Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.’
Eliphaz speaks for the third and last time. He gives Job a line Job never said: God walks above the clouds, too high up to see the earth below.
The picture Eliphaz paints
The words describe a God who is high, hidden, and therefore harmless. One writer traces this picture, then asks whether Eliphaz had forgotten what Job himself said about God.
Samuel RidoutEliphaz makes Job say that God dwells in heaven and has His home among the stars. So how can He see what happens under the clouds that hide the earth from His view? He walks about in the vault of heaven, contentedly ignorant of everything going on in the world below! Has Eliphaz forgotten Job's strong declaration of God's omnipotence and omniscience in Job 9? Yet the section carries the right title: "All is known to God." Job's imagined unbelief only brings out the great truth all the more clearly. Nothing can be hidden from the Searcher of hearts.
Words Job never spoke
Job's own words earlier in the book show what he really said.
Leslie M. GrantIn this section Eliphaz only shows how grossly unfair he is. He accuses Job of saying what Job had not said at all. "Is not God high in the heavens? See the highest stars, how lofty they are!" (v.12). "But you say, 'What does God know?'" (v.13). Of course God is high in the heavens, 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. He declared that "with God are wisdom and might; He has counsel and understanding" (ch. 12:13).
Suspicion doing the work of evidence
If Job never said it, why did Eliphaz report it?
Leslie M. GrantWhy did Eliphaz then accuse Job as he did? Because he thought he detected this attitude underneath what Job actually said. He reckoned that Job was hiding something in "the deep darkness." He thought 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 stop him condemning Job.
The kind of man who says such things
What sort of person accuses a friend of things he never said?
William KellyHe was certainly not a scoffer. Nothing of the sort. He was a pious, narrow-minded man; and there are plenty of such people... There was a little bit of tenderness in his heart toward Job.
Nothing hidden from God
Eliphaz imagines deeds tucked away under a blind sky. The New Testament answers that hope directly.
W. W. FeredayMen shrink from God's all-searching eye. As Hebrews 4:13 puts it: "And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." There is much that we can hide from one another, and even from ourselves; there is nothing that we can hide from God.
The same excuse today
Job never held this view. Others do, and today they need no clouds to keep God out of sight.
F. B. HoleThey completely rule God out of everything. In their thinking they shut Him out everywhere. They deny His action in creation... They do not recognise any moving of His hand in the affairs of today. He is outside the scope of all their politics, their business, their science, their philosophy. Some of them cannot do without a religion of some kind. Even there they take care to push Him far into the background, as a vague and shadowy Being they can safely ignore.
Summary
- The claim. In Eliphaz's version, Job says God walks above the clouds, too high up to notice the earth below.
- The misquote. Job had said the opposite. His earlier speeches own God's height and wisdom, so the charge is unfair.
- The motive. Eliphaz could not see any sin in Job. So he supplied one from suspicion, and condemned him for it.
- The man. He was no scoffer, but a pious, narrow-minded man who felt for Job. That is why this failure is easy to repeat.
- The truth. "All is known to God." Nothing hides from the Searcher of hearts, and the God men push behind the clouds sees it all.