Job 15 · a question people ask
Eliphaz asks how anyone born of a woman could be righteous. Does other Scripture say the same?
Eliphaz asks, "What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" (15:14). Other Scripture asks the same kind of question. "Who can say, “I have made my heart pure. I am clean and without sin”?" (Proverbs 20:9), where I have made … pure is the verb of 15:14's clean (tap clean). A psalm says, "They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one" (Psalm 14:3), where become corrupt is the verb of 15:16's corrupt (tap corrupt). Paul writes, "There is no one righteous; no, not one" (Romans 3:10), and "for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Job has said the like himself: "how can man be just with God?" (9:2), and "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one" (14:4); his "Man, who is born of a woman" (14:1) has, in Hebrew, the two words of Eliphaz's born of a woman. What Eliphaz does with his question comes next: "how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!" (15:16), and then the wicked man's end (15:20-35). The book has told you that the LORD called Job "a blameless and an upright man" (1:8). What the book says of the friends' words is 42:7, and it doesn't say which words it means. These notes set the verses side by side and add no verdict of their own on Eliphaz.
The verses
“What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones. Yes, the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!”
“Who can say, “I have made my heart pure. I am clean and without sin”?”
“They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one.”
“As it is written, “There is no one righteous; no, not one.”