(18) Which wise men have told from their fathers.--Here he adopts the language of Bildad (Job 8:8), appealing both to his own experience and that of universal tradition in an age prior to civil commotion and foreign disturbance.

Verse 18. - Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it (comp. Job 8:8-10). Whether the words are his own or not, the sentiments, at any rate, Eliphaz declares to have come down to him from remote times. The "wise men" to whom he refers may have been men of the Beni Kedem (Job 1:3). who were noted for their wisdom (1 Kings 4:30), or possibly Egyptians or Babylonians. Books containing moral aphorisms and instructions were certainly composed both in Egypt and in Babyhmia at a very ancient date (see 'Records of the Past,' vol. 2. pp. 11-16; vol. 3. p. 135; vol. 7. pp. 119-122).

15:17-35 Eliphaz maintains that the wicked are certainly miserable: whence he would infer, that the miserable are certainly wicked, and therefore Job was so. But because many of God's people have prospered in this world, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and made poor, as Job, are not God's people. Eliphaz shows also that wicked people, particularly oppressors, are subject to continual terror, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end miserably as here described? Then let the mischiefs which befal others, be our warnings. Though no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. No calamity, no trouble, however heavy, however severe, can rob a follower of the Lord of his favour. What shall separate him from the love of Christ?Which wise men have told from their fathers,.... Men wise in the best sense, not to do evil, but to do good; not worldly wise men, but such who have wisdom, sound wisdom in the inward parts; who are wise to salvation, and who are partakers of divine and spiritual wisdom; and such men, as they would never tell an untruth, so they would never report a false or a foolish thing they had heard, nor any thing but upon a good testimony, what they have received from their fathers, who were also wise and good men; and therefore such a testimony, though not ocular, but by tradition, deserves regard:

and have not hid it; their fathers did not hide it from them, and what they have received from their fathers they did not hide it from their children; and so it came to be handed down from one to another with great truth, exactness, and certainty, and to be depended upon, see Psalm 44:1.