Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.
This closing line gathers up the assurances in verses 17-26 about divine correction and care. It presents those assurances as searched-out truth. It sets them forth as truth that has been carefully examined. It urges them upon the hearer to be heard and known for his own personal good.
The speaker is Eliphaz, asserting that he and his friends had reached their conclusions by their own wisdom and observation. He presents his statements about correction and protection as confirmed by their own search and experience. He urges Job to hear them, to take them to heart, and to accept them for his benefit and good.
Their underlying conclusion was that a good man would not suffer such affliction. That conclusion was mistaken in Job's case and was misapplied to him. It rested on limited observation and shows the limits of human judgment about God's dealings with the suffering. Suffering does not prove that a person is under God's displeasure.
Because the line belongs to Eliphaz's speech, its statements about Job and about God are not uniformly true. They must not be accepted as reliable merely because they appear in Scripture. Nor does the claim to have searched them out make the friends' conclusions reliable in itself. They must be compared with other inspired declarations.
This closing line gathers up the assurances in verses 17-26 about divine correction and care. It presents those assurances as searched-out truth. It sets them forth as truth that has been carefully examined. It urges them upon the hearer to be heard and known for his own personal good.
The speaker is Eliphaz, asserting that he and his friends had reached their conclusions by their own wisdom and observation. He presents his statements about correction and protection as confirmed by their own search and experience. He urges Job to hear them, to take them to heart, and to accept them for his benefit and good.
Their underlying conclusion was that a good man would not suffer such affliction. That conclusion was mistaken in Job's case and was misapplied to him. It rested on limited observation and shows the limits of human judgment about God's dealings with the suffering. Suffering does not prove that a person is under God's displeasure.
Because the line belongs to Eliphaz's speech, its statements about Job and about God are not uniformly true. They must not be accepted as reliable merely because they appear in Scripture. Nor does the claim to have searched them out make the friends' conclusions reliable in itself. They must be compared with other inspired declarations.