(17) В¶ I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare; (18) Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it: (19) Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. (20) The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. (21) A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. (22) He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. (23) He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. (24) Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. (25) For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. (26) He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers: (27) Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. (28) And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. (29) He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. (30) He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away. (31) Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence. (32) It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. (33) He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive. (34) For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. (35) They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
Eliphaz makes a long discourse, and lays down many great truths and sound arguments; though in many instances accompanied with ill founded observations. His chief scope is to show that where a life of misery is, there must have been much wickedness. Job, on the contrary had contended, that GOD might and did afflict his people, and that afflictions were no marks of divine displeasure. And this is so very agreeable to the whole tenor of the gospel, that there can be no doubt but Job was under the same divine Teacher. Indeed Job, in his heavy trials and afflictions, became a lively type of the great Author of the gospel himself. I do not detain the Reader with any length of remarks on Eliphaz's discourse. The words of it are very plain; and the drift of it as easy to be understood. And, they can receive no beauty in an illustration of what is too beautiful in point of language to be increased.