Job 22:30

Eliphaz came from Teman, a region of Edom known for its wise men (Jeremiah 49:7), and this is his third and last speech to Job (Job 22). In his earlier speeches he only hinted that Job must have sinned. Here he says it outright, charging Job with oppressing the poor, refusing water to the weary and withholding help from those in need (Job 22:5–11). Eliphaz and his friends Bildad and Zophar hold that God always rewards the righteous with prosperity in this life and always punishes the wicked with suffering. On that view Job’s losses can mean only one thing. So Eliphaz turns from accusation to appeal, and these verses are his offer: turn back to God, and everything you lost will come back to you.

The reader of Job knows what Eliphaz does not. In the opening chapters God himself calls Job “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (Job 1:8), and Job’s suffering is a test of his faith and integrity (Job 1–2). Job answers this speech by holding to his innocence and longing to stand before God himself (Job 23–24). When God at last speaks from the whirlwind (Job 38), Job humbles himself before him (Job 42:1–6), and the LORD says to Eliphaz, “My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath” (Job 42:7).

“Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace” (verse 21) is a command, and the “now” makes it urgent. The verb çâkan means to be familiar with someone or accustomed to them, and it can also carry the sense of being serviceable or of profit. Eliphaz is calling Job to a close, habitual knowledge of God himself. To know about God is to hold facts and doctrines, the way one knows a famous man from a book about him. To be acquainted with him is to know him the way a friend is known, through time spent with him, listening, trust and obedience. The LORD says through Jeremiah, “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me” (Jeremiah 9:23–24), and James writes, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8).

“Be at peace” translates shâlam, the verb from which shalom comes. It speaks of being safe and sound in mind, body and estate, of being whole and complete. To be at peace with God is to be reconciled to him, with the quarrel over, and to have the wholeness that follows. Paul writes, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

“Thereby good shall come unto thee.” The word for good, ṭôwb, is very broad and covers whatever is pleasant, beneficial, prosperous or right. The verses that follow show that Eliphaz had restored wealth chiefly in mind. The good that God gives to those who know him is wider, and it includes his favour, his presence and a contentment that holds in every circumstance. “O taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8), and the psalmist says to him, “Thou art good, and doest good” (Psalm 119:68).

“Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart” (verse 22). The verb lâqach, here in the command form qach, means to take, accept or receive, and Eliphaz softens it with “I pray thee”, so that it comes as an earnest plea. The word for law, tôwrâh, means instruction or teaching. Job lived before the law of Moses was given, so the word here means God’s teaching in the broad sense, his revealed will and the principles of the righteous life. “From his mouth”, with peh, the ordinary word for mouth and speech, says that this teaching comes from God himself and carries his authority.

The second half says the same thing again from the inside. To “lay up” is sûwm, to put, set or place, and here it means to store something carefully, the way a valuable possession is kept. “His words” is ʼêmer, something said, a word or saying, and it stands in parallel with “the law” in the first half. The heart, lêbâb, is the inner person in Hebrew thought, the seat of mind, will, feeling and conscience together. Solomon gives the reason for guarding it: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). To lay up God’s words in the heart is to remember them, think them over and let them shape what we desire and do.

Scripture says this again and again. “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart” (Deuteronomy 6:6). The blessed man’s “delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2). “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). Proverbs asks the son to let his heart keep God’s commandments (Proverbs 3:1–3), Moses says the word is “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it” (Deuteronomy 30:14), and James calls us to be doers of the word as well as hearers (James 1:22).

“If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up” (verse 23). The verb shûwb means to turn back or return, and when a person turns back to God it describes repentance, a change of direction in heart and life. Eliphaz assumes that Job has strayed and that this turn is his only road back. Scripture makes the same call to all who have truly strayed: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him” (Isaiah 55:7). God promises that if his people humble themselves, pray, seek his face and turn from their wicked ways, he will hear, forgive and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

“The Almighty” is Shadday, an ancient title of God, the name by which he made himself known to Abraham as “the Almighty God” (Genesis 17:1). It appears 31 times in Job. Its exact meaning is uncertain, and “All-Sufficient One” is one possible sense. Eliphaz uses it to stress God’s power to do what he promises.

To be “built up” is bânâh, to build, set up or repair, and the same verb is used of obtaining children. For Job, who had lost his children, his flocks, his health and his good name, being built up would mean all of these restored.

“Thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles.” To put far away is râchaq, a clear and decisive removal. Iniquity is ʻevel, wrong, injustice or iniquity in general terms, which Strong’s derives from a root meaning to distort. Tabernacles, ʼôhel, are tents, the dwellings of a people who lived in tents as the patriarchs did. A man’s tent stood for his household, so Eliphaz calls Job to cleanse his family and all that is under his hand. David prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10), John promises that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), Paul calls God’s people to “come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17), and he names the impurity and greed that have no place among the saints (Ephesians 5:3–5).

Verse 24 is deliberate exaggeration. “Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks.” The word for gold here is betser, which Strong’s explains as a clipping, gold as dug out, so it means raw gold or ore. “Lay up” is a different verb from verse 22, shiyth, to set or place. Dust, ʻâphâr, is dry earth or loose soil, the commonest thing underfoot. Ophir, ʼÔwphîyr, was the land famous for the finest gold. Solomon’s ships brought gold from there (1 Kings 9:28), and in the royal psalm the queen stands “in gold of Ophir” (Psalm 45:9). The stones of the brooks are the pebbles of a nachal, a stream bed that fills in the rains, and anyone could pick them up. Eliphaz is saying that a restored Job would have the best gold in the world in such quantity that it would count for no more than gravel. Some also read the line as telling Job to treat gold as dust, holding it loosely, with the paradox that the one who stops loving gold receives it in abundance.

Verse 25 turns from the gift to the Giver. “Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence.” The word the KJV renders “defence” is betser again, the same word it renders “gold” in verse 24. It can be taken as a stronghold, which is how the KJV reads it, and then God himself is Job’s fortress against all that threatens him, as David sings, “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer” (Psalm 18:2). It can also be taken as gold, and then Eliphaz is saying that the Almighty will be Job’s gold, his treasure, worth more than all the gold of Ophir. Both are true of God. “And thou shalt have plenty of silver”: keçeph is silver, named from its pale colour, and by implication money, so the promise is of overflowing wealth.

“For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God” (verse 26). The “then” points back to the turning of verses 21 to 25. The verb ʻânag means to take delight or find pleasure, with a sense of being delicately and richly pleased. Here the delight is in God himself, above his gifts and above relief from trouble. “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:4). “In thy presence is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” (Psalm 73:25–26).

To “lift up thy face”, nâsâʼ pânîym, is a Hebrew idiom for honour, confidence and acceptance. A guilty or shamed man hangs his head or hides his face. A man with a clear conscience can look up to God openly and come before him freely. John writes, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God” (1 John 3:21). Eliphaz believes Job has lost this freedom, and he holds it out as the crown of a restored life.

“Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows” (verse 27). “Make thy prayer” is one Hebrew verb, ʻâthar, to pray or entreat. To hear, shâmaʻ, means to listen, heed and respond, so when God hears a prayer he takes it up and acts on it. “But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19). “The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29). Eliphaz’s reasoning matches another line of the same psalm, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18), and he assumes Job’s prayers go unanswered because of his sin. John gives the believer’s confidence: “if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14).

A vow, neder, is a solemn promise made to God, or the thing promised, often made in distress while asking for deliverance, or out of gratitude. God requires that it be kept: a man who vows “shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth” (Numbers 30:2), and “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it” (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5). The verb for “pay” is shâlam, the same verb as “be at peace” in verse 21, used here in the sense of making good or completing what was promised. Eliphaz pictures a Job whose prayers have been answered, keeping the promises he made in his trouble, and so standing again in honour before God and his neighbours.

“Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways” (verse 28). To decree is gāzar, to cut or cut off, and figuratively to divide or decide. It means a firm decision, the kind of word a king, a judge or a respected elder speaks with authority. “It shall be established” is qūm, to rise or stand, so what Job decides will stand up and come to pass. Proverbs gives the same promise with its condition: “Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established” (Proverbs 16:3). Behind every such promise stands God’s own word, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10).

Light, ʾôr, means illumination or a luminary, and in Scripture it pictures God’s presence, truth, guidance, joy and prosperity, while darkness pictures confusion, adversity and judgment. Light shining on Job’s ways means a clear path and success in what he undertakes. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).

“When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person” (verse 29). “Cast down” is shâphêl, to be or become low, to bring low or humble. Being brought low by God is reversible, as Hannah sang: “The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up” (1 Samuel 2:7–8). “Lifting up” is gêvâh. Elsewhere the word often means pride, but here, set against “cast down”, it means exaltation, being raised to a high place.

The “thou” is Job, restored. On one reading, when others around him are brought low, he will speak a word of hope over them and say that there is lifting up. On another, when he himself is cast down, he will be able to say it with confidence. Either way, the lifting up is God’s work, because “he shall save the humble person”. The phrase for the humble is shach ʻayin, literally “low of eyes”, a person whose eyes are lowered, which is the opposite of haughty looks. It describes the modest, lowly person who depends on God.

Scripture says this many times. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5). “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11). “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). A psalm shares the English words “cast down” and shows a soul saying “there is lifting up” to itself: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?... hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance” (Psalm 42:5).

The lifting up God gives the humble is his favour, his salvation and his faithfulness to them in their trials. It may include a change in their circumstances, and it always includes him.

“He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands” (verse 30). This is the hardest line in the passage. The word ʼîy usually means a coast, an island or a region, and the KJV keeps “island”. Many scholars take it here as a different word that sounds the same, so that the line speaks of “the one who is not innocent”, and that is how the ESV, NIV and NASB render it. On that reading Eliphaz promises that God will rescue even guilty people through Job, once Job is restored. On either reading his point is the same: a righteous man becomes the means through which God delivers others.

The verb mâlaṭ is used of escaping, and of letting someone escape, delivering, rescuing and saving a life. “Pureness” is bôr, cleanness or purity, and the hands, kaph, the palm of the hand, stand for a man’s whole conduct. The one who may stand in God’s holy place is “he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:4). Abraham pleaded with God for Sodom (Genesis 18:23–33), “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16), and “by the blessing of the upright the city is exalted” (Proverbs 11:11).

Eliphaz rightly sees that God uses his people to bless and rescue others. He makes that power a wage for merit, when it flows from God’s grace, and his own speech warns us against judging a sufferer the way he judged Job. A life of clean hands and earnest prayer is one God gladly uses, and the deliverance is always his.

Every promise Eliphaz makes finds its full meaning in Jesus Christ. We become acquainted with God by knowing the Son, who said, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9), for “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). Christ “is our peace”, who broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile and reconciled both to God by the cross (Ephesians 2:14–16), and the peace of God now keeps our hearts and minds through him (Philippians 4:7). In him we are blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3–14), and he came that we might have life abundantly (John 10:10).

The law from God’s mouth comes to us most fully in the Word who was with God and was God, by whom all things were made (John 1:1–3), and who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He taught “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29) and came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17). In the new covenant God says, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33), and by the Spirit the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4) as we are conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).

The return and rebuilding of verse 23 happen through him. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), whoever is in Christ is “a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17), and believers are built together into a habitation of God through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:20–22). The treasure of verses 24 and 25 is Christ, who “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9), in whom “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and God in him is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

The lifted face of verse 26 belongs to sinners only through him. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), but the Son always did what pleased the Father (John 8:29), and God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So we “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) and have “boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him” (Ephesians 3:12). Our prayers are heard because Christ intercedes for us (Romans 8:34), we ask in his name (John 14:13–14), and he is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

What God decrees stands in Christ, by whom all things were created (Colossians 1:16), for “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). The light on our ways is his: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Verse 29 is fulfilled most clearly of all. Christ “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5–8), and “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9–11). He calls the weary to himself, for his yoke is easy and his burden light (Matthew 11:28–30). And verse 30 finds its answer in the one whose hands were truly pure. The innocent one delivers the guilty, and “he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

This passage holds two lessons at once. Its promises are true, and they show us who God is: he gives peace to those who know him, he speaks his word to be kept in the heart, he rebuilds those who turn back to him, he is himself the treasure of his people, he delights them, hears them, guides them, lifts up the humble and delivers others through those whose hands are clean. We can take every one of these to God in prayer, because in Christ they are all yea and Amen.

The passage also shows how true words can wound when they are aimed by a wrong judgment. Eliphaz said fine things about God to a suffering friend while accusing him of sins he had never committed, and God called Job his servant and was angry with Eliphaz. The same God who promises restoration to the repentant is the God who allowed a blameless man to suffer for purposes he had not explained, and who stood by that man at the end. When we meet a sufferer, the book of Job teaches us to hold God’s promises and God’s freedom together, as Job’s friends failed to do.