Eliphaz criticizes Job for being full of wind (Job 15:2), for arguing in a way that is unprofitable (15:3), and for doing away with the fear of God (15:4) – pretty harsh accusations. But these are justified, in Eliphaz’s view, because it is Job’s iniquity that prompts the things Job says (15:5): “Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; your own lips testify against you” (15:6).

Eliphaz insists that “God puts no trust even in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt” like Job, “who drinks iniquity like water!” (15:16). Yet if Eliphaz is so sure that Job’s argument must be wrong because humans are all such sinful fools, what does Eliphaz think about his own argument?

Job chides his friends: “miserable comforters are you all” (16:2). He wonders when their windy words will come to an end (16:3). He laments, “My friends scorn me” (16:20). In such a situation a person needs friends; but Job’s friends have changed their agenda from comforting him to accusing him.

So his eyes pour out tears to God, but that’s not working for him either. Job recognizes – correctly, we should note, according to the narrative in the first two chapters of the book – that the disaster that has befallen him has indeed come from God’s hand. “God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, and he broke me in two; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target; his archers surrounded me” (16:11-13).

* * * * *

You are indeed the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, and all our times are in your hands, O God. You let good times and hard times come to each of us; you make the rain fall on the just and the unjust. Teach us to trust in you, in every circumstance: for our own strength is never enough to sustain us.