saying, ‘Surely our adversaries are cut off, and what they left the fire has consumed.’
Eliphaz pictures the wicked swept away, with the righteous looking on and rejoicing. The words sound like plain truth about God's justice. But he aims them at a suffering friend. Can a true saying be turned into a weapon?
Where the line falls in the speech
This closing taunt is the last beat of a carefully built argument. One outline divides Eliphaz's third and final address into seven movements:
Samuel Ridout(1) Job's sin in view of God's greatness (Job 22:1-5). (2) The direct charge (vv. 6-11). (3) All is known to God (vv. 12-14). (4) The way of the wicked (vv. 15-18). (5) Their just punishment (vv. 19, 20). (6) Final call to repentance (vv. 21-25). (7) Prophecy of a bright future (vv. 26-30).
Another translation sets the verse beside the line before it:
William KellyThe righteous will see and rejoice, and the innocent mock at them: Is not our adversary cut down? And the fire devours their residue.
The unnamed adversary
Eliphaz never names Job. One writer, using an older translation, asks who else "our adversaries" could mean:
Leslie M. GrantWhen he says, "Surely our adversaries are cut down, and the fire consumes their remnant" (v.20), was he not implying that Job was his adversary? Job had been "cut down," and he was suffering the fire of God's punishment. So he really thought Job was an enemy of God, not a believer at all.
Joy over judgment in the psalms
The psalms also speak of the righteous rejoicing over judgment. One writer marks the difference:
Samuel RidoutThere is, however, this difference between the position of Eliphaz and the position taken in many of the psalms. The psalms give us the final cleansing of the kingdom of "all causes of sin and all law-breakers" (Matt. 13:41). That comes after full time has been given for repentance, and after evil has shown itself to be incurable rebellion against God, the absolute barrier to every full blessing on the earth. So the righteous rejoice at the deliverance, not at the judgment by itself.
A truth Job had stated first
Eliphaz is not telling Job anything Job denies. Job had said the same thing first, and said it plainly:
William KellyGod does show, when and where He pleases, what He thinks of man's ungodliness. When He does, Job joins Eliphaz and the righteous in general, and sets his seal to it that God is wise and just. This will be clearest of all in that day, when God's judgment deals decisively with everything opposed to His will and to His people. But memory is easily untrustworthy in an argument. Otherwise Eliphaz could not have forgotten how powerfully Job had set that day before his friends, and with no hesitation of heart or conscience.
The relish in the words
The problem is not only what Eliphaz says. It is also how he says it:
Samuel RidoutBut we can see how unfair Eliphaz's judgment is. The lives and the ends of wicked men are in fact varied, and many of the righteous suffer. His words are all the more painful because he seems to speak them with relish, with an eye on Job's condition, which is plain for all to see.
The defence of Eliphaz
Some defend Eliphaz. They say his teaching was sound and only his aim was wrong. One such opinion is quoted here, and then answered:
Frederick W. Grant"The speaker is Eliphaz, whose interpretation of God's dealings with Job was condemned. His abstract principles were right, though he applied them wrongly to Job's case." But this is not true. God's own words draw a clear distinction between Job and his three friends. Job had spoken OF HIM what was right, and they had not.
What it asks of us
It is easy to suspect a person who is suffering. The warning is plain:
Samuel RidoutLet us be slow to suspect, and slower to charge unknown evil, leaving that to the Searcher of hearts. If He calls upon us to declare evil, it is of what He has unmistakably shown.
Summary
- Placement — The verse ends the part on "their just punishment." It is the peak of Eliphaz's last speech, just before he calls Job to repent.
- Target — "Our adversaries" points at Job. Because Job was cut down and burning, Eliphaz counted him an enemy of God, not a believer.
- Distortion — The psalms do show the righteous rejoicing over judgment. But their joy is in the deliverance, and it comes only after full time for repentance.
- Irony — Job already held that God judges ungodliness in His day. Eliphaz throws back at him a truth Job had stated first.
- Verdict — The defence that his principles were right and only misapplied fails. God said Job had spoken rightly of Him, and his friends had not.