Job 15:1-13

Listen to Job 15:1-13

Eliphaz: Job Does Not Fear God

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2 “Does a wise man answer with empty counsel or fill his belly with the hot east wind?
3 Should he argue with useless words or speeches that serve no purpose?
4 But you even undermine the fear of God and hinder meditation before Him.
5 For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.
6 Your own mouth, not mine, condemns you; your own lips testify against you.
7 Were you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills?
8 Do you listen in on the council of God or limit wisdom to yourself?
9 What do you know that we do not? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are on our side— men much older than your father.
11 Are the consolations of God not enough for you, even words spoken gently to you?
12 Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash, [a]
13 so that you turn your spirit against God and pour such words from your mouth?

Job 15:1-13 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.

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Footnotes 1

The Berean Bible and Majority Bible texts are officially placed into the public domain