Chapter 22
2021-The pattern breaks here. It has been friend speaks, Job answers friend, Job addresses God up to now. Three chapters at a time. But here, Zophar spoke, Job answered and now Eliphaz speaks.
Eliphaz speaks again:
5 Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities. [Job 22:5 ESV]
No mincing words from Eliphaz. He still believes that Job has done wrong and he lists a lot of things. Turning widows away, not giving drink to the thirsty, and not accepting God's punishment of him. MSB says that this time, Eliphaz is frustrated with Job's stubbornness in maintaining his innocence, and goes so far as to say it doesn't even matter. That no man is profitable to God, no one really matters to God, so Job's troubles are of no interest to God in the first place. Will Job sit and whine though he makes no difference in the big scheme of things anyway? Then he launches into a list of the crimes of humanity in general. All of them are really about putting ourselves before those more needy.
2024 - This verse:
8 "But the earth belongs to the mighty man, And the honorable man dwells in it. [Job 22:8 NASB95]. This is how NASB95 puts it...and here is ESV:
8 The man with power possessed the land, and the favored man lived in it. [Job 22:8 ESV]. So the question is, does Eliphaz mean to say that there are the people in charge of everything, and there are the good people, but they don't precisely overlap. They are not mutually exclusive. Those with power are still in charge, and the merely good sometimes have to live under their rule. NASB95 sure makes it sound that way. For context, Eliphaz has just give a long list of oppressive actions of which even the best of us are guilty in some sense. If we have the power to help others at all, and we do not seize every opportunity, then we are guilty of oppression. If we have "more", we are guilty, because others need it more than we do. Is Eliphaz a socialist, saying that all should be the same, so that no one can exert his will by means of wealth?
2025 - We need to remember that the whole point of this book is to help us understand that bad things happen in this world and they are not always, in fact it is probably quite rare, that the bad things are punishment or chastisement or wrath from God. That ultimately comes, but I think mostly it doesn't come in this world. Yet here is Eliphaz once again berating Job for the great sin he has committed, because there has to be one to bring on all this misery. The friends will not let this idea drop, will not backup and consider other possibilities.
2025 - Another thought that occurs to me is that Job has, and I think will increasingly point out that good things are happening to bad people all around him. He mentioned earlier the fat children of evil men, the peaceful deaths of those men. Job is saying hey, the opposite of bad things to good people is good things to bad people, and we all see that happening and we don't go around saying those bad people must have a lot of good in them that we cannot see, else they'd be getting what they deserve for the obvious evil they are doing. Since we don't take issue with that non-sequitur why is there such resistance to thinking bad things happen to some very good people. It is a valid logical negation of what we all see and live with. There should be a logical syllogism here...I need to work it out.
2025 - This ought also work in some form as a rebuttal to the age old question of "How can a loving God....". If you don't believe a loving God lets bad happen to good people so there is no loving God, then who do you believe is letting great good things happen to bad people, and why are you not railing against him? That is just as unfair, and yet you seem fine with that. Good things happening to bad people should in fact be your proof that God allows the world to run with no promise of fairness at all. Fair only comes after death, and THAT is what you ought to be concerned about, for yourself and for those you love. If God lets the evil prosper AT THE SAME TIME he lets the good suffer, THAT IS A FAIR AND JUST GOD!!! You can't just take one side, you must take it all into account before you judge.
2025 - Example. Long line of people, some good some evil, all starving. At the head of the line there's a random number generator that spits out either a 0 or a 1. First person steps up, generator pops out a 0. No food for you. Next person steps up, 0 again. No food for you. Third person steps up, a 1. Here's your food. This continues like this through the whole line. Here's the question: Is this a fair method of distributing food to starving people? There's no favoritism. There's no antagonism. There's nothing unfair here...even though not everyone who deserves food gets fed, and some who don't deserve anything have plenty. THAT IS FAIR!!! The counter is that God's resources are unlimited so no one need starve. So why would he withhold from any...to which the reply is "You're saying it's preferable to feed the evil AND the good than to deprive even one good person of good? That is your definition of a loving God? That's a robot not a loving God, and there is nothing fair about rewarding everyone to avoid judging anyone.
2025 - Some of this needs more work...but this is on the right path.
The advice is good though, always good:
21 "Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. 22 Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart. [Job 22:21-22 ESV]
For the rest of this chapter, Eliphaz again urges Job to agree with God that he has sinned, to repent, and to pray. If he will just admit his wrong, Eliphaz says that God will restore him. They will not disconnect Job's suffering from some cause - some evil - in Job. And they are not blaming Job's ancestors either. They think it is cause and effect in full swing with Job.