Job 15:17 Commentary and Bible Study

The rest of the chapter is an extended attack on Job based on what Eliphaz has learnt himself and on the collected wisdom which he has gathered out of previous generations. He sets more store by this than by the revelation of God, which had come to mankind through Adam and by subsequent prophets such as Enoch. But these two sources of truth are not comparable, for prophecy is as high above human wisdom as God is above man. The religious man who has never truly found the Lord feels comfortable with human wisdom, because it usually represents the majority view and he feels safer in numbers. The believer on the other hand is part of God’s little flock. He receives what truth he has from God, and he recognises the voice of the Shepherd and follows him. He knows that God’s ways are different to man’s ways and his thoughts higher than man’s thought, and he sees in the gospel a wisdom superior to any that is to be found on earth. Eliphaz tells us what he has seen with his own eyes, that is, experience gleaned from his own life. Believers in God also learn from experience, for ‘we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope’ (Romans 5:3-4). The difference is that their experience is measured by the word of God which defines true Christian experience, while the religious man measures his experience by human wisdom.Not only what he has seen, but what others have seen becomes his authority. Such human wisdom has been passed down from one generation to another. It is esteemed only because it is ancient, but it has originated with a human mind in the first place and so can never reach the level of divine knowledge. All human wisdom is fallible because at best it is partial knowledge, the knowledge of fallible man who makes discoveries through his own experience. Divine knowledge is perfect and comprehensive knowledge. No new fact ever comes to God’s attention which runs the risk of disrupting what he thought he knew before. God knows every detail because he knows the whole. ‘Unlike you Job,’ says Eliphaz, ‘these wise men respected what they received from those who went before them. But you think you can dispense with the wisdom of the ancients and start again with ideas that come from your own head and which we do not recognise.’‘And no stranger passed among them.’ The idea here seems to be that this wisdom, which has been passed down from one generation to another, has not been interfered with or changed. If other traditions had been brought in by strangers, they would have corrupted the wisdom that Eliphaz values and it would have lost its edge. No strangers came into the land and added their own variant views. ‘What we are telling you, Job, is unadulterated wisdom which has been refined by many generations and preserved intact, and yet you reject it. That is an act of extreme arrogance that sets you up as your own authority.’ Men who only know of human wisdom and human authority can admit no alternate to their own collective wisdom. The claim to have received revelation from God is characterised as presumptuous, especially when the believer displays great certainty about the things he believes, a certainty that the religious man does not believe is possible. But that certainty comes from God and the believer claims no credit for his certainty. What he has, he has received and not thought up for himself. He is certain not because of his own investigation but because of the infallible source of revealed truth. The nominal believer interprets this as self-conceit, knowing that he could never attain to such assurance of truth. He is unwilling to accept that anyone else has a better way of knowing than he has, and therefore rejects this knowledge as false.