17 ¶
I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare;
18 Which wise men have told from their
fathers, and have not hid it: 19 Unto
whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. 20 The wicked man travaileth with pain all his
days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. 21 A dreadful sound is in his ears: in
prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. 22 He believeth not that he shall return out of
darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. 23
He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the
day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24
Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against
him, as a king ready to the battle. 25
For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself
against the Almighty. 26 He runneth upon
him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers: 27 Because he covereth his face with his
fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. 28 And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in
houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. 29 He shall not be rich, neither shall his
substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the
earth. 30 He shall not depart out of
darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth
shall he go away. 31 Let not him that is
deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence. 32 It shall be accomplished before his time, and
his branch shall not be green. 33 He
shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as
the olive. 34 For the congregation of
hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of
bribery. 35 They conceive mischief, and
bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
In verses 17-19
Eliphaz sets the scene for the rest of his argument by stating, “I will shew
thee,” and, “that which I have seen I will declare.” This is to lend
credibility to the argument in that it represents his own personal experience.
I thought it might be interesting to see how the gospel historian, Luke,
presented his narrative.
Luke 1:1 ¶
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which
from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; 3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order,
most excellent Theophilus, 4 That thou
mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
Luke’s writing
is based not on his eyewitness but on the reports he received from others who
were eyewitnesses and heavily involved in the events he relates. When he begins
writing his history, The Acts of the Apostles, or just, Acts, he is reporting
many events which he personally witnessed. Of course, we believe that Luke was probably
one of the few historians in the historiography of the Bible events whose
writing was given by inspiration (2Timothy 3:16) which means that God gave him
wisdom and understanding (Job 32:8; 2Peter 3:15). This is no way means that
Luke took dictation from God but wrote according to his own style and learning
as God uses men and women to accomplish His purposes most of the time.
Notice how the
apostle John underscores the reliability of his testimony.
1John 1:1 ¶
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of
the Word of life; 2 (For the life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your
joy may be full.
Eliphaz also
underscores the credibility of what he is about to say by insisting that the
ancients knew it and passed it down from generation to generation so that these
statements he is going to make are timeless truths and not his own invention.
Psalm 78:1 ¶
« Maschil of Asaph. » Give ear, O my people, to my law:
incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2
I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
3 Which we have heard and known, and our
fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide
them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the
LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and
appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should
make them known to their children: 6
That the generation to come might know them, even the children which
should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and
not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn
and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and
whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
Eliphaz argues
in opposition to Job’s statement in 9:24 when Job says, “the earth is given
into the hand of the wicked.” In Eliphaz’s view in verse 19 the earth is given
to God’s people and them alone. The wicked are always punished and do not
thrive for long. Eliphaz would represent the postmillennial thought of the
1900’s in America, the view that mankind or rather the part of it that was
Christian would rule the earth. The evangelical ideal in 1900’s America was
that the horrifying end of human history would came after a golden age of
Christianity’s domination of the earth and before Christ’s return.(24) There
were sermons about America being the great mountain in Daniel 2 that crushed
the other kingdoms and filled the whole earth and how America was the Promised
Land now. I have copies of sermons preached in Congress that state such things
before the Civil War.
This manner of
interpretation of the last times as expressed in the Bible was confronted as
the La Belle Epoque and the Gilded Age when Christians and non-Christians truly
believed that humanity was going to usher in a glorious reign of peace,
prosperity, scientific discovery, and understanding ended with World War One.
The thought almost died out by 1936.
But,
essentially, American evangelicals believed that Christianity would be
instrumental in ushering in this new age, that good people looked good, and
that bad people were always punished by poverty, sickness, or whatever other
miseries confronted human beings. As this superficial Christianity blossomed
American Christians swapped the God of the Bible out and took the government of
the people as His replacement so much so that President Woodrow Wilson’s mentor
at Johns Hopkins University, Richard Ely, would say;
Now,
it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it
is the State, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the
establishment of the Church and of the Family. It was once held that kings
ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted belief, though it be
afterwards discredited, there is generally found a kernel of truth. In this
case it was the divine right of the state. (25)
By placing the
kind of thinking that Eliphaz presents in historical context I am trying to
bring this way of thinking closer to home. Christians in America often viewed
disaster, poverty, and illness as a judgment and many still do. People are poor
because they are inferior. People are sick because they are being punished for
their sins. Disasters that happen must be a judgment on the local area or the
nation at large. It is inconceivable to this type of Christian to accept that
bad things happen because we live in fallen bodies in a fallen world that
cannot hope for anything but Christ’s return to straighten it out.
In this type of
thinking, everyone is a Christian, or should be, so you can justify screaming
at people on the street for their wicked sins of which many don’t even
understand as anything more than a vague feeling that their lives are just
screwed up and they don’t know what to do. In postmillennial thinking everyone
should be getting with the program and behaving properly as we move the world
onto establishing “the kingdom” on earth.
As an example
of this thinking the bloodbath that was the American Civil War, the six hundred
thousand dead, the tens of thousands of former slaves that starved to death at
the end of the war, the twelve years of misery for southern whites, and the
ensuing century of continuing misery for African-Americans in America would
just be glory-glory-glory-hallelujah-his-truth-is-marching-on as America walked
bravely through the millennium.
The so-called “Protestant
Ethic” that saw a connection between being close to God and being a worldly
success, focused on individualism and helping oneself as the key to salvation
and riches, included extreme patriotism that declared America as God’s favored
nation. As one author put it, “In the end, it was less a search for redemption
than a form of national self-congratulation.” (26)
Of course, this
attitude led to disbelief in God and worship of the state in His place. As a
president-to-be criticized liberals in his 2006 Call to Renewal speech for surrendering religious faith as the
great instigator of social change and noted how the great liberals of the 19th
century had all been believers, so history tells us that the expectation that
government is God’s agent on earth for bringing in the kingdom results in
atheism. Let that be a warning to conservatives who want government to enforce
the dictates of the Bible on unbelievers rather than focusing on the Bible
changing believers. The great danger of the modern liberal is that they think
they are going to make a perfect world, at gunpoint, by theft, extortion, and
governmental power. The great danger of the modern conservative is that they
want a government composed of only Christians, as Mike Huckabee recently said,
the resulting theocracy of which would be a nightmare for true worship as
church/state combinations always are. Whose version of Christianity shall we
submit to?
I am taking the
following verse out of its context to ask a question.
Luke 18:8
I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son
of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Eliphaz and
friends looked down their noses at Job like a late 19th century
Boston Brahmin would have looked down on a beggar. “You can’t be where you are
unless you’ve just been wicked. Just look at how God has blessed me. Wealth
proves I’m Godly. Poverty and suffering prove you aren’t.”
Eliphaz continues
his diatribe against suffering Job explaining how the wicked always get bashed
about and can’t possibly win in this life. They are cut off in their prosperity
because they are in opposition to God and they go wandering, begging for bread.
There are some interesting statements in Eliphaz’s speech that could be linked
to the destruction of the Beast in Revelation.
Compare verse
30 with Eliphaz’s statement in 4:9;
9 By
the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they
consumed.
And Paul’s
statement about the end times.
2Thessalonians 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming:
Also, “the
congregation of the hypocrites,” and, “tabernacles of bribery,” are awesome
images and clever accusations against Job.
In verse 35 we
are reminded of warnings from Paul, first about false Christians;
Philippians 3:18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of
Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction,
whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly
things.)
..and those who
would deceive the naïve Christian;
Romans 16:18
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own
belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
Eliphaz
continues to misrepresent God by taking truth and oversimplifying and
misapplying it in willful, self-righteous ignorance like many modern
Christians.
(24) James H.
Moorhead, “The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865-1925,”
Church History 53, no. 1 (March 1984),
61-62.
(25) Gary M.
Pequet and Clifford M. Thies, “The Shaping of a Future President’s Economic
Thought: Richard T. Ely and Woodrow Wilson at “The Hopkins,” The Independent Review: A Journal of
Political Economy 15, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 262, 266.
(26) Alonzo L.
Hamby, Liberalism and Its Challengers:
From F.D.R. to Bush (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 120.
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