Job 22:12

This section continues the unfair suspicions of Eliphaz. He makes Job say that God dwells in heaven and has His home among the stars. So how can He see what is happening beneath the clouds that hide the earth from His view? He walks about in the vault of heaven, satisfied in His ignorance of everything going on in the world below! The section carries the right title: "All is known to God." Job's imagined unbelief only makes the great truth stand out more sharply: nothing can be hidden from the Searcher of hearts.

In this section Eliphaz only shows how grossly unfair he is. He accuses Job of saying what Job had not said at all. Of course God is in the height of heaven, and Job had fully acknowledged this before (ch. 9:4-12). Yet Eliphaz accuses Job of saying, "What does God know?" Job had said the very opposite: "With God are wisdom and might; He has counsel and understanding" (ch. 12:13).

The charge that follows is, beyond doubt, one of deadly scepticism and irreverence toward God. It treats the incomparable glory of God as if it ruled out any concern of His with the actions and thoughts of man on earth. Job had indeed dwelt on the unsearchable wisdom and might of God, sovereign and irresistible. He had complained of harsh treatment. But nothing could be less true, or more undeserved, than the charge that he denied God's government. The whole suggestion came only from the warped theory of Eliphaz. It was the bitter fruit of his hard, narrow, misleading idea about present suffering — as if suffering could come from nothing but God's verdict on our evil.

Provoked by such a decisive answer to his argument, he now openly charges Job with hidden evil. The man who suspects on the strength of appearances will soon do without appearances altogether.

He considered that Job was hiding something in "the deep darkness," and thought that God could not see it because clouds covered Him (v. 14). Whatever it was that Job had been guilty of, Eliphaz could not see it, though that did not keep him from condemning Job.

Men shrink from God's all-searching eye. As Hebrews 4:13 puts it: "no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." We can hide much from one another, and even from ourselves. We can hide nothing from God.

He challenged his friends to leave vague insinuations for direct accusation. Let them show where he had erred, so that, taught by them, he might hold his tongue. He was right to say, "How forceful are upright words." But what did Eliphaz's arguing, or scolding, achieve? How often among fellow Christians have vague hints, or even accusations, done great damage. "Upright words," based on specific facts, would have carried force and done good.