Job 22:1-30 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Job 22. Third Speech of Eliphaz. The only new thing that Eliphaz has to say, is definitely to describe the sin of Job! Yet his mildness makes him end with bright promises.

Job 22:1-5. Is it not to Job's advantage to be pious? Will God chasten him for anything else but sin? Eliphaz would point out that it is Job s advantage to be pious, but he completes his statement by adding that it is no advantage to God. He means that God is too exalted to take any interest in man, except to reward and punish him. Hence the cause of man's calamities cannot be in God, but only in man (Job 22:6-11).

Job 22:6-9 ascribes to Job the sins typical of the rich man.

Job 22:8, if not a gloss, seems to refer to the sin of land-grabbing (Isaiah 5:8).

Job 22:10 f. deduce Job's calamities as the natural reward of his sin.

Job 22:12-20. Job argues from God's exaltedness that He cannot see through the clouds and darkness down upon the earth (Job 22:12-14). But He punished the rebels of old time (Job 22:15 f.): apparently the reference is to the Flood, when the solid earth (their foundation) was overflowed.

Job 22:17 f. (cf. Job 21:14 a, Job 21:15 a, Job 21:16 b) breaks the connexion, and is to be removed as a gloss. Then Job 22:19 f. tells how the righteous rejoiced over the fall of the wicked (Job 22:16). With LXX we may change verbs in Job 22:19 to perfects.

Job 22:21-30. Eliphaz recommends Job to return to God, and once more promises his restoration.

Job 22:22 means that Job is to regard his sufferings as disciplinary (Job 5:17).

Job 22:29 f. is very obscure: the text is dubious. The general sense of Job 22:29 is that God casts down pride and saves the humble.

Job 22:30 as it stands seems to mean that God will deliver even him that is not innocent because of Job's innocence (cf. Job 42:8). The conclusion of Eliphaz's speech is very beautiful. Duhm's comment is, however, worth giving. Humility and purity are also, according to this passage, for Eliphaz the essential elements of religion and the secure foundations of good fortune: both lie in the power of man, whose conduct God reviews and honours according to fixed principles. Theology makes salvation depend on the doing of men, religion on the heart of God.

Related Commentaries of Job 22:1

Job 22:1-30

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

2 Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself?

3 Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? or is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?

4 Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?

5 Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?

6 For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the nakeda of their clothing.

7 Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.

8 But as for the mightyb man, he had the earth; and the honourable man dwelt in it.

9 Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

10 Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee;

11 Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters cover thee.

12 Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars,c how high they are!

13 And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?

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

15 Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?

16 Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:

17 Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?

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: and the innocent laugh them to scorn.

20 Whereas our substanced is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth.

21 Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace:e thereby good shall come unto thee.

22 Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart.

23 If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.

24 Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust,f and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks.

25 Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence,g and thou shalt have plenty of silver.

26 For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God.

27 Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows.

28 Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.

29 When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humbleh person.

30 He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.