Job 15:1–6

Job 15:1 — The Second Speech Begins The narrative marker "Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered" signals a structural shift. This is Eliphaz's second address to Job (his first came in chapters 4–5), and it is markedly harsher in tone. The first speech offered some pastoral warmth; this one opens with barely concealed contempt. Eliphaz is identified repeatedly as "the Temanite," rooting him in Edomite wisdom tradition (cf. Jer 49:7: "Is wisdom no more in Teman?"). He speaks as a representative of the ancient Near Eastern sages — authoritative, experienced, certain of the moral order.

Job 15:2 — "Vain Knowledge" and "Unprofitable Talk" Eliphaz's opening rhetorical question drips with sarcasm: should a wise man answer with "vain knowledge" (Hebrew: da'at rûaḥ — literally "knowledge of wind")? The phrase is a devastating inversion. Job has spoken with passion and apparent eloquence, but Eliphaz dismisses it as hot air — rûaḥ, breath or wind, here meaning empty, insubstantial speech. The parallel "unprofitable talk" (debar ḥom, literally "words of the east wind") intensifies the image: the qadîm, the scorching desert wind from the east, was synonymous with destruction and futility. Eliphaz is saying Job's words are not merely wrong but actively harmful — like a desert sirocco that shrivels everything it touches.

Job 15:3 — Unprofitable Reasoning The verse continues the rhetorical question, now focused on speech that does no good. In Hebrew wisdom (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), the highest virtue of speech is that it builds up, instructs, and rightly orders the community. Job, in Eliphaz's view, has violated this foundational principle. This is an important clue to Eliphaz's psychology: he is not merely theological but social in his concern. Job's laments are, to him, a destabilizing force that must be silenced.

Job 15:4 — Doing Away with Fear Here Eliphaz levels his most serious charge: Job "does away with fear" (yārē') — that is, with the fear of God, the Hebrew yir'at Elohim, which is the very foundation of wisdom (Prov 1:7; Job 1:1). This is pointed precisely because the narrator has already described Job as one who "feared God" (Job 1:1). Eliphaz is unknowingly inverting the truth. He also charges Job with "hindering meditation before God" — the Hebrew sîaḥ, meaning contemplative speech or prayer. The accusation is that Job's protests disrupt not only proper theology but proper worship.

Job 15:5 — Iniquity Teaching the Mouth Eliphaz now turns from what Job says to why he says it: his iniquity (ʿăwōnekā) is the real author of his words. This is the "two-ways" logic of retributive theology — bad speech comes from a bad heart; a bad heart is the sign of hidden sin. The verse anticipates a later theological debate about the relationship between sin and suffering. Eliphaz assumes a direct causal chain: if Job speaks wrongly, he must be living wrongly. This syllogism, while superficially plausible, is precisely what the Book of Job is written to dismantle.

Job 15:6 — The Mouth as Prosecutor The climax: "Your own mouth condemns you, and not I." This is a legal image — Eliphaz adopts the posture of a dispassionate judge who has merely listened to the defendant's self-incriminating testimony. The dramatic irony is acute: by the book's end (42:7), God will declare that Eliphaz and his friends have "not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." The accuser becomes the accused. The typological resonance with Satan's role in the prologue (chapters 1–2) is striking — like the adversary who challenged Job's integrity before God, Eliphaz now challenges it before men.

Catholic tradition brings a distinctive hermeneutical key to this passage: the recognition that Job is a type of Christ, the Suffering Servant who is wrongly accused despite his innocence. The Church Fathers developed this reading with great care. St. Gregory the Great, in his monumental Moralia in Job (composed ca. 578–595), writes that "holy Job bears the type of the Redeemer" and that those who wrongly accuse him prefigure those who condemned Christ unjustly. Eliphaz's logic — "your mouth condemns you" — echoes the logic of the Sanhedrin at Jesus' trial: "You have heard his blasphemy" (Mk 14:64). The innocent man is convicted by his own truthful speech.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the virtue of religion disposes us to have the right attitude toward God" and that fear of the Lord is "one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit" (CCC 1831). Eliphaz accuses Job of destroying this foundational attitude, yet the reader perceives that Job's raw, anguished speech is itself a form of radical trust — he addresses God directly, never abandons the relationship, and refuses false piety. Pope Francis, in Laudato Si' (§85), notes that "nature is filled with words of love" and that authentic lament before God, far from undermining faith, can express it. Job models a kind of prayer that is honest rather than formulaic.

St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 113) observes that divine judgment is not equivalent to human judgment, and that the appearance of guilt is not guilt. Eliphaz's fatal error is to confuse epistemological access with moral authority — to assume that because he sees Job's suffering and hears Job's words, he understands the full account. Catholic moral theology, rooted in the primacy of conscience and the hiddenness of interior acts to all but God, resists this presumption.

Eliphaz's error is alive and well in Catholic communities today. When a fellow parishioner experiences prolonged illness, financial ruin, family breakdown, or spiritual desolation, the temptation to become a "Temanite" — to diagnose, explain, and subtly accuse — is strong. We dress it in spiritual language: "Have you examined your conscience?" or "Perhaps God is purifying you for a reason." These may sometimes be true, but spoken too quickly, they are Eliphaz's words in modern clothing.

This passage invites a concrete examination: When did I last silence a suffering person with a theological explanation rather than listening with patience? The Catholic tradition of accompaniment, emphasized strongly by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium (§169), calls us to "walk with" the suffering rather than stand over them as judges. Job's friends sit with him in silence for seven days (Job 2:13) — that is the model. When they open their mouths, they fail. Practically, this means: resist the urge to explain another's suffering before you have truly heard it. Be present before you are eloquent. Trust God's judgment over your own diagnosis.