Bible Commentaries
Job 22

Verses 1-14

(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).

VII

THE THIRD ROUND OF SPEECHES

Job 22-26.

Eliphaz’s third speech consists of three parts: Job 22:1-4; Job 22:5-20; Job 22:21-30.

The subject of part one (Job 22:1-4) is: God’s dealings with men not for selfish interests, And the main points are:

1. A man who is wise may be profitable to himself, but not to God.

2. Man’s happiness cannot add to God’s happiness, because that resides in himself.

3. Man’s piety does not provoke affliction from God, for he does not fear man nor is he jealous of man. The subject of part two (Job 22:5-20) and the status of the case in general, are expressed thus:

Your wickedness is the cause of your suffering. For the first time Eliphaz now leaves insinuations, intimations, and generalities, and, in response to Job’s repeated challenge comes to specifications, which he cannot know to be true and cannot’ prove. This is the difficult part of all prosecutions, viz: to specify and to prove) as the Latin proverb expresses it: Hie labor, hoc opus est. The breakdown of Eliphaz on this point prepares the way for Job’s speedy triumph. Bildad dares not follow on the same line; all the wind is taken out of his sails; he relapses into vague generalities and with lame brevity repeats himself. Zophar who has the closing speech of the prosecution, is so completely whipped, that he makes no rejoinder. It is a tame windup of a great discussion, confessing advertising defeat.

The specifications of Eliphaz’s charges against Job are:

l. Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought (Job 22:6 a). (For the heinousness of this offense see later legislation, viz: Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:6; Deuteronomy 24:17; and the reference in Ezekiel 18:16.)

2. Thou hast stripped the naked of their clothing (Job 22:6 b).

3. Thou hast withheld water and bread from the famishing, and all this when thou hadst the earth and wast honorable in it (Job 22:7-8).

4. Thou hast refused the pleadings of necessitous widows and robbed helpless orphans [See Job’s final pathetic and eloquent reply in Job 31, where he sums up the case and closes the defense], therefore snares, fear, and darkness have come upon thee like a flood of waters (Job 22:9-11).

5. These were presumptuous and blasphemous sins because you argued that God could not see you, denying his omniscience (Job 22:12-14).

6. You have imitated the antediluvians who, ungrateful for divine mercies, bade God depart and denied his power and who therefore were swallowed up by the flood becoming an object lesson to future ages and a joy to the righteous (Job 22:15-20). (Cf. 2 Peter 2:4-15 and Judges 1:6-16.)

The passage, Job 22:21-30, consists of an exhortation and a promise. The items of the exhortation, and the implication of each are as follows:

1. Acquaint thyself with God (Job 22:21), which implies Job’s ignorance of him.

2. Accept his law and treasure it up in thy heart (Job 22:22), which implies Job’s enmity against God.

3. Repent and reform (Job 22:23), which implies wickedness in Job.

4. Cease worshiping gold and let God be the object of thy worship (Job 22:24), implying that he was covetous.

The items of the promise are:

1. God, not gold, shall be thy treasure and delight and his worship thy joy (Job 22:25-26).

2. Thy prayers will be heard and thy vows accepted (Job 22:27).

3. Thy purposes will be accomplished and thy way illumined (Job 22:28).

4. Thou shall hope for uplifting when cast down and thy humility will secure divine interposition (Job 22:29).

5. Thou shall even deliver guilty men through thy righteousness (Job 22:30). [Cf. Genesis 18:25-32; ten righteous men would have saved Sodom; but compare Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20 and Jeremiah 15:1; see also Job’s reply in Job 31.] The items of Job’s reply as it applies to his particular case (Job 23:1-24:12) are:

1. Even yet my complaint is accounted rebellion by men though my hand represses my groaning (Job 23:2).

2. "Oh that I could now get the case before God himself – he would deliver me forever, but I cannot find him, though he finds me" (Job 3:10 a).

3. When he has fully tried me, as gold is tested by fire, I shall be vindicated, for my life has been righteous (Job 23:10-12). [This is nearly up to Romans 8:28,]

4. But his mind, in continuing my present trouble though I am innocent, is immutable by prayers and his purpose to accomplish in me what he desires is inflexible (Job 23:13-14).

5. This terrifies me, because I am in the dark and unheard (Job 23:15-17).

6. Why are there not judgment days in time, so that those that know him may meet him? (Job 24:1).

7. Especially when there are wicked people who do all the things with which I am falsely charged, whom he regards not

The items of broad generalization in this reply are as follows Here Job passes from his particular case to a broad generalization of providential dealings and finds the same inexplicable problems]:

1. There are men who remove land marks, i.e., land stealers (Job 24:2). (Cf. Deuteronomy 19:14; Deuteronomy 27:17; and Hosea 5:10; also Henry George vs. Land Ownership in severally and limitations of severally ownership when it becomes a monopoly), so that it shuts out the people from having a home. (See Isaiah 5:8.)

2. There are those who openly rob the widow and orphan and turn the poor away so that they have to herd as wild asses and live on the gleanings from nature (Job 24:3-8).

3. There are those who pluck the fatherless from the mother’s breast for slaves and exact the clothing of the poor for a pledge, so that though laboring in the harvest they are hungry, and though treading the wine press they are thirsty (Job 24:9-11).

4. In the city men groan, the wounded cry out in vain for help and God regardeth not the folly (Job 24:12).

5. These are rebels against light, yet it is true that certain classes are punished: (1) the murderer; (2) the thief; (3) the adulterer (Job 24:13-17).

6. The grave gets all of them, though God spares the mighty for a while and if it is not so, let some one prove me a liar and my speech worth nothing (Job 24:18-25).

In Bildad’s reply to Job (Job 25) he ignores Job’s facts; repeats a platitude, How should man, impure and feeble, born of a woman, a mere worm, be clean before the Almighty in whose sight the moon and stars fade?

Job’s reply to Bildad is found in Job 26:1-4, thus:

1. Thou hast neither helped nor saved the weak.

2. Thou hast not counseled them that have no wisdom.

3. Thou hast not even done justice to what is known.

4. To whom have you spoken, and who inspired you?

Job excels Bildad in speaking of God’s power (Job 26:5-14), the items of which are:

1. The dead tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof before him.

2. Hell and destruction are naked to his sight. [Cf. "Lord of the Dead," Matthew 22:32 and other like passages.]

3. The northern sky is over space and the suspended earth hangeth on nothing.

4. The clouds hold water and are not rent by it; his own throne is hidden by the cloud spread upon it.

5. A boundary is fixed to the waters and a horizon to man’s vision, even unto the confines of darkness.

6. The mountains shake and the pillars tremble, yet he quells the raging storm.

7. These are but the outskirts and whispers of his ways and we understand his whisper better than we understand his thunder.

Two things are worthy of note here, viz:

1. Job was a martyr, vicarious, he suffered for others.

2. Job’s sufferings were a forecast of the suffering Messiah as Abraham was of the suffering Father. So far, we have found:

1. That good men often suffer strange calamities while evil men often prosper.

2. That the sufferings of the righteous come from intelligence, power, and malice, and so, too, the prosperity of the wicked comes from supernatural power as well.

3. That man cannot solve the problem without a revelation, and the suffering good man needs a daysman, and an advocate.

4. That before one can comprehend God, God must become a man, or be incarnated.

5. That there must be a future, since even and exact Justice is not meted out here.

6. That there is a final judgment, at which all will be rewarded for what they do.

7. That there must be a resurrection and there must be a kinsman redeemer.

Many things were not understood at that time, such as the following:

1. That Satan’s power was only permitted, he being under the absolute control of God.

2. That suffering was often disciplinary and, as such, was compensated.

3. That therefore the children of God should glory in them, as in the New Testament light of revelation Paul understood all this and gloried in his tribulation.

4. That the wicked were allowed rope for free development and that they were spared for repentance. Peter in the New Testament gives us this light.

5. That there is a future retribution; that there are a heaven and a hell.

6. That this world is the Devil’s sphere of operation as it relates to God’s people.

QUESTIONS

1. Of what does Eliphaz’s third speech consist?

2. What the subject of part one (Job 22:1-4) and its main points?

3. What the subject of part two (Job 22:5-20) & in general, what the status of case?

4. What the specifications of Eliphaz’s charge against Job?

5. Of what does Job 22:21-30 consist?

6. What the items of the exhortation, and what the implication of each?

7. What the items of the promise?

8. What the items of Job’s reply as it applies to his particular case (Job 23:1-17)?

9. What the items of broad generalization in this reply?

10. What was Bildad’s reply to Job (Job 25)?

11. What Job’s reply to Bildad?

12. In what does Job excel Bildad (Job 26:5-14) and what the items?

13. What two things are worthy of note here?

14. So far, what have we found?

15. What was not understood at that time?