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without concerning himself about anything that takes place on earth! The divine judgment of total destruction came upon a former generation that had thought thus insolently of God, and to the joy of the righteous the same judgment is still executed upon evil-doers of the same mind. This is true, but it does not apply to Job, for whom it is intended. Job has denied the universality of a just divine retribution, but not the special providence of God. Eliphaz sets retributive justice and special providence again here in a false correlation. He thinks that, so far as a man fails to perceive the one, he must at once doubt the other, - another instance of the absurd reasoning of their dogmatic one-sidedness. Such is Job's relation to God, that even if he failed to discover a single trace of retributive justice anywhere, he would not deny His rule in nature and among men. For his God is not a mere notion, but a person to whom he stands in a living relation. A notion falls to pieces as soon as it is found to be self-contradictory; but God remains what He is, however much the phenomenon of His rule contradicts the nature of His person. The rule of God on earth Job firmly holds, although in manifold instances he can only explain it by God's absolute and arbitrary power. Thus he really knows no higher motive in God to which to refer his affliction; but nevertheless he knows that God interests himself about him, and that He who is even now his Witness in heaven will soon arise on the dust of the grave in his behalf. For such utterances of Job's faith Eliphaz has no ear. He knows no faith beyond the circle of his dogma.
The exhortations and promises by which Eliphaz then (Job 22:21-30) seeks to lead Job back to God are in and of themselves true and most glorious. There is also somewhat in them which reflects shame on Job; they direct him to that inward peace, to that joy in God, which he had entirely lost sight of when he spoke of the misfortune of the righteous in