Job 22:16

_WHICH WERE CUT DOWN OUT OF TIME, WHOSE FOUNDATION WAS OVERFLOWN WITH A FLOOD:_ Cut down - rather, 'fettered,' as in Job 16:8; Job 1:1:e., arrested by death. OUT OF TIME - prematurely, suddenly (Job 15:32; Ecclesiastes 7:17); literally, whose foundation was poured out (so as to become) a stream, or flood. The solid earth passed from beneath their feet into a flood (Genesis 7:11, "The fountains of the great deep were broken up")....

15-20 Eliphaz would have Job mark the old way that wicked men have trodden, and see what the end of their way was. It is good for us to mark it, that we may not walk therein. But if others are consumed, and we are not, instead of blaming them, and lifting up ourselves, as Eliphaz does here, we ought to be thankful to God, and take it for a warning....

Verse Job 22:16. _WHOSE FOUNDATION WAS OVERFLOWN WITH A FLOOD_] The unrighteous in the days of Noah, who appear to have had an abundance of all temporal good, (Job 22:18,) and who surpassed the deeds of all the former wicked, said in effect to God, _Depart_ _from us_. And when Noah preached unto them the terrors of the Lord, and the necessity of repentance, they rejected his preaching with, _What can the Almighty do for us_? Let him do his worst; we care not for him, Job 22:17. For למו _lamo, to THEM_, the _Septuagint, Syriac_, and _Arabic_ have evidently read לנו _lanu, to US_. This reading quotes their _own_ _saying_; the former reading narrates it in the third person

WHICH WERE CUT DOWN - Who were suddenly destroyed by a flood. On the word used here (קמט _qâmaṭ_) see the notes at Job 16:8. It occurs only in that place and this. Its primary notion is that of drawing together or contracting - as the feet of a lamb or calf are drawn together and tied preparatory to being killed; and the meaning here is, probably, “who were huddled together by the waters,” or who were driven in heaps by the deluge, so rapidly and suddenly did it come upon them. OUT OF TIME - Hebrew “And there was no time;” that is, it was done in a moment, or suddenly. No time was given them; no delay was granted. The floods rushed over them, and nothing could stay them. WHOSE FOUNDATION WAS OVERFLOWN - Margin, or, “a flood was poured upon their fou

EXPOSITION JOB 22:1 Eliphaz returns to the attack, but with observations that are at first strangely pointless and irrelevant, _e.g._ on the unprofitableness of man to God (verses l, 2), and on the slight importance of Job's case (verse 3). After this weak prelude, however, there is more vigour in his assault. In verses 4-9 he directly charges Job with a number of specified sins, and in verses 10, 11 declares his sufferings to be the consequence of them. He then proceeds to accuse him of denying God's omniscience (verses 12-14), and, alter some not very successful attempts to retort on him his own words (verses 15-20), finally recurs to his favourite devices (see Job 5:17) of exhorting Job to submission and repentance, and promising him restoration to God's favour and a ret

WHICH WERE CUT DOWN OUT OF TIME,.... Sent out of time into eternity, time being no more with men, and they no longer in time, when death seizes upon them; or "before time" a, before the common term of life, which, according to the course of nature, and human probability, they might have arrived unto: as this is spoken of the men of the old world that lived before the flood, when the lives of men were very long, it is highly probable there, were many that were destroyed by the general deluge, who, had it not for that, might have lived many hundreds of years, according to the usual course: or "without time" b, without any delay suddenly, at once, at an unawares; for, though they had notice of the flood, they did not regard it, but lived careless and secure; and it came upon them without any further warning, and swept them away, when they were "cut down", as trees by the axe laid to the roo...

THE THIRD SERIES OF CONTROVERSIES CHAPTER 22 The Third Address of Eliphaz _ 1. Is not thy wickedness great? (Job 22:1)_ 2. In what Job had sinned (Job 22:6) 3. The omniscience of God and the ways of the wicked (Job 22:12) 4. Eliphaz's exhortation and promise (Job 22:21) Job 22:1. The third cycle of addresses begins again with Eliphaz, the wise man from Teman. He tries to maintain his dignity and lofty conception, but he proves too well that Job's accusation of insincerity is well-founded. He starts out with reminding Job of the majesty

JOB 22. THIRD SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ. The only new thing that Eliphaz has to say, is definitely to describe the sin of Job! Yet his mildness makes him end with bright promises. JOB 22:1. Is it not to Job's advantage to be pious? Will God chasten him for anything else but sin? Eliphaz would point out that it is Job s advantage to be pious, but he completes his statement by adding that it is no advantage to God. He means that God is too exalted to take any interest in man, except to reward and punish him. Hence the cause of man's calamities cannot be in God, but only in man (Job 22:6). Job 22:6 ascribes to Job the sins typical of the rich man....

The Third Circle of Speeches In the first round of speeches the three friends exhausted the argument from the general conception of God. In the second they exhausted the argument from the operation of His providence in the world, as observed in the fate of the wicked. To the last Job had replied by a direct contradiction, adducing facts and testimony in proof that the fate of the wicked man in God's providence was in no way so uniformly miserable as the three friends had represented (ch. 21.) There is, manifestly, now left but one weapon in the hands of the three friends, namely, to express openly what they had hinted at formerly in a veiled manner, and charge Job directly with great sins. This charge is made by Eliphaz in the opening speech of the third round of debate (ch. 22.) As in the two preceding circles of debate, Job's mind is too much absorbed in the contemplation of the grea...

HAST THOU MARKED? &C.— As the universal deluge was a most signal and memorable instance of God's displeasure against wickedness and wicked men, Eliphaz takes occasion to enlarge upon it for five or six verses together, as a proper lesson (so he thought it) for his friend; and then closes it with the mention of another destruction by fire, either past or to be expected, which is described to be as general and as fatal to the wicked: _and the remnant of them the fire consumeth,_ or _shall consume:_ Job 22:20. This, indeed, some refer to the judgment of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah; but it is much more natural to understand it of the last general conflagration; for how could the destroying a little city or two be said with any propriety to _consume the remnant?; i.e._ the whole remainder of wicked men? when at the same time Chaldea, and perhaps the greater part of the world, was ove