No 39  And Eliphaz Still has More to Say! 

 

Job 5:9-16

9 Which doeth great things and unsearchable;
marvellous things without number:
10 Who giveth rain upon the earth,
and sendeth waters upon the fields:
11 To set up on high those that be low;
that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness:
and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
14 They meet with darkness in the daytime,
and grope in the noonday as in the night.
15 But He saveth the poor from the sword,
from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.
16 So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

Beautiful, Eliphaz, simply beautiful! You, Eliphaz, have said some wonderful things about God. In very short order and in relatively few words, you have given a beautiful description of the character, power and majesty of God. I just wish someone else had said those words―not you, Eliphaz. I would love for those words to be found, say, in Deuteronomy or Isaiah or the New Testament, but not your words in the Book of Job. 

 

Why do I express the sentiment that I do? For all of Chapter 4 and down through verse 8 of Chapter 5, Eliphaz has been very critical and demeaning of Job. Eliphaz has accused Job of nearly every spiritual sin one could name. And now, Job 5:9-16, interspersed amid all the meanness Eliphaz could muster, comes this beautiful interlude about God.

 

Notice how Eliphaz describes the very functions that make God Who He is. Beginning with verse 9, Eliphaz aptly describes God’s wonderful ways toward us.

 

Creator

9 Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: God performs wonders that cannot be fathomed and miracles that cannot be counted.

 

Sustainer

10 Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields: God provides rain for the earth sends water on the countryside. 

 

Redeemer

11 To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. The lowly He sets on high and those who mourn He lifts to safety.

 

Judge

12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. God frustrates (thwarts) the plans of the crafty (shrewd and cunning) so that their hands achieve no success (do not come to fruition). 13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. God catches the crafty in their own shrewd games, and their schemes are swept away. There is an eternal truth in these words. The Apostle Paul quotes this verse in 1 Cor 3:19:

 

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. 

The verb in this sentence is a wordplay on the word “righteous” or “just” which means straight. This verb means to “twist.” God brings the crafty to a swift end by “twisting the twisters.” This is a recurrent theme in the Bible―a reversal of expected outcomes.

14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night. Darkness comes upon them in the daytime. At noon they grope as in the night. Such is spiritual blindness. What powerful imagery of spiritual blindness (Job 24:13-17). The shrewd (wise) who think they are so smart, will be in darkness. Job uses this word twenty times.

 

As Judge and Saviour

15 But He saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty. 16 So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth. God saves the needy from the sword in the mouth of the shrewd and crafty. He saves them from the clutches of the powerful. In the presence of God, the word of the unrighteous cease. The poor have hope.

 

The Reason I Am Uncomfortable with This Speech of Eliphaz  

[A Summary of Job 5:9-16]

What Eliphaz has said is correct. It is how he applies it to Job that makes it wrong. While he seems to be supportive of Job, IT IS JOB HIMSELF WHOM ELIPHAZ IS SAYING, ”HIS MOUTH NEEDS TO BE STOPPED.” Eliphaz is saying that Job is not the victim, but the perpetrator. Job must be stopped! Let Job’s mouth be stopped!

 

And Another Error of Eliphaz

Eliphaz is certain he can describe the hand of God in human events. Eliphaz does not know anything about what Satan’s hands do.

Yet Another Error

17 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: 18 For He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.

 

Some Bible students have said this is the supreme passage among all the statements of Job’s three friends. The Apostle Paul quotes this passage in Heb 12:5:

 

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him:

 

This is truth. Certainly, it is truth. Yet Eliphaz is wrong when he applies this truth to Job. Job is not being rebuked of God. The calamities which Job experienced, and of which the Book of Job deals, were not sent by God as chastening to Job for any misdeed or error Job had committed. Job was not in need of correction. Job was not in need of discipline. Job was not suffering for his sin (sins).

 

Eliphaz is reminding Job that he should be happy that God is correcting him. “Do not despise what He is trying to do for you,” Eliphaz is saying. "His correcting you means there is hope for you. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, Job. Good can come out of this. God uses suffering and loss as a means of correction and purification.”

 

There is no question that what Eliphaz is saying here is true.  Paul in Heb 12:5 quotes Eliphaz on this point as stated earlier. Paul’s next words, Heb 12:6, develop the theme:

 

For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.   

 

If Eliphaz is stating a truth here, what is wrong with what he is saying? The wrong is the reason he is saying it. “Because you are a great sinner, Job, God is correcting you.” Job wasn’t a great sinner. Eliphaz wants Job to admit he is a great sinner (when he isn’t). It is when he says it—in a moment when Job is hurting the most. It is the timing of when and the purpose of why Eliphaz says it that is wrong.

 

Eliphaz has presented suffering and affliction as punitive. Now he speaks of it terms of chastisement or correction. What is the difference? Punishment deals with the past. For something done. God’s law was broken and there is a penalty that must be paid. Chastisement, on the other hand, deals with the future—it is tomorrow-oriented. It aims at producing an effect in the mind of a person that will make him a better person and motivate him not to repeat the performance of a bad thing. Eliphaz is saying:

                        

                           punishment   =   punitive and judiciary

                         chastisement   =   redemptive and instructive

 

Again Eliphaz claims too much. Calamities may be used by the Lord to instruct His wayward people, but every calamity cannot be interpreted this way.

 

God’s chastenings become either blessing or cursing depending on the way we receive them. If we accept them positively, they help purge our character of its dross and bring us closer to the image of Christ toward which we are being formed. If we reject them bitterly as enemies and murmur against them, we are then injured by the chastenings. Our character deteriorates further.  

 

18 For He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.

 

Eliphaz is back to error. Eliphaz cannot be faulted for what he is saying. It is how he applies to Job that is wrong. [Eliphaz does not know who caused the bad stuff to happen to Job. He assumes it was God. God was not the One who did “the making sore and wounding.”]

 

But if Eliphaz is saying that God causes someone pain and misery just to restore them, then he is wrong on that account as well. God does not smite only to heal.

 

Why So Much Time on the Speech of Eliphaz?

And I’m not through. We still have more of Chapter 5 to consider. I am going through Job 4 and 5 slow enough to catch his message. The reason?

             1) Eliphaz will have two more speeches to come.

             2) Bildad still has three speeches to make.

             3) Zophar will make two speeches yet.

 

I could not reasonably cover all that material as slowly as I have done Chapters 4 and 5. And I do not need to. Most of what is yet to come rehashes what Eliphaz has said in these two chapters. [There are a few new twists which we will look at.]   

 

We will be spending considerable time looking at Job’s responses to what they have had to say against him―for that, I feel, is essential to an understanding of the Book of Job. Then, we will consider―

             4) the speech of Elihu.

 

Most importantly will be― 

             5) the wonderful speech that God makes!

 

This is truly a “sermon” preached by God Himself to Job and to all of us.  For all of us―in times past, in the time of today, and in the times to come. What a privilege it would be to go to church and listen to a sermon from God Himself! And we will!   

 

From Ellen G White:

It is very natural for human beings to think that great calamities are a sure index of great crimes and enormous sins; but men often make a mistake in thus measuring character. We are not living in the time of retributive judgment. Good and evil are mingled, and calamities come upon all. Sometimes men do pass the boundary line beyond God’s protecting care, and then Satan exercises his power upon them, and God does not interpose. Job was sorely afflicted, and his friends sought to make him acknowledge that his suffering was the result of sin, and cause him to feel under condemnation. They represented his case as that of a great sinner; but the Lord rebuked them for their judgment of His faithful servant. (Vol 3, Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, page 1140; (Manuscript 56, 1894).    

 

God is fair. Isn’t He?

 

 

Please send questions or comments to Will Hardin at P O Box 24 Owenton KY 40359 or use the comments via Google section below.