Job 15:1-10

1 Then Eliphaz the Thaemanite answered and said,

2 Will a wise man give for answer a breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly,

3 reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit?

4 Hast not thou moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord?

5 Thou art guilty by the words of thy mouth, neither hast thou discerned the words of the mighty.

6 Let thine own mouth, and not me, reprove thee: and thy lips shall testify against thee.

7 What! art thou the first man that was born? or wert thou established before the hills?

8 Or hast thou heard the ordinance of the Lord? or has God used thee as counsellor? and has wisdom come to thee?

9 For what knowest thou, that, we know not? or what understandest thou, which we do not also?

10 Truly among us both the old and very aged man, more advanced in days than thy father.

Job 15:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 15

Job's three friends having in their turns attacked him, and he having given answer respectively to them, Eliphaz, who began the attack, first enters the debate with him again, and proceeds upon the same plan as before, and endeavours to defend his former sentiments, falling upon Job with greater vehemence and severity; he charges him with vanity, imprudence, and unprofitableness in his talk, and acting a part unbecoming his character as a wise man; yea, with impiety and a neglect of religion, or at least as a discourager of it by his words and doctrines, of which his mouth and lips were witnesses against him, Job 15:1-6; he charges him with arrogance and a high conceit of himself, as if he was the first man that was made, nay, as if he was the eternal wisdom of God, and had been in his council; and, to check his vanity, retorts his own words upon him, or however the sense of them, Job 15:7-10; and also with slighting the consolations of God; upon which he warmly expostulates with him, Job 15:11-13; and in order to convince him of his self-righteousness, which he thought he was full of, he argues from the angels, the heavens, and the general case of man, Job 15:14-16; and then he declares from his own knowledge, and from the relation of wise and ancient men in former times, who made it their observation, that wicked men are afflicted all their days, attended with terror and despair, and liable to various calamities, Job 15:17-24; the reasons of which are their insolence to God, and hostilities committed against him, which they are encouraged in by their prosperous circumstances, Job 15:25-27; notwithstanding all, their estates, riches, and wealth, will come to nothing, Job 15:28-30; and the chapter is closed with an exhortation to such, not to feed themselves up with vain hopes, or trust in uncertain riches, since their destruction would be sure, sudden, and terrible, Job 15:31-35.