(REFLECTIONS ON Job 15:1-35)

Eliphaz puts his hope, faith, and knowledge on what has been. What has been is what is, and what will be in his mind. That is why he warns Job to not think that he can know more than those that have lived on earth longer than him.

It is clear that Eliphaz equates experience, longevity, age, etc., as the keys to knowledge. That is why Eliphaz questions Job asking,

7 “Were you the first man to be born,
Or were you brought forth before the hills?
8 “Do you hear the secret counsel of God,
And limit wisdom to yourself?
9 “What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that we do not?
10 “Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
Older than your father.

Job cannot know as much as the gray-haired and the aged, because he hasn’t lived long enough to build up the level of knowledge that these have. It isn’t like Job was the first man to be born and knows more than all the history and experience that mankind has built up over time.

17 “I will tell you, listen to me;
And what I have seen I will also declare;
18 What wise men have told,
And have not concealed from their fathers,
19 To whom alone the land was given,
And no alien passed among them.

Time for a history lesson, and this is the foundation that Eliphaz believes Job needs to understand his present circumstances. However, we know from Job 1 and 2 there is something else going on than what history can teach us. History can box us in to give us a biased view of the present and the future.

Sure, history can help us to predict, to learn and grow, but we also learn from the Book of Job that God is not only the author of human history, but His sovereignty, heart, and will are not bound underneath or within our understanding or description of history.

History can teach us a lot, just like the gray-haired and the aged among us, but our faith should never be reduced into just a passing down of our understanding of the experience of previous generations. God works in our midst even now above and outside our understanding of human history.

In Job, we see that human understanding cannot explain the purposes of God completely. God does not merely work within the existing categories by which we understand people and the world. In Christ, He brings about a new reality through redemption and the transformational power of the Holy Spirit..

History can tell us many things about people, religion, culture and social change, but there is something new in what Christ does by the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of a believer.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5 writes,

16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

In Christ, we are a new creature, a creature that can’t be explained just by history, experience, number of grey hairs, etc., but can only be explained by the saving grace and transformational power of the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul writes, “Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh,” because the flesh tell us how things were, like Eliphaz, but in Christ we don’t see just by the flesh, but by the Spirit and Christ.

Let us then not make our faith submissive to the world, to history, to human experience, but to submit our faith and our lives to the Christ that bought us with His own blood, and to the Holy Spirit that transforms us into a new creature.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Job 15