Job 22

12–20 Here Eliphaz reminds Job that he cannot hide his sins from God. God may be way up in the heights of heaven (verse 12), but He knows everything that happens on earth; let Job not think that God doesn't see his sins (verses 13–14).

Eliphaz then asks Job why he keeps to the old path that evil men have trod (verse 15). Evil men are always punished, even though they scoff at God (verse 17). True, evil men may enjoy prosperity for a while, but their prosperity comes from God—it was he who filled their houses with good things (verse 18)—and it is He who will end their prosperity and carry them away before their time (verse 16). Thus evil men never get to enjoy the “good things” in their houses. When the righteous and innocent see the ruin of evil men, they rejoice (verses 19–20).

21–30 In these final verses, Eliphaz makes one last attempt to persuade Job to repent: “Submit to God,” he tells Job (verse 21). And then he goes on to urge Job to remove wickedness far from [his] tent (verse 23), and to throw away his nuggets of gold and let God be his “gold and silver”—let God be his most precious possession (verses 24–25).

If Job will do these things, then he will be restored (verse 23), he will find delight in God (verse 26), his prayers will be answered (verse 27), and he will be able to help others (verses 28–29)—just as he did in the past⁵⁰ (Job 4:3–4).

All of Eliphaz's words here are well spoken and true. But Eliphaz has made two false assumptions about Job: first that he is a terrible sinner (and thus needs to repent); and second, that Job is mainly interested in regaining his prosperity (verse 21). This second assumption was false because in fact Job had lost all hope of regaining his earthly prosperity; he mainly wanted to be vindicated before God and to become His friend once more (Job 19:26–27).

How painful it must have been for Job to listen to Eliphaz say all these things and yet know they didn't apply to him. Eliphaz was telling Job, “Get right with God.” But Job was already “right” with God. Eliphaz thought that Job's prayers weren't being answered (verse 27), but later on it would be through Job's prayer that Eliphaz himself would be forgiven for the things he had thought and said (Job 42:7–9).