Are the consolations of God small with thee? is there any secret thing with thee?
Job 15:11 occurs in Eliphaz's second speech, which brings fresh accusations against Job. It belongs to the extended colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 concerning his afflictions and the cause and object of human suffering. It falls within the book's exploration of sin, suffering, and God's providence. In that debate the friends wrongly argue that suffering implies sin and God's disfavor, insisting Job's suffering is caused by his sin while God is disciplining him through affliction.
As the speech of one of Job's friends from his own wisdom and observation, its words are truly recorded but not guaranteed true in application, for what the friends said was generally true but misapplied to Job, and affliction does not prove a person is under God's displeasure. The friends' declarations must not be treated as reliable truth about God or Job unless supported by other inspired Scripture, so the verse should be weighed against the rest of the Bible rather than accepted merely because it contains good statements.
The verse presents God's consolations as what people need when earthly and human resources prove inadequate to comfort them. It asks whether God's consolations seem small, and when they do the heart has reason for shame, since God's ordinances should make a deep and lasting impression by their power to quicken and comfort rather than a light and passing one.
Job 15:11 occurs in Eliphaz's second speech, which brings fresh accusations against Job. It belongs to the extended colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 concerning his afflictions and the cause and object of human suffering. It falls within the book's exploration of sin, suffering, and God's providence. In that debate the friends wrongly argue that suffering implies sin and God's disfavor, insisting Job's suffering is caused by his sin while God is disciplining him through affliction.
As the speech of one of Job's friends from his own wisdom and observation, its words are truly recorded but not guaranteed true in application, for what the friends said was generally true but misapplied to Job, and affliction does not prove a person is under God's displeasure. The friends' declarations must not be treated as reliable truth about God or Job unless supported by other inspired Scripture, so the verse should be weighed against the rest of the Bible rather than accepted merely because it contains good statements.
The verse presents God's consolations as what people need when earthly and human resources prove inadequate to comfort them. It asks whether God's consolations seem small, and when they do the heart has reason for shame, since God's ordinances should make a deep and lasting impression by their power to quicken and comfort rather than a light and passing one.