Job 15:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Verses 20-25 are probably quotations from ancient, eastern poets, all saying that suffering, depression and fear are the direct result of sin. The word translated ‘travaileth with pain’ can mean to dance, to whirl, or to writhe in torment, and may be connected with the pain of childbirth, a pain strong enough to make the body twist. This is Eliphaz’ main theme and the same crude analysis of Job’s suffering which he has used repeatedly, which simplistically claims that all great suffering comes through wickedness. The second half of the verse is a little obscure but may mean that the wicked man, the oppressor – that is, Job – has uncertainty about the future, an uncertain lifespan. He rarely comes to the end of his days in peace, dying ‘a good old age, an old man, and full of years’ (Genesis 25:8). Rather, he dies prematurely as Job looked as if he was going to do, perhaps through the direct judgment of God, or perhaps through the violence of men.In his previous discourse Eliphaz had offered Job a little hope, though in such a way as to press home the same general message. He had held out the prospects of recovery for a man who returned in repentance to the Lord. Now he becomes more negative and issues solemn threats and warns of judgments that follow the wicked. It is almost as if he is playing back Job’s own words to him, for Job has described the terrors that afflict him in similar terms, ‘When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; ¹⁴ Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions’ (Job 7:13-14). In a rather tawdry way he takes Job’s precise experience, universalises it, and then applies it back to Job again. He describes a man who hears dreadful sounds when all seemed safe and quiet. Those sounds breaks through as a harbinger of doom and in a moment shatters the tranquillity of his soul, so that his world breaks apart totally unexpectedly. None of his prosperity can protect him from the disaster that God has designed to bring him down. The emphasis in both parts of the verse is on the sudden and unexpected nature of the collapse of the wicked. Scripture elsewhere describes the same phenomenon (Psalm 73:18-20). But these are cruel and inappropriate words as applied to Job, designed to fill him with fear and taking away the only support he had in this trial: the hope that he was a child of God loved by a heavenly Father. How much damage a misapplied truth can do!