Eliphaz, Round 2

Job 15

In this exchange, both Eliphaz and Job start by calling each other windbags.  I’m not sure this is actually helpful to anyone, but they both have plenty to say, so they aren’t wrong.  If the friends are truly there to comfort and console, I have a hard time figuring out how insulting each other is helping.  I think maybe they were all just better off when they were being quiet together.

But the quiet is, indeed, over, and the words just keep on coming.  In the NRSV, Eliphaz accuses Job of doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God, going on to point out that by doing so, he’s actually proven himself guilty. 

15: 4-6:  But you are doing away with the fear of God and hindering meditation before God.  For your iniquity teaches your mouth and you choose the tongue of the crafty.  Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you. (NRSV)

“You choose the tongue of the crafty.”  Wow.  Don’t we all know people who do that?  People who are so careful with their words to follow the letter of the law, observing technicalities and semantics to their own advantage while the rest of their lives doesn’t support an acknowledgement of the spirit of the law?  It seems like maybe this is what Eliphaz is getting to here.  I probably do it myself sometimes. 

The Message puts it this way:

15: 4-6:  Look at you! You trivialize religion, turn spiritual conversation into empty gossip.  It’s your sin that taught you to talk this way.  You chose an education in fraud.  Your own words have exposed your guilt.  It’s nothing I’ve said—you’ve incriminated yourself! (The Message)

I really appreciate how The Message makes things more accessible to me, but there’s nothing in there that can compare with the “tongue of the crafty.” 

Then Eliphaz reminds Job about the wisdom of the elders and the fact that he’s just a mortal and cannot possibly be as perfect as he claims to be.  Eliphaz warns Job of the consequences of being wicked (NRSV) or living by your own rules, not God’s (The Message). 

15:24-26:  They [those who live by their own rules] live in constant terror, always with their backs up against the wall because they insist on shaking their fists at God, defying God Almighty to his face, always and ever at odds with God, always on the defensive. (The Message)

15: 24-26:  distress and anguish terrify them [the wicked]; they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle because they stretched out their hands against God, and bid defiance to the Almighty, running stubbornly against him with a thick-bossed shield; (NRSV)

This seems to be a fairly accurate assessment of Job’s state.  He does seem terrified by distress and anguish.  Well, maybe not terrified.  When I think about it, he seems more offended than terrified. 

In an interesting turn of phrase, Eliphaz likens Job to one who stretches out his hand against God, which is exactly what Satan wanted God to do against Job.  Oh, how the tables have turned.

In general, those verses seem to hit on the general MO thus far:  it does feel like Job is defiant, on the defensive against God, always at odds with God, always needing to prove his innocence to God.  I could see how Eliphaz feels that way, but I’m not sure that attacking someone is the best way to get them to stop defending themselves.  Doesn’t an attack require a defense?