Job · chapter 15 of 42
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Job 15 opens the second cycle of speeches with a harsher intervention from Eliphaz. He accuses Job of filling his belly with the east wind, of undermining the fear of God and of thinking himself wiser than the elders. He claims that no human being is pure and describes in detail the fate of the wicked, who lives in torment though he seems to prosper.
In the second cycle the friends drop the tone of comfort and attack. Eliphaz, who in chapter 4 spoke gently, now shows irritation: Job has questioned traditional wisdom and, in his view, is endangering piety itself. This chapter shows how debate hardens when disagreement is confused with irreverence.
Eliphaz answers by asking whether a wise man replies with windy knowledge and fills his belly with the east wind. Does he argue with useless words? He says that Job undermines the fear of God and hinders devotion before him, and that his own mouth condemns him because he has chosen the tongue of the crafty. Then he asks with irony: are you the first man who was born? Were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the council of God and monopolized wisdom? Among them are the gray-haired and the aged, older than Job's father. Are the comforts of God too small for you? Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash, that you turn your spirit against God?
Eliphaz claims that no man can be pure. God puts no trust even in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water!
Then he says he will show what he has seen and what wise men have told, without their fathers hiding it. The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, and a sound of terrors is in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. He has no hope of returning from darkness and is marked for the sword. All because he stretched out his hand against God and defied the Almighty, running against him with a stiff neck and a thick shield. He covered his face with fat, but he will dwell in desolate cities and in houses no one lives in. He will not be rich, nor will his wealth endure. He conceives trouble and gives birth to evil, and his womb prepares deceit.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Eliphaz accuses Job of undermining the fear of God and hindering devotion before him. It is a grave accusation: for Eliphaz, disagreeing with traditional wisdom is the same as weakening faith.
Eliphaz asks what Job knows that they do not, and reminds him that among them are elders older than his father. He appeals to age as authority, a resource that serves little when someone suffers something tradition does not explain.
Eliphaz asks what man is that he should be pure or righteous. Not even the heavens are clean before God; how much less man, who drinks injustice like water. He repeats what he said in chapter 4, now with more harshness.
Eliphaz says that the wicked man writhes in pain all his days. This is the center of his doctrine: evil brings anguish. He states a general truth but uses it to suggest that Job's pain proves his guilt.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Eliphaz the Temanite, in the second cycle of speeches. — Job 15:1
Answer: Of undermining it and hindering devotion before God. — Job 15:4
Answer: Whether he is the first man who was born and whether he was brought forth before the hills. — Job 15:7
Answer: The gray-haired and the aged, older than Job's father. — Job 15:10
Answer: That no man is pure or righteous; God puts no trust in his holy ones and the heavens are not clean in his sight. — Job 15:14-16
Answer: That he writhes in pain all his days and has a sound of terrors in his ears. — Job 15:20-21
Eliphaz shows us how a debate hardens when disagreement is confused with irreverence. Job is asking honest questions and Eliphaz hears them as attacks on God. In church we must tell apart the one who questions in order to destroy and the one who asks out of pain, and receive the second with patience.
The chapter also warns us against the argument from authority: elders are valuable, but age and tradition do not replace humility before what we do not understand. If you teach a class, encourage your students to ask hard questions and do not be afraid to say that there are things the Bible does not fully explain.
Job 15 ends with a description of the wicked that no suffering person can hear without feeling it is about them. In Job 16 Job will answer Eliphaz with bitterness, call his friends miserable comforters and declare that he has a witness in heaven.
Because Job did not accept his advice and has questioned the wisdom the friends defend. Eliphaz feels offended and moves from exhortation to accusation. It is a human pattern: when someone rejects our explanation, it is easy to harden our treatment instead of reviewing our position.
In the Near East the east wind was hot and dry and destroyed the fields. Eliphaz uses the image to say that Job's words are empty and harmful. It is a poetic metaphor, not a literal accusation.
There is truth in saying that wickedness brings anguish and that God opposes the proud, but Eliphaz applies it to the wrong case. Job has said, rightly, that the wicked sometimes prosper. That tension is what the book explores to the end.