Cutting Wisdom Down to Size Text: Job 15:7-13
Introduction: The Cruelty of Tidy Answers
We come now to the second round of speeches between Job and his friends, and if you thought the first round was bad, you must understand that things are about to get much worse. The thin veneer of sympathy has completely evaporated, and what remains is the hard, cold granite of self righteous dogma. Eliphaz the Temanite, who began this whole affair with a certain pastoral gravity, now takes up his second speech, and it is filled with undisguised contempt. The gloves are off.
This is what happens when men love their theological systems more than they love God or their brother. Job's very existence, his suffering while maintaining his integrity, is a wrecking ball to the neat and tidy world that Eliphaz and his friends have constructed. In their world, the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer, full stop. Because Job is suffering catastrophically, their system demands that he must be secretly, monstrously wicked. When Job refuses to confess to sins he has not committed, he is not just defending his own honor; he is challenging their entire worldview. And they cannot abide it. So they must crush him. They must prove him to be an arrogant, rebellious fool, not because the evidence points that way, but because their system requires it.
What we are about to read is a master class in spiritual abuse. It is the voice of a man who is so confident in his tradition, his experience, and his own wisdom that he mistakes it for the voice of God Himself. He will accuse Job of cosmic arrogance, of claiming to have a secret pipeline to heaven, of despising the very consolations of God. But as we dissect his words, we will see that every accusation is a perfect boomerang. It is Eliphaz, not Job, who is arrogant. It is Eliphaz who has cut wisdom down to fit his own small mind. And it is Eliphaz who is offering, not the consolations of God, but the cruelties of a small and manageable deity of his own invention.
This is a perennial temptation for the religious man. It is the temptation to have God figured out, to put Him in a box of our own making, and then to use that box to beat down anyone whose life and experience do not fit our formulas. This is a warning to all of us. When our theology makes us cruel, our theology is wrong.
The Text
Were you the first man to be born, Or were you brought forth before the hills? Do you hear the secret counsel of God, And cut down wisdom only unto yourself? What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not with us? Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, Older than your father. Are the consolations of God too small for you, Even the word spoken gently with you? Why does your heart take you away? And why do your eyes flash, That you should turn your spirit against God And allow such words to go out of your mouth?
(Job 15:7-13 LSB)
Primordial Arrogance (v. 7-8)
Eliphaz begins his assault with a series of sarcastic rhetorical questions designed to paint Job as a man with a god complex.
"Were you the first man to be born, Or were you brought forth before the hills? Do you hear the secret counsel of God, And cut down wisdom only unto yourself?" (Job 15:7-8)
The charge is one of ultimate presumption. "Job, do you fancy yourself Adam? Or even older than Adam? Were you there when God laid the foundations of the earth, a contemporary of the mountains?" Eliphaz is mocking Job, accusing him of claiming a kind of primordial wisdom, as though Job had a front row seat to creation itself. The irony, of course, is that when God finally does speak from the whirlwind, He will ask Job a series of very similar questions. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38:4). But God asks these questions to humble Job and reveal His own majesty, whereas Eliphaz asks them to humiliate Job and defend his own broken system.
But Eliphaz, in his mockery, stumbles blindly past a glorious truth. He asks if Job was "brought forth before the hills." No, Job was not. But we know who was. In Proverbs 8, Wisdom herself is personified, and she declares, "Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth" (Prov. 8:25). This, as the New Testament makes clear, is a description of the eternal Son of God, the Logos, Jesus Christ, "the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15). Eliphaz thinks he is scoring a point against Job, but he is unwittingly pointing to the only one who truly has the answer to Job's predicament.
He continues this theme in verse 8, accusing Job of eavesdropping on the "secret counsel of God." The Hebrew word is sod, which implies an intimate, confidential circle. "Job, have you been listening in on the deliberations of the Trinity? And having heard these secrets, have you now restricted wisdom, fencing it off for your own private use?" This is a classic case of projection. It is Eliphaz and his friends who have "cut down wisdom" to their simplistic cause and effect formula. Job, in his wrestling and his honest questioning, is actually more open to the vast, untamable wisdom of God than they are. They have a God who fits in their syllogism. Job is being crushed by a God who fills the universe.
The Argument from Consensus (v. 9-10)
Having accused Job of individual arrogance, Eliphaz now shores up his own position by appealing to the wisdom of the collective and the authority of age.
"What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not with us? Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, Older than your father." (Job 15:9-10 LSB)
Here is the argument from the majority. "It is three against one, Job. How could you possibly be right and all of us be wrong? All the conventional wisdom, all our shared understanding, is on our side." This is the voice of every dead institution, every committee that prizes agreement over truth. It is the pressure to conform to the group, to submit to the consensus. But truth is not determined by a vote. Athanasius stood against the world, and the world was wrong.
Then comes the appeal to seniority. "We have the old timers on our side, Job. Men with more gray hair than your own father. You should respect your elders and listen to tradition." Now, the Bible commands us to honor the aged and to learn from the wisdom of the past (Prov. 16:31). But Eliphaz is not using tradition as a guardrail; he is using it as a prison. He is equating age with accuracy, and gray hair with godliness. But this is not necessarily so. You can be old and wrong. You can have a long tradition of being wrong. The Pharisees had tradition on their side when they confronted Jesus. The measure of wisdom is not its age but its alignment with the Word of God. Eliphaz has weaponized the fifth commandment in order to silence a man in agony.
Manipulative Consolations (v. 11)
This next verse is perhaps the most insidious of all, where Eliphaz frames his brutal attack as a gentle, divine comfort.
"Are the consolations of God too small for you, Even the word spoken gently with you?" (Job 15:11 LSB)
This is breathtaking in its spiritual manipulation. "Job, we are offering you the very consolations of God. We are speaking gently to you, trying to lead you to repentance. Why do you despise such a precious gift?" But what are these "consolations"? They are nothing more than the demand that Job admit he is a secret sinner in order to make their theological spreadsheet balance. Their comfort is conditional. It is, "Confess to a crime you didn't commit, and then we will comfort you."
This is not the consolation of God. The true consolation of God is not a formula that explains suffering, but a Person who enters into it. The comfort of the Holy Spirit is not a tidy answer but a faithful presence. Eliphaz is offering the consolations of a textbook; God offers the consolations of His own Son. What Eliphaz calls a "gentle word" is, in fact, a heavy stone of accusation cast at a drowning man. This is a vital lesson for anyone who would minister to the suffering. Do not offer cheap answers. Do not demand that their story fit your theory. Rather, bring the true and gentle word, which is the gospel of a God who suffers for and with His people.
The Charge of Rebellion (v. 12-13)
Eliphaz concludes this section by interpreting Job's emotional anguish as spiritual rebellion against God Himself.
"Why does your heart take you away? And why do your eyes flash, That you should turn your spirit against God And allow such words to go out of your mouth?" (Job 15:12-13 LSB)
Eliphaz is a poor theologian because he is a poor psychologist. He sees Job's passion, his grief, his flashing eyes, and he can only interpret it as sinful anger. He cannot distinguish between the raw, honest lament of a believer and the bitter rebellion of an unbeliever. To Eliphaz, piety is calm, collected, and above all, quiet. Job's raw, messy, loud grief is an offense to his sterile religiosity.
And so he brings the ultimate charge: "You turn your spirit against God." Notice how he identifies his own counsel with the will of God. To reject the wisdom of Eliphaz is to rebel against the Almighty. This is the final sin of the legalist and the systematizer. He conflates his own interpretation, his own tradition, his own tidy system, with the very person and character of God. To disagree with him is not a matter of interpretation; it is an act of treason against heaven. He has made himself God's prosecuting attorney, and in so doing, has become the accuser of the brethren.
Conclusion: The True Consolation
Eliphaz and his friends are a picture of the law. They come to the afflicted and their only message is, "You must have done something wrong. Straighten up. Try harder." The law can diagnose, and it can condemn, but it cannot comfort or cure. It offers no hope to a man like Job, who knows that, despite his sins, he does not deserve this. The law is a cruel comforter.
The consolations of God that Eliphaz speaks of are indeed too small. They are as small as his god. But the true consolations of God are as vast as the universe, because they are found in a person. The answer to Eliphaz's taunts is Christ.
Was Job the first man, brought forth before the hills? No, but Jesus was. He is the eternal Wisdom of God.
Did Job hear the secret counsel of God? Not in the way Eliphaz meant. But Jesus lived in the eternal counsel of the Trinity, and through His Spirit, He has brought us into that counsel, revealing to us the mystery of God's will (Eph. 1:9).
Did Job's friends offer true consolation? No, they offered accusations dressed up as comfort. But Jesus is our true consolation. He did not stand at a distance and lecture us on our secret sins. He became sin for us. He entered the ash heap of our fallen world, endured the wrath of God that we deserved, and cried out in agony from the cross. He is the answer to Job's suffering because He is the God who suffers.
Eliphaz saw Job's flashing eyes and called it rebellion. But on the cross, the eyes of the Son of God flashed with righteous agony as He bore the sin of the world. Job's friends demanded a confession to make their system work. The gospel declares that Christ has made the confession for us, living the life we should have lived and dying the death we deserved to die. That is the true and gentle word. That is the consolation that is never too small, for it is the infinite God Himself, given for us.