Job 15 Study Notes

15:23 The wicked person, asserts Eliphaz, fears he will become a vagrant.

15:24-25 The wicked person has stretched out his hand against God.

15:26 The term headlong (lit “runs at him with the neck”) portrays the wicked person as having reckless self-confidence.

15:27-29 Metaphorically, fat indicates a person possesses health and wealth (Gn 45:18). It can also carry a negative nuance associated with arrogance (Ps 73:3-7). Both ideas are expressed here.

15:30 As tender shoots wither before a scorching sun or a blasting desert wind, so the wicked will lose everything in God’s judgment (4:8-9; Is 11:4). God’s mouth can be used figuratively as the vehicle of his judgment. His breath represents the ease with which his mighty power accomplishes the deed and is a suitable figure for a desert wind.

15:31 It is worthless to trust in worthless things.

15:32-33 Eliphaz used graphic descriptions of the sudden end of the wicked, whose potential will not be realized (22:15-16; Pr 10:27).

15:34 The unrighteous social practices of the godless wicked (Pr 17:8; Is 5:23; Mc 3:11; 7:3) will profit them nothing (Pr 15:27).

15:35 Rather than achieving their wicked goals, the godless metaphorically bear children named trouble . . . evil, and deception. What they did to others would cause their own downfall. Womb is the same word translated “himself” at the opening of Eliphaz’s speech (see “his belly” in textual footnote at v. 2). Framing or bracketing a section of material in this way is a literary device called inclusio that is often not evident in the English translation.