Job 15:12-22

12 Why does your heart carry you away, and why do your eyes flash,
13 so that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of your mouth?
14 What are mortals, that they can be clean? Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?
15 God puts no trust even in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
16 how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, one who drinks iniquity like water!
17 "I will show you; listen to me; what I have seen I will declare—
18 what sages have told, and their ancestors have not hidden,
19 to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them.
20 The wicked writhe in pain all their days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21 Terrifying sounds are in their ears; in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them.
22 They despair of returning from darkness, and they are destined for the sword.

Job 15:12-22 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.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Meaning of Heb uncertain
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.