24 and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines,
24 Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust,
24 if you lay gold in the dust, and gold of Ophir among the stones of the torrent-bed,
24 Relax your grip on your money and abandon your gold-plated luxury.
24 Then you will lay your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks.
24 If you give up your lust for money and throw your precious gold into the river,
16 It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir, with precious onyx or lapis lazuli.
16 It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire.
16 Even famous Ophir gold can't buy it, not even diamonds and sapphires.
16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, In precious onyx or sapphire.
16 It's worth more than all the gold of Ophir, greater than precious onyx or lapis lazuli.
(Read Job 28:12-19)
Job here speaks of wisdom and understanding, the knowing and enjoying of God and ourselves. Its worth is infinitely more than all the riches in this world. It is a gift of the Holy Ghost which cannot be bought with money. Let that which is most precious in God's account, be so in ours. Job asks after it as one that truly desired to find it, and despaired of finding it any where but in God; any way but by Divine revelation.
12 I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
12 I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
12 Proud humanity will disappear from the earth. I'll make mortals rarer than hens' teeth.
12 I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
12 I will make people scarcer than gold- more rare than the fine gold of Ophir.
(Read Isaiah 13:6-18)
We have here the terrible desolation of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. Those who in the day of their peace were proud, and haughty, and terrible, are quite dispirited when trouble comes. Their faces shall be scorched with the flame. All comfort and hope shall fail. The stars of heaven shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened. Such expressions are often employed by the prophets, to describe the convulsions of governments. God will visit them for their iniquity, particularly the sin of pride, which brings men low. There shall be a general scene of horror. Those who join themselves to Babylon, must expect to share her plagues, Revelation 18:4. All that men have, they would give for their lives, but no man's riches shall be the ransom of his life. Pause here and wonder that men should be thus cruel and inhuman, and see how corrupt the nature of man is become. And that little infants thus suffer, which shows that there is an original guilt, by which life is forfeited as soon as it is begun. The day of the Lord will, indeed, be terrible with wrath and fierce anger, far beyond all here stated. Nor will there be any place for the sinner to flee to, or attempt an escape. But few act as though they believed these things.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 22:24
Commentary on Job 22:21-30
(Read Job 22:21-30)
The answer of Eliphaz wrongly implied that Job had hitherto not known God, and that prosperity in this life would follow his sincere conversion. The counsel Eliphaz here gives is good, though, as to Job, it was built upon a false supposition that he was a stranger and enemy to God. Let us beware of slandering our brethren; and if it be our lot to suffer in this manner, let us remember how Job was treated; yea, how Jesus was reviled, that we may be patient. Let us examine whether there may not be some colour for the slander, and walk watchfully, so as to be clear of all appearances of evil.