Job · chapter 22 of 42
Updated on
Job 22 is the third speech of Eliphaz the Temanite and opens the third cycle of debate. With no more caution, he accuses Job of refusing water and bread to the needy and of oppressing widows and orphans, and says that is why snares and darkness surround him. He ends with an invitation: make peace with God, turn from wrongdoing and peace will return.
In the first two cycles of speeches, Job's three friends argued that suffering is the result of sin, and Job answered with pain, protests of innocence and a longing to bring his case before God. Job 22 opens the third cycle: Eliphaz, the first to speak back in chapter 4, drops his careful opening tone and makes a direct accusation that the book never supports with facts.
Eliphaz begins with rhetorical questions: can a man be of use to God? Does it matter to the Almighty that Job is righteous? He concludes that God is not correcting Job for piety but for wickedness, which must be great. Then he lists supposed sins: Job must have taken pledges from his brothers for no reason, refused water to the weary and bread to the hungry, favored the powerful, sent widows away empty-handed and crushed the fatherless (vv. 5-9). That is why, he says, snares surround Job and sudden terror troubles him.
Next Eliphaz puts an idea in Job's mouth: God is high in heaven and, behind the clouds, cannot judge (vv. 12-14). He asks whether Job will keep to the old path the wicked once walked, who were swept away before their time, those who told God to leave them alone. The righteous see their end and rejoice (vv. 15-20).
The speech ends with a pastoral plea: make peace with God, receive his instruction, return to the Almighty and put injustice far from your tent. Then gold will matter little, the Almighty will be your treasure, you will pray and be heard, and God will deliver even the one who is not innocent, through the cleanness of your hands (vv. 21-30).
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Eliphaz accuses Job of refusing water and bread to the needy and of sending widows away with nothing. They are charges invented from his own logic, not facts: Job 1:1 and Job's own words in chapter 29 show the opposite. They warn us against judging others without evidence.
Eliphaz credits Job with the idea that God is so high, behind the clouds, that he neither sees nor judges. Job never said that; his complaint is that God sees him all too closely. It shows how the friends twist his words.
Eliphaz urges Job to make peace with God and receive his instruction, and promises restoration if he returns to the Almighty and removes injustice. The advice to turn to God is good; what is false is the diagnosis taken for granted, that Job has sinned and that is why he suffers.
Eliphaz says God saves the humble and will deliver even the one who is not innocent, through the cleanness of Job's hands. It holds a truth about God's grace, though Eliphaz uses it to insist that Job repent of something he did not do.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Eliphaz the Temanite, with his third speech, which opens the third cycle of debate. — Job 22:1
Answer: Taking pledges for no reason, refusing water and bread to the needy, sending widows away empty-handed and crushing the fatherless. — Job 22:6-9
Answer: That snares surround him, sudden terror troubles him, and darkness and floodwaters cover him. — Job 22:10-11
Answer: That God is in the height of heaven, hidden behind the clouds, and so does not see or judge what happens. — Job 22:12-14
Answer: Make peace with God, receive his instruction, return to the Almighty and put injustice far from his tent. — Job 22:21-23
Answer: That the Almighty will be his treasure, he will pray and be heard, and God will lift him up and deliver him. — Job 22:25-27
Job 22 is a warning for anyone who counsels the suffering. Eliphaz is right that God forgives and restores those who turn to him, but he is wrong to assume Job's pain is punishment and to invent sins to prop up his theory. In a small group it helps to ask how often we explain another person's suffering with certainties we do not have.
There is a personal invitation here too. Turning to God, receiving his word and putting away injustice is always a good road, but it is walked out of love for him, not to change our luck. Someone who walks beside a friend in trouble does better to listen and stay present than to pass judgment.
Job 22 leaves Eliphaz with nothing new to say: only accusations and a promise tied to a repentance Job cannot offer. In chapter 23 Job will answer with a different longing: to find God and set his case before him, even though he cannot see him now.
No. The book presents Job as upright and blameless from the start (Job 1:1, 1:8), and in chapters 29 and 31 he describes how he helped the poor. Eliphaz deduces the sins from Job's suffering, because he assumes all suffering is punishment.
They present the idea that God always rewards the righteous and promptly punishes the wicked. The book shows it to be inadequate: at the end God says the friends did not speak rightly of him (Job 42:7), though some of their statements about God are true outside this case.
Ophir was a region, its location disputed, famous in the biblical world for fine gold. Eliphaz uses it as a symbol of wealth: if Job returns to God he can treat gold like dust, and the Almighty will be his true treasure.