In Eliphaz’ second round speech, he gets increasingly aggressive with Job. He no longer uses kid gloves, but points the condemning figure without restraint. He begins in verse 5 with “Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities.” In the next couple of verses he gives the exact sins that Job had committed, none of which require any proof. He says, “you have exacted pledges of your brothers and stripped the naked of their clothing. You have given no water to the weary… you have withheld bread from the hungry.  You have sent widows away empty…”  Therefore snares are all around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you…”

These are sins of omission, rather than commission. Who could answer such a charge? Are there poor people I have not helped? Yes, of course!  Do I not live in luxury while many in the world go without? Yes, it’s true! I’m part of the world that consumes the majority of the earth’s wealth and resources while so many others go without!

But that’s the case with all of us!  That’s the case with Eliphaz also, but Eliphaz is not suffering! Eliphaz hasn’t lost everything; wealth, health, family, friends, etc! It still doesn’t answer the question as to why God has singled out Job to be the one judged guilty of all the suffering and pain in the world while Eliphaz hides behind a cloak of self-righteousness. Eliphaz is the Pharisee that Paul is addressing in Romans where he asks those whose focus is on the law, “..and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?”

Jesus has given us all some great advice. He said, “How can you say…Brother, let me take out that splinter in your eye,  when you cannot see the great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter in your brother’s eye.”

Chuck

“What are people that you should make so much of us that you should think of us so often?  For you examine us every morning and test us every moment.” (Job 7:17-18)