Job 15:12 Commentary and Bible Study

Imputing motives to Job that he has no right to impute, Eliphaz let’s his imagination carry him away. To read into the heart of others things that are not there, is a snare and a very great evil. It is a temptation to think that we know more than we are capable of knowing. None of the evils that Eliphaz claims to see in Job were really there, and the notion of God’s servant which he developed actually said more about him than about Job. Job’s heart, he claims, is guilty of winking at God and at what he says. Some translate this ‘flash’, using a word that suggests anger. But if ‘wink at’ is correct then Eliphaz may mean that Job ignores and refuses to take seriously what God says – to wink at something is to acknowledge that you see it (with one eye), but to act as if your do not see it (with the other eye).Eliphaz was confused. He was in a confusing situation, but a wiser man than him would have discerned what was really happening. Elihu proved to be a wiser man and had the ability to see where Job truly went wrong and where he continued to hold on to the truth. Eliphaz’ confusion stemmed from his own defective theology which more and more exposes him as a man without understanding of the true way to approach God, and of the true basis of a right relationship with God. It was not surprising that a man with such defective theology should draw the wrong conclusion.What he saw was a man who had thrown off his former reverence for God and now dared to say things under trial which he would not have said before. Eliphaz concluded that Job had always had a fatal flaw in him and that this trial had been sent to expose him for what he was, so that Eliphaz and his friends should see the real person. The fact that that Job so vehemently resisted their admonition and refuted their teaching was a further indication to Eliphaz that Job had deviated from the true doctrine of God, as held by the three friends.What was confusing was that Job, while still ruled by the fear of God, went to the limit and beyond in what is proper for a believer to say to God in questioning his painful circumstances. Above all, the proverb applies to Eliphaz and his friends: ‘First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye’ (Matthew 7:5). Yes, even the aged can be presumptuous and think that they know more than they do, and it is an ugly form of pride for any man to presume to be able to correct others when he does not understand the root of the matter himself.