It’s All Your Fault, You Arrogant Man

Okay, the gloves are coming off now. The language is rude and crude.

This is the second round in a prize fight. In the first round, Eliphaz managed a compliment or two, a nice waltz around the ring, little jabs of affirmation. But now Eliphaz comes out swinging, wild punches of devastating insult, a complete moral destruction, a merciless character assassination of his friend/enemy, Job.

“You’re an empty windbag.” Then much, much worse, “You’re doing away with the fear of God!” (v 4).

Imagine how crushing a blow that was, a real knock-out. Job is being accused of destroying the very foundations of Jewish religion, the underpinning of all theological and moral virtue.

Everything is Job’s fault: his own mouth condemns him.

Then Eliphaz changes gears into a devastating mockery. Do you think you’re so special, a conversation partner with God in the beginning, possessor of secret knowledge? Come on, Job, mortal men cannot be clean and righteous in God’s sight; God doesn’t even trust his holy ones. What makes you think you’ve got special favour, you who are “vile and corrupt, who drink up evil like water!" (v 16).

With Job pinned against the ropes and virtually out for the count, Eliphaz moves into his sermon, his theologizing about the wicked, amongst whom Job is prime. “ All his days the wicked man suffers torment, the ruthless man through all the years stored up for him . . . because he shakes his fist at God. . . . He will not escape the darkness.” And his kids will pay for their parents’ sins, too.

This shift into the third person - into “he” - is a kind of superior academic ruse, a rhetorical trickery. This theological sermonizing is a fierce attack on Job himself. We’re not talking about “him,” Job, we’re talking about you. It’s all your fault, you proud, pathetic, arrogant man.

Respond in Prayer

Father God, we’ve all got so-called friends who delight in attacking us, mocking our faith, calling us names. Please protect us from such devastation, and help us to understand that in Jesus Christ we are made whole and complete and righteous.

Michael Pountney

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®).