Albert Barnes Commentary Job 22:13

"And thou sayest, What doth God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?" — Job 22:13 (ASV)

And thou sayest, How doth God know? - That is, it follows from what you have said; or the opinion which you have advanced is the same as if you had affirmed this. How common it is to charge a person with holding what we infer, from something they have advanced, they must hold, and then to proceed to argue as if they actually held that. The philosophy of this is plain. A person advances a certain opinion. We infer at once that they can hold that only on certain grounds, or that if they hold that, they must hold something else also.

We can see that if we held that opinion, we should also, for the sake of consistency, be compelled to hold something which seems to follow from it, and we cannot see how this can be avoided, and we at once charge them with holding it. But the truth may be, that they have not seen that such consequences follow, or that they have some other way of accounting for the fact than we have; or that they may hold to the fact and yet deny completely the consequences which legitimately follow from it. Now we have a right to show them by argument that their opinions, if they would follow them out, would lead to dangerous consequences, but we have a right to charge them with holding only what they profess to hold. They are not answerable for our inferences; and we have no right to attribute these to them as being their real opinions.

Everyone has a right to avow what they actually believe, and to be regarded as holding that, and that only.

How doth God know? - That is, how can one so exalted see what is done on the distant earth, and reward and punish people according to their deserts? This opinion was actually held by many of the ancients. It was supposed that the supreme God did not condescend to attend to the affairs of mortals, but had committed the government of the earth to inferior beings. This was the foundation of the Gnostic philosophy, which prevailed so much in the East in the early ages of the Christian church. Milton puts a similar sentiment into the mouth of Eve in her reflections after she had eaten the forbidden fruit:

And I, perhaps, am secret: heaven is high,
High and remote from there to see distinct
Each thing on earth; and other care perhaps
May have diverted from continual watch
Our great Forbidder, safe with all his spies about him.

Paradise Lost, Book IX.

Can he judge through the dark cloud? - Can he look down through the clouds which interpose between humankind and him? Eliphaz could not see how Job could maintain his opinions without holding that this was impossible for God. He could see no other reason why God did not punish the wicked than because he did not see them, and he, therefore, charges this opinion on Job.