Job 22:17
“who said to God, ‘Depart from us;’ and, ‘What can the Almighty do for us?’”
What does Job 22:17 mean?
Eliphaz is describing the kind of person he believes brings suffering on themselves: someone who actively rejects God and dismisses his power as irrelevant to their life. This reflects a common assumption among Job's friends that anyone suffering must have first turned away from God and refused his help. The striking part is the arrogance captured here—not just doubting God's existence, but openly telling him to leave and questioning whether he has anything worthwhile to offer. It's a posture of complete self-reliance mixed with contempt. Though Eliphaz means this as an accusation against Job (suggesting Job has taken this attitude), the words actually reveal how the friends themselves view the relationship between faith and hardship: they believe that rejecting God leads directly to disaster.