If you return to the Almighty you will be built up; if you remove injustice far from your tents,
Eliphaz has just accused Job of crimes he never committed. Now he softens into an appeal: come back to God, clear the wrong out of your home, and you will be rebuilt. The words sound like a gospel invitation. So why did they wound Job instead of helping him?
True words, wrong man
Commentators agree the sentence is sound in itself. What ruins it is the diagnosis behind it.
William KellyIn truth Job knew God better than any of his friends. How painful to have the most serious of them speak in a way that accused him of worse than ignorance! ... They saw nothing but God paying back hidden wickedness, so Job's extraordinary trials made the strongest possible impression on them. Eliphaz treated him as a deserter. He urges Job to return to the Almighty, and he will be built up, and to put iniquity far away from his tents. It is a faithful saying, if said to someone far from God. But how galling to a deeply tried believer.
The wrong reading of Job's trouble
The reasoning runs backwards from suffering to guilt. Because Job was in pain, Eliphaz concluded he must have walked away from God.
Leslie M. GrantHe flatly refused to believe that Job knew God at all. So he was sure Job needed to be converted before any good could come to him. At least he did not consider Job's case hopeless, but Job would have to take his advice and "return to the Almighty." ... Job had not left the Almighty, so telling him to return was insulting. Let us never treat a suffering believer as an unbeliever.
How the sentence is built
The verse hangs on an "if." Commentators differ on how far that condition stretches into the following lines. One rendering keeps both halves of verse 23 conditional:
William KellyIf you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up; (if) you put iniquity far away from your tent, and put precious ore on the dust, and that of Ophir as stones of the brooks; then the Almighty shall be your precious ore, and silver of hard toil to you.
Others weigh the alternatives and keep to the familiar reading, where the promises begin at the end of verse 23:
Samuel RidoutEliphaz holds out, in an almost prophetic way, the hope that all of Job's old prosperity will be restored — wealth and happiness. Translators have handled verses 24 and 25 in different ways. The Authorized Version starts the promises at the close of verse 23: "you shall put away iniquity," and so on, "Then you shall lay up gold as dust." The usually excellent version of Delitzsch makes everything conditional up to the close of verse 24: "If you lay by in the dust the gold ore, and under the pebbles of the brooks the gold of Ophir, then the Almighty shall be to you gold ore in abundance, and silver to you of the brightest lustre."
The promise attached to it
What Eliphaz offers as the payoff for returning exposes his whole system.
The Bible TreasuryEliphaz, for the last time, tries to make an impression on him by the size of his charges. He repeats that false principle, so ready to the natural mind about God's dealings: God gives the gold and the silver to those who return to Him.
Why Job could not take the advice
Obeying Eliphaz would have cost Job the truth. Repenting on these terms would mean confessing to sins he never committed.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinWhile the exhortations are all proper, they are completely out of place with Job. Suppose Job acted on this advice and repented as Eliphaz demanded. He would then agree with the false and lying accusations of his three friends. He would be admitting he was the wicked man they had made him out to be. What he says about restoration is almost prophetic of what would come to Job in blessing at the close of his trial.
The unintended prophecy
Eliphaz spoke better than he knew. A return was coming, and building up with it — but not the kind he had in mind.
William Kelly"If you return to the Almighty, you shall be built up." And so it was. Little did he know that that return was about to be made plain, to their shame. "Then you shall lay up gold as dust, and light shall shine upon your ways." And so it did, in the most marvellous way.
The warning for anyone who counsels
This warning lands on people who mean well.
Samuel RidoutAgain, we must warn God's people about the trap Eliphaz has fallen into. Pious calls to repent, to give up sin, to judge a course of evil are only insults, if they are not based on known facts. They smell of a self-righteous spirit — a spirit which must itself be repented of, as with Eliphaz and his friends.
Summary
- Return — the call itself is a faithful saying. Said to someone far from God, it would be right.
- Wrongly aimed — Job had not left the Almighty, so the call to come back insulted him. Suffering is not proof that a believer has deserted God.
- False payoff — the promised gold rests on a false principle: that God pays wealth to those who return to Him.
- Costly obedience — if Job had repented on these terms, he would have agreed with lying accusations against himself.
- Fulfilled anyway — the return and the building up did come. Light did shine on Job's ways, to the shame of his friends.