Read
Eliphaz's Third Speech
What Use Are We Humans
1Eliphaz from Teman said:
2 What use are we humans
to God,
even the wisest of us?
3If you were completely sinless,
that would still mean nothing
to God All-Powerful.
4Is he correcting you
for worshiping him?
5No! It's because of
your terrible and endless sins.
6To guarantee payment of a debt,
you have taken clothes
from innocent people.
7And you refused bread and water
to the hungry and thirsty,
8although you were rich,
respected, and powerful.
9You have turned away widows
and have broken the arms
of orphans.
10That's why you were suddenly
trapped by terror,
11blinded by darkness,
and drowned in a flood.
God Lives in the Heavens
12God lives in the heavens
above the highest stars,
where he sees everything.
13Do you think the deep darkness
hides you from God?
14Do thick clouds cover his eyes,
as he walks around heaven's dome
high above the earth?
15Give up those ancient ideas
believed by sinners,
16who were swept away
without warning.
17They rejected God All-Powerful,
feeling he was helpless,
18although he had been kind
to their families.
The beliefs of these sinners
are truly disgusting.
19When God's people see
the godless swept away,
they celebrate, 20saying,
“Our enemies are gone,
and fire has destroyed
their possessions.”
Surrender to God All-Powerful
21Surrender to God All-Powerful!
You will find peace
and prosperity.
22Listen to his teachings
and take them to heart.
23If you return to God
and turn from sin,
all will go well for you.
24So get rid of your finest gold,
as though it were sand.
25Let God All-Powerful
be your silver and gold,
26and you will find happiness
by worshiping him.
27God will answer your prayers,
and you will keep the promises
you made to him.
28He will do whatever you ask,
and life will be bright.
29When others are disgraced,
God will clear their names
in answer to your prayers.
30Even those who are guilty
will be forgiven,
because you obey God.
Reflect
Sometimes when we read the Old Testament we forget that the people living then did not have the New Testament with the full revelation of God that we have in Jesus. Still less did Job and his contemporaries, who did not even live in Israel and were probably not Jewish. There is no evidence that they had access to any of the Old Testament. So how did they know about God?
Job’s three “friends” lived in the world of the Ancient Near East and shared in the beliefs that were in circulation at the time. We have quite a lot of information from sources outside the Bible. They believed that they could know they were doing right when the gods showed their approval by blessing them, and vice versa. Since mortals want good things in life, they lived as best they could in accordance with what the gods wanted.
Eliphaz lives totally within this way of thinking. So when disaster hits Job, his only explanation is that Job has offended God. And he catalogues the kinds of sin that were conventional.
And Job had not committed any of them, as he declares later on.
Eliphaz has reasoned backwards from a faulty theology. He is stuck in conventional ideas. If Job is suffering, it is because Job has sinned.
Job will have none of it. It’s all irrelevant. And Job is wrestling with the theology itself, that makes no sense to him.
The message is the same across the centuries and across the miles. When a friend is suffering, don’t hammer them with the logic of your theology. Rather, listen as they grapple with their situation.
Respond
Dear loving Father, we thank you for your love for us that goes beyond anything we deserve and any theology we can reason out. Thank you for showing it to us in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Annabel Robinson
Annabel was born in Kew, near London, England. She committed her life to Jesus Christ at a Scripture Union camp when she was 16, and immediately found joy and peace. At Oxford she was active in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where she met her husband, Reid. They emigrated to Canada in 1965, where she taught Classics at the University of Regina until 2007. She has two children, Heather in Oslo and Alasdair in Calgary.