Job to Eliphaz: 2. Reproofs and retorts.
I. UNKINDNESS REPROVED. The behaviour of Eliphaz (and his friends) was:
1. Unnatural. Compassion for a suffering fellow-creature, much more for a friend, was a dictate of humanity (verse 14). The condition of Job pre-eminently claimed pitiful consideration. He was not only melting away, bodily and mentally, but spiritually he was in danger of "forsaking the fear of the Almighty," i.e. losing his hold on God, on God's love and favour towards himself, and, as a consequence, on his integrity before and confidence in God (of. Psalms 38:6; Psalms 69:2). The withholding of sympathy from one in his condition was a deplorable dereliction of duty and a manifest token of unfeeling barbarity.
2. Inconsistent. Besides being a dictate of nature, the law of kindness is one of the plainest precepts of religion (Le Job 19:18; Zechariah 7:9; Luke 10:37; Romans 12:10-15; James 1:27), and its fulfilment one of the surest marks of moral and spiritual perfection (Psalms 112:4; Proverbs 31:26; Romans 13:8; Colossians 3:14; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 4:12). The absence, therefore, of pity on the part of Eliphaz and his friends argued them destitute of genuine religion, or, according to another reading of the clause, showed them to be "forsaking the fear of Shaddai."
3. Injurious. A third interpretation understands Job to say that Eliphaz's lack of sympathy had rendered it more difficult for him, Job, to believe in the kindness of his heavenly Friend—was, in fact, enough to cause him to forsake the fear of the Almighty. Earthly relationships were undoubtedly designed to be helpful for the right understanding of God's relationship towards men; a father's love to be an emblem of that of the Divine Father (Deuteronomy 8:5; Psalms 103:13; Matthew 7:11); a friend's pity to interpret that of the Elder Brother (Proverbs 18:24). Hence the responsibility of so fulfilling these relationships that men shall be assisted rather than hindered on their heavenward way.
4. Disappointing. Eliphaz and his friends had deceived Job like a brook (verse 15), like the dried-up water of a mountain wady. The image, applied by Job to his brethren (verse 21) consists of four parts.
5. Unreasonable. Job had not asked them for any great evidence of friendship, neither to relieve his sufferings by charitable gifts, nor to repair his losses by munificent contributions from their personal property, nor to restore his ruined fortunes by recovering them from the Chaldeans and Sabeans, as Abram delivered Lot and his goods from the hands of Chedorlaomer (Genesis 14:14). Simply he had craved their sympathy—a small enough boon, which would not have much impoverished them; and yet even that they had withheld. Jonathan dealt otherwise with David (1 Samuel 23:16).
II. INSINUATION REPELLED. The imputation which underlay the whole harangue of Eliphaz, Job resented as:
1. Unproved. "Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred." A perfectly reasonable demand, since conviction should always precede condemnation. So Christ challenged his countrymen first to convince him of sin (John 8:46). And it is manifestly absurd to expect that men will listen to admonitions who are unconscious of having committed faults. Even God does not exhort to repentance without having first demonstrated man's guilt. The first function of the Holy Spirit is to convince the world of sin (John 16:8). Job's language also indicative of an honest and ingenuous mind. Willingness to be taught is a sign of humility and a token of sincerity. "A man that is willing to be taught is in a better condition than many who are able to teach. It argues a holier temper of the heart to be willing to be taught than to be able to teach. And it is far worse to be unwilling to learn than not to be knowing" (Caryl).
2. Ungenerous. While words of uprightness, i.e. honest speech, plain dealing, even reproof when necessary, had a force which Job could not resist, a pertinency he could not challenge, and a pungency he could not fail to feel and acknowledge, their language had been wholly mean and contemptible, fastening as it did on the despairing utterances of a poor wretch half-crazed with grief, which common consent allows should be regarded as wind, or given to the wind, as idle, meaningless, shifting, and therefore not to be too closely criticized, far less made the basis of a charge of guilt. And Job's contention was substantially correct. Words thrown off in a hasty moment, under the influence of strong passion, are not always a perfectly safe and reliable index to the character of the soul, at least when judged by man. God alone is competent to estimate man's moral and spiritual condition by his words (Matthew 12:37). All others should be guided by charity in interpreting the speech of agonized men (1 Corinthians 13:5).
3. Heartless. The men who could so make him an offender for a word were in Job's estimation capable of any baseness, such pitiless and inhuman ruffians as would "enslave an orphan for his father's debt, and then cast lots whose he should be" (Cox), or barter their dearest friend for pelf. Probably Job overstrained the case against Eliphaz and his companions; but men have perpetrated the villainies described, as e.g. the brethren of Joseph (Genesis 37:28) and Judas (Matthew 26:15).
4. Untrue. Job requests his friends to look into his face and say whether he did not carry the refutation of their slanders in his countenance (verse 28). The face is commonly a mirror to the soul. The glory of a pure soul shines through the face, illuminating, refining, etherealizing it; just as the moral gloom that enshrouds s wicked soul leaves its impress on the countenance, rendering its features coarse, brutal, sordid, revolting. There are faces that proclaim the depravity of the soul within as certainly as there are noble countenances that bear their own certificate of truth, sincerity, moral honesty, and spiritual refinement.
5. Unfair. The friends had started with a prejudice against Job, and, as a consequence, their decision had not been impartial. Accordingly, he invites them to renew their investigation, but on other principles and presuppositions: "Return, I pray you; let there be no unfairness, and my righteousness will be found to stand" (verse 29).
6. Insulting. Their insinuation practically charged Job with being a moral imbecile, who had no capacity to discriminate between right and wrong—an assumption he resented with the utmost vigour (verse 30), maintaining that, as surely as his palate could distinguish meats, his moral sense could discern right and wrong in the matter of his sufferings, and generally in the providential government of the world of which he next proceeds to speak. The capacity to distinguish between right and wrong is the highest function of intelligence, and is as certainly capable of perversion and obscuration through wilful ignorance and sin as susceptible of education and refinement through Christian instruction and practical holiness.
Learn:
1. The duty of sympathizing with the suffering and sorrowful. Nature prompts to it; religion enjoins it; humanity claims it; the afflicted expect Job 2:2. The danger of putting stumbling-blocks in the way, to either keep men or withdraw men from the fear of God.
3. The folly of trusting in either princes or men's sons, seeing that man's goodness is commonly (except where grace intervenes)as transient as his greatness.
4. The painfulness of being deceived by any, but especially by those we trust.
5. The certain disappointment of those who lock to failing brooks for the water of eternal life.
6. The wickedness of censuring for sins that have been neither proved nor admitted.
7. The liability of man to error, and the only sure and certain pathway to truth, viz. a spirit of humble docility.
8. Truth is less dependent on argumentation than men are apt to suppose, being generally its own best witness.