Job 22:6

For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought,.... It can hardly be thought that it was for nothing at all, on no consideration whatever, or that nothing was lent, for which the pledge was

For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing.

For thou hast taken, or, surely thou hast taken. He speaks thus by way of conjecture, or strong presumption. When I consider thy grievous and unusual calamities, I justly conclude thou art guilty of all or some of these following crimes; and do thou search thine own conscience, whether it be not so with thee. From thy brother, i.e. either of thy neighbour, or of thy kinsman; which are both called by the name of brother. This is added to aggravate the offence. For nought, i.e. without sufficient and justifiable cause; which he might do many ways; either by taking what he ought not to take, ; or from whom he ought not, to wit, the poor, to whom he should give or when and in such manner as he ought not, of which See Poole "", See Poole ""; or by keeping it longer than he should, as when the poor man’ s necessity requires it, or when the debt is satisfied, . Stripped the naked of their clothing; either by taking their garment for a pledge, against the law, ; or otherwise by robbing them of their rights, all other injuries being synecdochically comprehended under this. Quest. How could he strip the naked? Answ. He calls them naked, either, 1. Because they had but very few and mean clothes, such being oft called naked, as . Or, 2. From the effect, because though he did not find them naked, yet he made them so. The like phrases we have , grind meal, i.e. by grinding corn make it meal; , falsifying the deceitful balances, i.e. by falsifying making true balances deceitful. And so here, to strip the naked, is by stripping them to make them naked.

Job 22:6 For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing.Ver. 6. For thou hast taken a pledge, &c.] Bona verba, quaeso, I seek good words, Eliphaz. How well might Job have cried out, as David afterwards did, Psalms 35:11, "False witnesses rose up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not." Here he stands accused, 1. Of inhumanity and cruelty; 2. Of irreligion and impiety. But he fully cleareth himself of both, Job 30:1-31; Job 31:1-40 Athanasius in like sort was falsely accused of adultery in the Council of Tyre, A. D. 343; Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, was injuriously deprived for the same cause, about the latter end of Constantine the Great; adultery, heresy, and treason were objected to Archbishop Cranmer; parricide to Mr Philpot; sedition to father Latimer; to which he answereth, As for sedition, for aught that I know, methinks I should not need Christ, if I might so say. For nought] Or unconscionably, as one rendereth it; and herein lay the fault. See Deuteronomy 24:6; Deuteronomy 24:10. And stripped the naked of their clothing] If naked, how could he strip them, skin them, as the word signifieth? Chrysostom useth this proverb, Nudus nec a centum viris spoliatur, He that is naked cannot be stripped by a hundred men. We also have a proverb, Where nothing can be had the king must lose his right. And again, He is like to get little Who robbeth a spital. In the late German wars, the Crabats, at Altroff, a university, plundered the scholars, and put poor genus and species to their ransom (Life of the King of Sweden). Micah inveigheth against such cannibal princes, as plucked the skin from the flesh, and the flesh from the bones of the poor oppressed, Micah 3:2-3. That which Eliphaz here chargeth Job with, but without truth, is, that he stripped off the clothing of the naked; that is, that, finding them poor enough, he left them yet poorer, hardly having a rag to hang on their backs, through his extortion.

(6) Thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother.—These specific charges, false as they were, show the depth to which Eliphaz had sunk.

Verse 6. Thou hast taken a pledge] Thou hast been vexatious in all thy doings, and hast exacted where nothing was due, so that through thee the poor have been unable to procure their necessary clothing.

6. Compare the laws, Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:10. The “naked” are those poorly clad. See Job’s reply to this, ch. Job 31:19.

For thou hast taken a pledge from thy brother for nought - The only evidence which Eliphaz seems to have had of this was, that this was a heinous sin, and that as Job seemed to be severely punished,

b. Since it must be that Job has committed sin, it naturally occurs to Eliphaz to charge upon him those sins which the best of the rich men of his day were guilty of committing.