Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?
The utterance is a double self-examination in which Job demands to know if guilt is found in his speech and if his moral palate has lost the power to detect what is false and perverse. It is spoken as part of his answer to Eliphaz, where he insists that his lament is warranted and stands firm in declaring himself innocent. The exchange belongs to the long controversy with his three friends over his afflictions that runs through chapters 4 to 31. That controversy forms the poetic core of the book, setting out the contending explanations of Job and his friends concerning the cause and purpose of human suffering.
The utterance is a double self-examination in which Job demands to know if guilt is found in his speech and if his moral palate has lost the power to detect what is false and perverse. It is spoken as part of his answer to Eliphaz, where he insists that his lament is warranted and stands firm in declaring himself innocent. The exchange belongs to the long controversy with his three friends over his afflictions that runs through chapters 4 to 31. That controversy forms the poetic core of the book, setting out the contending explanations of Job and his friends concerning the cause and purpose of human suffering.