Talking Through Your Hat
Job 21-24 Job’s friends have told him that the evil he is suffering has come on account of his own wickedness. He proceeds to refute that by reminding them that there are plenty of wicked men who prosper and never suffer, not even once, during their lifetimes. So absence of prosperity, good health, or whatever, is not necessarily a sign of God’s judgment. The presence of these things is not a sign of his pleasure either. That argument doesn’t seem to impress Eliphaz: “ Is it for your piety that he rebukes you and brings charges against you? Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless ” —Job 22:4, 5. He then goes on to list all the nasty things Job has done. Since we have already been told that Job was a righteous man (1:8), we can only imagine that Eliphaz is “talking through his hat” as my father used to say. He is in error when he assumes: “ Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his wo...