Eliphaz Invents a Charge Sheet

"Can a man be profitable unto God…? Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous?… Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite? For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry… Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken. Therefore snares are round about thee."

"Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee… If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up… Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence… He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands."

A garment taken in pledge

Biblical law forbade keeping a poor man's cloak overnight as a pledge (Exodus 22:26–27; Deuteronomy 24:12–13, 17). The Yavneh-Yam ostracon, pictured above, is a real labourer's appeal to an official to return his garment, seized at harvest. Eliphaz accuses Job of exactly this oppression.

Gold of Ophir

Ophir was a source of fine gold reached by ship from the Red Sea (1 Kings 9:28); its location (Arabia, East Africa, India) is unknown. A Tell Qasile ostracon (8th century BC) reads "gold of Ophir to Beth-Horon, 30 shekels."

The old way of the wicked

22:15–16 asks if Job will follow "the old way which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood." Many interpreters, ancient and modern, see an allusion to the generation of the Flood. The library's Greek has "their dwelling became an overflowing river" and the Vulgate "a river overturned their foundation."

Compare Job 29 and 31

Job will answer point by point: he rescued the poor and fatherless (29:12), was a father to the needy (29:16), shared his bread (31:17), clothed the naked (31:19–20), never raised his hand against the fatherless (31:21). The narrator confirms Job's uprightness (1:1). The reader has no reason to believe Eliphaz's charges.

An ironic ending

Eliphaz promises that a restored Job will deliver the guilty by his intercession (22:30). In 42:8 that happens: God tells Eliphaz to ask Job to pray for him and his friends. Eliphaz's prophecy comes true against himself.

The versions

The library's Sahidic Coptic copy, which follows the shorter pre-Origen Greek, lacks 22:13–16, 22:20, 22:24 and 22:29–30. Whether each missing line was absent from the Old Greek itself, or is damage in the Coptic manuscripts or our digital copy, is to be checked against Ziegler's edition (JOB-C03).