They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
Job 15:35 is the closing line of Eliphaz's second speech, in which he brings fresh accusations against Job that his suffering was caused by his own sin. It stands within the poetic colloquies of chapters 3-31 between Job and his three friends concerning the cause and object of human suffering. Those colloquies were spoken from their own wisdom and observation. Job answered that second speech of Eliphaz by protesting his innocence and desiring death.
That the book is inspired guarantees that Eliphaz truly spoke this saying that the wicked conceive mischief and bring forth vanity, not that his charge was true in Job's case. His declarations about God and Job must therefore be tested against inspired teaching and not treated as reliable merely because they appear in Scripture, since his words were not always true. The principle stated in the verse is generally true that evil is ultimately punished and good is ultimately rewarded.
Eliphaz misapplied that true principle to Job because he had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. Affliction does not prove that a person is under God's displeasure. God was working through Job's trial for His own glory, for comfort and hope to thousands of suffering people, and for blessing to Job himself.
Job 15:35 is the closing line of Eliphaz's second speech, in which he brings fresh accusations against Job that his suffering was caused by his own sin. It stands within the poetic colloquies of chapters 3-31 between Job and his three friends concerning the cause and object of human suffering. Those colloquies were spoken from their own wisdom and observation. Job answered that second speech of Eliphaz by protesting his innocence and desiring death.
That the book is inspired guarantees that Eliphaz truly spoke this saying that the wicked conceive mischief and bring forth vanity, not that his charge was true in Job's case. His declarations about God and Job must therefore be tested against inspired teaching and not treated as reliable merely because they appear in Scripture, since his words were not always true. The principle stated in the verse is generally true that evil is ultimately punished and good is ultimately rewarded.
Eliphaz misapplied that true principle to Job because he had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. Affliction does not prove that a person is under God's displeasure. God was working through Job's trial for His own glory, for comfort and hope to thousands of suffering people, and for blessing to Job himself.