Which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?
The verse belongs to Eliphaz's third speech, in which Job is directly accused. It stands inside the larger debate between Job and his friends over his afflictions, a debate in which the friends argue that suffering implies sin and God's disfavor while prosperity indicates righteousness and God's favor. Its meaning is that the wicked reject God, telling Him to depart and questioning what the Almighty can do for them, or to them, denying that He can help them.
In this it illustrates how people may wrongly dismiss God's power and authority. It does not establish that suffering proves a person is under God's displeasure, since Job's friends generally spoke truths but misapplied them to Job. As one of Eliphaz's declarations, it should not be treated as a reliable statement about God or Job merely because it is recorded in Scripture, but must be tested against other inspired teachings. The same attitude applies to national pride that believes greatness can be achieved without God, as seen in postwar Japan's belief that it could become a great nation without God.
The verse belongs to Eliphaz's third speech, in which Job is directly accused. It stands inside the larger debate between Job and his friends over his afflictions, a debate in which the friends argue that suffering implies sin and God's disfavor while prosperity indicates righteousness and God's favor. Its meaning is that the wicked reject God, telling Him to depart and questioning what the Almighty can do for them, or to them, denying that He can help them.
In this it illustrates how people may wrongly dismiss God's power and authority. It does not establish that suffering proves a person is under God's displeasure, since Job's friends generally spoke truths but misapplied them to Job. As one of Eliphaz's declarations, it should not be treated as a reliable statement about God or Job merely because it is recorded in Scripture, but must be tested against other inspired teachings. The same attitude applies to national pride that believes greatness can be achieved without God, as seen in postwar Japan's belief that it could become a great nation without God.