Job 22

This is implied, given the context of the previous verses. The jump to verse 5 is a long jump that might not seem to make much sense. But Eliphaz’s point seems to be that Job is wasting his time waiting for God to explain the reason for his tragedies. That’s because the reason doesn’t spring from God, since God doesn’t win or lose anything based on Job’s behavior. So, there’s only one obvious reason for Job’s tragedies: God is punishing him for sin. Still, that’s a long jump.

The word picture here seems to refer to a wadi, a typically dry riverbed in the often dry Middle East. When rain comes, a wadi can fill very quickly and wash away anyone using the wadi as a natural walking trail. Added to the danger is that the rainstorm can be far away at a higher altitude. And a person walking on the pathway far from the storm on a sunny day won’t feel its effects until the water hits them like the deluge from a busted dam.

“Burned in a fire” reads like an obvious dig at Job, who lost all his sheep and their shepherds in a lightning fire (Job 1:16).

Location of Ophir is unknown. But it was famous for producing the finest gold. A broken piece of pottery found near Tel Aviv and dated to the 700s BC, a couple centuries after kings David and Solomon, confirms that Ophir was a location from which gold was exported. The fragment reads “30 shekels…gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon.” Scholars have speculated that the gold was somewhere in Arabia or Africa or India. That narrows the search from seven continents to three.

Some scholars say the word translated as “sinners” or as “guilty” in some translations is an unknown word. They say it’s unlikely that hard-nosed Eliphaz would say God saves the guilty. In Eliphaz’s way of thinking, God wallops the guilty. If a prayer would save the guilty, then Eliphaz should say a prayer for Job. Yet the idea that Job could do something as big as this seems to track nicely with Job 22:28.