^22:1 Then Eliphaz the Themanite, answering, said:
^22:2 Can man be compared with God, even when he has been of perfect knowledge?
^22:3 What does it profit God if you have been just? Or what do you confer on him if your life has been immaculate?
^22:4 Will he rebuke you out of fear, and come with you into judgment?
^22:5 And not because of your very great malice and your infinite iniquities?
^22:6 For you have taken away the pledge of your brothers without cause, and you have stripped the naked of clothing.
^22:7 You did not give water to the weary, and from the hungry you withheld bread.
^22:8 In the strength of your arm you possessed the land, and as the most powerful you held it.
^22:9 You sent widows away empty, and you crushed the arms of orphans.
^22:10 Therefore you are surrounded by snares, and sudden fear troubles you.
^22:11 And you thought that you would not see darkness and would not be oppressed by the rush of inundating waters.
^22:12 Do you think that God is higher than heaven, and is exalted above the tops of the stars?
^22:13 And you say: For what does the Lord know? And he judges as though through fog.
^22:14 The clouds are his hiding place, and he does not consider our affairs, and he walks around the hinges of heaven.

325. Then Eliphaz the Themanite, answering, said: Can man be compared with God?, etc. When the speeches of blessed Job were finished, Eliphaz did not receive his words according to the intention with which they were said: for first, what Job had said to show the height of the matter, Is my disputation against man?,

Eliphaz took as though it had been said as if Job intended to dispute contentiously with God; whence he accuses him of presumption from a threefold consideration.

For first, someone is provoked to dispute or contend with another when he sees that the other is comparable to himself in knowledge of the truth, so that by mutual comparison something hidden may be investigated; but it is very presumptuous for man to dare to compare his own knowledge with divine knowledge, whence he says: Can man be compared with God, even when he has been of perfect knowledge? As if to say: no, because God’s knowledge is infinite.

Second, someone is provoked to dispute or reason with another because of certain things that he has received from him, so that a comparison may be made of what has been given and received; but it is presumptuous for man to think that the good things he does are useful to God, whence the Psalmist also says: I said to the Lord: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods. Hence he adds: What does it profit God if you have been just?, namely, by doing right works? Or what do you confer on him if your life has been immaculate?, namely, by abstaining from sins?

Third, someone is provoked to contend in judgment with another because of fear of a higher power calling him into judgment, which it is unlawful to think of God; hence he adds: Will he rebuke you out of fear, namely, of some judge, and come with you into judgment, as though summoned as an equal?

326. Then, because Job had said that their judgments were iniquitous by which they said that his house had perished like the tabernacles of the impious, he intends to show that his own judgment is right when he adds: And not because of your very great malice and your infinite iniquities? As if to say: God rebukes you by inflicting punishments not because of fear, but because of love of justice, so that he may punish your sins. Hence malice can be referred to the sins by which he harmed others, but iniquity to the sins by which he omitted works of justice; whence he calls the malice very great, but the iniquities infinite, because man sins in more ways by omitting than by committing. Hence he adds first concerning harms inflicted on neighbors, which sometimes are inflicted by way of calumny under the pretext of justice; whence he adds: For you have taken away the pledge of your brothers without cause, namely, necessary things, because you could have trusted your brothers without a pledge. But sometimes harms are inflicted without any appearance of justice, and with regard to this he adds: and you have stripped the naked of clothing,

which can be understood in two ways:

in one way, because by stripping them, you left them naked, reserving nothing for them;

in another way, because when they were naked, that is, not sufficiently clothed, you took away from them the little that they had.

But he adds concerning the omission of good works, saying: You did not give water to the weary, namely, to one who needed it because of thirst arising from the labor of the way, as if to say: you did not bring help and solace to those laboring and afflicted; and from the hungry you withheld bread, as if to say: you did not come to the aid of one in need. And these things indeed are said with regard to the sins that he committed as a private person.

327. But he adds concerning sins pertaining to his principality,

among which first he sets down that he obtained rule not through justice but through violence, whence he says: In the strength of your arm you possessed the land, that is, by your power you acquired dominion over the land.

Second, he sets down that he governed his subjects not through justice but through power, according to Wisdom 2:11: Let our strength be the law of injustice; whence he adds: and as the most powerful you held it, as if to say: by the excellence of power you used your subjects at your nod.

Third, he sets down unjust judgments, because, namely, he did not render justice to weak persons, whence he adds: You sent widows away empty, namely, when you did not do justice for them against their adversaries, according to Isaiah 1:23: the cause of the widow does not enter unto them; and again, what is more, he oppressed the lowest persons, whence he adds: and you crushed the arms of orphans, as if to say: if there was any strength in them, you brought it to nothing, against what is said in the Psalm: to judge for the orphan and the humble.

328. And for these faults he adds that punishments have come upon him, whence he adds: Therefore you are surrounded by snares, that is, by adversities oppressing you on every side, so that no place of escape lies open after you have fallen into them; nor were you able to escape beforehand, because they came upon you suddenly, whence he adds: and sudden fear troubles you, because, namely, evils suddenly came upon him, from which he could also fear other evils. But he shows the cause why they came upon him suddenly, adding: And you thought that you would not see darkness, that is, that you would not come to these uncertainties in which you do not know what you should do, which is referred to the snares; then, with regard to the fear that troubles him, he adds: and that you would not be oppressed by the rush of inundating waters, as if to say: you thought that you would never come to this, that you would be oppressed by the violence and multitude of adversities coming from above, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:3: When they shall say: Peace and security, sudden destruction will come upon them.

329. But the fact that someone does not think he will suffer punishments for sins pertains to this: that he does not believe God has providence over human affairs. To this perhaps he wished to twist what Job had said: Will anyone teach God knowledge? He wrongly interpreted this as implying a defect of divine knowledge, and therefore he consequently seems to charge Job with denying God’s providence. Now it must be considered that some deny that God has knowledge and providence of human affairs because of the height of his substance, to which they say his knowledge is proportioned, so that he knows nothing except himself, thinking that his knowledge would be debased if it extended itself to lower things; whence he adds: Do you think that God is higher than heaven, that is, than the whole universe of creatures, and is exalted above the tops of the stars, that is, above the highest of creatures? And he adds the conclusion of this thought: And you say: For what does the Lord know?, namely, concerning these lower things? Yet men of this kind do not totally take away from God knowledge of things, but say that he knows them in a universal way, for example, by knowing the nature of being or the universal causes; whence he adds: And he judges as though through fog. For to know something only in a universal way is to know it imperfectly, and therefore he calls knowledge of this kind foggy, as happens with something that is seen from afar as though through fog, because it is perceived to be a man, but not which man it is. And he applies a likeness from things that happen among men, among whom one who lies hidden in some place, just as he is not seen by those who are outside the place, so neither does he see them: The clouds are his hiding place, and he does not consider our affairs, as if to say: just as he lies hidden from us, as though concealed by clouds, insofar as we cannot fully know the things that are above the clouds,

so, conversely, the things that pertain to us, as existing beneath the clouds, he himself does not see, just as in Ezekiel 9:9 it is said in the person of certain men: The Lord has forsaken the earth; the Lord does not see. For they held that, because the things that are on earth are subject to many defects and disorders, they are not ruled by divine providence, but only heavenly things, whose unfailing order perseveres; whence there follows: and he walks around the hinges of heaven. Now a hinge is that on which a door turns; hence by this he designates that heaven is moved by God’s providence, and from its motion, as from a kind of door, divine providence descends even to these lower things. For just as they say that God knows human affairs, but in a universal way, so they say that he governs human affairs, but through universal causes that he governs in themselves; and perhaps he wished to refer to this what Job had said above: he who judges the exalted.