Wisdom · Chapter 15 of 42
Job 15
Eliphaz opens the second cycle more harshly, accusing Job of empty, windy talk that undermines reverence and betrays his own guilt. He mocks Job's pretension to unique wisdom and appeals again to human uncleanness: not even the heavens are clean before God. Then he delivers a long, grim portrait of the wicked man's tormented life, restless and doomed, plainly meaning Job to see himself in it.
What happens in Job 15
Eliphaz begins the second round of speeches with far less courtesy than his first. He charges Job with uttering vain knowledge and filling his belly with the east wind, using unprofitable talk that casts off the fear of God. Job's own mouth, he says, condemns him. He mocks Job's presumption: was Job the first man born, that he alone holds the secret of God's wisdom? Returning to his old theme, he asks what man can be clean, since God puts no trust even in his holy ones and the heavens are not pure in his sight, so how much more is man, who drinks iniquity like water.
Eliphaz then paints an extended, dread-filled picture of the wicked man: he travails in pain all his days, hears terrifying sounds, wanders for bread, dwells in desolate houses, sees his branch dried by flame, and reaps only vanity and deceit. The implication is unmistakable, that Job is this man.
Job 15 in context
The second cycle of speeches begins here, and the friends grow more accusatory as Job refuses to break. Eliphaz drops his earlier gentleness and now essentially calls Job a hardened sinner whose words prove his guilt. He recycles his signature doctrine, that no one is clean before God, but weaponizes it further, and devotes most of the chapter to a lurid description of the wicked man's fate, meant as a mirror for Job.
It is theology hardening into cruelty, a portrait that fits many but not the blameless man before him.
Main themes of Job 15
Job 15 (KJV)
1Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said, 2Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? 3Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? 4Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God. 5For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty. 6Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee. 7Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? 8Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? 9What knowest thou, that we know not? what understandest thou, which is not in us? 10With us are both the grayheaded and very aged men, much elder than thy father. 11Are the consolations of God small with thee? is there any secret thing with thee? 12Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at, 13That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth? 14What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 16How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? 17I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare; 18Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it: 19Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. 20The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. 21A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. 22He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. 23He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. 25For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. 26He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers: 27Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. 28And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. 29He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. 30He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away. 31Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence. 32It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. 33He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive. 34For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. 35They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
Verses to carry from Job 15
“Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee.”Job 15:6
“What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?”Job 15:14
“The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.”Job 15:20
Thematic connection
How Job 15 points to Jesus
Eliphaz asks the right question with the wrong intent: what is man that he should be clean, and he which is born of woman that he should be righteous? By nature, no one is clean; even the heavens are not pure in God's sight. Eliphaz uses this to condemn, but the Gospel uses it to prepare for grace. If no one born of woman is clean, then cleansing must come from outside us. Christ, though born of woman, was the one truly clean and righteous man, and by his blood he cleanses those who could never cleanse themselves.
Eliphaz painted the wicked man tormented and doomed; Jesus took that doom, becoming sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. The uncleanness Eliphaz used as a club, Christ answers with a fountain. This is a thematic connection.
Questions about Job 15
Why does Eliphaz say Job's own mouth condemns him?
Eliphaz treats Job's bold complaints and self-defense as proof of guilt, claiming that a truly righteous man would not speak so. He turns Job's lament into evidence against him. But Scripture disagrees; God later says Job spoke rightly, while the friends did not. Eliphaz's tactic, making a sufferer's honest words the charge against him, is a warning against reading grief or doubt as automatic signs of a wicked heart.
Is Eliphaz right that no one can be clean before God?
As a general truth, yes; Scripture repeatedly affirms that all have sinned and no one is righteous on their own. Eliphaz's error is not the doctrine but its use. He deploys universal sinfulness to prove Job's suffering is deserved punishment, flattening the difference between common human sin and the specific false charge that Job's calamity is judgment. The truth about sin points to grace, not to condemning the afflicted.
Reflection
Eliphaz used a true doctrine, that no one is clean before God, to bludgeon a hurting man. The same truth should drive us to mercy, not accusation. If no one is clean, then all of us need the fountain, and none of us can look down on another's suffering as simple desert.
Let the reality of sin humble you and send you to Christ, who alone makes clean.
A prayer from Job 15
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