Job 22:10-20

10 That is why traps are all around you and great fear suddenly grips you.

11 [That is why] darkness surrounds you and you cannot see and a flood of water covers you.

12 "Isn't God high above in the heavens? Look how high the highest stars are!

13 You ask, 'What does God know? Can he judge [anything] from behind a dark cloud?

14 Thick clouds surround him so that he cannot see. He walks above the clouds.'

15 "Are you following the old path that wicked people have taken?

16 They are snatched up before their time. A river washes their foundation away.

17 They told God, 'Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do for us?'

18 Yet, he filled their homes with good things. (The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.)

19 The righteous saw it and were glad, and the innocent made fun of them by saying,

20 'Indeed, their wealth has been wiped out, and a fire has burned up what [little] they had left.'

Job 22:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 22

This chapter contains the third and last reply of Eliphaz to Job, in which he charges him with having too high an opinion of himself, of his holiness and righteousness, as if God was profited by it, and laid thereby under obligation to him, whereas he was not, Job 22:1-3; and as if he reproved and chastised him, because of his fear of him, whereas it was because of his sins, Job 22:4,5; an enumeration of which he gives, as of injustice, oppression, cruelty to the poor, and even of atheism and infidelity, for which snares and fears were around him, and various calamities, Job 22:6-14; and compares his way and course of life to that of the men of the old world, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and suggests that his end would be like theirs, unless he repented, Job 22:15-20; and then concludes with an exhortation to him to return to God by repentance, and to reform, when he should see happy times again, and enjoy much outward and inward prosperity, and be an instrument of doing much good to many, Job 22:21-30.