Job 15 - 19
Job 15 begins the second cycle of conversations in the same order with the addresses of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar and Job’s responses to each. For Eliphaz, Job’s sin is evident in his own words: “For your iniquity teaches your mouth, and you choose the tongue of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you” (Job 15:5-6). He insists in the wisdom of his portrayal of righteousness and justice, and he describes the terrors of judgment that sinners will suffer (Job 15:20-35). This time he does not extend a direct invitation to repentance and a rediscovery of wellbeing; he wants Job to contemplate the consequences of unrepentance: “Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?” (Job 15:11).
Job rejects his counsel again and declares that God has attacked him unjustly (Job 16:7-14) while Job has kept his integrity and righteousness (Job 16:15-17). But he returns to his desire to appear before God and be justified: “My eye pours out tears to God, that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor” (Job 16:20, 21) Once again, he recalls his pain and loses hope of being vindicated.
Bildad tries to terrify Job by detailing the consequences of the judgment of the unrighteous, several of which are exactly what Job has suffered. He echoes and amplifies Eliphaz’s discourse. But Job rejects it again and insists on God’s injustice in having treated him this way: “Know then that God has put me in the wrong and has closed his net about me” (Job 19:6). He accuses his friends of having joined with God in attacking him: “Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?” (Job 19:22) But once again he regains hope that he will be vindicated: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27). With the certainty that he will be vindicated, Job declares that not he but his friends should tremble because they have judged Job and have treated him unjustly.
Job rejects his counsel again and declares that God has attacked him unjustly (Job 16:7-14) while Job has kept his integrity and righteousness (Job 16:15-17). But he returns to his desire to appear before God and be justified: “My eye pours out tears to God, that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor” (Job 16:20, 21) Once again, he recalls his pain and loses hope of being vindicated.
Bildad tries to terrify Job by detailing the consequences of the judgment of the unrighteous, several of which are exactly what Job has suffered. He echoes and amplifies Eliphaz’s discourse. But Job rejects it again and insists on God’s injustice in having treated him this way: “Know then that God has put me in the wrong and has closed his net about me” (Job 19:6). He accuses his friends of having joined with God in attacking him: “Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?” (Job 19:22) But once again he regains hope that he will be vindicated: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27). With the certainty that he will be vindicated, Job declares that not he but his friends should tremble because they have judged Job and have treated him unjustly.
