The Meaning Of Life

And now, things get complicated. The language becomes more confusing and difficult to understand. I can come up with some assemblance of understanding for about the first half of the chapter, but the last half is beyond my ability to understand. Again I say, I’m not a smart man. It makes me want to reach out and listen to someone else to help me understand, but that defeats my objectives, of studying the Bible alone and asking the Spirit to teach me. And once again, I’m trusting in the Lord that if there is something that He wants me to understand, He will make that possible.

In the beginning, it sounds to me as if Eliphaz is trying to support Job, saying that Job has helped many others understand in their time of need, in troubles they are facing, and that he has helped them with reason, but now that Job is experiencing turmoil, he is unable to help himself using the same resources.

Then Eliphaz says some things that I disagree with, about God being angry. My God is a loving God, and while He is often angry about the sin we commit, He’s never truly angry with us because He loves us too much to be angry with us.

Eliphaz also suggests that Job’s condition is something he deserves, that we “reap what we sow”. But then again, I might be wrong about all of it.

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: 2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking?

3 Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands. 4 Your words have steadied those who stumbled; you have braced the knees that were buckling. 5 But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed.

6 Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope? 7 Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed?

8 As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. 9By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.

10 The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken. 11 The old lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. 12 Now a word came to me secretly; my ears caught a whisper of it.

13 In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, 14 fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder. 15 Then a spirita glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled.

16 It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes, and I heard a whispering voice: 17‘ Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?

18 If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error, 19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!

20 They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; unnoticed, they perish forever. 21 Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’