Job 22:1

With this series we reach the end of the controversy so far as the friends were concerned. They repeat their former arguments, if you can call them arguments, and it is tiresome. They bring forward nothing of importance. Eliphaz opens this third section of the controversy. He keeps to his original claim. He speaks with dignity and much poetic beauty, and with some slight return to graciousness. But a painful spirit of gross unfairness spoils his speech. Bildad, the second speaker, closes feebly and briefly. Zophar stays silent. So this last attempt of theirs is only a fragment, and it is fair to call it a failure.

Job's friends came from districts noted for men of wisdom: "Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?" (Jer. 49:7)... Some explain the name Eliphaz as "God is strength," and others as "God is fine gold." Both meanings suggest at least the greatness and supremacy of God. His country, Teman, means "the south," the land lying under the sun, open to the light. But we have learned that while the south country is open to the light, it tends to be dry and barren, as Arabia indeed was. It needs... "springs of water." Light without life can never help.

The third series in the discussion opens with a speech from Eliphaz. He sets out the superiority of God to anything that comes from the service of man, however noble that man may be in his own eyes. Job's stubborn denial of hidden sin provokes him. He launches out first into questions, then into direct charges. These betrayed his conviction that Job was really hard, selfish, unfeeling and unjust, and not the righteous man he claimed to be.

Eliphaz believed he was speaking for God, and exposing what he imagined were the sins of Job. He first asks a question that is well worth considering: "Can a man be profitable to God, though he who is wise may be profitable to himself?" (v.2). Certainly it is folly for anyone to think he is doing God a favour by his righteousness. To be perfectly right is nothing more than he should be. But when Eliphaz said this to Job, it was beside the point, for he considered Job wicked, not righteous.

Yes, Eliphaz, but cannot a man please God? A godly man does not submit to God and obey His word for profit, but to please Him — and why? Because he loves Him. That is not working for profit... "Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that you are righteous?" Yes, it was. He was quite wrong about it. God was pleased with Job — the very man they attacked so slyly, hinting at all kinds of evil about him.

We get only a cold view of God as Eliphaz describes Him. The word of God shows the opposite. It presents Him as deeply concerned in all our affairs, and closely bound up with His creation. There would be no room for the gospel in the partial statements of Eliphaz. God is not simply holding the scales of justice like an observer with no interest in the case. He is not there only to measure out punishment to the one who falls short.

Eliphaz is greatly taken aback by such a complete answer to his argument. He tries to reply, for the last time, in this chapter. No wonder he fails. A man who suspects on appearances will soon do without even appearances. "Is not your wickedness great? and your iniquities infinite? For you have taken a pledge from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing." It was the very opposite of Job's real character! "You have not given water to the weary to drink" — Job gave more than Eliphaz ever did.