No Gain for God

The “third dialogue cycle” begins again with Eliphaz and his response to Job. He begins with a series of rhetorical questions that recall the tactics of his earlier two speeches (4:1–5:27; 15:1–35). In those utterances Eliphaz sought to undermine Job’s claims of innocence by arguing that no human can be declared innocent before God (4:7–9, 17–19; 15:14–16). Since even the angels—who stand above humans in Eliphaz’s understanding of creation order—are charged “with error” by God (4:18–19; 15:15–16; see also Ps. 8:5), how then can sinful humans hope to escape the divine punishment they all deserve? Now Eliphaz takes a further step to argue that God remains essentially unaffected by human conduct—whether exceedingly wicked or exceedingly righteous—and thus we can trust his judgm…