Job 5:17-27 and inanimate amity and covenant with the stones of the field and Job's mind and Eliphaz's mind

Job 5:17-27 is the fourth (and concluding) section of Eliphaz's initial speech. The first part, 4:1-6, was Eliphaz's gentle, yet ambiguous, encouragement and chiding of Job. The second, 4:7-5:7, was an exposition of three proverbial sayings (4:8, 17; 5:2) which provide the occasion for Eliphaz to express inconsistent theories about human responsibility for the distress that has come their way. The third, 5:8-16, is Eliphaz's declaration of the central principles of the wisdom tradition, the principles which will be, to use legal terminology, the "law of the case." Finally, in 5:17-27, Eliphaz applies these principles to Job's situation. He has nothing but hope for a bright future for Job. Knowing the structure of Eliphaz's speech helps us grasp the type of mind he has, just as close attention to Job 3 or 14 gives us a window into Job's mind.

There is one other point to make about the structure of Eliphaz's speech in general. I think that its "flow" seemingly follows the flow of Prov. 3:7-12. Prov. 3 begins the great exposition of wisdom principles upon which the young man aspiring to wisdom ought to base his life. Three of those principles are explained in vv.7-12: fear God (v.7), you reap what you sow (vv.9-10), and recognize distress as God's discipline (vv.11-12). Compare these themes to those in Eliphaz's first speech. He first urges Job to consider that the fear of God is his confidence (4:6); then he exposits the principle that you reap what you sow in the large middle section (4:8ff.), and finally he speaks of Job's distress as the divine disicpline (5:17ff.). Eliphaz is laying the wisdom tradition's interpretive template of life neatly over Job's felt distress. Thus, it is not unexpected that he construes Job's loss as an example of God's discipline. And, as we know from Proverbs, "for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights" (3:12). 'God loves you, Job, and has a wonderful plan for your life which, unfortunately, includes the discipline you are facing.'

Getting Ahead of Himself, Again

I argued in a previous essay that Eliphaz paints himself into an intellectual corner in 4:7-5:7 because he lets his ideas run away with him. The idea in 4:7-5:7 that runs away with him is that humans, either because of their mere humanness or their foolishness, get clobbered by life. They are destroyed, wiped out, annihilated, obliterated, crushed, decimated. Instead of simply observing that you sow what you reap or, conversely, that everyone faces loss, Eliphaz rants and rants, clobbering all in his way. But, when you think about it for a minute, this is also what he does in 5:17-27, though from another perspective. In these verses he gives an unqualified, and unrealistic, assessment of Job's hope. As he continues in the passage, the hope becomes more dizzying, more removed from reality, subject only to the rhetorical flourishes that Eliphaz can muster.

Not only will job be redeemed from famine and death (5:21) and be delivered from "seven" harms (5:20), but he will enter into a covenant with the rocks of the field (5:23). Imagine that idea for a minute. What might it mean other than that Eliphaz is fully carried away, imagining that even the lifeless stones would rise up to want to form a league of amity with Job? Jesus will say in the Gospels that if the crowds were silent at his coming into Jerusalem even the stones would cry out. We see that passage as an indication of the divine power resident in Jesus--even rocks on the path would recognize that God is here. I think that Eliphaz's thought in 5:23 is similar. So blessed will Job be, so transformed will be his world that the world of nature will be in complete harmony with him. The Hebrew eschatological vision might have the wolf living amicably with the lamb, with no one to hurt or destroy in all of God's holy mountain (cf. Is. 11), but here Eliphaz does that one better. He suggests not only natural harmony but also inanimate amity.

And he goes further. Job will know that his tent is safe (5:24), even though, in reality, Job's "tent," interpreted to mean the house of his children, was anything other than safe. But Eliphaz simply doesn't stop. Job will also know that his descendants will be many (5:25). Eliphaz has now completely lost his touch with reality. He is flying as high as Amazon.com flew before the NASDAQ bubble burst in March 2000. He is absolutely soaring, needing no wings to complete his journey to the heavens and around the earth. And then, to top it off, he assures Job that he will come to his grave in "ripe old age" (5:26). He has just heard Job lament the fact of his birth in ch.3. Though Eliphaz tries to give Job the assurance that these thoughts are sanctioned by the tradition (5:27) and are those to which Job should subject himself, we see that Eliphaz has completely lost touch with reality.

Conclusion--Two Types of Minds

What is at stake in Job 3-5 is the operation of two very different types of minds. We might characterize Job as having the realistic/escapist type of mind. He sees his distress and wants to die or wishes he had never been born (3:1-10). Then he takes a mental journey to a pleasant place (3:11-23) before returning to the crushing reality before him. This is also the way he argues in Job 14. He faces the shocking and overwhelming reality of his loss, but then needs to escape from it before returning to face it again.

Eliphaz is different. He lives in a fantasy world, with wisdom principles being the trigger not of realistic but of fantasy living and thinking. He begins with the realia before him--Job's distress, but quickly moves to principles of life with which to interpret the distress. He applies the principles in a fantastic way--either leading to ghoulish death or unrealistic hope. Rather than looking at the conversation as not "jelling" or the parties as passing like ships in the night, we ought to see Job and Eliphaz as representing two completely different types of minds--which were seemingly compatible when life was good but which, when distress descends, show their stark and chilling incompatibility.

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