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Job 21 · a question people ask

Job tells his friends, "in your answers there remains only falsehood" (21:34). Is he right?

In the text

These are Job's words, and the book doesn't answer them here. The next chapter opens, "Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered" (22:1). At the book's end the LORD says to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7). The LORD also asks Job, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2), and Job says, "therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand" (42:3). The book doesn't say which words each of these verses has in view. These notes set them side by side and don't decide, and give no verdict of their own on the friends beyond what 42:7 says.

The verses

“So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?””
Job 21:34 · World English Bible
“Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,”
Job 22:1 · World English Bible
“It was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”
Job 42:7 · World English Bible
““Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Job 38:2 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 21

Job 21: Why do the wicked live?

When the wicked tell God, "Depart from us" (21:14), depart is the Hebrew verb of the book's first verse, where Job "turned away from evil" (1:1). And the "nonsense" Job says his friends comfort him with (21:34) is hevel, the word of Ecclesiastes' "Vanity of vanities".

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions