Job 22:1 names Eliphaz the Temanite as the speaker and presents his words as an answering reply in the ongoing exchange between Job and his friends, opening another stage of their argument. It introduces his third speech, in which he accuses Job. It begins his reply in the debate between Job and his three friends about Job's afflictions, a debate extending from chapters 4 to 31.
The verse begins another answer of Eliphaz in the arguments between Job and his three friends in chapters 3-31 on the cause and object of human suffering. In that discussion the three friends condemned Job for seeming self-righteousness while he felt they judged him unjustly.
The verse means Eliphaz truly spoke, but what he spoke is not necessarily true, since inspiration of the book guarantees that the words were spoken, not that every word spoken is true. What Job's friends said was generally true but misapplied in Job's case, being their own wisdom and observation, since they had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. His statements about Job and God are not reliable simply because they appear in Scripture but must be tested against inspired teaching, and his teaching that God's favor brings abundant gold and silver is false doctrine and not a dependable account of Job's case.
Job 22:1 names Eliphaz the Temanite as the speaker and presents his words as an answering reply in the ongoing exchange between Job and his friends, opening another stage of their argument. It introduces his third speech, in which he accuses Job. It begins his reply in the debate between Job and his three friends about Job's afflictions, a debate extending from chapters 4 to 31.
The verse begins another answer of Eliphaz in the arguments between Job and his three friends in chapters 3-31 on the cause and object of human suffering. In that discussion the three friends condemned Job for seeming self-righteousness while he felt they judged him unjustly.
The verse means Eliphaz truly spoke, but what he spoke is not necessarily true, since inspiration of the book guarantees that the words were spoken, not that every word spoken is true. What Job's friends said was generally true but misapplied in Job's case, being their own wisdom and observation, since they had never known a thoroughly good man to be so afflicted. His statements about Job and God are not reliable simply because they appear in Scripture but must be tested against inspired teaching, and his teaching that God's favor brings abundant gold and silver is false doctrine and not a dependable account of Job's case.