“For example, you must have lent money to your friend and demanded clothing as security. Yes, you stripped him to the bone.
Parallel translations
- WEB For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.
- KJV For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing.
- BSB For you needlessly demanded security from your brothers and deprived the naked of their clothing.
- NKJV For you have taken pledges from your brother for no reason, And stripped the naked of their clothing.
- NASB “For you have seized pledges from your brothers without cause, And stripped people naked.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Eliphaz fabricates specific sins, claiming Job seized pledges from his brothers and left people naked. He invents social injustices Job never committed.
Overview
Eliphaz accuses Job of exploiting the vulnerable by abusing the practice of pledges (cf. Ex 22:26-27). These charges are baseless, contradicted by Job's later defense in chapter 31. The verse reveals how desperate Eliphaz has become, manufacturing evidence to fit his theory. It warns against assuming hidden guilt in those who suffer.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Exod 22:26If you take your neighbor’s garment as collateral, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down,
- Ezek 18:12has wronged the poor and needy, has taken by robbery, has not restored the pledge, and has lifted up his eyes to the idols, has committed abomination,
- Ezek 18:16neither has wronged any, has not taken anything to pledge, neither has taken by robbery, but has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Deut 24:10–18When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.
- Job 24:3They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
- Job 24:9–10There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,
- Deut 24:6No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge; for he takes a life in pledge.
- Job 31:19–20if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering;
- Ezek 18:7and has not wronged any, but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has taken nothing by robbery, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment;
- Amos 2:8and they lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 22:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.