Job 22:14 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

Thick clouds are a covering to him - This is to be understood as expressing what Eliphaz regarded as the sentiment of Job - that so thick clouds intervened between him and man that he could not take cognizance of what was going forward on earth.

And he walketh in the circuit of heaven - Upon the arch of heaven, as it seems to be bent over our heads. He walks above that cerulean, so high, that he cannot see what occurs on earth, and to punish mortals. This was not an uncommon sentiment among the ancients, though it is here, with the greatest injustice, attributed to Job. A similar sentiment is expressed by Lucretius, as quoted by Rosenmuller and Noyes:

Omnis enim per se Divum natura necesse est

Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur,

Semota a nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe.

Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,

Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil in liga nostri,

Nec bene promeritus capitur, nec tangitur ira.

Compare Isaiah 29:15.

Job 22:14

14 Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.