in comparing Job to wicked men. Certainly in all this Eliphaz showed painful lack of discernment and unfeeling cruelty.

The second round of speeches now opens with the appeal of Eliphaz. He holds back less now, and lets out his growing sense 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 this sufferer had no ground, and so it was unjust in the last degree.

Their error was not a rare one. You find it above all among righteous people, who know God but have never been fully broken down about themselves. You still find such people among His own on the earth. All three of them shared it. Yet there must have been some ground of righteousness in their thoughts, as every believer would allow. But here is where they went astray. They assumed that the present state of the world fully expresses His judgment of men's ways.

Job knew that "The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure" (Job 12:6). Eliphaz, though, thought that "in prosperity the destroyer comes upon" the wicked (Job 15:21). What Eliphaz thought was sometimes right, but it was not always right, as the writer of Psalm 73 knew, and as we know from what is all around. God has allowed Satan to become the god and prince of this world. Satan even has authority to dispose in some way of the kingdoms of this world (Luke 4:6). Once we see this, the prosperity of the wicked will not puzzle us.