TEXT [Commentary]

  2.   The wicked receive retribution (15:17-35)

17 “If you will listen, I will show you.

I will answer you from my own experience.

18 And it is confirmed by the reports of wise men

who have heard the same thing from their fathers—

19 from those to whom the land was given

long before any foreigners arrived.

20 “The wicked writhe in pain throughout their lives.

Years of trouble are stored up for the ruthless.

21 The sound of terror rings in their ears,

and even on good days they fear the attack of the destroyer.

22 They dare not go out into the darkness

for fear they will be murdered.

23 They wander around, saying, ‘Where can I find bread?’[*]

They know their day of destruction is near.

24 That dark day terrifies them.

They live in distress and anguish,

like a king preparing for battle.

25 For they shake their fists at God,

defying the Almighty.

26 Holding their strong shields,

they defiantly charge against him.

27 “These wicked people are heavy and prosperous;

their waists bulge with fat.

28 But their cities will be ruined.

They will live in abandoned houses

that are ready to tumble down.

29 Their riches will not last,

and their wealth will not endure.

Their possessions will no longer spread across the horizon.

30 “They will not escape the darkness.

The burning sun will wither their shoots,

and the breath of God will destroy them.

31 Let them no longer fool themselves by trusting in empty riches,

for emptiness will be their only reward.

32 They will be cut down in the prime of life;

their branches will never again be green.

33 They will be like a vine whose grapes are harvested too early,

like an olive tree that loses its blossoms before the fruit can form.

34 For the godless are barren.

Their homes, enriched through bribery, will burn.

35 They conceive trouble and give birth to evil.

Their womb produces deceit.”

NOTES

15:17 If you will listen. Following the quotation of the vision, the Heb. is abrupt and forceful: “Let me tell you—listen to me!” Eliphaz was somewhat impatient in his response.

15:23 Where can I find bread? This word “where” in unpointed, pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts would have only had the letters ’yh; pronounced ’ayyeh [TH346, ZH372] this would ask “where”; pronounced ’ayyah it would mean “vulture.” In this case, either can make sense, and the Gr. translator took it in the sense of the latter (see NLT mg). It is fairly certain that the Heb. used by the Gr. translator also had a different word at the beginning of the line, which he translated as “appoint” (Orlinsky 1964:71-73; cf. the MT’s nadad [TH5074, ZH5610], “wander”). Still, the Heb. of the MT can be read as “he wanders about as food for the vulture” or “he is cast out as food for the vulture” (nuddad). This sense of “food for the vulture” is much more appropriate than “wandering for food.” The wicked are the rich, who would not be looking for food but would be fearful of being prey, as indicated by the previous verse. They fear the day of darkness and feel they are marked for the sword.

15:26 they defiantly charge. The Heb. is an unusual metaphor: “He runneth upon him, even on his neck” (KJV). The closest parallel is Ps 75:5, which warns against boasting by “sticking out the neck” (KJV); there, the phrase is parallel to “lifting up the horn” (i.e., defiantly asserting power). It is an act of hubris for someone to “stick out his neck” against God.

15:29 across the horizon. This is a paraphrase for “across the land.” The word “land” (’erets [TH776, ZH824]) can refer to the underworld, as in 38:18, in which case the thought would be that the rich cannot retain their possessions in death (cf. Ps 49:18-20). This is unlikely in spite of the reference to death in the next verse; the problem of the wicked is their wealth in this life.

15:30 The burning sun. This is probably a metaphor for scorching heat, which withers plants. This is parallel to the reference to wind (“breath”) in the next line.

the breath of God. This is almost certainly the correct interpretation of the Heb., which simply refers to “the breath of his mouth.” Some translations (e.g., RSV, NRSV, NEB, NJB) have been misled by the LXX, which says, “his blossom will fall.” These translations assume the word “flower” (perakh [TH6525, ZH7258]) rather than “his mouth” (piw [TH6310, ZH7023]). However, it is most likely that the Gr. follows a different text in this instance. The Gr. translator was following his version of 14:2a, and it will influence him again in this chapter at 15:33b (Heater 1982:61-62). This third line interprets the metaphor of the flower in the second line while repeating the words and the idea of the first line of the verse: he will not escape the darkness, he will wither like a shoot in the flame (the searing east wind), and he will not escape the blast of God’s mouth. This last line is probably an allusion to the familiar words of Isa 11:4: “The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.” God exercises his judgment against the wicked by simply speaking the word. The darkness in this verse is that of death. Cf. the image of the danger of darkness in 15:22.

15:32 They will be cut down. This verse returns to the wilting of a plant. The verb in the first line is a homonym; it can mean either “wither” or “cut off.” In this case, it introduces the second line, which says that their shoot will not be lush. The first line says they will wither before their time, which is illustrated in the next verse with the grapevine and the olive tree.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Eliphaz began his reply in fashion much like that found in Psalm 49, a wisdom poem that is very similar in its condemnation of the arrogant rich and its warning that they will lose all their possessions as death overtakes them. The message of the wise was universally applicable (Ps 49:1-4); its truth was like a physical law operative in the same manner for all people in the world. This wisdom, however, was not a philosophical argument but an exercise in deductive logic. It began unapologetically from the premise that this view of the universe was correct. The task of wisdom was to convey this view in convincing rhetoric, to cast it in unforgettable metaphors, to express it in enigmas that give pause for thought (Ps 49:4). In this respect, Eliphaz was an accomplished wise man.

Wisdom was based on cumulative experience. Eliphaz quite naturally began with that which he had seen, which confirmed what those of his generation had taught him, which were the truths they, in turn, had received from the generation that had gone on before them. The wise looked back to a time of pristine purity, the “good old days” when culture and religion had not become utterly confused by the infusion of foreign and corrupt ideas. Eliphaz did not have in mind a particular historical circumstance when he referred to the time before foreigners arrived. He was probably thinking of his own home country, so there is no reference to events in the land of Israel. Eliphaz was providing a polemic for the authority of wisdom. There is one thing in this world that is pure, and that is wisdom, which has been passed on through tradition, untarnished by human corruption.

Further, what Eliphaz had to say about the wicked was true. He expressed in potent words the confession of the psalms concerning the wicked, the warnings against the rich imbedded in the pithy sayings of proverbs. The problem with Eliphaz was his failure to understand the limitations of his knowledge. He thought this truth concerning the wicked could account for all the pain in the world. This was the point he intended to drive home to Job, and he mustered the best of human eloquence in his attempt to do so.

Eliphaz began with a discussion about the deception of the apparent tranquility of the wicked rich. They have ease because they have material abundance, which they are very successful at protecting. In reality, the wicked rich live in a constant state of paranoia. They have much to lose, and they have many enemies. There is no time when fear does not grip them; the sounds of terror are continually in their ears. There is no place where they are secure, for the assassin may be lurking anywhere (15:22). Their life is marked for violent death—it is only a matter of time. The day of darkness has already been prepared for them. The vulture is circling over their heads, for it knows its prey is at hand (15:23).

The problem is not riches; the problem is arrogance against God. The wicked have despised God; they have no faith in God (cf. Ps 49:6). They defiantly shake their fist at God; they boast in their own security. Such a boast is hollow, as the paranoia of the wicked proves. Distress and anguish terrify them; they are overpowered by their fears. They live like kings under continual threat of attack. Their real enemy is God (15:26). They charge at God behind the thick shield of their riches. Their wealth is evident in their fat faces and their wide hips. Their wealth, however, will prove to be a very ineffective shield against their enemy. Against a human enemy such a shield might suffice. However, their wealth is no match for the one who owns the earth and its fullness, the world and all those who dwell in it (Ps 24:1). Their mighty cities will be destroyed; their houses will be abandoned heaps of ruin (15:34).

Wealth is temporary for all who have it because no one can escape the day of death. In 15:22-24 Eliphaz speaks of darkness to point to the impending death of the wicked, as is evident from his analogies to plants dying before their time. His point is that death is feeding on the wicked, even while they live in wealth—the same point made by other wise men about the rich (Ps 49:13-14). The wicked rich are like a shoot dried up by the “flame” (15:30; KJV, RSV); they are like a frail green leaf blasted by the hot dry east wind. The wind Eliphaz refers to is the blast of God’s mouth; it is his word of the judgment of death against the wicked; it is a destiny they cannot escape. The wicked have deceived themselves; their investments in wealth were investments in nothing—they will vanish like a vapor. They are a plant withered before it can bear fruit. This plant is not by the rivers of water (Ps 1:3), bearing its fruit in its season. The wicked are the chaff, they are the grapevine stripped before the fruit ripens, and they are the olive tree where the blossoms were shed before the fruit could form.

Eliphaz saved his most devastating words for last: the wicked would have no legacy and their family will be cut off—it will be as if fire consumed their tents. This should not be surprising because they conceive trouble, carry deceit in their womb, and give birth to iniquity. They are not giving birth to the legacy of a family that will carry on their good name and be revered in the years to come. All they have given birth to is violence, and that violence will destroy them and all their children.

Death comes to all, but for the wicked, death is a sinister demise. The lives of the righteous will continue to bear fruit (Ps 1:3); the Lord knows their way, and they will not be cut off from him (Ps 1:6). The ungodly are not so. The ungodly are those who rage against God and imagine vain things (Pss 2:1-4; cf. Job 15:25-26). God has nothing but scorn for them; they will perish in their ways (Pss 1:6; 2:12; cf. Job 15:34). Eliphaz stands in the best of the teaching of the wise when he declares that there is nothing as tragic as the godless wicked in the hands of an angry God.

Truth is the most powerful of weapons, and in this case Eliphaz meant it to hurt. The pain of truth may be the means to healing, which is what Eliphaz intended. Truth, however, is like a sharp knife. Used correctly it is the surgeon’s scalpel; used incorrectly it is a mutilating instrument causing pain or death. The speech of Eliphaz was a surgery that could only injure the patient further. Eliphaz missed the mark. Job had not been in defiance of God by trusting in his own wealth. The opposite was true; his faith was in God alone, and he had used every possible means to express it. Job had to make clear to Eliphaz that though he was right, he was ever so wrong.