Job 22:24

24. Lay up gold as dust, etc. Literally, And cast to the dust the precious ore; even gold of Ophir to the stones of the brooks. Then the Almighty shall be thy precious ores, and plenty of silver to thee. “To lay shining metal on the dust, is a way of speaking to regard them equally little,” (Umbreit.) Augustine’s thought, that “the Christian counts gold as dust,” well conveys that of Eliphaz. For a similar use of שׁית , see Job 30:1, to “set with,” put on a level with, “the dogs of my flock.” In the original there is a play of words between betser, precious ore, and betsour, to the stone. Canon Cook ( Speaker’s Com.) sees in the promises of gold in the text, the reflection of a “selfish and sordid” nature, on the supposition that his name, Eliphaz “gold is my god” indicated his true character. (See note, Job 2:11.) This leads Eliphaz, he thinks, to “exhort Job to a speedy repentance, which he assures him will be immediately rewarded by abundance of wealth.” But the rendering as above, which is hinted at in the margin, and substantially accepted by most of the recent scholars, redeems this beautiful exhortation from so mercenary a blur, and makes it one of the most precious promises of the word of God.

Ophir Used for gold of Ophir, as Amos (like ourselves) calls the cloth of Damascus “damask” “in Damascus in a couch;” literally, damask of the bed. Amos 3:12. The natives of Malacca at the present day call their gold mines Ophirs. The site of these famous mines of antiquity is still as much as ever in dispute.

Heeren thinks that, like Thule, the name denotes no particular spot, but only a certain region or part of the world, such as the East or West Indies in modern geography. Hence Ophir was the general name for the rich countries of the south, lying on the African, Arabian, or Indian coasts, as far as at that time known. Hist. Res., 1:335. According to Ritter, Ewald, and Lassen, Ophir lay in India; while Niebuhr, Winer, and Kalisch place it in Arabia; Rawlinson, in Ceylon.