Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?
Job 15:3 is part of Eliphaz's second speech against Job, in which he brings fresh accusations against him. It belongs to the extended dispute between Job and his three friends in chapters 3-31 concerning the cause and object of human suffering, within the book's larger treatment of providence, sin, and suffering. The friends wrongly blamed Job's suffering on his sin, because they had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. Job, by contrast, conscious of his own integrity, could not understand God's dealings with him, yet he did not charge God foolishly.
The words were spoken as the friends' own wisdom and observation, true in a general sense in themselves but misapplied in Job's case. For that reason the speeches of Eliphaz are not reliable teaching about God or Job on their own authority. Their claims must be tested against the rest of inspired Scripture rather than accepted as truth merely because they appear in the book of Job. The verse describes reasoning with unprofitable talk and speeches by which one can do no good. It applies to arguments that deny the Sabbath's origin at creation despite the facts presented in Genesis and Exodus.
Job 15:3 is part of Eliphaz's second speech against Job, in which he brings fresh accusations against him. It belongs to the extended dispute between Job and his three friends in chapters 3-31 concerning the cause and object of human suffering, within the book's larger treatment of providence, sin, and suffering. The friends wrongly blamed Job's suffering on his sin, because they had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. Job, by contrast, conscious of his own integrity, could not understand God's dealings with him, yet he did not charge God foolishly.
The words were spoken as the friends' own wisdom and observation, true in a general sense in themselves but misapplied in Job's case. For that reason the speeches of Eliphaz are not reliable teaching about God or Job on their own authority. Their claims must be tested against the rest of inspired Scripture rather than accepted as truth merely because they appear in the book of Job. The verse describes reasoning with unprofitable talk and speeches by which one can do no good. It applies to arguments that deny the Sabbath's origin at creation despite the facts presented in Genesis and Exodus.