Job 15:8

He next challenges Job: where did he get wisdom greater than theirs? Has he been in the secret counsel of God from the beginning, before the earth and hills were made? Only divine Wisdom, the eternal Son, could claim such a relation to God as that (Prov. 8). As for Job, he is like them, only with less experience than many people Eliphaz could point to.

Therefore it was dishonest of Eliphaz to ask him, "Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the council of God? And do you limit wisdom to yourself?" (vv.7-8). Job had asked his friends almost the same question that Eliphaz asks in verse 9, "What do you know that we do not know?" He had said, "What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you" (ch.13:2). But Eliphaz accused him of claiming to be superior to them. Eliphaz should have rebuked Zophar for assuming that he knew the secrets of wisdom and that Job did not. The arguments of Eliphaz only exposed his partiality.

At first sight the difficulty grows. Remember how precious Job was to God, and how tender God's mercy is to His children. Then think of such a trial on earth, after hearing what God said about him in heaven. But much of the good this book brings depends on one fact: heaven alone heard God's estimate of Job and Satan's plan to test him. The reason for the trial stayed secret for the time being — a secret here on earth, not there in heaven. Neither Job nor his friends knew anything of what God had said about him. Satan knew well, but he could not imagine an integrity that keeps suffering with nothing to gain.

Their error was not a rare one, especially among the righteous — people who know God but have never been thoroughly broken down about themselves. You still find such people among His own on the earth. But here is where they went astray: they assumed that the present state of the world fully expresses God's judgment of men's ways.

The friends spoke much of God, but they looked on Him only as a judge. This was a great defect, and correcting it is the moral of the whole book. Some people think the one question before God now is whether He is marking down what we deserve in this life. They fail to see that God has used the evil that is here to show the grace that is in Himself, a grace above the evil.

His secret is with those who fear the Lord. God does not make His mind and the secret of His ways known to all His children, nor does He admit them all to the closeness of friendship — and much less the world. Every child of God has the same standing in grace, and enjoys the same life, relationship, and favour. But not all enjoy the same closeness of communion. One thing is needed to know the mind of God. It is not outward standing, or correct position, or learned knowledge of Scripture, but a spirit and a life saturated with the fear of God.