Chapters 15 to 17 in the book of Job record the second interchange between Eliphaz and Job. In chapter 15 Eliphaz is much more severe with Job than he had been in his first speech. After listening to Job’s protestations of innocence and complaints against God, he became convinced that Job had sinned and even brings five specific charges against him. They are 1) that he has engaged in empty and unprofitable talk (vv. 2–3), 2) that he casts off fear of God and restrains prayer by his impious speaking (vv. 4–5), 3) that he is arrogant in refusing to receive the wisdom of the ancients (vv. 7–10), 4) that he is unwilling to receive the consolations of God and a gentle word of correction (v. 11), and 5) that he has turned his spirit against God in unrighteous anger and rebellion (vv. 12–13). He goes on to paint a picture of the terrors of judgment that the wicked man suffers (vv. 20–24) and the fleeting and fragile character of his prosperity (27–30), and he concludes with a warning, meant for Job, that the wicked man should not trust in futile things (31–35).
Job’s answer to him in chapters 16 and 17 is arranged as a chiasm.
16:1–6: complaint against his friends
16:7–14: complaint against God
16:15–17:1: the devastation God’s enmity has caused in his life
17:2–9: further complaint against God
17:10–16: appeal to his friends
His complaint against his friends (16:1–6) is that they are miserable comforters who have only added to his trouble by their cruel and unjust accusations. He says, “If I were in your place, I could do the same to you, but I would comfort and strengthen you instead.”
The first part of his complaint against God alternates between speaking directly to God and talking about him. It has three parts. In verses 7–9 he protests that God has worn him out, driven away all companions, deprived him of vitality and torn him like a wild beast tears its prey. In verses 10–11 he talks about human enemies who have attacked him, but God sent these enemies against him and turned him over to the hands of the wicked. In verses 12–14 he uses very violent imagery. God has shattered him, taken him by the scruff of the neck and shaken him to pieces, set him up as his target, wounded him with wound upon wound and run at him like a warrior.
16:15–17:1 describe the devastation God’s enmity has caused him in his innocence (v. 17). Verses 15–16 were literally true. He had covered himself with sackcloth, put dust on his head and wept until the shadow of death showed on his eyelids. Verses 18–21 are the most difficult verses in this whole speech, but should be taken together. Job first cries out to the earth not to cover his blood. When Cain killed Abel, Abel’s blood cried to God from the ground for justice (Gen 4:10). In the same way Job wants his blood to cry for justice. Furthermore, he believes that his witness is in heaven (v. 19), i.e., that it has come within the hearing of God himself. His friends have scorned him, but perhaps God will pay attention (v. 20). Verse 21 is the difficult verse. Some commentators say that Job is sure that he has an advocate in heaven, but this seems to me not to fit the context. Instead, we should translate the word “one” (NKJV) as “it” with its antecedent being “witness” (v. 19) or the cry of verse 18: “Oh , that it (that witness or that cry) might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor.” He has a strong desire that God would actually listen to his cry, but no confidence that he will. Therefore, in the remaining verses of the section he returns to despair. He is dying without hope.
The continuation of Job’s complaint against God in 17:2–9 is also difficult. Men (either the three friends or others, see 30:1f) mock at him, and no one will become surety for him (3b). He therefore asks God to be his surety, to guarantee his safety and well-being in the present circumstances (3a). God should do this because it is he who has hidden the heart of men from understanding his need, and they cannot therefore play the part that he would like them to play (v. 4). The translation of verse 5 is not difficult, but its meaning is obscure. Perhaps it goes with verse 6 and means that while it is not good that one would flatter his friends (whoever does makes himself worthy of judgment), it is at least as bad that the people associated with Job have made him a byword of the people and have spit in his face. Verses 8 and 9 may be a kind of sarcastic reference to his friends and mockers. They are the upright and innocent, astonished and appalled at what has happened to Job, and stirring themselves up against him because they see him as a hypocrite. Therefore, they say (perhaps with a subtle reference to themselves), “The righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.” In other words, the righteous, not such as Job, will prosper.
The final section of Job’s speech is a plea for better understanding. Job says sarcastically, “Start over with your speeches. Try again, and still I will not find one wise man among you.” He has come to the end of hope and life (11), but his friends think that they can change night into day and tell him, in the face of darkness, that light is near (12). Their words cannot persuade him that there remains anything for him but death (14–16). Even hope cannot go down to the grave with him. This is not the vibrant confession of faith we find in Psalm 16:9 (“My flesh also will rest in hope”) but a recoiling from death as the end of hope.
We’ve seen different views of death in different speeches Job has made before. First he saw it simply as a way of escape from the misery of his life (3:11). Later he at least considered the possibility that it was the end of everything (10:21–22). In chapter 14:13–14 he sees he grave as the place of waiting for his change, but that is a hope deferred. Now here he expresses his faith that the grave is the end of hope. His changing attitudes are the measure of his distress and the turbulence of his mind.
His fundamental problem is and has been that God has become his enemy and he sees no help anywhere. Nevertheless, he has not lost his faith. He does not deny God’s existence, curse God or even rebel against him. Nor does he contemplate unlawful ways of escape from his trouble. Nevertheless, his trouble is so great that he has no comfort in his faith, and he continues desperately to seek an answer to the problem that is destroying him: why has God done such terrible things to one who is righteous?