Job 15: 17 – 35
Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion
17 “I will tell you, hear me; What I have seen I will declare, 18 what wise men have told, not hiding anything received from their fathers, 19 to whom alone the land was given, and no alien passed among them: 20 The wicked man writhes with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden from the oppressor. 21 Dreadful sounds are in his ears; In prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. 22 He does not believe that he will return from darkness, for a sword is waiting for him. 23 He wanders about for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24 Trouble and anguish make him afraid; They overpower him, like a king ready for battle. 25 For he stretches out his hand against God, and acts defiantly against the Almighty, 26 running stubbornly against Him with his strong, embossed shield. 27 “Though he has covered his face with his fatness, and made his waist heavy with fat, 28 He dwells in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabits, which are destined to become ruins. 29 He will not be rich, nor will his wealth continue, nor will his possessions overspread the earth. 30 He will not depart from darkness; The flame will dry out his branches, and by the breath of His mouth he will go away. 31 Let him not trust in futile things, deceiving himself, for futility will be his reward. 32 It will be accomplished before his time, and his branch will not be green. 33 He will shake off his unripe grape like a vine, and cast off his blossom like an olive tree. 34 For the company of hypocrites will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery. 35 They conceive trouble and bring forth futility; Their womb prepares deceit.”
Hell hath no fury or contempt as a narcissist you dare to disagree with, tell them they’re wrong, or embarrass them.
There are all sorts of disagreements regarding people who are like this, but one thing most people are in agreement about is that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of them.
Why is that? It’s because there is a belief (correct or not) that if you do, they are capable of a rage (even if it doesn’t cross over into violence) that is chilling.
Other characteristic traits of such narcissists include:
• Control freaks
• Irritability
• Short fuses
• Low frustration tolerance
• Argumentative
• Need to have the last word
• Unable to lose
• Won’t take “No” for an answer
• Quick to anger if you don’t accommodate them
• Quick to being aggressively defensive if you call them on any deficiency, fault or responsibility
• Can’t apologize or if they do, can’t do it sincerely. Will possibly admit they are sorry but never ask for forgiveness
• Rarely say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations”
• Don’t feel or demonstrate remorse
• Feel entitled to enthusiastic and appreciative approval, adoration, agreement and obedience
• Gloat in victory, sullen in defeat
• Quick to rage if you humiliate them
There is a saying that when you’re a hammer the world looks like a nail. When you’re a narcissist, the world looks like it should approve, adore, agree and obey you. Anything less than that feels like an assault and because of that a narcissist feels justified in raging back at it.
What is really at the core of narcissists is instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable. And just as Hamlet’s mother said, “The lady doth protest too much,” “the narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much” in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life. This is not to increase their self-esteem as much as it is to continually spackle the holes in their core that lead to a feeling of instability—and that, if not spackled, will lead to brittleness followed by fragmentation.
Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilize them even further. Not unlike a wounded animal being the most vicious (because they think the next wound would kill them), narcissistic rage occurs when narcissists believe the next insult/assault to their grandiose based stability would shatter them.
In essence the reason narcissists are so self-centered is that their grandiosity based center needs to be constantly reinforced to remain stable.
Don’t let them cross over the line to physical violence, but if it looks like they will follow you to keep verbally assaulting you and then maybe escalate, just listen to them until they sputter out. Don’t try to engage them verbally.
After they calm down—or better, the next day—say to them: “I didn’t want to say this when you were yelling at or being sullen with at me, but going forward the next time you get so angry at me and verbally yell at me, speak contemptuously or act sullen, I will say once, ‘Please speak to me or act in a respectful manner,’ and if that doesn’t stop you, I will walk away and go to some other part of the house, office, or company. Following that conversation, if it happens again, I will simply walk away saying, ‘I have other things to do.’ This is not an ultimatum, but just a heads up of what I will do if those exchanges happen again.” (Please modify as you see fit to sound more like your words, but I hope you get the idea.)
One of the takeaways from this is that “words sometimes respond to words, but actions (which narcissistic rage is) respond to actions in the form of consequences.” The challenge is to make your action response just right and not go to overkill, which you will have to take back, or under kill, which will only allow them to keep raging at you.
The more important takeaway is to weigh what such people bring to your life: If what they take from it and inflict on you is much more, get out.
Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is that those who are wicked are certainly miserable, whence he would infer that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so.
Now check the list that I gave you of a narcissistic person. Do you see from the list anything which matches Eliphaz’s character?
17 “I will tell you, hear me; What I have seen I will declare
In his anger he says to Job, ‘You want me to show you your sin, I will show you and what I have to say is worth hearing, and it will not be some worthless reason, as like all the garbage that has spewed out of your mouth.’’
Here is wisdom so please write this down. - Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasoning’s of others, to commend their own. Do you understand this statement? In other words when you fail to understand the explanation, reason, or findings of others then only your ideas, plans, or decisions count.
Have you ever worked for someone like this? The outcomes are always his to make, ‘his way or the highway.’
Eliphaz had just challenged that he indeed would tell Job his sins. But look at the second silly part of his remark – What I have seen I will declare. Wait a minute you guys live many, many, miles away from me and you are now going to tell me what sins I have committed by what you have observed? Are you kidding me or what?
Put yourselves in this group discussion. I have dealt with some people like this. You are talking something very specific and then someone goes off on a tangent that has nothing to the original point of discussion.
Eliphaz now does this exact thing. As I mentioned before he had just told Job that he would tell him of the sins that he has done against God Almighty. He now proceeds to go off on a tangent He promises to teach Job from his own experience and observation of the providences of God concerning the children of men. Hey Eliphaz, Job must be thinking, ‘what does this have to do with you revealing my sin to me?’
18 what wise men have told, not hiding anything received from their fathers
One great attribute that our Lord gives us is a thing called ‘discernment’. You are able to deduce where someone is going with a charge or accusation. You can see the trap someone is laying out against you. Has our Holy Lord ever given you a situation like this with the foresight to deduce a serious charge being leveled against you?
I believe Job even in his misery is now picking up where Eliphaz is going with his accusations. He understands that the so called friend is now going to blame Job’s ancestors for not passing on God’s holy decrees. So, then Job’s sins are just a pattern of continuing the sins of his forefathers.
The wisdom and learning of the current dwellers on the earth are very much derived from those of the past generations. Good children will learn a good deal from their good parents; and what we have learned from our ancestors we must transmit to our posterity and not hide from the generations to come. If the thread of the knowledge of many ages be cut off by the carelessness of one, and nothing be done to preserve it pure and entire, all that succeed fare the worse. In scripture it declares that our Holy God will allow the sins of those who hate Him to be passed along to the third and fourth generations following them. Can you now see where this guy is going with his reasoning?
19 to whom alone the land was given, and no alien passed among them
The authorities Eliphaz vouched were authorities indeed, men of rank and figure, unto whom alone the earth was given, and therefore you may suppose them favorites of Heaven and best capable of making observations concerning the affairs of this earth. The dictates of wisdom come with advantage from those who are in places of dignity and power. Elipaz’s aim here is to say that those who are wise and good do ordinarily prosper in this world. They are the ones, who had the earth given to them, and to them only; they enjoyed it entirely and peaceably, and no strangers passed among them, either to share with them or bother them.
Job had said, the earth is given into the hand of the wicked back in chapter 9 verse 24. "No,’’ says Eliphaz, "it is given into the hands of the saints, and runs along with the faith committed unto them; and they are not robbed and plundered by strangers and enemies making inroads upon them, as you have been by the Sabeans and Chaldeans.’’ But because many of God’s people have remarkably prospered in this world, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and impoverished, as Job, are not God’s people.
20 The wicked man writhes with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden from the oppressor. 21 Dreadful sounds are in his ears; In prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. 22 He does not believe that he will return from darkness, for a sword is waiting for him. 23 He wanders about for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24 Trouble and anguish make him afraid; They overpower him, like a king ready for battle. 25 For he stretches out his hand against God, and acts defiantly against the Almighty, 26 running stubbornly against Him with his strong, embossed shield.
Eliphaz says that wicked people, and particularly oppressors and tyrannizing rulers, are subject to continual terrors, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. He speaks in the singular number—the wicked man, meaning Job himself, whom he expressly charges both with the tyranny and with the sinful life here described.
Here he thinks his application upon reason is easy to see, and that Job might, in this description, as in a glass, see his own face.
Elipaz now goes on to describe the miserable condition of this wicked man Job, both in spiritual and temporal judgments. First of all his inward peace is continually disturbed. He seems to those about him to be easy, and they therefore envy him and wish themselves in his condition; but he who knows what is in men tells us that a wicked man has so little comfort and satisfaction in his own breast that he is rather to be pitied than envied. His own conscience accuses him, and with the pangs and throes of that he travails in pain all his days. He also is continually uneasy at the thought of the cruelties he has been guilty of and the blood in which he has on his hands. His sins stare him in the face at every turn.
A person with this type of baggage constantly worries at the uncertainty of the continuance of his wealth and power: The number of years is hidden to the oppressor. He knows, whatever he pretends, that they will not last always, and has reason to fear that they will not last long and this he frets at.
He charges that Job is no ordinary sinner, but one of the first rate, an oppressor, a blasphemer, and a persecutor, one that neither fears God nor regards man.
A guilty conscience represents to the sinner a flaming sword turning every way. He knows that the day of darkness (or the night of darkness rather) is ready at his hand, that it is appointed to him and cannot be put by, that it is hastening on apace and cannot be put off. This day of darkness is something beyond death; it is that day of the Lord which to all wicked people will be darkness and not light and in which they will be doomed to utter, endless, darkness.
Hell will be total darkness. Some people joke that they would rather go to hell than heaven for all their friends will be there partying forever. Well, they might be there but you will not see them for it will be so much darkness that you will feel its thickness consuming you.
The wicked person will have such dread when judgment falls upon him that he is already, in his own imagination, wandering abroad for bread, going a begging for a meal’s meat, and saying, where is it? His outward prosperity will soon come to an end, and all his confidence and all his comfort will come to an end with it. How can he prosper when God runs upon him? How should those find mercy who never showed mercy?[
Job is charged with defying God Almighty and His authority. When Elipaz had tried to tell him of God’s divine law, and its obligations; he rejects this good advice, and will not have Him that made him, to restrain him or rule over him.
Elipaz then says that when he tried to tell him of the divine wrath, and its terrors; Job bids the Almighty to do His worst for he will have his own will, he will have his own way, in spite of him, and will not be controlled by law, or conscience, or the notices of a judgment to come.
He infers that Job stretches out his hand against God, in defiance of Him and of the power of His wrath. God Is indeed out of his reach, but he stretches out his hand against him anyway, to show that, if it were in his power, he would fight Him. He in effect says that Job must hate God. As the scriptures foretell, ‘Woe unto him that strives with his Maker.
27 “Though he has covered his face with his fatness, and made his waist heavy with fat,
Having been the richest man in the earth Job is blamed for wrapping himself up in security and sensuality. This signifies the pampering of his flesh with daily delicious food.
The gratifying of the appetites of the body, feeding and feasting that to the full, often turns to the damage of the soul and its interests. Why is God forgotten and slighted, a good reason is because the belly is made a god. Those that fill themselves with wine and strong drink abandon all that is serious and flatter themselves with hopes that tomorrow shall be the same as today.
The fat that covers his face makes him look bold and haughty, and that which covers his hips makes him lie easy and soft, and feel little; but this will prove poor shelter against the darts of God’s wrath.
28 He dwells in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabits, which are destined to become ruins.
He enriches himself with the spoils of all about him. He dwells in cities which he himself has made desolate by expelling the inhabitants out of them, that he might be placed alone in them
Proud and cruel men and women take a strange pleasure in ruins. I see presently a Presidential candidate who as CEO of a corporation helped her country merge with another leader in the same field. As a result 30,000 people lost their job and this person puts it down on her resume as a great accomplishment.
I like the founder of the Teddy Bear Company. He could send out his product to other countries to be made ts half the price it costs him to make his product in the US but I love his answer, ‘I have a lot of men and women with families that are dependent on me. I cannot forsake them. I have a nice home in a nice town. I do not need more money.’ Now there is a great guy. Way to go!
29 He will not be rich, nor will his wealth continue, nor will his possessions overspread the earth.
Whom God runs upon he will certainly run down; for when He Judges He will overcome. Elipaz now points out how the judgments of God cross this worldly wicked man in all his cares, desires, and projects, and so complete his misery. First, he is in care to get, but he shall not be rich. His own covetous mind keeps him from being truly rich. He is not rich that has not enough, and he has not enough that does not think he has. It is contentment only that is great gain. Providence remarkably keeps some from being rich, defeating their enterprises, breaking their measures, and keeping them always behind-hand. Many that get much by fraud and injustice, yet do not grow rich: it goes as it comes; it is got by one sin and spent upon another.
I want to share with you comments about the failures of being rich without having the riches of being a son or daughter of Almighty God from the lips of millionaires
‘I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness.’ Rockefeller
The care of $200,000, 000 is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it.’ Vanderbilt
‘I am the most miserable man on earth – John Jacob Astor
‘What can I say? I only know I am desolate – J Paul Getty
“I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job – Henry Ford
‘Millionaires seldom smile – Andrew Carnegie
Those that aim to engross the world to them, and grasp at all, lose the comfort of all, and make themselves miserable in the midst of all. Consider these truths - Money will buy:
. A bed but not sleep
. Books but not brains
. Food but not an appetite
. Finery but not beauty
. A house but not a home
. Medicine but not health
. Luxuries but not culture
. Amusements but not happiness
. A crucifix but not a savior
. Religion but not salvation
. A good life but not eternal life
. A passport to everywhere but heaven
30 He will not depart from darkness; The flame will dry out his branches, and by the breath of His mouth he will go away. 31 Let him not trust in futile things, deceiving himself, for futility will be his reward. 32 It will be accomplished before his time, and his branch will not be green. 33 He will shake off his unripe grape like a vine, and cast off his blossom like an olive tree. 34 For the company of hypocrites will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery. 35 They conceive trouble and bring forth futility; Their womb prepares deceit.”
He shall not depart out of darkness. When he begins to fall, like Haman, all men say, "Down with him.’’ By the breath of God’s mouth shall he go away, and leave his wealth to others; that is, by God’s wrath, which, like a stream of brimstone, kindles the fire that devours him
He thinks that he is going to leave what he has got and kept to his children after him. But in this he is mistaken; the branches of his family shall perish, in whom he hoped to live and flourish and to have the reputation of making them all great men. They shall not be green which refers to being healthy and vibrant. The flame shall dry them up. The heat of God’s wrath will devour them.
He shall shake them off as blossoms that never knit, or as the unripe grape. They shall die in the beginning of their days and never come to maturity. Many a man’s family is ruined by his iniquity. We see this effect happen a lot in spring. Have you ever noticed the flowering trees bloom? And then a cold streak hits the area and all the blossoms die and fall quickly from the tree.
The wicked ultimately are driven away in their wickedness, the worldly in their worldliness.
He is in care to secure his partners [the company of hypocrites], and hopes to secure himself by his partnership with them; but that is in vain too. The congregation of them, the whole confederacy, they and all their side investments, shall be desolate and consumed with fire. Hypocrisy and bribery are here charged upon them; that is, deceitful dealing both with God and man—God affronted under color of religion, man wronged under color of justice. It is impossible that these should end well. Though hand join in hand for the support of these perfidious practices, yet shall not the wicked go unpunished.
In ending, the question we need to consider is this, ‘what is the lesson to take from all of this. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end thus miserably? Then let not him that is deceived trust in vanity. Let the mischief’s which befall others be our warnings, and let not us rest on that broken reed which always failed those who leaned on it. Those who trust to their sinful ways of getting wealth trust in vanity, and vanity will be their recompense, for they shall not get what they expected. Their arts will deceive them and perhaps ruin them in this world.
