Job 22:10-20

10 Therefore snares are round about you, and sudden terror overwhelms you;

11 your light is darkened, so that you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

12 "Is not God high in the heavens? See the highest stars, how lofty they are!

13 Therefore you say, 'What does God know? Can he judge through the deep darkness?

14 Thick clouds enwrap him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.'

15 Will you keep to the old way which wicked men have trod?

16 They were snatched away before their time; their foundation was washed away.

17 They said to God, 'Depart from us,' and 'What can the Almighty do to us?'

18 Yet he filled their houses with good things--but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.

19 The righteous see it and are glad; the innocent laugh them to scorn,

20 saying, 'Surely our adversaries are cut off, and what they left the fire has consumed.'

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.