Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
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Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
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Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said:
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Job 4:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
- Job 3:1-2 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. Job answered:
- Job 6:1 Then Job answered,
- Job 8:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
- Job 15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
- Job 22:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
- Job 42:9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Job 4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Ver. 1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite] Then, when Job had laid about him in this sort; and, giving his tongue too much liberty to lash out, had uttered words little better than blasphemous and contumelious against God; then Eliphaz, Temanites ille, the first born of Esau, Gen 36:4 (saith R. Salomon), brought up in the bosom of Isaac, and so inured to revelations from on high. Others think he descended of Teman, nephew to Esau, &c. A man of great wisdom he was, and of great discourse; one that could speak his mind fitly, and did it freely. He seems to have been the chief of the three for age and authority, and therefore begins; pretending to be moved thereunto by zeal for God’s glory, not a little impaired by Job’s impatience savouring of hypocrisy, and arguing eum ficto fucatoque cordo fuisse, that he had been little better than a dissembler. A causeless and uncharitable charge; enough to have driven him into desperation. The Rabbis speak so well of Job’s three friends, that they used to say in a Proverb (Bava bathra Perech 1), Let a man either get him such friends as Job had, or else get him out of the world (like as Chrysippus was wont to say, Aut mentem, aut restim comparandam). But Gregory the Great saith, that these three, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, do fitly set forth heretics, who begin to speak smoothly at first, as if they meant no harm to him to whom they speak, but only good, to purchase his benevolous attention, but soon come to speak words which much hurt the hearer, and greatly trouble him, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain In these verses,
In these verses,
I. Eliphaz excuses the trouble he is now about to give to Job by his discourse (Job 4:2): "If we assay a word with thee, offer a word of reproof and counsel, wilt thou be grieved and take it ill?" We have reason to fear thou wilt; but there is no remedy: "Who can refrain from words?" Observe, 1. With what modesty he speaks of himself and his own attempt. He will not undertake the management of the cause alone, but very humbly joins his friends with him: "We will commune with thee." Those that plead God's cause must be glad of help, lest it suffer through their weakness. He will not promise much, but begs leave to assay or attempt, and try if he could propose any thing that might be pertinent, and suit Job's case. In difficult matters it becomes us to pretend no further, but only to try what may be said or done. Many excellent discourses have gone under the modest title of Essays. 2. With what tenderness he speaks of Job, and his present afflicted condition: "If we tell thee our mind, wilt thou be grieved? Wilt thou take it ill? Wilt thou lay it to thy own heart as thy affliction or to our charge as our fault? Shall we be reckoned unkind and cruel if we deal plainly and faithfully with thee? We desire we may not; we hope we shall not, and should be sorry if that should be ill resented which is well intended." Note, We ought to be afraid of grieving any, especially those that are already in grief, lest we add affliction to the afflicted, as David's enemies, Psa 69:26. We should show ourselves backward to say that which we foresee will be grievous, though ever so necessary. God himself, though he afflicts justly, does not afflict willingly, Lam 3:33. 3. With what assurance he speaks of the truth and pertinency of what he was about to say: Who can withhold himself from speaking? Surely it was a pious zeal for God's honour, and the spiritual welfare of Job, that laid him under this necessity of speaking. "Who can forbear speaking in vindication of God's honour, which we hear reproved, in love to thy soul, which we see endangered?" Note, It is foolish pity not to reprove our friends, even our friends in affliction, for what they say or do amiss, only for fear of offending them. Whether men take it well or ill, we must with wisdom and meekness do our duty and discharge a good conscience.
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II. He exhibits a twofold charge against Job.
1. As to his particular conduct under this affliction. He charges him with weakness and faint-heartedness, and this article of his charge there was too much ground for, Job 4:3-5. And here,
(1.) He takes notice of Job's former serviceableness to the comfort of others. He owns that Job had instructed many, not only his own children and servants, but many others, his neighbours and friends, as many as fell within the sphere of his activity. He did not only encourage those who were teachers by office, and countenance them, and pay for the teaching of those who were poor, but he did himself instruct many. Though a great man, he did not think it below him (king Solomon was a preacher); though a man of business, he found time to do it, went among his neighbours, talked to them about their souls, and gave them good counsel. O that this example of Job were imitated by our great men! If he met with those who were ready to fall into sin, or sink under their troubles, his words upheld them: a wonderful dexterity he had in offering that which was proper to fortify persons against temptations, to support them under their burdens, and to comfort afflicted consciences. He had, and used, the tongue of the learned, knew how to speak a word in season to those that were weary, and employed himself much in that good work. With suitable counsels and comforts he strengthened the weak hands for work and service and the spiritual warfare, and the feeble knees for bearing up the man in his journey and under his load. It is not only our duty to lift up our own hands that hang down, by quickening and encouraging ourselves in the way of duty (Heb 12:12), but we must also strengthen the weak hands of others, as there is occasion, and do what we can to confirm their feeble knees, by saying to those that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, Isa 35:3, Isa 35:4. The expressions seem to be borrowed thence. Note, Those should abound in spiritual charity. A good word, well and wisely spoken, may do more good than perhaps we think of. But why does Eliphaz mention this here? [1.] Perhaps he praises him thus for the good he had done that he might make the intended reproof the more passable with him. Just commendation is a good preface to a just reprehension, will help to remove prejudices, and will show that the reproof comes not from ill will. Paul praised the Corinthians before he chided them, Co1 11:2. [2.] He remembers how Job had comforted others as a reason why he might justly expect to be himself comforted; and yet, if conviction was necessary in order to comfort, they must be excused if they applied themselves to that first. The Comforter shall reprove, Joh 16:8. [3.] He speaks this, perhaps, in a way of pity, lamenting that through the extremity of his affliction he could not apply those comforts to himself which he had formerly administered to others. It is easier to give good counsel than to take it, to preach meekness and patience than to practise them. Facile omnes, cum valemus, rectum consilium aegrotis damus - We all find it easy, when in health, to give good advice to the sick. - Terent. [4.] Most think that he mentions it as an aggravation of his present discontent, upbraiding him with his knowledge, and the good offices he had done for others, as if he had said, "Thou that hast taught others, why dost thou not teach thyself? Is not this an evidence of thy hypocrisy, that thou hast prescribed that medicine to others which thou wilt not now take thyself, and so contradictest thyself, and actest against thy own know principles? Thou that teachest another to faint, dost thou faint? Rom 2:21. Physician, heal thyself." Those who have rebuked others must expect to hear of it if they themselves become obnoxious to rebuke.
(2.) He upbraids him with his present low-spiritedness, Job 4:5. "Now that it has come upon thee, now that it is thy turn to be afflicted, and the bitter cup that goes round is put into thy hand, now that it touches thee, thou faintest, thou art troubled." Here, [1.] He makes too light of Job's afflictions: "It touches thee." The very word that Satan himself had used, Job 1:11, Job 2:5. Had Eliphaz felt but the one-half of Job's affliction, he would have said, "It smites me, it wounds me;" but, speaking of Job's afflictions, he makes a mere trifle of it: "It touches thee and thou canst not bear to be touched." Noli me tangere - Touch me not. [2.] He makes too much of Job's resentments, and aggravates them: "Thou faintest, or thou art beside thyself; thou ravest, and knowest not what thou sayest." Men in deep distress must have grains of allowance, and a favourable construction put upon what they say; when we make the worst of every word we do not as we would be done by.
2. As to his general character before this affliction. he charges him with wickedness and false-heartedness, and this article of his charge was utterly groundless and unjust. How unkindly does he banter him, and upbraid him with the great profession of religion he had made, as if it had all now come to nothing and proved a sham (Job 4:6): "Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways? Does it not all appear now to be a mere pretence? For, hadst thou been sincere in it, God would not thus have afflicted thee, nor wouldst thou have behaved thus under the affliction." This was the very thing Satan aimed at, to prove Job a hypocrite, and disprove the character God had given of him. When he could not himself do this to God, but he still saw and said, Job is perfect and upright, then he endeavoured, by his friends, to do it to Job himself, and to persuade him to confess himself a hypocrite. Could he have gained that point he would have triumphed. Habes confitentem reum - Out of thy own mouth will I condemn thee. But, by the grace of God, Job was enabled to hold fast his integrity, and would not bear false witness against himself. Note, Those that pass rash and uncharitable censures upon their brethren, and condemn them as hypocrites, do Satan's work, and serve his interest, more than they are aware of. I know not how it comes to pass that this verse is differently read in several editions of our common English Bibles; the original, and all the ancient versions, put thy hope before the uprightness of thy ways. So does the Geneva, and most of the editions of the last translation; but I find one of the first, in 1612, has it, Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, the uprightness of thy ways, and thy hope? Both the Assembly's Annotations and Mr. Pool's have that reading: and an edition in 1660 reads it, "Is not thy fear thy confidence, and the uprightness of thy ways thy hope? Does it not appear now that all the religion both of thy devotion and of thy conversation was only in hope and confidence that thou shouldst grow rich by it? Was it not all mercenary?" The very thing that Satan suggested. Is not thy religion thy hope, and are not thy ways thy confidence? so Mr. Broughton. Or, "Was it not? Didst thou not think that that would be thy protection? But thou art deceived." Or, "Would it not have been so? If it had been sincere, would it not have kept thee from this despair?" It is true, if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength, thy grace, is small (Pro 24:10); but it does not therefore follow that thou hast no grace, no strength at all. A man's character is not to be taken from a single act.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said. When Job…
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said. When Job was done cursing his day, and had finished his doleful ditty on that subject, then Eliphaz took the opportunity of speaking, not being able to bear any longer with Job and his behaviour under his afflictions; Eliphaz was one of Job's three friends that came to visit him, Job 2:11; very probably he might be the senior man, or a man of the greatest authority and power; a most respectable person, had in great esteem and reverence among men, and by these his friends, and therefore takes upon him to speak first; or it may be it was agreed among themselves that he should begin the dispute with Job; and we find, that in the close of this controversy the Lord speaks to him by name, and to him only, Job 42:7; he "answered"; not that Job directed his discourse to him, but he took occasion, from Job's afflictions and his passionate expressions, to say what he did; and he "said" not anything by way of condolence or consolation, not pitying Job's case, nor comforting him in his afflicted circumstances, as they required both; but reproaching him as a wicked and hypocritical man, not acting like himself formerly, or according to his profession and principles, but just the reverse: this was a new trial to Job, and some think the sorest of all; it was as a sword in his bones, which was very cutting to him; as oil cast into a fiery furnace in which he now was, which increased the force and fury of it; and as to vinegar an opened and bleeding wound, which makes it smart the more.
; he "answered"; not that Job directed his discourse to him, but he took occasion, from Job's afflictions and his passionate expressions, to say what he did; and he "said" not anything by way of condolence or consolation, not pitying Job's case, nor comforting him in his afflicted circumstances, as they required both; but reproaching him as a wicked and hypocritical man, not acting like himself formerly, or according to his profession and principles, but just the reverse: this was a new trial to Job, and some think the sorest of all; it was as a sword in his bones, which was very cutting to him; as oil cast into a fiery furnace in which he now was, which increased the force and fury of it; and as to vinegar an opened and bleeding wound, which makes it smart the more.
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Job 4:2
job 4:2
job 4:2
job 4:2If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?.... Eliphaz speaks in the name of himself and his two friends, who had doubtless consulted together, and compared their sentiments of Job; which appearing to be the same, they formed a plan and scheme in which they should attack him, and the part which each should take, and the order in which they should proceed: these words are said, either as seemingly doubting whether they should speak or be silent; for they may be rendered, "shall we try", or attempt, to drop or speak a "word to thee"; to enter into a conversation with thee? or, "shall we take up a discourse", and carry it on with thee, "who art grieved" already? or art weary and heavy laden, and bore down with the burden of affliction, with sorrows and troubles; or art impatient (h) under them; we fear, should we, that thou wilt be more grieved and burdened, and become more impatient; and therefore know not well what to do: or else, as supposing and taking it for granted that he would be grieved and burdened, and made more restless and uneasy, impatient and outrageous, yet they had determined to enter into a debate with him; for so the words are by some rendered, "should we speak a word unto thee"; or, "against thee" (i); even should the least word be spoken against thee, thou wilt be weary (k), or burdened, or grieved, or take it ill: we know thou wilt; yet, nevertheless, we must not, we cannot, we will not forbear speaking: or else interrogatively, as our version and others, "wilt thou be grieved?" we desire thou wouldest not, nor take it ill from us, but all in good part; we mean no hurt, we design no ill, but thy good, and beg thou wilt hear us patiently: this shows how great a man Job had been, and in what reverence and respect he was had, that his friends bespeak him after this manner in his low estate; however, this was artifice in them, to introduce the discourse, and bring on the debate after this sort:
but who can withhold himself from speaking? be it as it will; Eliphaz suggests, though Job was already and greatly burdened, and would be more so, and break out into greater impatience, yet there was a necessity of speaking, it could not be forborne; no man could refrain himself from speaking, nor ought in such a case, when the providence of God was reflected upon, and he was blasphemed and evil spoken of, and charged with injustice, as was supposed; in such circumstances, no good, no faithful man, could or ought to keep silence; indeed, when the glory of God, the honour of the Redeemer, and the good of souls require it, and a man's own reputation with respect to his faithfulness lies at stake, silence should not be kept, let the consequence be as it may; but how far this was the case may be considered.
(h) "num suscipiemus verbum ad te, qui impatiens es?" Schmidt; "qui jam dum lassatus", Michaelis. (i) "Contra te", Piscator. (k) "Forsitan moleste accipies", V. L. "fatisces", Schultens.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Eliphaz owns Job's former usefulness, but infers from his…
Eliphaz owns Job's former usefulness, but infers from his present state and behaviour, that he was an hypocrite, ver. 1-6. He affirms that God never afflicts man, but for his wickedness, ver. 7-11. He confirms his assertion, by the words he heard in a vision, ver. 12-21. By all this he aims to make Job both penitent and patient under his sufferings.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Eliphaz answers; and accuses Job of impatience, and of
CHAPTER IV
Eliphaz answers; and accuses Job of impatience, and of
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despondence in the time of adversity, 1-6;
asserts that no innocent man ever perished, and that the wicked
are afflicted for their sins, 7-11;
relates a vision that he had, 12-16,
and what was said to him on the occasion, 17-21.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered] For seven days this person and his two friends had observed a profound silence, being awed and confounded at the sight of Job's unprecedented affliction. Having now sufficiently contemplated his afflicted state, and heard his bitter complaint, forgetting that he came as a comforter, and not as a reprover, he loses the feeling of the friend in the haughtiness of the censor, endeavouring to strip him of his only consolation, - the testimony of his conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, he had his conversation among men, - by insinuating that if his ways had been upright, he would not have been abandoned to such distress and affliction; and if his heart possessed that righteousness of which he boasted, he would not have been so suddenly cast down by adversity.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 4:1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered — Job’s…
Job 4:1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered — Job’s three friends reasoning on the principles of an equal providence, and supposing that affliction could happen only in the way of punishment, which necessarily inferred guilt, and thinking his complaints exceeded the bounds of decency, the eldest of them, Eliphaz, here interposes. He desires Job to recollect himself, not to give way to fruitless lamentations, but to put into practice those lessons he had often recommended to others. He reminds him of that, as he thought, infallible maxim, that those who reaped misery must have sowed iniquity, a maxim which he confirms by his own particular experience, and which he supposes was assented to by all mankind. And, in the display of this maxim, he throws in many of the particular circumstances attending Job’s calamity, intimating, that he must have been a great, though secret oppressor, and that, therefore, the breath of God had blasted him at once. He confirms also the truth of this principle by a revelation, which, he says, was made to him in a vision. He urges further, that supposing he, Job, had been guilty of no very atrocious crime; yet the common frailties of human nature were abundantly sufficient to account for any afflictions which it should please God to inflict on man; but takes care, as he proceeds, (as may be seen in the next chapter,) to let him know, they had a far worse opinion of him; representing him as wicked and foolish, and a proper object of divine wrath.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered - See the notes…
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered - See the notes at Job 2:11.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Themanite. People of this city, about twelve miles from…
Themanite. People of this city, about twelve miles from Petra, in Arabia, were renowned for wisdom, Jeremias xlix. 7., and Baruch ii. 22. Pythagoras therefore visited this country. (St. Cyril, contra Jul. x.) --- Eliphaz attempts to prove that no innocent person is chastised. He does not speak of small faults, to which any person may be exposed, and which God may severely punish. But he will have Job to be a great offender, at least in secret, and represents himself in too advantageous a light; though he was really a good man, and meant well. (Calmet) --- But this did not exempt him from sin, (chap. xlii.) no more than Eliu, chap. xxxii. Bonum ex integra causa; malum ex quolibet defectu; as theologians agree. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Job 4-14
FIRST SERIES OF CONTROVERSIAL DISCOURSES
THE ENTANGLEMENT IN ITS BEGINNING
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Job 4-14
I. Eliphaz and Job: Chap. 4–7
A.—The Accusation of Eliphaz: Man must not speak against God like Job
Job 4-5
1. Introductory reproof of Job on account of his unmanly complaint, by which he could only incur God’s wrath:
Job_4:2-11
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?
but who can withhold himself from speaking?
3 Behold, thou hast instructed many,
and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
4 Thy words have upholden him that was falling,
and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.
5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest;
it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.
6 Is not this thy fear, thy confidence,
thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?
or where were the righteous cut off?
8 Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity,
and sow wickedness, reap the same.
9 By the blast of God they perish,
and by the breath of His nostrils are they consumed.
10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion,
and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 The old lion perisheth for lack of prey,
and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.
2. An account of a heavenly revelation, which declared to him the wrongfulness and foolishness of weak sinful man’s raving against God:
Job_4:12 to Job_5:7
12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me,
and mine ear received a little thereof,
13 in thoughts from the visions of the night,
when deep sleep falleth on men—
14 fear came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones to shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face;
the hair of my flesh stood up!
16 It stood, but I could not discern the form thereof:
an image was before mine eyes;
there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
17 “Shall mortal man be more just than God?
shall a man be more pure than his Maker?
18 Behold, He put no trust in His servants;
and His angels He charged with folly:
19 how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
which are crushed before the moth?
20 They are destroyed from morning to evening;
they perish forever without any regarding it.
21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away?
they die, even without wisdom.”
Job_5:1 Call now, if there be any that will answer thee;
and to which of the saints will thou turn?
2 For wrath killeth the foolish man,
and envy slayeth the silly one.
3 I have seen the foolish taking root;
but suddenly I cursed his habitation.
4 His children are far from safety,
and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them:
5 whose harvest the hungry eateth up,
and taketh it even out of the thorns,
and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
6 Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust,
neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
7 yet man is born unto trouble,
as the sparks fly upward.
3. Admonition to repentance, as the only means by which Job can recover God’s favor and his former happy estate:
Job_5:8-27
8 I would seek unto God,
and unto God would I commit my cause;
9 which doeth great things and unsearchable,
marvellous things without number;
10 who giveth rain upon the earth,
and sendeth waters upon the fields;—
11 to set up on high those that be low,
that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness,
and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
14 They meet with darkness in the day-time,
and grope in the noonday as in the night.
15 But He saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth,
and from the hand of the mighty.
16 So the poor hath hope,
and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.
17 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth;
therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.
18 For He maketh sore, and bindeth up;
He woundeth, and His hands make whole.
19 He shall deliver thee in six troubles;
yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
20 In famine He shall redeem thee from death,
and in war from the power of the sword.
21 Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue,
neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
22 At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh;
neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
23 For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field,
and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.
24 And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace;
and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.
25 Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great,
and thine offspring as the grass of the earth.
26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age,
like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.
27 Lo this, we have searched it, so it is:
hear it, and know thou it for thy good.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Job_4:1. Then answered Eliphaz,… and said.—It is beyond question the poet’s aim in this first discourse of Eliphaz to put forward as the first arraigner of Job a man venerable through age and experience, calm and dispassionate, godly after his manner, but at the same time entangled in a one-sided eudemonism and theory of work-righteousness. It is a genuine sage who discourses here: not indeed another Job, but still a character of marked superiority over his two associates, Bildad and Zophar, in experimental insight and sterling personal worth, who here “with the self-confident pathos of age and the mien of a prophet” communicates his experiences, annexing thereto warnings, exhortations and admonitions. [“He, the oldest and most illustrious, the leader and spokesman, appears here at once in his greatest brilliancy. What a fullness in the argument, which at first sight seems unanswerable! How well he knows how to produce illustrations and proofs from revelation and from experience, from among the inhabitants of heaven and of earth! And what poetic beauty irradiates it all! How he strikes with equal skill each various chord of mild reproach, of self-assured conviction, of the awful, of the elevated, of calm instruction, of friendly appeal! How clearly and sharply marked are its divisions, alike as to thought and poetic form! Every strophe is a rounded completed whole in itself: and with what freedom, and, at the same time, with what internal necessity does one strophe link itself to another! One might say that as an artistic discourse this part is the completest in the whole book of Job, that it seems as though the poet wished to show at the very beginning the perfection of his art.” Schlottmann. “The speech is wonderfully artistic and exhaustive, unmistakably manifesting the speaker’s high standing and self-conscious superiority, and his conviction of Job’s guilt, yet showing a desire to spare him, even while being faithful with him, and to lead him back to rectitude and humility rather by an exhibition of the goodness of God than of his own sin. The speech is exquisitely climactic, rising, as Ewald says, from the faint whisper and tune of the summer wind to the loud and irresistible thunder of the wintry storm.” Dav.]
The discourse opens with a sharp attack on Job’s comfortless and hopeless lamentation, as something which was adapted to bring down on him God’s wrath, which, as experience shows, is visited on every ungodly man (Job_4:2-11). He strengthens this admonition by describing a heavenly vision which had appeared to him during the night, and which had spoken to him, teaching him how foolish and how wrong it is for man to rebel against God (Job_4:12 to Job_5:7). The close of his discourse consists of a kindly admonition to Job to return accordingly to God in a spirit of prayer and penitent humility, in which case God would certainly deliver him out of his misery, and exalt him out of his present low estate (Job_5:8-27).1 The first and shortest of these three divisions forms at the same time the first of the five double strophes, into which the entire discourse falls. The two following divisions are subdivided each into two double strophes of almost equal length, as follows: Div. Job 2 : a. Job_4:12-21; b. Job_5:1-7.—Div. Job 3 : a. Job_5:8-16; b. Job_5:17-27.
2. First Division and Double Strophe: Introductory reproof of Job’s faint-hearted lamentation, whereby he could only call down on himself God’s anger: Job_4:2-11.
First Strophe: Job_4:2-6. Retrospective reference to Job’s former godly and righteous life.
Job_4:2. Should one venture a word to thee, wilt thou be grieved?—[The friendly courtesy of these opening words of Eliphaz is worthy of note. They are at once dignified, sympathetic and considerate. At the same time, as Dillmann observes, there is a certain “coldness and measured deliberation” about them, which not improbably grated somewhat on Job’s sensibilities, yearning, as his heart now did, for more tangible and soulfull sympathy. Eliphaz speaks less as a sympathizing friend, than as a fatherly adviser, and a benevolent but critical sage.—E.] The interrogative particle הֲ, referring to the principal verb תִּלְאֶה, is prefixed to the first word of the sentence. [See Green, Gr. § 283, a.] It is immediately followed by an elliptical conditional clause, נִסָּה דָבָר אֵלֶיךָ (comp. the same construction in Job_4:21; also in Num_16:22; Jer_8:4), forming an antecedent clause to the principal verb. To be rendered accordingly: “Wilt thou find it irksome, take it hard, will it offend thee, if one attempts a word to thee?” נִסָּה is most simply regarded as third pers. sing. Piel of נסה, tentare, after Ecc_7:23. It is less natural, with Umbreit, etc., to take it as Pret. Niph. in the same sense, or following the old versions, to see in it a variant form of נִשָּׂא (comp. Psa_4:7), as though it were נשא דבר, “to speak a word:” Job_27:1; Psa_15:3; Psa_81:3. In the latter case the word must be taken either as 3d sing. Niph. in the passive sense (“should a word be spoken”) or, more probably, as 1st plur. Imperf. Kal (“should we speak”), in which latter case again two interpretations are possible, namely either: “wilt thou, should we speak a word against thee, take offence” (Rosenm., etc., comp. the Ancient Versions)? or: “shall we speak a word against thee, with which thou wilt be offended” (Ewald, Bib. Jahrb. ix. 37; Böttcher)? Against the first rendering may be urged the unusual construction of an Imperf. in an elliptical conditional sentence; against the latter the unheard of transitive rendering which it assumes for לאה. [In favor of taking נסה here in the sense of: “to attempt, to venture,” it may be said: (1) This meaning is entirely legitimate. (2) It is more expressive. (3) It is more in harmony with the courtesy which marks these opening words of Eliphaz. Hengstenberg’s rendering is somewhat different from any of those given above: “Shall one venture a word to thee, who art wearied?” But the elliptical construction thus assumed seems less simple and natural than the one adopted above.—E.] And yet to hold back from words [or speaking] who is able? For the use of עצר with בְּ, “to hold back from [or, in respect to] anything,” comp. Job_12:15; Job_29:9. For the sharpened form וַעְצֹר instead of וַעֲצֹר, see Ew. § 245, b.—מִלִּין, Aram. plur. ending (comp. Job_12:11; Job_15:13) of מִלָּה, which occurs in our book thirty times, whereas מִלִּים occurs but ten times in all.
Job_4:3. Behold, thou hast admonished many.—יִסַּרְתָּ, lit. thou hast chastised, disciplined, namely, with words of reproof and loving admonition. The Perf. here points back to Job’s normal conduct in former days when revered by all, and thus furnishes the standard by which the time of the following Imperf. verb is to be determined. The general sense of Job_4:3-4 is: “Thou wast wont formerly to conduct thyself in regard to the sufferings of others so correctly and blamelessly, to show such a proper understanding of the cause and aim of heavy judgments inflicted by God, to deal with sufferings in a way so wise and godlike! But now when suffering has overtaken thyself, etc. … And slack hands hast thou strengthened.—“Slack hands:” a sensuous figure representing faint-heartedness and despondency, as also in 2Sa_4:1; Isa_35:3. In the last member of Job_4:4 the expression “stumbling [lit. bowing, i.e. sinking] knees” is used in essentially the same sense (and so in Heb_12:12).
Job_4:5. Because it is now come to thee, to wit, suffering, misfortune. This construction of the impersonal or neutral תָּבוֹא is suggested by the context, [and this indefinite statement of the subject is at once more considerate and impressive than if it had been expressed.—E.] כּי is construed by Hirzel, Hahn, Schlottmann, Delitzsch, etc., as a particle of time: “Now when it is come to thee.” But the position, כִּי עַתָּה favors rather the causal rendering of the first particle, “because now,” etc. Comp. Dillmann. [Others explain by supplying an omitted clause: e.g. “I say these things because,” etc. Ewald: “How strange that thou now faintest.” The adversative use of כִּי, (“but now”), except after a negative clause, is too doubtful to be relied on here.—E.] It toucheth thee (תִּגַּע עָדֶיךָ, comp. Isa_16:8; Jer_4:10; Mic_1:9), and thou art confounded. וַתִּבָּהֵל, lit. “art seized with terror, and thereby put out of countenance;” comp. Job_21:6; Job_23:15. [“It is unfair to Eliphaz to suppose that he utters his wonder with any sinister tone—as if he would hint that Job found it somewhat easier to counsel others than console himself; his astonishment is honest and honestly expressed that a man who could say such deep things on affliction, and things that reached so far into the heart of the afflicted, that could lay bare such views of providence and the uses of adversity, and thus invigorate the weak, should himself be so feeble and desponding when suffering came to his own door.” Dav. Doubtless the words express surprise on the part of Eliphaz, and were spoken with a kind intent; but also with a certain severity, a purpose to probe Job’s conscience, to lead him to self-examination, and to the discovery of the hidden evil within, of the existence of which Eliphaz, with his theodicy, could have no doubt.—E.]
Job_4:6. Is not thy godly fear thy confidence? thy hope—the uprightness of thy ways? The order of the words is chiastic [decussated, inverted]: in the first member the subject, יִרְאָֽתְךָ, stands at the beginning; in the second member it is found at the end, תֹּם דְּרָכֶיךָ, evidently synonymous with יִרְאָה. A similar case is found in Job_36:26. Altogether too artificial and forced, and too much at variance with the principles which govern the structure of Hebrew verse, is the explanation attempted by Delitzsch: “Is not thy piety thy confidence, thy hope? And the uprightness of thy ways?” (viz. and is not the uprightness of thy ways thy confidence and thy hope?) Eliphaz twice again makes use of the ellipsis יִרְאָה for יִרְאַת אֱלֹהים in his discourses (Job_15:4; Job_22:4 : and comp. הַדַּעַת, Hos_4:6 for דעת אלהם). [“The word fear is the most comprehensive term for that mixed feeling called piety, the contradictory reverence and confidence, awe and familiarity, which, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, keep man in his orbit around God.” Dav.] כִּסְלָה, confidence, assurance (the same which elsewhere=כֶסֶל, Job_8:14; Job_31:24), not “folly” (LXX.). [The Vav in the second member is the Vav of the apodosis, or of relation. See Green, Gr. § 287, 3.—The rendering of E. V.: “Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?” overlooks the parallelism, and is unintelligible. Some (Hupfeld, Merx) cut the knot by transposing הִּקְוָתְֽךָ to the end of the verse. The construction as it stands is certainly peculiar, yet not enough so to justify any change. Moreover it seems to have escaped all the commentators that the very harshness and singularity of the construction is intentional, having for its object to arrest more forcibly the attention of Job, to stir up his consciousness on the subject of his piety and rectitude, and thus to further the process of probing his soul on which Eliphaz is in this part of his discourse engaged.—E.]
Job_4:7-11 Second Strophe: More explicit expansion of Job_4:6, wherein it is shown as the conclusion of experience that the pious never fall into dire affliction, whereas on the contrary the ungodly and the wicked do so often and inevitably.
Job_4:7. Remember now! who that was innocent has perished? [“It would be unfair to Eliphaz (as well as quite beside his argument, the purpose of which is to reprove Job’s impatience, and lead him back by repentance to God), to suppose that he argued in this way: Who ever perished being innocent? Thou hast perished; therefore thy piety and the integrity of thy ways have been a delusion. On the contrary his argument is: Where were the pious ever cut off? Thou art pious: why is not thy piety thy hope? Why fall, being a pious man, and as such of necessity to be finally prospered by God, into such irreligious and wild despair? Eliphaz acknowledges Job’s piety, and makes it the very basis of his exhortation; of course, though pious, he had been guilty (as David was) of particular heinous sins, which explained and caused his calamities. The fundamental axiom of the friends produced here both positively and negatively as was meet for the first announcement of it by Eliphaz is, that whatever appearance to the contrary and for a time, yet ultimately and always the pious were saved and the wicked destroyed.” Dav.] The הוּא annexed to the מִי gives greater vivacity to the question; comp. Job_13:19; Job_17:3; also the similar phrase מִי זֶה (Gesen. § 122, 2).
Job_4:8. So far as I have seen, they who plough mischief and sow ruin reap the same.—כַּאֲשֶׁר רָאִיתִי, not “when (or if) I saw” (Vaih., Del.), for this construction of כאשר does not allow the omission of the Vav Consec. before the apodosis. But either the whole sentence is to be taken as a statement of the comparison with that which precedes, to which it is annexed, thus: “As I have seen: they who plough … reap the same” (Hirz., Schlott. [Con.]). Or we are to explain with most of the later commentators;” “So far as I have seen,” i.e. so far as my experience goes (Rosenm., Arnh., Stick., Welte, Heiligst., Ew., Dillm. [Dav., Merx], etc.). אָוֶן, lit. “nothingness,” then “sin, wickedness, mischief.”—עָמָל as in Job_3:10. The agricultural figure of sowing (or ploughing) and reaping, emphatically representing the organically necessary connection of cause and effect in the domain of the moral life; to be found also in Hos_8:7; Hos_10:13; Pro_22:8; Gal_6:7 seq.; 2Co_9:6, and often.
Job_4:9. By the breath of Eloah they perish: like plants, which a burning hot wind scorches (Gen_41:6). The discourse thus carries forward the preceding figure. On the use of the divine name אֱלוֹהַּ in our poem, see Introd. § 5. The נִשְׁמַת אֱלוֹהַּ is in b. still more specifically defined as רוּחַ אַפו, lit. “breath of his nostril,” i.e. blast of his anger. Both synonyms are still more closely bound together in Psa_18:16. [“As the previous verse describes retribution as a natural necessity founded in the order of the world, so does this verse trace back this game order of the world to the divine causality.” Schlott. Lee, criticising the A. V.’s rendering of נְשָׁמָה in the first member by “blast,” says: “I know of no instance in which the word will bear this sense. It rather means a slight or gentle breathing.… The sentiment seems to be: they perish from the gentlest breathing of the Almighty .. It is added: and from the blast of his nostril, or wrath, they come to an end. From the construction here, blast or storm is probably meant. See Psa_11:6; Hos_13:15, etc., and if so, we shall have a sort of climax here.”]
Job_4:10-11. From the vegetable kingdom the figurative representation of the discourse passes over to that of animal life, in order to show, by the destruction of a family of lions, how the insolent pride of the wicked is crushed by the judgment of God.—The cry of the lion, and the voice of the roaring lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken; the strong [lion] perishes for lack of prey, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered.—[Merx rejects these two verses as spurious; but their appropriateness in the connection will appear from what is said below.—E.] Not less than five different names of the lion are used in this description, showing the extent to which the lion abounded in the lands of the Bible, and especially in the Syro-Arabian country, which was the scene of our poem. The usual name אַרְיֵה stands first; next follows the purely poetic designation, שַׁחַל, “the roarer” (Vaih.), comp. Job_10:16; Job_28:8; Psa_91:13; Pro_26:13; Hos_5:14; Hos_13:7; then in Job_4:10 b comes the standard expression for young lions, כְּפִירִים, comp. Jdg_14:5; Psa_17:12; Psa_104:21; then follows in Job_4:11 aלַיִשׁ, “the strong one,” from לִישׁ, “to be strong,” found again in Pro_30:30, and being thus limited to the diction of poetry, and finally in Job_4:11 b the no less poetic לָבִיא, which here, as well as in Job_38:29; Gen_49:9; Num_24:9, denotes the lioness, for which, however, we have also the distinctive feminine form לְבִיָא in Eze_19:2. [“The young lions are mentioned along with the old in order to exemplify the destruction of the haughty sinner with all his household.” Schlott.] נִתָּעוּ (from נתע, frangere, conterere, an Aramaizing alternate form of נתצ, comp. Psa_58:7) signifies: “are shattered, are dashed out;’ an expression which, strictly taken, suits only the last subject שִׁנֵּי כּ, but may by zeugma be referred to both the preceding subjects, to which such a verb as “are silenced” would properly correspond. Observe the use of the perf. נִתָּעוּ in making vividly present the sudden destruction of the rapacious lions, which is then followed in Job_4:11, first by a present partic. (אֹבֵר), then by a present Imperf. (יִתְפָרָדוּ), describing them in their present condition, shattered, broken in strength, and restrained in their rage. [Delitzsch remarks that “the partic. אֹבֵד is a stereotype expression for wandering about prospectless and helpless,” a definition which here, as well as in the passages to which he refers, would considerably weaken the sense. See Hengsten. in loco.—E.] מִבְּלִי, “for the lack of;” the same as “without;” comp. Job_4:20; Job_6:6; Job_24:7-8; Job_31:19. [“From wicked man his imagination suddenly shifts to his analogue among beasts, the lion, and there appears before him one old and helpless, his teeth dashed out, his roar silenced, dying for lack of prey, and being abandoned by all his kind; a marvellous picture of a sinner once powerful and bloody, but now destitute of power, and with only his bloody instincts remaining to torture and mock his impotency.” Dav.]
3. Second Division: describing a heavenly revelation which declared to him the wrongfulness and the folly of frail, sinful man’s anger against God.—a. Second Double Strophe: the heavenly revelation itself, introduced by a description of the awful nocturnal vision through which it was communicated: Job_4:12-21.
First Strophe: Job_4:12-16. The night-vision.
Job_4:12. And to me there stole a word.—Lit. “and to me there was stolen, there was brought in a stealthy, mysterious manner.” The imperf. יְגֻנָּב is ruled by the following imperf. consec. [“The speaker is thrown back again by the imagination into the imposing circumstances of the eventful night.… The Pual implies that the oracle was sent.” Dav.] The separation of the ו which properly belongs to the verb יְגֻנָּב, but which is placed here, at the beginning of the verse, before אֵלַי [“because he desires, with pathos, to put himself prominent,” Del.] rests on the fact that that which is now about to be related, and especially the דָּבָר which came to Eliphaz, is hereby designated as something new, as something additional to that which has already been observed. [This separation is quite often met with in poetry. Comp. Psa_69:22; Psa_78:15; Psa_78:26; Psa_78:29, etc. See Ew. Gr. § 346 b.] And mine ear caught a whisper therefrom:i.e., proceeding therefrom, occasioned by that communication of a mysterious דבר. The מו in מֶנְהוּ (poetic form, for מִמֶּנּוּ, Ew. § 263 b) is therefore causative, not partitive, as Hahn and Delitzsch regard it. שֶׁמֶץ signifies here, as in Job_26:14, a faint whisper, or lisp [or murmur], ψιθυρισμός, susurrus, not “a little, a minimum,” as the Targ., Pesh., the Rabbis [and the Eng. Ver.] render it. The word is to be derived either from שָׁמַע, thus denoting a faint, indistinct impression on the ear (Arnheim, Delitzsch), or from the primitive root, דם ,שם, to which, according to Dillmann, who produces its Æthiopic cognate, the idea attaches of “lip-closing, dumbness, and low-speaking.” [Here the word “is designed to show the value of such a solemn communication, and to arouse curiosity.” Del. “The whole description of the way in which the communication was made indicates, perhaps, the naturalness and calmness and peace of the intercourse of man’s spirit and God’s—how there is nothing forced or strained in God’s communication to man—it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath—and at the same time man’s impaired capacity and receptiveness and dullness of spiritual hearing.” Dav. “The word was too sacred and holy to come loudly and directly to his ear.” Del.
Job_4:13-16 present a more specific description of that which is stated generally in Job_4:12.
Job_4:13. In the confused thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men.—Whether with most expositors we connect these words with the verse preceding, as a supplementary determination of the time, or as a preliminary statement of time connected with what follows (Umbreit, Dillmann, Conant, etc.), matters not as to the sense.—שְׂעִפִּים are here, as also in Job_20:2, “thoughts proceeding like branches from the heart as their root, and intertwining themselves” (Delitzsch). [The root, according to Del. and Fürst, is שעף, to bind; according to Ges., Dav., etc., it is for סעף, to split; hence here and Job_20:2 “fissures, divisions, divided counsels (1Ki_18:21), thoughts running away into opposite ramifications, distracting doubts.” Dav.] The following מִן indicates that these thoughts proceed from visions of the night, i.e., dream-visions; from which, however, it does not follow that Eliphaz intends to refer what he is about to narrate purely to the sphere of the life of dreams. For the determination of the time in our verse is altogether general, as the second member in particular shows. Hengstenberg’s position that Eliphaz includes himself among the “men” designated here as those on whom deep sleep falls, and that he accordingly represents his vision as literally a dream-vision, has no foundation in the context. (Comp. still further Passavant’s remark on Job_4:13 under the head “Homiletical and Practical”). [“There are three things contained in the genetic process or progress towards this oracle. First, visions of the night, raising deep questions of man’s relation to God, but leaving them unsolved, short flights of the spirit into superhuman realms, catching glimpses of mysteries, too short to be self-revealing—these are the visions. Second, the perturbed, perplexed, and meditative condition of the spirit following these, when it presses into the darkness of the visions for a solution, and is rocked and tossed with fear or longing—the thoughts from the visions. And third, there is the new revelation clearing away the doubts and calming the perturbation of the soul, a revelation attained either by the spirit rising convulsively out of its trouble, and piercing by a new divinely-given energy the heart of things before hidden; or by the truth being communicated to it by some Divine messenger or word.” Dav. The oracle was conveyed by a dream, “because in the patriarchal age such oracles were of most frequent occurrence, as may be seen, e.g. in the book of Genesis.” Ewald]. For תַּרְדֵּמָה, “deep sleep,” such as is wont to be experienced about the hour of midnight, in contrast to ordinary sleep, שֵֹׁנָה, and to the light, wakeful slumber of morning, תְּנוּמָה, comp. Gen_2:21; Gen_15:12; 1Sa_26:12; also below, Job_33:15, where Elihu has a description imitative of the passage before us. [“תַּרְדֵּמָה is the deep sleep related to death and ecstasy, in which man sinks back from outward life into the remotest ground of his inner life.” Del. Per contra Davidson says: “תרדמה is used generally of ecstatic, divinely-induced sleep, yet not exclusively (Pro_19:15, and verb, Jon_1:5), and not here. The meaning is that the vision came, not at the hour when prophetic slumber is wont to fall on men (and that El. was under such), but simply at the hour when men were naturally under deep sleep. El. was thus alone with the vision, and the solitary encounter accounts for the indelible impression its words and itself left on him.”]
Job_4:14. Shuddering [fear] came upon me (קְרָאַנִי, from קרה=קרא, to meet, befall, come upon, comp. Gen_42:38), and trembling, and sent a shudder through the multitude of my bones: the subject of הִפְחִיד being the “shuddering” and the “trembling,” not “the ghostlike something” (as Delitzsch says), of which Eliphaz first proceeds to speak in the following verse. [The perf. vbs. in this verse are pluperf. “A terror had fallen upon me, like a certain vague lull which precedes the storm, as if nature were uneasily listening and holding in her breath for the coming calamity.” So Davidson.—רֹב in poetry is often used for כֹּל, all. The terror striking through his bones indicates how deeply and thoroughly he was agitated. Bones, as elsewhere in similar passages, for the substratum of the bodily frame.—E.]
Job_4:15. And a spirit passed before me; lit.: passes before me (יַחֲלֹף, “glides, flits”); for the description as it grows more vivid introduces in this and the following verse the imperf. in place of the introductory perf. For רוּחַ in the sense of “a spirit,” the apparition of a spirit or an angel, comp. 1Ki_22:21. So correctly the ancient Versions, Umbreit, Ewald, Heiligstedt, Hahn [Good, Lee, Wem., Ber., Noy., Bar., Carey], etc. On the other hand [Schult.], Rosenm., Hirzel, Böttcher, Stickel, Delitzsch, Dillmann [Schlott., Ren., Rod,, Merx] render: “and a breath [of wind] passed over me,” a current of air, such as is wont to accompany spirit-communications from the other world (comp. Job_38:1; 1Ki_19:11; Act_2:2, etc.). The description in the following verse, however, does not agree with this rendering, especially the יַעֲמֹד, which is unmistakably predicated of the רוּחַ in the sense of “an angel, a personal spirit.” [It needs no argument to prove that the “spirit” here introduced is a good spirit, although it may be mentioned in passing that Codurcus, the Jesuit commentator, followed by some others, regards him as an evil spirit. This notion is advanced in the interest of the theory that Job’s friends are throughout to be condemned.—E.]—The hairs of my body bristled up.—תְּסַמֵּר, Piel intensive, “to rise up mightily, to bristle up.” שַׂעֲרָה, elsewhere the individual hair (capillus), here a collective word (coma, crines), of the same structure as עֲנָנָה, Job_3:5. [The expression שַׂעֲרַת בְּשָׁרִי, lit.: “the hair of my flesh,’ shows that the terror, which in Job_4:14 thrilled through all his bones, here creeps over his whole body.—E.]
Job_4:16. It stood there, I discerned not its appearance—The subj. of יַעֲמֹד is not the “unknown something” of the preceding verse (Rosenm., etc.), but the spirit, as it is already known to be, which has hitherto flitted before Eliphaz, but which now stands still to speak (comp. 1Sa_3:10).—An image before mine eyes;תְּמוּנָה, the word which in respect to spiritual phenomena is most nearly expressive of “form.” In Num_12:8; Psa_17:15 it is used of the μορφή or δόξα of God. Here it is very suitably used to describe the spiritual or angelic apparition, fading into indefiniteness; for it refers back to רוּחַ, the true subject of יַעֲמֹד, being placed after it in apposition to it.—A murmur and a voice I heard.—דְּמָמָהוָקֹל, a “lisping murmur and a voice,” a hendiadys, signifying a murmur uttering itself in articulate tones, a “murmuring or whispering voice” (Hahn). [So Ges., Fürst, Words., Dillm., Del., Dav.]. Umbreit (1st Ed.), Schlottmann [Eng. Ver., Good, Lee, Con., Carey, Ren.] take דְּמָמָה, but unsuitably, in the sense of “silence.” For the true sense comp. 1Ki_19:12. [Of those who take דממה in the sense of silence there are two classes, the one, represented by the English Version and commentators, separates between the “silence” and the “voice:” first the silence, then the voice, as Renan: “in the midst of the silence I heard a voice;” the other, represented by Schlottmann and Hengstenberg, combine the two terms as a hendiadys, “a commingling of both, a faint, muffled voice” (Hengst.) Schlottmann quotes from Gersonides as follows: “And I heard his wonderful words as though they were compounded of the voice and of silence.” Burke in his Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful has the following remarks on this vision: “There is a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing described.… We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity for the vision; we are first terrified before we are let even into the obscure cause of our emotion; but when this grand cause of terror makes its appearance, what is it? is it not wrapt up in the shades of its own incomprehensible darkness, more awful, more striking, more terrible than the liveliest description, than the clearest painting, could possibly represent it?”—E.]
Second strophe, Job_4:17-21. The contents of the revelation communicated through the vision.
Job_4:17. Is a mortal just before Eloah, or before his Maker is a man pure?—Already in this question is contained the substance of the revelation; Job_4:18-21 only furnish the proof of this proposition” from the universal sinfulness of men. מִן here is not comparative, “more just than” (Vulg., Luth. [E. V.], etc.), but “from the side of any one” [Gesenius: “marking the author of a judgment or estimate: here in the judgment or sight of God.”] Hence “is a man just from the side of God?” i.e., from God’s stand-point; or, more briefly: “before God” (LXX.: ἐναντίον τοῦ θεοῦ). In the same sense with this מִן = coram (for which comp. Num_16:9; Num_32:22), we find עִם in Job_9:2; Job_25:4; and בְּעֵינֵי in Job_15:15; Job_25:5. [According to the other (the comparative) rendering, the sentiment is: “Whoever censures the course of Providence, by complaining of his own lot (as Job had done), claims to be more just than God, the equity of whose government he thus arraigns.” See Conant, Davidson, etc.]
Job_4:18. Lo, in His servants He trusteth not; and to His angels He imputes error.—“Servants” (עבדים) and “angels” (מלאכים) are only different designations of the same superhuman beings, who in Job_1:6 are called “sons of God.” Eliphaz refers to them here in order to introduce a conclusion a majori ad minus. שִׂים בְּ, lit.: “to place anything in one,” i.e., to ascribe anything to one, imputare. Comp. 1Sa_22:15.—תָּהֳלָה is most correctly explained by Dillmann, after the Ethiopic, as signifying “error, imperfection” (so also Ewald [Fürst, Delitzsch], and still earlier Schnurrer, after the Arabic). The derivation from הלל, according to which it would mean “folly, presumption” (Kimchi, Gesenius [Schlottmann, Renan], etc.), is etymologically scarcely to be admitted [on account of the half vowel, and still more the absence of the Daghesh. Del.] The ancient versions seem only to have guessed at the sense (Vulg., pravum quid; LXX., σκολιόν τι; Chald., iniquitas; Pesch, stupor). Hupfeld needlessly attempts to amend after Job_24:12, where the parallel word תִּפְלָה is given as the object of שִׂים בְּ. [“It is not meant that the good spirits positively sin, as if sin were a natural necesary consequence of their creature-ship and finite existence, but that even the holiness of the good spirits is never equal to the absolute holiness of God, and that this deficiency is still greater in man, who is both spiritual and corporeal, who has earthiness as the basis of his original nature.” Del.]
Job_4:18. How much more they who dwell in houses of clay.—אַף here introducing the conclusion of the syllogism a majori ad minus, begun in Job_4:18, and so = אַף כִּי (Job_9:14; Job_15:16; Job_25:6); here, as in 2Sa_16:11, to be translated by quanto magis, because a positive premise (Job_4:18 b.) precedes; comp. Ewald, § 354, c. Those “who dwell in houses of clay” are men generally. There is no particular reference to those who are poor and miserable. For the expression בָּתֵּי־חֹמֶר does not point to men’s habitations, but to the material, earthly, frail bodies with which they are clothed, their φθαρτὰ σώματα (comp. Job_33:6; Wis_9:15; 2Co_5:1, as well as the Mosaic account of creation which lies at the foundation of all these representations; see Gen_2:7; Gen_3:19). It may be said further that the figurative and indefinite character of the language here justifies no particular deductions either in respect to the nature and constitution of angels (to wit, whether in Eliphaz’s conception they are altogether incorporeal, or whether they are endowed with supra-terrestrial corporeality), nor in respect to the doctrine which he may have entertained concerning the causal nexus between man’s sensuous nature (corporeity) and sin.—The foundation of which is in the dust;viz.: of the houses of clay, for it is to these that the suffix points in אֲשֶׁר יְסוֹדָם; comp. Gen_3:19.—Which are crushed as though they were moths.—The suffix in יְדַכְּאוּם again refers back to the “houses of clay,” only that here those who dwell in them, men, are included with them in one notion. The subj. of ידכאום is indefinite; it embraces “everything that operates destructively on the life of man.” לִפְנֵי־עָשׁ, not “sooner than the moth is destroyed” (Hahn), nor: “sooner than that which is devoured by the moth” (Kamphsn.), nor: “more rapidly than a moth destroys” (Oehler, Fries), nor: “set before the moth [or ‘worm,’ after Jarchi] to be crushed” (Schlottmann), but: “like moths, as though they were moths” (LXX: σητὸς τρόπον). לִפְנֵי accordingly means the same here as in Job_3:24, and the tertium comparationis is the moth’s frailty and powerlessness to resist, and not its agency in slowly but surely destroying and corroding, to which allusion is made in Hos_5:12; Isa_1:9; Isa_51:8; also below in Job_13:28 of our book. [To the latter idea the verb דִּכֵּא used here is altogether unsuited, the meaning being to crush, not to consume in the manner of the moth.]
Job_4:20. From morning to evening are they destroyed;i.e., in so short a space of time as the interval between morning and evening they can be destroyed, one can destroy them (יֻכָּֽתּוּ, potential and impersonal, like ידכאום in Job_4:19). For the use of this phrase, “from morning till evening,” as equivalent to “in the shortest time,” comp. Isa_38:12; also our proverbial saying: “well at morning, dead at night,” as well as the name “day-fly” [comp. “day-lily,” “ephemeron.”]—Before any one marks it they perish forever.—מִבְּלִי מֵשִׂים, scil. לֵב (comp. Job_1:8; Job_23:6; Job_24:12), “without there being any one who gives heed to it, who regards it,” and hence the same as “unobserved, unawares;” not “in folly,” “without understanding” (Ewald).
Job_4:21. Is it not so:—if their cord in them is torn away, they die, and not in wisdom?—The construction is the same as in Job_4:2; the words נסע יתרם בם are an elliptical conditional clause, intercalated in the principal interrogative sentence. יִתְרָם (which Olshausen needlessly proposes to amend to יְתֵדָם, “their tent-pin”), is neither “their residue” (Vulgate, Rabb., Luther, etc.); nor “their best, their chief excellence” (De Wette, Amheim, Schlottmann [Davidson, Barnes, Noyes, E. V.], etc.); nor their bow-string (“the string which is drawn out in them as in a bow,” and which is unloosed to make the bow useless; Umbreit); [nor “their abundance, excess, whether of wealth or tyranny,” and which passes away with them (Lee), which does not suit the universality of the description; nor “their fluttering round is over with them” (Good, Wemyss; taking הלא as a verb, “to pass away,” and נסע as a noun, “fluttering;” two forced interpretations)—E.]; but—the only interpretation with which the verb נִסַּע, “to be torn away,” agrees (comp. Jdg_16:3; Jdg_16:14; Isa_33:20)—“their tent-cord,” the thread of their life, here conceived as a cord stretched out and holding up the tent of the body; comp. Job_30:11; Isa_38:12; also Job_6:9; Job_27:8; and especially Ecc_12:6, where this inward hidden thread of life is represented as the silver cord, which holds up the lamp suspended from the tent-canvass (see comment on the passage). This, the only correct construction of the passage (according to which מֵיתָר=יֶתֶר, tent-cord), is adopted by J. D. Michaelis, Hirzel, Hahn, Delitzsch, Kamphsn., Dillmann [Wordsworth, Renan, Rodwell, Gesenius, Fürst]. [“בָּם is neither superfluous nor awkward (against Olsh.), since it is intended to say that their duration of life falls in all at once like a tent when that which in them corresponds to the cord of a tent (i.e., the נֶפֶשׁ) is drawn away from it.” Del.]—And not in wisdom; with, out having found true wisdom during their life, living in short-sightedness and folly to the end of their days; comp. Job_36:12; Pro_10:21 (Dillmann).
b. Third Double Strophe. Application of the contents of the heavenly revelation to Job’s case, Job_5:1-7.
First Strophe. Job_5:1-5. [The folly of murmuring against God asserted and illustrated].
Job_5:1. Call now! is there any one who will answer thee? and to whom of the holy ones wilt thou turn?—That is to say: forasmuch as, according to the interpretation of that Voice from God in the night, neither men nor angels are just and pure before God, all thy complaining against God will be of no avail to thee; not one of the heavenly servants of God in heaven, to whom thou mightest turn thyself, will regard thy cry for help, not one of them will intercede with God for thee, and spare thee the necessity of humbling thyself unconditionally and penitently beneath the chastening hand of God. [The question is somewhat ironical in its tone. If thou art disposed to challenge God’s dealings with thee, make the attempt; enter thy protest; but before whom? the angels, the holy ones of heaven? Behold they are not pure before God, and being holy, they are conscious of their inferiority; will they entertain thy appeal? Where then is thy plea to find a hearing? “Here as elsewhere in this book, call and answer seem to be law terms, the former denoting the action of the complainant, the latter that of the defendant.” Noyes; and so Umbreit.—E.] קְדשִׁים, “holy ones” [“saints,” E. V., is misleading, on account of its association with “the holy” among men], here for angels (as in Job_15:15; Psa_89:6 (5), 8 (7); Dan_4:14 (17); Zec_14:5); thus called with a purpose, because their very holiness, which causes them to subordinate themselves unconditionally to God (comp. Job_4:18), prevents them from entertaining such complaints as those of Job. “How little the Roman Catholic commentators are justified in finding in this verse a locus classicus in favor of the invocation of angels and saints under the Old Dispensation needs no proof.” Schlott.]
Job_5:2. For grief slayeth a fool.—כי furnishes a reason for the negative thought contained in the preceding verse [complaints against God’s administration will meet with no favorable response from the holy ones of his court, for they are of a character to destroy the fool who utters them—E.]; hence it may be properly rendered “rather” [so far from calling forth sympathy, they will much rather destroy the complainer—E.]; comp. Job_22:2; Job_31:18. The ל before אֱוִיל is after the Aramaic usage, introducing the object which is emphatically placed first: quod attinet ad stultum [“as for the fool”], etc.; so also in Job_21:22; Isa_11:9 (comp. Ewald, § 292, e; 310, a). [Denied by Hengstenberg, who explains it as a poetic modification of the sense of the verb: stulto mortem affert, but favored by the position and the accounts.—E.] The אֱוִיל here is naturally one who impatiently murmurs against God because of his destiny, and presumptuously censures Him; such a one as Job must have seemed to Eliphaz to be in view of his lamentations and curses in Job 3. As synonymous with אֱוִיל we have in the second member פֹּתֶה, “the simple one, without understanding” [“open to evil influences, a moral weakling.” Dav.], while to כַּעַשׂ, “grief” [=unmanly repining] in the first member, we find to correspond in the second קִנְאָה, properly “zeal,” here in the bad sense, insolent murmuring, a rancorous feeling toward God. For the form כעשׂ [peculiar to Job], instead of the usual form, כעס, comp. Job_6:2; Job_10:17. [Some (e.g. Barnes) refer כעשׂ and קנאה here to the “wrath” and “jealousy” of God against the sinner. But “it is certainly better to apply the words here to the emotions of the fool; his own passion and jealousy ruin him. (1) We have then the proper autonemesis of sin; its violence brings no help but only destruction to itself, which is the nerve of all Eliphaz is saying (Job_5:6-7). (2) Job refers to these bitter words of Eliphaz with evident pain in the very opening of his reply (Job_6:2): would God that my כַּעַשׂ were but weighed! (3) The words fit well Job’s state of mind.” Dav.]
Job_5:3-5. An example in proof of the statement just made about the destruction of him who murmurs against God.
Job_5:3. I myself have seen a fool taking root, to wit, like a thriving plant, growing in fruitful soil, and hence in a state of prosperity which promised to endure and to increase; compare Psa_1:3; Isa_27:6, etc.—Then I cursed his habitation suddenly, i.e., when I perceived how altogether unstable and superficial was his prosperity, and what a fearful judgment all at once burst over his head by the decree of God. It is to the moment of the descent of this judgment that פִּתְאֹם refers, and נַקַב. “to curse,” is not to be understood as a prophetic prediction of the ruin which is hereafter to overtake one in prosperity (Ewald, Schlottmann, etc.), but as a recognition accompanying the event, a subjective human echo, so to speak, of God’s curse, which has already actually overtaken its object. [“The word ‘suddenly’ points as with the finger to the catastrophe by which at one stroke Job’s prosperity was laid in the dust, to the Chaldeans and Sabeans, to the lightning and the storm.” Hengst. “I cursed his habitation suddenly,” means accordingly; when sudden destruction smote his habitation, I felt and declared that it was cursed of God.—E.] נָוֶה, habitation, abode [“homestead,” Carey], including the pasture-land belonging to it, not simply the pasturage, or grazing-place of the herds. Comp. Job_5:24; Job_18:15; also נָוָה, Job_8:6.
Job_5:4. His sons were far from help, and were crushed in the gate without deliverance.—The Presents (Imperfects) in this and the following verse, describe the consequences of the judgment on the fool as they extend into the present. יֶשַׁע, “help, deliverance,” as in Job_5:11. יִדַּכְּאוּ, Imperf. Hithp., lit.: “they must allow themselves to be crushed,” viz.: by their unjust accusers and persecutors in the court of justice, before the tribunal; for it is to this that reference is made in בַּשַׁעַר; comp. Job_29:7; Job_31:21; also the same exact form of expression, excepting the Piel instead of the Hithp. in Pro_22:22 : “oppress not the poor in the gate.” See Com. in loco. [Davidson and Rodwell take the verb in the reflex sense: “And crushed each other in the gate.” On the uses of the “gate” of an oriental city, see Smith’s Bib. Dict., art. “Gate.”]
Job_5:5. He whose harvest the hungry devour.—אֲשֶׁר, not a conjunction, “because,” or “while” (Delitzsch), but a relative pronoun, “whose;” comp. Job_20:22; Job_31:8. The description of the judgment, begun in the preceding verse, is here accordingly continued, with special reference to the property of him who is cast down from the height of his prosperity.—And take it away even out of a thorn-hedge, i.e., they are not kept off even by hedges of thorn, hence they carry on their plundering in the most daring and systematic manner. אֶל before מִּצִּנִּים is here the same as עַד: adeo e spinis (comp. Job_3:22) [and see Ewald, § 219, c]—And the thirsty swallow up his wealth [lit.: “their wealth;” the plural suffix indicating that the children are here included]. Instead of צַמִּים, it is better, following out the hint which lies in רָעֵב in the first member, as well as following the lead of almost all the ancient versions, to read צְמֵיִם, or צְמֵאִים, perhaps even the singular צָמֶא. So Rosenm., Umbreit, Ewald [who in his Gram., § 73, c. suggests that the omission of the א may be due to its location between two vowel sounds], Hirzel, Vaihinger, Stickel, Welte, Ezra [Dillmann, Renan, Wordsworth, Barnes, Elzas, Merx]. etc. To this subject, moreover, the verb שאף is best suited, which signifies to snap, greedily to drain, to lap, or sip up anything [Ges. and Fürst: to pant; Renan: to look on with longing, couve des yeux ses richesses]. According to the Masoretic text, צַמִּים, the translation should be: “and a snare catches their wealth” [Dav. and Con.: “a snare gapeth for their substance”]. צַמִּים, from צמם, nectere = snare, gin, might indeed be used here tropically for fraud, robbery (not, however, for “robbers,” as the Targ. and some of the Rabbis [also E. V., sing, “robber”] take it, nor for “intriguer,” as Delitzsch [Carey, Wemyss] have it). [The meaning “snare” is adopted by Ges., Fürst, Noyes, Con., Dav., Schlottm., Hengsten.] This rendering, however, would be rather harsh, especially in connection with the verb שָׁאַף, which favors rather the interpretation we have given above.
Second Strophe. Job_5:6-7. [Human suffering founded on a Divine ordinance].
Job_5:6. For evil goes not forth from the dust, and trouble does not sprout up out of the ground;i.e., the misfortune of men does not grow like weeds out of the earth; it is no mere product of nature, no accidental physical and external ingredient of this earthly life; but it has its sufficient cause, it originates in human sin; God decrees and ordains it for the punishment of sin; whence it follows that the proper remedy against it is the renunciation of sin, and not a gloomy frowardness and mournfulness. אָוֶן and עָמָל precisely as in Job_4:8.
Job_5:7. But [כִּי adversative, and so Schlott., Dillm., Dav., Del., Ren., Hengst., etc.] man is born to trouble;i.e., it lies in human nature, through sin to bring forth misery (Hirzel, Dillmann, etc.); as man he is now not pure, but impure, not righteous, but unrighteous (comp. Job_4:17), and for that very reason he cannot avoid manifold suffering and hardship, the divinely ordained consequence of sin. Observe how gently Eliphaz seeks to bring home to Job the truth that his suffering is also the consequence of his sin. [יוּלַּד is by some regarded as Pual Perf., the short shureq written with Vav (Green, Gr., § 43, b); by others as Hoph. Imperf. (Ewald, § 131, c.); while others would point it יִוָּלֵד, as Niph. Imperf. (Merx)].—As the sparks of the flame fly upward; lit.: “and the sparks,” etc.וcomparationis, as in Proverbs 25-29 often; comp. Job_22:11; Job_14:12; Job_14:19 [otherwise also called Vav adæquationis; see Green, Gr. § 287, 1]. בְּנֵי רֶשֶׁף, “sons of the fire, children of the flame” (comp. Son_8:6), are naturally neither “birds of prey” (νεοσσοὶ γυπῶν, LXX.; comp. the aves of the Vulg. So also J. D. Michaelis, Gesenius [Fürst], Vaihinger, Heiligstedt [Umbreit, Good, Wemyss, Conant, Noyes, Renan, Rodwell], etc.; nor “angels” (Schlottmann, who refers to Jdg_13:20; Psa_104:4); nor “angry passions” (Böttcher, and similarly Stickel); but simply “fire-sparks” (Ewald, Hirzel, Hahn, Ebrard, Delitzsch, Dillmann [Wemyss, Conant, Davidson, Barnes, Carey, Merx]). Only of these can it be properly said that they fly upwards by a law of necessity, which constitutes here the tertium comparationis. יגביהו עוף, lit.: “they make high their flight,” they fly far up on high, fly unceasingly upwards (עוף for לעוף, Ewald, § 285, a.) [It has been objected to the rendering “sparks” that the expression “make high their flight” is too strong to be applied to them, being more suitable to the lofty soaring of “birds,” or “angels,” or “arrows.” But an appeal may confidently be taken on this point to the poetic sensibility of the reader who has ever watched the upward flight of sparks by night, when relative altitudes are but vaguely determined, and when these “sons of the flame” seem literally to soar and vanish among the stars.—E.]
[The central thought of the above strophe is that the connection between sin and suffering is a Divine ordinance. In Job_5:1-2 this is presented in the way of warning to Job as a truth against which he can take no appeal to any higher court, and as one of which he is in danger of realizing in his own case the extreme consequences; for the special sin of murmuring against God would infallibly bring about his ruin. In Job_5:3-5 the same truth is vividly enforced by an illustration drawn from actual life. In Job_5:6-7 it is presented in the form of a general law, which, in the statement here given of it is a binary law, consisting of two parts, or propositions, which are complementary of each other; the first (Job_5:6), negative, the second (Job_5:7), positive. The misery which follows sin in general, and in particular the special example of misery following sin mentioned in Job_5:3-5 is a Divine Ordinance: because (כְּי, Job_5:6) evil is not from without, not from the earth, not from the material constitution of things, for (כִּי, Job_5:7) Man (אדם emphatic by position) is the cause of his own trouble, being born to it, a sufferer by an internal, not an external necessity, by a law of his own existence; a law as necessary, too, as that which compels the sparks to fly upward. According to this view of the connection the כִּי in Job_5:7 is argumentative as well as that in Job_5:6. The source of misery is not without, forMan himself is the source of it. As regards the tense of יולד it follows that if Imperf. (Niph., or more probably Hoph.) the two propositions are co-ordinated in time; evil is not wont to spring from the earth, for man is wont to be born to trouble. If Perf. (Pual), which seems preferable, the internal necessity of suffering in man himself is conceived as logically antecedent to the relation of man to the external world. His afflictions came not from without, for he was born under a law which subjects him to it.
Elzas renders Job_5:7 a: “For then man would be born to trouble.” But this is to miss the point of Job_5:6, which is to deny not the natural and necessary character of suffering (for that is implied in Job_5:7), but the internality and materiality of its cause.—E.]
4. Third Division. Exhortation to repentance, as the only means whereby Job could be restored to the Divine favor, and to the enjoyment of his former prosperity, Job_5:8-27.
a. Fourth Double Strophe. Job should trustfully turn to God, the helper in every time of need, and the righteous Judge, Job_5:8-16.
First Strophe. [Job encouraged to turn trustfully to God by a description of the beneficent operations of God in nature and among men], Job_5:8-11.
Job_5:8. Nevertheless I—I would turn to God.—[“Now comes a new turn in this magnificent discourse of Eliphaz—the hortatory part..… El. for the first time fully conceives as a whole Job’s attitude. Job’s complaints and murmurs against God terrify and distress him, and with the recoil and emotion of horror he cries: But I would have recourse unto God!… The antithetic transition here is as strong as possible, being made by three elements, the particle of opposition (אוּלָם, Job_1:11; Job_2:5), the addition by the pronoun I, and these two intensified and made to stand out with solemn emphasis in utterance, by being loaded with distinctive accents.” Dav.] For the conditional sense of אֶדְרשׁ, comp. Ges. § 127 [Conant’s Ed., § 125], 5 [Green, Gr. § 263, 1]. דָּרַשׁ with אֶל, sedulo adire aliquem, to turn to any one with entreaty, supplicating help; comp. Deu_12:5; also Job_8:5 of our book.—To the Most High would I commit my cause.—As in the preceding part of the verse God is called אֵל (the strong, the mighty one), as here He is called אֱלֹהִים, for the first time by Eliphaz. In regard to the significance of this change, comp. Del.: “אֵל is God as the mighty one; אֱלֹהִים is God in the totality of His variously manifested nature.” דִּבְרָה, causa, plea, as elsewhere דָּבָר (comp. on Job_3:4).
Job_5:9-11. A description of the wondrous greatness of God, as a ground of encouragement for the exhortation contained in Job_5:8.
Job_5:9. Who doeth great things which are unsearchable.—[“El.’s object is now to present God under such aspects as to win Job, and his description of Him is Infinite power directed by Infinite goodness.” Dav.] וְאֵין חֵקֶר in which there is no searching, i.e., which are not to be searched out; comp. מַצִּיל, Job_5:4.
Job_5:10. Who giveth rain on the face of the land [and sendeth water on the face of the fields].—חוּץ, lit.; all that is without, the open air [colloquial English: “out of doors”], in contrast with that which is covered, enclosed. Hence it means either a street, court, market-place, when the stand-point of the speaker is within a house, or the open country, field, plain, when the stand-point is within a city or a camp. The latter is the case here, as also in ch, Job_18:17. [According to Ges. (Lex. 1, b) the contrast between ארץ and חוצות is that of “tilled land” and “the deserts.” To this Conant makes two valid objections: “(1) There is nothing to indicate such a limitation of ארץ (tilled land); (2) the distinctive meaning of חוּצוֹת is obscured.” Hence it is best to take ארץ generally, of the earth at large, חוצות in a more limited sense, “the fields.”] The agency of rain-showers and of spring-water (מַיִם, comp. Psa_104:10) in making the earth fruitful is an image of frequent occurrence with Oriental writers in general, and with the writers of Scripture in particular, to illustrate the wonderful exercise of God’s power and grace in helping, delivering, and restoring life; comp. Psa_65:10 seq.; Psa_147:9 seq.; Jer_14:22, as also the more comprehensive description in Jehovah’s discourse, Job_38:25. [“He who makes the barren places fruitful can also change suffering into joy.” Del.]
Job_5:11. To set the low in a high place, and the mourning raise up to prosperity.—This being the moral purpose of those mighty beneficent activities of God; comp. Psa_74:15; Luk_1:52, etc.לָשׂוּם is not simply a variation for הַשָּׂם, as the LXX., Vulg, and several modern commentators, e.g., Heiligstedt, Del. [Con.], explain; at the same time it does not need to be resolved (as by Ewald and Hahn) into: “inasmuch as he sets;” it is simply declarative of purpose, like the examples of the telic infinitive several times occurring in the Hebraistic Greek of Zacharias’s song of praise, Luk_1:72-73; Luk_1:77; Luk_1:79 (τοῦ δοῦναι, τοῦ κατενθῦναι, etc.) [“The issue of all the Divine proceeding in nature, unsearchable, uncountable though its wonders were, was ever to elevate the humble and save the wretched.” Dav.] In the second member this infinitive construction with ל is continued by the Perf. precisely as in Job_28:25 (Dillmann [“Because the purpose is not merely one that is to be realized, but one that has often been realized already, the Inf. is continued in the Perf.” Dillm.], comp. Ewald, § 346 b.) “To set in a high place,” to exalt to a high position, as in 1Sa_2:8; Luk_1:52. קֹדְרִים, lit.: “dirty,” squalidi, sordidi, i.e., mourners; comp. Job_30:28; Psa_35:14 [13]; Job_38:7 [6]. שָֽׂגְבוּ יֶשָׁע, lit., to mount, or climb up to prosperity, a bold poetic construction of a verb in itself intransitive with an accusative of motion.
Second Strophe. Job_5:12-16. Continuation of the description of the exalted activity of God as a helper of the needy, and a righteous avenger.
Job_5:12. Who brings to nought the devices of the crafty.—מֵפֵר (Partic. without the art., as in Job_5:9), lit., who breaks to pieces, עֲרוּמִים, as in Job_15:5, “the crafty, cunning, twisted” (from ערם, “to twist, to wind”).—So that their hands cannot do the thing to be accomplished.—וְלֹא, “so that not” (comp. Ewald, § 345, a.). [תַּעֲשֶׂנָה, with vowel written defectively in the tone-syllable. Comp. Ewald, § 198, a; and Ges., § 74, Kal., Rem. 6]. תֻּשִׁיָּה, lit., essentiality, subsistence, firmness (from יֵשׁ), hence the opposite of אָוֶן, well-being and wisdom in one; a favorite notion of the authors of the Old Testament Chokmah-Literature; comp. my Com. on Proverbs, Introd., p. 5, also on Job_2:7 (p. 54). As may be seen from the translation of the Sept., which is essentially correct, οὐ μὴ ποιήσουσιν ἀληθές, the passage may be translated: “so that their hands shall bring about nothing real, nothing solid.” (comp. Hahn, Delitzsch, Dillmann [Carey, Merx]).
Job_5:13. Who captures the wise in their craftiness.—חֲכָמִים denotes here those who are wise in a purely worldly sense, who are wise only in their own and in others’ estimation, who are therefore σοφοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. 1Co_1:20; comp. Job_3:19, where the idea conveyed by the expression σοφία τοῦ κόσμου τοῦτου is explained by a special reference to the passage under consideration. The translation of the passage there presented is more correct than that of the LXX., especially in the rendering of בְּעָרְמָם by ἐν πανουργία αὐτῶν. For עָרְמָה (comp. Exo_21:24; Pro_1:4; Pro_8:5), or even the masculine form עֹרֶם, which is found indeed only in the passage before us, unmistakably signifies “cunning, shrewdness,” in the bad sense, not simply “sagacity” (φρόνησις, LXX.) [“ ‘He captures them in their craftiness’ means according to most: ‘He brings it to pass, that the plans, which they have devised for the ruin of others, result in ruin to themselves.’ So Grotius: suis eos retibus capit, suis jugulat gladiis. According to this view ב is ב of the instrument. Better, however, is: in their craft, or in the exercise of their craftiness. He captures the wise not when their wisdom has forsaken them, and they make a false step, but at the very point where they make the highest use of it.” Hengst.]—And the counsel of the cunning is overset; lit., is precipitated, pushed over (נִמְחָרָה, 3 Perf. Niph.), and so made void, to wit, by God’s judicial intervention.
Job_5:14. By day they run against darkness, and as in the night they grope at noonday.—[יְפַגְּשׁוּ־חשֶׁךְ, they strike upon, stumble on, run into, i.e., they encounter darkness]. כַּלַּיְלָה, “as in the night, i.e., as though it were night. Similar descriptions of a blindness, judicially inflicted by God, of an obscuration of the soul in ungodly men may be seen in Job_12:24 seq.; Isa_19:13 seq.; Isa_59:10; Deu_28:29 (comp. the typical fundamental passage in Gen_19:11; also 2Ki_6:18; Wis_19:16).
Job_5:15. And so He saveth the needy from the sword out of their mouth, and from the hand of the strong.—וַיַּשַׁע, Imperf. consec., as in Job_3:21 [“Vav consec. introducing the ultimate residuum of all this commotion and confusion, the result of the whole combined Divine efficiency, when the Divine tendency … has reached its object; so He saves.” Dav.] מֵחֶרֶב מִפִּיהֶם (instead of which some MSS. read: מֵחֶרֶב פִּיהֶם, “from the sword of their mouth”) is equivalent to: “from the sword which goes forth out of their mouth;” comp. Psa_57:5 (4); Psa_59:8 (7); Psa_64:4 (3); and other passages in which swords, or spears, or arrows of the mouth appear as a figurative expression for maliciously wicked slanders or injurious assaults on the good name of others [and comp. Job_5:21 below, showing that Eliphaz regards this as one of the evils most to be dreaded. The explanation here given is adopted by Umbreit, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, Merx, Renan, Bernard, Barnes, Wordsworth, Noyes, Rodwell, although there is some variation in regard to the relation of the two expressions; some taking the second in apposition to the first, “from the sword, even from their mouth,” others, like Zöckler, regarding the second as qualifying the first: “the sword which goeth out of their mouth.” Others view the second as explanatory of the first, which is taken as the leading term: “from the sword, which is their mouth,… which is their organ of devouring, is to them what his mouth is to a wild beast,” Davidson, and so substantially Schlottmann and Lee. Others, e.g., Hirzel, take “sword,” “mouth,” “hand,” as three independent terms, designating the instruments and organs of the wicked.—E.] In addition to the violation of the ninth commandment referred to in the first member, the second member of the verse mentions acts of violent oppression, or assaults on the liberty and life of men, violations, therefore, of the sixth commandment, as that from which God would deliver. The מִן before חֶרֶב seems to be superfluous, and producing as it does a harsh construction, it has led to various attempts at emendation, e.g., מָחֳרָב, “desolated, ravaged by misfortune” (L. Capellus, Ewald [Good, Carey, Conant, Elzas and Dillmann favorably inclined. Delitzsch argues against it that it is “un-Hebraic according to our present knowledge of the usage of the language, for the passives of חרב are used of cities, countries, and peoples, but not of individual men”]). Others would read חֶרֶב instead of מֵחֶרֶב (so some MSS.; also the Targ. and Vulg.). These suggestions, however, are unnecessary; and the same may be said of Böttcher’s explanation: “without a sword,” i.e., without violence or bloodshed [will God save].
Job_5:16. Thus there is hope (again) to the poor [דַּלן from דלל, to hang down, and so to be lax, languid, feeble, according to Gesenius: to wave, to totter, and so to be tottering loose, wretched, according to Fürst], but iniquity shuts her mouth.—For the absolute construction of “hope,” to wit, to hope for deliverance and exaltation through God’s assisting power and grace, comp. Job_14:7; Job_19:10. In regard to the etymology of תִּקְוָה, the standard word for hope in the Old Testament, comp. my Dissert.: De vi ac notione voc.ἐλπίςin N. To. (1856), p. 5 seq.—עוֹלָתָה, the full-toned form, with double fem. ending, for עוֹלָה, which also stands for עַוְלָה (Psa_92:10). Comp. Ewald, § 173 g. [also § 186, c., Ges., § 79, f., Green, § 61, 6, a.] For the phrase קָפַץ פֶּה, to be dumb, i.e., to be ashamed, to own oneself vanquished, comp. the repetition of the present passage in Psa_107:42; also Isa_52:15, and Job_21:5.
[Schlottmann: “The beginning of this strophe: ‘But I would turn to God,’ is again in appearance courteous, friendly, mild. But even here we see lurking in the background that self-sufficient hardness of Eliphaz which has already been noticed. Baldly and sharply expressed the relation of this strophe to the one which precedes and the one which follows is this: Third Strophe—Thy way is wrong; Fourth Strophe—My way is right; Fifth Strophe—It will be well for thee if thou followest me.”]
b. Fifth Double Strophe. Job will have occasion to regard his present suffering as a blessing, if, being accepted as wholesome chastisement, it should result in his repentance, and thus in the restoration even of his external prosperity, Job_5:17-27.
First Strophe. Job_5:17-21. [The happy results of submission to the Divine chastisement, principally on the negative side, as restoration and immunity from evil].
Job_5:17. Lo, happy the man whom God correcteth.—The same thought expressed, and derived perhaps from this passage, in Pro_3:11 seq. (Heb_12:5 seq.), and Psa_94:12. Comp. Elihu’s further expansion of the same thought of the wholesomeness of the Divine chastisements in Job 33. and seq. הוֹכִיחַ, to reprove, admonish, to wit, through the discipline of actual events, through suffering and providential dispensations: comp. Job_13:10—Therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty, of which one may be guilty by perverse moroseness and rebelliousness, by refusing to accept the needed and salutary teaching of the Divine dispensation, and in general by a want of submission to God’s will. שַׁדַּי by poetic abbreviation for אֵל שַׁדַּי, Gen_17:1. Comp. the remarks of the editor on the passage.
Job_5:18. For He woundeth and also bindeth up,etc.—Comp. the similar passages in Hos_6:1; Deu_32:39; Lam_3:31 seq.—הוּא he, i.e., one and the same. The form תִּרְפֶּינָה is made as though it were derived from a verb, רפא=רפה; comp. Ges., § 75 [§ 74], Rem. 21 c. [Green, § 165, 3].
Job_5:19. In six troubles He will deliver thee, and in seven no evil shall befall thee;i.e., of course provided thou wilt really be made better by thy chastisement. The further promises of Divine help, Job_5:20 seq., are also subject to the same condition. To the number six seven is added in order to remove the definiteness of the former, and to make prominent only the general idea of multiplicity. Similar enumerative forms of expression are to be found in Amos 1, 2.; also in Pro_6:16; Pro_30:15; Pro_30:18; Pro_30:21; comp. also Mic_5:5; Ecc_11:2.
Job_5:20. In famine He redeems thee from death.—פָֽדְךָ, lit., “he has redeemed thee.” Perf. of certainty (Gesen., § 126 [124], 4), which is immediately followed by verbs in the Imperf., as in Job_11:20; Job_18:6, etc. In the second member, “out of the hands of the sword” (מִידֵי חֶרֶב) is equivalent to “out of the power of the sword,” or “from its stroke” (Delitzsch). Compare Isa_47:14; Jer_18:21; Psa_63:11. [“The word ‘hands’ should not be left out. Poetry personifies everything, invests everything with form and life As here ‘hands’ are attributed to the sword, so elsewhere are a mouth, Exo_17:3, a face, Lev_26:37. Hands are in the Old Testament assigned to the grave, to lions, bears, to the dog, the snare, the flame.” Hengstenberg].
Job_5:21. In the scourging of the tongue thou art hidden;i.e., when thou art slandered and reviled (comp. Job_5:15; Jer_18:18; Psa_31:21 (20). Instead of מִשּׁוֹט, which we might certainly expect here (with Hirzel), the poet, anticipating the מִשּׁוֹד of the second member, which would resemble it altogether too much in sound, has written בְּשׁוֹט, “in the scourge,” i.e., “in the stroke of the scourge.” [שׁוֹט might be taken as the Infinitive of the verb, as is done apparently by Ewald, who translates: “when the tongue scourges.”—“The tongue is here compared with a scourge, as elsewhere with a knife, a sword, arrows, or burning coals (Psa_120:4), because evil speaking hurts, wounds, and works harm.” Hengst. “We believe that, in introducing this expression the poet has a definite purpose. There lies a certain irony in the fact that Eliphaz should mention as one of the chief evils from which his friend is one day to be preserved that, same calamity which he is now inflicting on him.” Schlott.]—And thou fearest not destruction when it cometh.—שׁוֹד, which in the following verse is written שׁדֹ, a form etymologically more correct, from שׁדד, signifies any catastrophe, or devastation, whether by flood, or hail, or storm, etc. The word forms an assonance with שׁוֹט, as in Isa_28:15, a passage which is perhaps an imitation of the one before us. Substantially the same thought is expressed in Psa_32:6.
Second Strophe. [The happy results of submission to chastisement still further described, principally on the positive side, as involving security, prosperity, peace, etc.]. Job_5:22-26 (Job_5:27 being subjoined as a conclusion, standing properly outside of the strophe).
Job_5:22. At destruction and at famine thou shalt laugh.—[“The promises of El. now continue to rise higher, and sound more delightful and more glorious.” Del.] A continuation of the description of the new state of happiness to which the sufferer will be promoted on condition of a contrite submission to the Divine chastisement. שָׂחַק with לְ, to laugh, or mock at anything, as in Job_39:7; Job_39:18; Job_41:21.—כָּפָן, Aram. equivalent to רָעָב, famine, dearth; comp. Job_30:3.—And thou shalt not be afraid before the wild beasts of the land. [“Thou needest not be afraid,” אַל, different from לֹא (Job_5:21), the latter is objective, merely stating a fact, the former subjective, throwing always over the clause the state of mind of the speaker as an explanation of it—expressing both the statement and the mental state of feeling or thought out of which the statement issued. As Ew. (Lehrb. 320, 1, a.) accurately puts it, ‘אַל, like μὴ, denies only according to the feeling or thought of the speaker,’ thou shalt have no reason to, needest not (Con.) fear.” Dav.] Wild beasts were in ancient times the object of far graver terror in the east, and a scourge of far more frequent occurrence than to-day. Comp. Gen_37:20; Gen_37:33; Gen_44:28; Lev_26:6; Pro_22:13; Pro_26:13, etc.; also Ezekiel’s well-known combination of the four judgments: the sword, famine, wild beasts, and the pestilence (Eze_5:17; Eze_14:21).
Job_5:23. For with the stones of the field thou hast a league, and the wild beasts of the field are become friends to thee.—The first half of the verse is a reason for the first member of Job_5:22; the second half in like manner a reason for the second member. “Thou hast a league with the stones of the field” (lit., “thy league is with the stones,” etc.; בְּרִיתֶךָ equivalent to בְּרִית לְךָ), i.e., storms cannot injure thy tillage of the soil, they shall be far removed from thy fields (comp. Isa_5:2; 2Ki_3:19; 2Ki_3:25). [“The stones are personified; they conclude a treaty with the reformed Job, and promise not to injure him, not to be found straying over his tilled land.” Hengst.] As regards the contents of the entire strophe, compare the similar ideal descriptions of the paradisaical harmony that is one day to exist between men and the animate and inanimate creation, Hos_2:20 [18], 23 [21] seq.; Isa_11:6 seq. [The view, entertained among others by Barnes, that the verse describes security in travelling (“it is to be remembered that this was spoken in Arabia where rocks and stones abounded, and where travelling from that cause was difficult and dangerous”), is at variance with the picture here given, which is that of security and happiness in a settled, stationary condition; the picture of a prosperous proprietor of fields, pastures, flocks, not of a travelling Bedouin chief—E.]
Job_5:24. And thou knowest (findest out by experience) that thy tent is peace.—וְיָדַעְתָּ, Perf. consec. with the tone on the last syllable, connected with Job_5:22. “Thy tent is peace,” i.e., the state of all thy possessions and household (comp. Job_8:22; Job_11:14; Job_12:6, and often) is one of peace.—שָׁלֹום is predicate, emphatic by position (comp. Mic_5:4, וְהָיָה זֶה שָׁלוֹם), and for that reason a substantive. It is weakening the beautiful, rounded, complete idea to take the word either as an adjective, or as an adverbial accusative in the sense of “well, safe, uninjured,” as, e.g., Ewald, Dillmann, and Hahn, etc., do. [The same remark applies to the use of the preposition, “in peace,” E. V., Con., etc. The simple rendering “is peace” is more forcible and expressive.—E.]—And when thou reviewest thy estate thou missest nothing.—נָוֶה as in Job_5:3 [Zöckler: Stätte, “place,” the habitation of himself and his flocks; by most, however, נָוֶה is taken here rather of the pasture of the flocks]. וְלֹא תֶחֶטָא, lit., “and thou wilt not miss thy way,” i.e., thou wilt miss nothing (Pro_8:36). At variance with the usage of the words, and against the connection, is Luther’s translation: “and thou wilt care for thy household, and not sin,” following the Vulg.: et visitans speciem tuam non peccabis [Eng. Ver.: “and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.” Hengstenberg, adopting this rendering, explains: in looking over thy possessions thou shalt find thou art not treated by God as a sinner, but as a friend, being richly blessed by Him; an explanation which involves a needless constraint of the expression.—E.] The thought is rather the same with that expressed in Schiller’s fine lines:
Er zählt die Häupter seiner Lieben,
Und sieh, ihm fehlt kein theures Haupt.2
[In negative sentences, where the object of the verb is wanting, לֹא may be rendered “nothing.” See Ewald, § 303, c.]
Job_5:25.… And thine offspring as the green herb of the earth—צֶאֱצָאִים, used here of the issue of the body, as in Job_21:8; Job_27:14. Comp. the like promise in Psa_72:16 b. [The word found only in Isaiah and Job].
Job_5:26. Thou shalt go into the grave in a ripe old age.—כֶּלַח, etymologically related to כלה, “to be full, to be completed” (to which it stands related as a variation, with a somewhat harsher pronunciation, just as קשׁח, in Job_39:16, stands related to קשׁה), signifies, according to the parallel expression בְּעִתּוֹ in the second member, the full ripeness of the life-period, the complete maturity of age. It is used somewhat differently in Job_30:2, where it denotes the full maturity of strength, complete unbroken vigor—a sense which Fleischer in Delitzsch (II. 138, n.) quite inappropriately assigns to it here also. [So Fürst. Merx gives the same sense to the passage, but reads בְּלֵחַ.—E.]—As sheaves are gathered in their season.—כַּעֲלֹות גָּדִישׁ, lit., “as the heap of sheaves mounts up, is gathered up,” to wit, into the threshing-floor, which was an elevated place; comp. 2Sa_24:16; Psa_1:4, etc. The rendering of Umbreit and Hahn: “as the sheaves are heaped up,” is unsuitable, and at variance with the true meaning of the figure, as describing the ingathering of ripe sheaves. בְּעִתּוֹ, “in its season,” i.e., when the ears are fully ripened, a most striking simile to illustrate old age when satiated with life; comp. Job_42:17; Gen_15:15; Gen_25:8; Gen_35:29.
Job_5:27. Lo, this we have searched out; so it is: hear it, and mark it well for thyself!—A closing verse of warning, which, because it refers back to all that has been said by Eliphaz, stands outside of the last strophe. Comp. the similar short epiphonemas, or epimythions in Job_18:21; Job_20:29; Job_26:14; also the short injunctions of the New Testament, enjoining men to mark and ponder that which is said, such as Mat_11:15; Mat_13:9; Rev_2:7; Rev_13:18; Rev_22:2, etc. The Plur. חקרנוה, because Eliphaz speaks not in his own name alone, but also in that of his two friends, younger indeed than himself, but of whom he knows that their experience has been the same with his own.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The writer is certainly far from being disposed to put forth Eliphaz in the preceding discourse as an advocate of views which are decidedly untrue, and opposed to God, or as a propounder of diabolical wisdom (σοφία ψυχικὴ δαιμονιώδης, Jam_3:15; comp. 1Ti_4:1). If it had been his purpose to represent him as one who made common cause with Satan, as an advocatus diaboli, or the Evil One’s armor-bearer, he would certainly have made some such sentiment as that of Job_2:9—“renounce God and die”—the fundamental theme of his remarks. But this tone of remark is limited to Job’s wife (and the fact is strongly indicative of the attitude of an unregenerate woman, who simply follows the impressions of her own nature), who had lost alike her patience and resignation to the will of God. The poet does not introduce any one of Job’s friends as sympathizing with it—least of all Eliphaz, whose superiority to the experimental stand-point of the other two friends, and to the entire circle of their ethical and intellectual insight, is so definitely and significantly apparent. Even in respect of its formal æsthetic structure he has impressed on the discourse the characteristics which mark it as the product of a genuine devout oriental sage, a Chakam of the same category with Solomon, Heman, Ethan, Chalcol, Darda, etc. This is shown by the numerous correspondences of expression between this discourse and the noblest products of the Old Testament Chokman-literature as elsewhere to be met with—correspondences which appear in part in the subject-matter, such as the emphasis laid on the fear of God and God’s remedial discipline (Job_4:6; Job_5:8; Job_5:17) as fundamental conditions of true prosperity, the use of the term “fools” (Job_5:2 seq.) in characterizing the wicked: in part in the language, as in the use of such expressions as חָכְמָה (Job_4:21), תֻּשִׁיָּה (Job_5:12), or of such poetic forms as the numeral expressions in Job_5:19, or of such figures and similes as sowing and reaping, taking root and growing, the soaring sparks, the “inward cord” (Job_5:21), the sword of the mouth, and the scourge of the tongue, etc. In general it may be said that all that profound, physiological, or rather physico-theological Wisdom which forms the background of the discourse, and which accounts for the brilliant tints and fragrant aroma which are spread over the whole of it, evince the writer’s purpose to represent the speaker as intellectually akin to Solomon, the student of nature among the sages (1Ki_4:29 seq.; Job_5:12), and as possessing a knowledge of God which if not accurate, such as belonged to the theocracy, was nevertheless truly monotheistic, such as belonged to the pious of the patriarchal world.
2. As regards the theological contents of this first discourse of Eliphaz, there is really scarcely anything to be pointed out in it which contradicts the true Old Testament religion of Jehovah, and the purity of the moral principles which rest on it.3 A confessor of Eloah, of Shaddai, he speaks altogether like a member of the theocracy, like a pious man belonging to Jehovah’s commonwealth. “He is apparently right in everything; and it is certainly with full, conscious purpose that the poet introduces him into the discussion with precisely such a discourse as the present; for only thus could a real entanglement arise with Job, and only thus could the attention of readers be secured for Job’s opponents” (Dillm.) What Eliphaz holds up before Job, who, although indeed he does not blaspheme, does nevertheless utter imprecations, and, in a state of extreme dejection, curses himself, consists almost without exception of beautiful and profound religious and ethical truths, to which Job can successfully oppose only one thing—that they do not touch him, who is just as firmly convinced of their correctness as his opponents, that they cannot apply to his peculiar condition. So e.g. the position that God’s sentence of destruction falls not on the innocent but only on the wicked: a general fundamental truth of religion, which is not only most strikingly confirmed by the issue of Job’s own history, but is also often enough emphasized by him in his subsequent discourses, and is expressed in a manner altogether similar to what we find in so many of the holy songs of the Psalter, beginning with the first Psalm, the “Motto” of the entire collection. The same is no less true of the proposition concerning the universal sinfulness of all men, and indeed concerning the impurity even of the angels, when compared with the absolute holiness of God; a proposition which, presupposing, as it certainly does, the influences of a revolution from above (comp. Job_4:12 seq.), was the common property of all the pious and the wise of the Old Testament, and is one of the most conspicuous marks distinguishing the religious and moral knowledge, thought, and activity of those men from what is found in the heathen world. So again the affirmation of the necessity of disciplinary and purifying suffering for every man; the stern rebuke of the presumptuous discontent of him who will not submit to this rigid and yet loving, mild law of the Divine administration; the friendly counsel to the sorely tried Job to turn to God, and to take refuge only with Him (Job_5:8 seq.); finally the promise that his happiness would be gloriously renewed if he should rightly improve his calamities, and derive from them the benefits properly connected with them, which again seems to indicate the complete harmony of the speaker’s views with those of the poet, and to have a strictly prophetic relation to the final account of Job’s restoration and glorious vindication in the Epilogue.
3. Notwithstanding this it is hardly correct to say with Delitzsch (I. 105) that “there is no doctrinal error to be discovered in the speech of Eliphaz.” A certain work-righteousness may be found in it, notwithstanding the solemn emphasis with which it makes the universal sinfulness of all mankind the central point of the discussion. The way in which Job is exhorted, as in Job_4:6, to trust in his fear of God, and in the uprightness of his ways, and on account of the same to cherish hope in God, has doubtless something analogous in many expressions found in the Psalms (comp. Psa_18:20 seq.; Psa_119:168); but the connection of the passage, especially that which immediately follows, shows distinctly that the fundamental proposition—if pious, then prosperous; if unfortunate, then wicked—is here handled with a certain harsh one-sidedness and superficiality, which might easily develop into unjust judgments concerning the sorely tried sufferer, and in which accordingly was contained the germ of that difference which subsequently waxed more and more violent between the friends and Job. Still more doubtful than this tendency towards an external conception of the doctrine of retribution, a tendency which manifests itself but slightly and timidly, is the absolute silence of Eliphaz in respect to the possibility that Job’s extraordinarily severe sufferings might nevertheless have another cause than particular sins of corresponding magnitude. Herein he shows his ignorance in regard to those deeper spiritual perceptions and experiences, by virtue of which pious persons, even before the coming of Christ, were able to recognize, in addition to the suffering inflicted for chastisement, and to that inflicted for purification, a suffering inflicted simply to try men. Such suffering they recognized as possible, and as sometimes decreed by God in His wisdom, as is sufficiently evident from such passages as Deu_8:2; Deu_8:16; Pro_17:3; Psa_66:10; Jer_6:27 seq.; Eze_22:22; Zec_13:9; also Sir_2:1 seq. (Of suffering borne as testimony, martyrdom, nothing needs to be said here, its necessity being first clearly recognized in the New Testament, after Christ had suffered on the cross). Finally, there lies a departure from the doctrine, which is clearly taught everywhere else in the Old Testament Revelation, in the statements of Job_5:6-7, where not only man’s punishment for sin, but sinning itself is represented as something which attaches necessarily to human nature as such. In other words, it is here implied that to be a man and to commit sin are two things which are by no means to be separated from each other, being thus regarded, as in the doctrinal system of Schleiermacher and the majority of the critical rationalistic theologians of to-day as something that attaches to man’s sensuous nature (see exeg. remarks on the passage).—From what has been said it follows that Eliphaz cannot indeed be regarded as a “Pelagian before Pelagius;” the poet has, however, unmistakably intended to set forth a certain theory of the holiness of works, and a legal narrowness in the circle of his ethical and religious perception, as lying at the foundation of his views. He has purposed to present him as a representative—one of the noblest, most thoughtful and profound indeed—but still a representative of the doctrine of external retribution, which was the popular opinion of antiquity before the coming of Christ, and has succeeded in expressing with a masterly skill which no one can question the fine shading by which that which is erroneous in his views, as compared with the profounder truth which afterwards comes gradually into prominence, is outlined forth. If we were to compare his Eliphaz with any ecclesiastical representative of one-sided theories, and more particularly of those in the department of anthropologic soteriology, which teach a legal righteousness of works, instead of turning our attention to Pelagius and Pelagianism, it would be decidedly more correct to think of such fathers as Jerome, the Gregories, Cassianus, etc. Especially does Jerome, the zealous champion of the proposition of universal sinfulness in opposition to Pelagius, who, however, had sunk almost as deeply as that heresiarch into an external self-righteousness and legality, give evident tokens of intellectual affinity with our sage. A point which, it would seem, would tend to lend special interest to any attempt to elaborate more fully the parallel between Eliphaz and Jerome, is the remarkable similarity which the description of the nocturnal spirit-vision (Job_4:12 seq.) with its emotional vividness and presentative power, bears to the celebrated “Anti-Ciceronian Vision” of Jerome in the Epistle to Eustachius (comp. my “Jerome,” p. 45 seq.), a similarity which is more than simply external, or accidental, as the closely related ethical tendencies of both visions show.
4. That which injures the religious and moral value of the speech of Eliphaz more than all these weak and one-sided doctrinal features, which emerge into but slight prominence, and which would be scarcely noticed by an untrained eye, is a series of defects which lead us to infer in the speaker a defective character rather than an erroneous theory. The discourse, with all the beauty and truth of the greater part of its thoughts, is nevertheless “heartless, haughty, stiff and cold.” It dwells self-complacently on general truths, known as well to Job and acknowledged by him, which are presented not without rhetorical pathos, but which are not brought into anything like a tenderly considerate, or profoundly apprehended relation to the special circumstances of him who is addressed. (1) It exhibits not a trace of genuine sympathy with the extraordinarily high measure of misery which has overwhelmed the unhappy sufferer; instead of consoling him, it goes off into moralizing reflections, which bring him no comfort, which serve rather to embitter him. (2) It unqualifiedly identifies his complaint with that of a “fool,” i.e., of a man of abandoned wickedness and ungodliness (Job_5:2 seq.; comp. Job_4:8 seq.), without the slightest effort to make a critical examination of the question, whether his essential character is not incomparably purer and more godly than that of a despairing blasphemer. (3) It assumes on his part hypocrisy, defective self-knowledge, entanglement in a self-righteous delusion, and seeks to cure these defects by bringing forward that night-oracle, but by this very course he betrays a serious deficiency in knowledge of men, and in the power of a finer psychological observation. (4) It takes no account whatever of the great fact of the former purity of his life, and of his uncomplaining patience, and thus coarsely (not to say maliciously) makes no distinction between Job and the great mass of men. (5) Worst of all, it is not free from disingenuousness and deception; back of what it openly says, it suggests the existence of something worse yet, of which it regards Job as capable, if not as being already guilty, and thus deprives even that in it which seems adapted really to minister comfort, refreshment, and a wholesome stimulus (e.g., the description in Job_5:17 seq. of the blissful blossoming anew of the prosperity of him who repents and is reconciled with God), of its beneficent influence on the feelings of the sorely tempted sufferer. These indirect suggestions of certain defects in the disposition and character of Eliphaz (which, like those one-sided, doctrinal peculiarities, present a striking parallel with Jerome; comp. the work cited above, p. 332 seq., 391 seq.) are what—chiefly at least—according to the poet’s purpose, furnish the occasion for further controversy, and incite Job to the comparatively passionate reply which he makes.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The homiletic expositor, especially if he treats the discourse of Eliphaz not as a unit, as the theme of one sermon, but only in detached passages (and it is scarcely possible that he should treat it otherwise), need not have the enjoyment, which its many glorious passages minister, marred by the manifold features which tend to quench and disturb it, and which indicate the one-sidedness of the stand-point occupied by the speaker. As opportunity offers it may be shown that Eliphaz is not a representative of the complete truth of Scripture, but is the champion of a party-doctrine, which later is expressly condemned by God as one-sided and erroneous; especially might it be indispensable to call attention to this in the passages found in Job_4:6; Job_5:6 seq, according to what has been said above (Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 3). But why it should be necessary to make anxious mention of the heterodoxy of the speaker in connection with all that Eliphaz says in harmony with all the other wise men of God under the Old Testament, all which does not contradict the analogia fidei of the Old Testament, and which immediately commends itself by its truth, beauty, and inward power—why this should be necessary is certainly not apparent. All requirements of this sort will be sufficiently satisfied if it be shown in the Introduction to the Sermon, or Meditation, that the text under consideration belongs to a discourse by a man who, as is evident from the fact that he is finally rebuked and censured by God, does not present the truth of Scripture in its fulness and entireness, but who none the less belongs to the class of divinely-enlightened sages and saints of the Old Testament, and whose utterances, in so far as they accord with those of other representatives of this class, such as Solomon, Asaph, the author of Ecclesiastes, etc., must be recognized as equally important and valuable with those; nay, more, whose words, in so far as they express (if not directly, still indirectly) the poet’s objective opinion, have the same right to be regarded as inspired as those of his counterpart, Job, who in truth falls often enough into one-sided views and grievous errors.
In a detached treatment of the text the Second Division (Job_4:12 to Job_5:7) and the Third (Job_5:7-26) stand forth as pericopes of some length, which are suitably defined as to their limits. In view of the richness of their contents, however, the division of both into smaller sections may be recommended, in which case it will be most natural, or indeed unavoidable, to be governed by the preceding division into strophes.—As respects the formal statement of themes and the more specific arrangement, the following remarks on particular passages, taken from the older homiletic treatments of the book, will supply suggestive hints:
Job_4:2 seq. Starke: A friend can indeed reprove another, if he has seen or heard anything wrong on his part (Sir_20:2); but he must not put the worst construction on everything. We should hear the admonitions and reproofs of our neighbor patiently, and take them for our improvement (Psa_141:5).
Job_4:7 seq. Brentius: It is not so much absurd, as impious, for human reason to infer from afflictions that God is angry. Rather, as a father chastises his son whom he loves, and spares not the rod, so God crucifies those whom He elects together with His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord … Eliphaz discourses truly, but he interprets the case according to his own carnal judgment of it; for the innocent, although they do not perish, are nevertheless afflicted; they are not destroyed, but they are oppressed.—Hengstenberg: The proposition which Eliphaz puts at the foundation of his argument: that true spiritual rectitude and complete destruction cannot accompany each other, is true. Instead, however, of taking for granted what he does in regard to Job, he ought to have done him the friendly service of controverting the assumption. He should have set out before him that often when the need is greatest, succor is nearest. He should have furnished him the right clue to his suffering by propounding the proposition: Whom God loveth He chasteneth. He was not, however, prepared to do this, as long as he, in common with Job, was wanting in the right perception of sin.
Job_4:12 seq. Zeyss: God taught the ancients His will by visions and dreams, and by such a revelation did for them that which He has since done by His word, written and preached (Gen_28:12; Num_12:6). He has revealed Himself thus even to the heathen (Gen_20:3). Hence they are without excuse (Rom_1:20).—Passavant (in his work on Vital Magnetism, 2d Ed., p. 131): In the dreams of a deep, sound sleep (comp. Job_5:13) the soul seems to put forth a higher form of activity, and it may be that all significant dreams belong to this very condition, which seems furthest removed from the working consciousness.
Job_4:17 seq. Cramer: God has concluded all under sin, in order that He might have mercy upon all, that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world be guilty before God, in order that by the works of the law no flesh should be justified in His sight (Rom_3:20).—Wohlfarth: Erroneous as was the opinion of Eliphaz, that sinners only are punished here on account of their sins, no less true is the commnication here made to him by a Divine revelation, that no man is pure before God, Gen_8:21; Ezek. 4:18; Mat_15:19; 1Co_2:14, etc.
Job_4:19 seq. Brentius: This thought should be treasured up in the depth of our minds, in order that by it we may cast down the arrogance of our flesh. For why should you be proud of your noble lineage, your wealth, power, royal majesty? Consider, I pray you, what you were, what you are, and, what you will be, and cease to stick up your crest; you were clay, you are a dung-hill, you will be corruption and the food of worms—why then should you boast (1Co_1:31)?—Cramer: Death sends no messenger, but when men least expect him, he enters all doors, even those of palaces (Jer_9:21; Luk_12:20).
Job_5:3 seq. Brentius: This passage teaches parents the fear of God, for who does not desire for his children everything that is best, and the most ample inheritance? Take care, therefore, to live piously, and to bring up your children in piety and in the admonition of the Lord. You cannot leave them a more ample patrimony than this; whereas if you live wickedly, and your children fill up the measure of the iniquity which they have derived from you, not only will you be cursed, but your children also will inherit their father’s curse.
Job_5:6-7. Seb. Schmidt: This remarkable passage contradicts the notion of man’s free will in spiritual matters, and not only proves original sin, but also that by virtue of it there is no man who does not sin.—Hengstenberg: To sin is just as much a property of human nature as it is of sparks to fly upward. The doctrine of innate corruption, which rests on Gen_3:4; Gen_5:3 is already expressed here. (Is the statement here given of it, however, absolutely correct, and free from all one-sided admixture? Zöckler.—See above in the Critical and Doctrinal Remarks).
Job_5:8 seq. Seb. Schmidt: When we commend anything to God we do it by prayer, and hope or trust in God: so that although prayer is not expressly mentioned here, it is nevertheless implied in the words, and must not be neglected (1Pe_5:7).
Job_5:10. Starke: Although the rain has its own purely natural causes, we must still look up in connection with it to God, as the One who has so established nature, that the rain can fall, the sun shine, etc. (Jer_14:22).
Job_5:17 seq. Cramer: The dear cross [das liebe Kreuz, the affliction, adversity, whose uses are sweet] has great benefits connected with it (Rom_5:3 seq.; Jam_1:2 seq.); we come by means of it to the knowledge of our sins (Psa_119:67); we stop sinning (1Pe_4:1), we learn to give heed to the Word, and to pray diligently (Isa_28:19), we become satiated with the world (Php_1:23), and are made conformable to the example of Christ (Rom_8:29).—Compare Fr. de la Motte. Fouqué’s poem—“God’s Chastisements” (especially 3d and 4th stanzas).
Job_5:19. Brentius: The Lord delivers in six afflictions (i.e., in every time of trouble), not by taking away the cross from our shoulders, but by ministering strength and patience to bear it. But in the seventh affliction (i.e., when the season of trial is over) He gives deliverance both by taking away the cross, and by giving pure and unalloyed happiness (comp. 1Co_10:13).—Zeyss: There is no distress so great so strange, so manifold, but God can deliver His people out of it (Psa_91:14 seq.; Isa_43:2; Dan_3:17; Dan_6:16; Dan_6:22).
Job_5:20 seq. Brentius: He enumerates the blessings of the godly man, who takes hold by faith of the Lord’s hand. For the godly man, possessing the Lord by faith, remains perfectly serene in the face of all calamities, fearing neither famine, nor sword, nor rumors of war, nor desolation, nor the beasts of the earth. Yea, even though the heavens should fall, and the earth be wrecked, the ruins would smite him undismayed.—Cocceius: If any one should think that Eliphaz said these things in the spirit of prophecy about Job, as the type of Christ in obedience, afflictions, patience and exaltation, I should not, be disposed to blame him. He who should maintain this would say that the present and the future are blended and treated as present; seeing them in the Spirit he depicts them as present.—For the limitation and partial correction of this typical and Messianic interpretation, comp. further Seb. Schmidt’s remarks on the passage: “But who can believe that Eliphaz with all his recriminations against Job, would have prophesied good concerning him, nay, have made him even a type of Christ?” (The passage could thus be regarded only as an involuntary prophecy, like that of Balaam, or of Caiaphas).
Footnotes:
[1]In all essentials Cocceius had already recognized these three divisions in the discourse of Eliphaz, both as regards the lines of separation between them and the significance of their contents.
[2]
The heads he numbers of his darlings,
And, lo! no precious head is missed.
[3]Comp. Cocceius: “The first discourse of Eliphaz, if you except the charge of impatience brought against Job (although that is stated mildly, and is not altogether without cause), and the offensive interpretation put on the words of Job, has in it nothing that is not holy, true, and excellent, and which is not most admirably adapted to strengthen patience,” etc.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain The First Course of the Controversy. Chaps. 4-14.
The First Course of the Controversy. Chaps. 4-14.
FIRST DISCOURSE OF ELIPHAZ, ch. 4, 5.
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1. Eliphaz the Temanite — He was the most sensible and discerning of the three friends, “and so modest, that in the first lesson which he aims to give Job he does not speak his own thoughts altogether, but communicates an oracle.” — HERDER. Hebrews Poet., 1:117. His address was calm and dignified; his thoughts weighty with the experience of many years. Admitting his premises, his reasoning was just and impressive. Throughout all there was a strange lack of sympathy. Less was to be expected from the disputants as they warmed in debate. Certainly the first words might have been of solace, rather than cold compliment. The cry from out the depths, de profundis, was enough to have moved a heart of adamant. The heart of Job craved the bread of consolation, only to receive the cold stone of argument. The theory of Eliphaz is, that suffering is a necessary proof of previous sin. This proposition is implied in Job_4:7-8. This he illustrates —
1.) By the death of the wicked, whom he compares to the lion, who, though he be the king of beasts, is powerless against the shafts of death. Job_4:8-11.
2.) By the disclosures of a vision, in which he had seen that all men are impure in the sight of God, which accounts for the ordinary sufferings of life. Job_4:12-21.
3.) By the acknowledged punishment of the wicked, involving even their children. Chap. Job_5:1-4.) Evil seems inwrought in man, which mystery, however, is to be referred to Him whose ways are unsearchable. Chap. Job_5:6 to Job_16:5.) Affliction is not fortuitous, but a blessing to man, in that it is remedial. Chap. Job_5:17; Job_18:6.) The subject enforces faith and trust in God from a twofold consideration — first, his providential care of the good, Job_4:19-21; second, the certain prosperity of the righteous, Job 4:24-27. “The speech is exquisitely climactic, rising, as Ewald says, from the faint whisper and tune of the summer wind, to the loud and irresistible thunder of the wintry storm.” — Davidson.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1–11. First, Eliphaz wonders that Job, who had comforted…
1–11. First, Eliphaz wonders that Job, who had comforted so many in trouble, and who was a righteous man, should fall into such despair under his afflictions, forgetting the great principle that the righteous never perish under affliction. Calamity destroys only the wicked; the affliction of the righteous is designed to have a very different issue.
12–5:7. Second,—proceeding with deeper earnestness—he must advert to Job’s murmurs against Heaven and warn him from them. For can any man have right on his side in complaining of God? Only the ungodly resent the dealing of God with them. By their impatience under affliction they bring down God’s final anger upon them, so that they perish.
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Ch. Job_4:1-11. Eliphaz wonders that Job, who had comforted so many in trouble, and was a righteous man, should fall into such despair under his afflictions
Eliphaz would gladly have kept silence in the circumstances of his friend, but the tone of Job’s words constrains him to speak (Job_4:2). He wonders at the despondency of Job, one who had shewn himself so skilful in comforting other good men in affliction (Job_4:3-4), and who was himself a righteous man. He should place confidence in his righteousness, and remember that the righteous never perish under affliction. God does not send trouble upon them to destroy them, but for very different ends (Job_4:6-7). It is only the wicked whom He chastises unto death, and causes to reap the trouble which they sow (Job_4:8-9), and perish like beasts of prey (Job_4:10-11). Eliphaz’s doctrine of the meaning of suffering or evil comes out in the very forefront of his remonstrance with Job.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Job having ended his complaint, Eliphaz the Temanite, the…
Job having ended his complaint, Eliphaz the Temanite, the first-named of his three friends, (Job_2:11) and perhaps the eldest of them, takes the word, and endeavours to answer him. After a brief apology for venturing to speak at all (ver. 2), he plunges into the controversy. Job has assumed that he is wholly guiltless of having given any cause for God to afflict him. Eliphaz lays it down in the most positive terms (vers. 7, 8) that the innocent never suffer, only the wicked are afflicted. He then passes on to the description of a vision which has appeared to him (vers. 12-21), from which he has learnt the lesson that men must not presume to be "more wise than their Maker.
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said. (see the comment on Job_2:11)
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Vers. 1-11. Eliphaz to Job: the opening of the second controversy: The relation of suffering to sin.
I A COURTEOUS EXORDIUM. Eliphaz, the oldest and wisest of the friends, adopts an apologetic strain in replying to Job"s imprecation, representing the task assumed by him as:
1. Painful to Job; which it certainly was. In circumstances even the most favourable, it requires no little grace to receive admonition with equanimity; not to speak of counting it a kindness and esteeming it an excellent oil, (Psa_141:5) and embracing its dispenser with affection; (Pro_9:8) and much more when that admonition is not only felt to be undeserved, but spoken at a time when the soul, crushed beneath the burden of its misery, wants sympathy rather than reproof, and when, besides, the reproof is unfeeling in its tone and somewhat flavoured with self-complacency on the part of the giver. If to hear and accept rebuke be a sign of grace (Pro_15:5) and a pathway to wisdom (Pro_15:32) and honour, (Pro_13:18) it is much more a mark of tender piety and fine Christian sagacity to be able to speak the truth in love, (Eph_4:15) and to rebuke with long-suffering. (2Ti_4:2) Reproof that lacerates seldom profits.
2. Distasteful to himself (Eliphaz). Charity dictates that the best construction, rather than the worst, should be put upon the conduct of the Temanite. Hence, instead of pronouncing his language coarse, haughty, arrogant, and violent, we regard it, especially in the introduction, as characterized by delicacy and consideration, hinting, as it manifestly does, that Eliphaz had entered on the office of Mentor to his friend with reluctance; and certainly an office so fitted to give pain, and so apt to produce harmful results, should never be engaged in except with palpable tokens of grief.
3. Required by cerise. "But who can withhold himself from speaking?" The impulse which Eliphaz confessed was not the kindling heat of poetic fire, but the moral constraint of duty.
(1) Duty to God. (Lev_19:17) A safe rule never to distribute censure except when so impelled. Only "compulsion from our own spirit should not be mistaken for impulsion from God"s." Men who never speak but under a sense of duty, seldom speak unkindly or in vain.
(2) Duty to Job. (Pro_27:5) Unless satisfied of our own sincerity in aiming at the good of those we censure, it is better to be silent; nay, it is wrong to speak.
(3) Duty to himself. (Pro_28:23) The light possessed by Eliphaz would have made silence on his part both a gross dereliction of duty and an indirect participation in the sin of Job. If, therefore, he would keep his conscience clean, he must "assay to commune with his friend.
II A GENEROUS COMMENDATION. The piety of Job was acknowledged by Eliphaz to have been:
1. Conspicuous. "Behold!" Eminent piety can usually speak for itself, always secure attention, and seldom fails to elicit commendation. Even so should Christians let their light shine. (Mat_5:16 1Pe_2:12)
2. Philanthropic. Job"s piety was not simply intellectual and emotional, but also practical, aiming at the good of others. Like the great Exemplar, (Mat_20:28 Act_10:38) of whom in some respects he was a type, this Arabian patriarch went about doing good. (Job_29:12-17) So Christ instructs his followers to do. (Mat_10:42 Luk_10:37 Joh_14:15 1Co_14:1 Gal_5:14 Col_3:12-14) Where works of faith and labours of love are entirely absent, there is ground to suspect that genuine religion is not present. (Gal_5:22 Jam_1:27 1Jn_3:17)
3. Manifold.
(1) Instructing the ignorant, (Job_29:21-23) giving counsel as a prince or magistrate in the gate, or as a friend and leader supplying directions for daily duty.
(2) Correcting the wayward according to another translation by either the infliction of penalties for wrong-doing or the administration of judicial reprimand.
(3) Sustaining the weak, upholding the sinking and fainting heart by kindly sympathy, and strengthening the feeble knees and hands by helpful succour.
4. Habitual. The tenses of the verbs indicate customary actions and lifelong habits. Isolated good deeds do not necessarily proceed from gracious hearts; there can be no better evidence of saintship than a lifetime of holy walking.
III A DELICATE INSINUATION.
1. That Job"s piety had failed where it ought to have stood. "But now it is come upon thee and, thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled" (ver. 5). Either
(1) an expression of sincere astonishment that Job, who had so often and so efficiently ministered consolation to others, should have proved fainthearted when like trouble fell upon himself, reminding us that it is easier to preach patience than to practise it, that they who counsel others should strive to illustrate their own precepts, and that the world is never slow in remarking the deficiencies of good men; or
(2) an utterance of keen invective (if we adopt the uncharitable view of Eliphaz"s language), as if he meant to taunt Job with doing the very thing for which he had so piously admonished others, exhibiting the same craven spirit in adversity against which he had warned them, an interpretation which, if it is correct, reminds us that good men are long in getting rid of their corruptions, that grace often finds a lodging in strange quarters, that the Horatian maxim of seeing and approving better things and yet following worse was not unknown to Eliphaz any more than to Paul; but on either hypothesis
(3) the record of a frequent experience, Job having been neither the first nor the last who has felt himself unequal to the task of practising what he has tried to preach.
2. That Job"s confidence had stood where it ought to have failed. "Is not thy fear thy confidence? And thy hope, is it not the uprightness of thy ways?" (ver. 6)
(1) Perhaps implying that Job had been previously resting with complacent satisfaction on his religious character, and deriving hope of Divine favour from the elevation of his piety, which, if Job had been doing, he had been living in egregious error, since "by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh living be justified;" but the statement of Eliphaz was a gratuitous slander, which one good man should always be careful in circulating, saying, or even thinking about another, since God alone can read the heart.
(2) Insinuating that this previous confidence on the part of Job had been ill grounded, inasmuch as his piety could not have been sincere, in which case Job must have been guilty of hypocrisy; but this, again, was a mere inference on the part of Eliphaz, and in point of fact was incorrect.
(3) Directing Job to find encouragement and hope in a return to the fear of God and to moral rectitude of life an advice which, as addressed to Job, was not required, and, as given by Eliphaz, was a pure impertinence.
IV A FALLACIOUS PHILOSOPHY.
1. That good men never perish. "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" (ver. 7).
(1) An unkind statement, even if it had been true; considering Job"s situation. If there is "a time to speak," there is also "a time to be silent;" and though it is unquestionably wrong to suppress or tamper with the truth, there is nothing in religion that requires one to proclaim all the truth irrespective of circumstances, or even to present truth under any circumstances in its most repulsive forms.
(2) An incorrect statement, as well as an unkind one. It was contradicted by the plainest facts of history, as Job maintained, and as the least competent observer might have perceived. (Gen_4:8 Act_2:22,heb Act 11:37) Those who undertake to comfort sufferers, and those who propound philosophies of affliction (or, indeed, of anything), should be careful to adhere to truth.
2. That bad men always perish. "Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same" (ver. 8); in which may be noted:
(1) The graphic description of wicked men, who are depicted
(a) metaphorically as ploughing iniquity and sowing wickedness, alluding, perhaps, to the deliberate purpose, mental activity, steady perseverance, onward progress, and eager expectation with which great criminals contrive and carry out their nefarious schemes; and
(b) analogically, being likened to a lion passing through the successive stages of its development, and increasing as it grows in strength, ferocity, and violence.
(2) The melancholy overthrow of wicked men, who are consumed
(a) in accordance with the natural laws of retribution, reaping the whirlwind where they have sown the wind; (Pro_22:8 Hos_8:7 Hos_10:13 Gal_6:7, Gal_6:8)
(b) by the express visitation of God, perishing (as Job"s children did, is what he means) by the blast of God, and before the breath of his nostrils; and
(c) to the complete extinction of their former greatness, the providentially overtaken and divinely punished transgressor being compared to an old lioness, once formidable and powerful, roaring and devouring, but now lying helpless and impotent, toothless and voiceless, dying for lack of prey, and abandoned even by her whelps.
(3) The amount of truth in the representation, which is correct in so far as it describes individual cases; as e.g. the antediluvians, the cities of the plain, Adonibezek, (Jud_1:7) Belshazzar, (Dan_5:22, Dan_5:30) Herod; (Act_12:23) but incorrect in so far as it claims to be of universal application.
Learn:
1. To cultivate the habit of politeness of speech. Courtesy is a dictate of religion as well as an element of virtue.
2. To commend where we can, and reprove only where we must. To detect goodness in others is a higher attainment than to espy faults.
3. To beware of trusting in self-righteousness, as much after conversion as before. The saint"s trust should never be in himself, but always in his God.
4. To be cautious in making general deductions from what may, after all, be isolated facts. One man"s observation does not afford a basis broad enough for the construction of a philosophy of life.
5. To think about the harvests we shall reap before commencing to plough and sow. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-11. Eliphaz and Job: forgotten truths called to mind.
However misapplied to his particular case may have been the speeches of Job"s friends, there can be no dispute concerning the purity and the sublimity of the great truths for which they here appear as spokesmen. If not well directed to Job, they may be well directed to us. Each of the friends represents a certain aspect of the truths which relate man to God. In the speech of Eliphaz the main position taken is that man, in his ignorance and sinfulness, must be silent in presence of the all-just and all-holy God.
I COMPARISON OF PAST WITH PRESENT EXPERIENCE. (Vers. 16) Job is reminded of what he was, and asked to account for what he is.
1. The appeal to memory. A bright, a radiant memory it was. He had been the director of many philosopher, and friend" to young and old in the perplexities of life. Again, he had been the comforter of the sorrowful and the weak; had strengthened the hands that hung down and
2. the feeble knees: had led in straight paths the feet of those who erred. It is a beautiful picture of an amiable, benevolent, God-like career. He had not, like many, to look back upon a barren waste, a selfish and misspent life, but upon one filled with "deeds of light." Thanks to God if any man can turn in the hour of despondency to memories so fair and green!
3. Expostulation with his present mood. How is it, then, now that pain and grief have touched his own person, that he is so utterly cast down? Why not apply the medicine and the balm for your own disease and hurt which were found so healing in the case of others? If the remedy was ever good for them, "twas because it was first good for you. If the counsel and the comfort you were wont to offer to the sick and sad had not been proved by you, it was of no avail to press them upon others. But if they accepted it and were blessed, why can you not now prescribe for your own malady"? "Physician, heal thyself. Sink in thyself, then ask what ails thee at that shrine!
4. Appeal to the power of religion and to the consciousness of innocence. The sixth verse would be better rendered, "Is thy religion fear of God not thy confidence? thy hope the innocence of thy ways?" Religion is a great mainstay in all the storms of the soul. So long as a man can say, "It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good," he has a support which nothing can move. But so also is conscious integrity a grand spring of comfort, because of hope "hops that reaps not shame." To sow the seeds of virtue in health and activity is to reap the harvest of hope in illness, enforced idleness, in weakness, and in death. Hope is the kind nurse of the ailing and the old; and why is Job without the angelic ministry of her presence now? Let us put these questions of Eliphaz to ourselves.
II INFERENCES FROM SUFFERING. (Vers. 7-11) These Eliphaz proceeds to draw, Job still remaining silent at his first appeal. The inference is that there has been guilt to account for these great troubles. And the inference is justified by an appeal to the great teacher, experience.
1. General experience proves that calamity points to guilt. As a rule, it is not good men who sink, nor upright hearts that are utterly overwhelmed. There are, or seem to be, exceptions of which the philosophy of Eliphaz takes no account. But, indeed, how slight are upon the whole these seeming exceptions to the grand moral rule! As in grammar, so in life, the exceptions may be found, on closer examination, only to enlarge and illustrate our conception of the rule.
2. The teaching of experience is supported by that of nature. (Ver. 8) The laws of nature are constant. Every reaping implies a previous sowing, every harvest is the offspring of the early labour of the year. Therefore this is the rigid reasoning of Eliphaz this trouble of his friend implies a previous sowing in the fields of sin. It is the rough, broad statement of a sublime principle in the government of God. It is given without exceptions, but it will be time enough to look at the exceptions when we have first mastered the rule.
3. Pictures from nature, which illustrate this moral law. (Vers. 9, 10, 11) Nature flashes back her light upon those truths which we have first learned from experience and conscience. Two such pictures are here sketched. One is that of the violent blast from heaven, which breaks the rotten tree, hurls the dry leaves into the stream, scatters the worthless chaff. Such is the fate of the worthless man, the mind devoid of principle and therefore of vitality and worth. The other picture and it is less familiar, and perhaps still more powerful is that of the fierce lion, toothless, vainly roaring, perishing at last for lack of prey, its young ones all dispersed l Such, again, is the fate of the bold, bed man. To this end his devouring lusts have brought him. The appetite for sin continuing to the last the food of appetite, nay, the very power to enjoy, at last withdrawn. Where, in the compass of so few lines, can we find so powerful an illustration of the wages and the end of sin? Side by side with this powerful image we may place some other pictures in which Scripture represents the doom of the unprincipled and godless man. He is like the chaff before the breeze, like the juniper in the desert, unwetted by the refreshing dew of heaven, like the tree all flourishing to-day, to-morrow feeling the stroke of the woodman"s axe, or like the dross which is consumed in the furnace where the true gold brightens, like the rapidly burning tow, or like a dream when one awakes an image, the unreality of which is destined to be discovered and scorned. J.
Vers. 1-6. The teacher tested.
Throughout the words of Job"s friends many truths are to be found both accurately stated and beautifully illustrated; but in many cases almost generally a wrong application of them is made. The friends designing to be comforters do, through imperfect views of the mystery of human suffering, indeed become accusers, and make the burden heavier which they proposed to lighten. But the words now under consideration are perfectly true. He who had formerly been the instructor of many, and the strengthener of them of feeble knees, is now himself smitten, and he faints; he is touched and troubled. The lesson is therefore to the teacher who can pour out words of instruction to others, and to the comforter who aims at consoling the sorrowful. His principles will one day be tested in his own experience, and he will in his own life prove their truthfulness or their falsity. Eliphaz insinuates, if he does not actually affirm, Job"s failure. "To be forewarned is to be forearmed;" and the wise teacher will become a learner in presence of these words. We may, then, say
I TRUTH MAKES ITS GREATEST DEMANDS ON ITS EXPOSITORS. They ally themselves with it. They proclaim it. They declare their faith in it. They vouch for it. The more really a man is a teacher the more is he a disciple. It is the perfect alliance of the teacher with the truth he teaches that gives him power over others in its exposition. Upon him, then, the greatest demand is made that the truth he has affirmed should find its highest illustration in his own life that his life should not give the lie to his lips. It is thus that
II THE TEACHER OF TRUTH HAS THE BEST OPPORTUNITY OF BECOMING ITS MOST EFFECTUAL EXPOSITOR. Eliphaz could not yet see how Job, holding fast his integrity, would present a brilliant example of the truthfulness of his doctrine. To expound truth with the lips is possible to the simulator and hypocrite. He may say, and do not. He may declare the authority of a truth, and contradict that authority and his own saying by disobedience. Such were the Pharisees of our Lord"s time. From them truth received the highest homage by verbal acknowledgment, but they proved themselves untrue and unfaithful disciples of truth by the discredit they threw upon it by their disobedience to its requirements. The teacher of truth, making the truth his own by a thorough embrace of it, and a real and unfeigned sympathy with it, teaches more by his life than by his lips; for the one men discredit, but the other is undeniable. Fidelity in the teacher is the highest proof of his faith in his doctrine, and by it he pays the utmost tribute to the doctrine that he is able to pay.
III THE SUPREME DUTY OF THE TEACHER IS FIDELITY TO HIS DOCTRINE. By his faithfulness his scholars are confirmed in their belief and steadfastness. It is a black crime for a man to proclaim a truth or a teaching that affects the life and hope of his fellow-men, and yet prove a traitor to it by unfaithfulness. The foundations of the hope of many have been shaken and even uprooted by such conduct. By how much the truth a man proclaims is important, by so much is the responsibility of his own treatment of that truth great. Job was a bright example of fidelity, though severely tried.
IV THE HONOURABLENESS OF A FAITHFUL ADHESION TO A GREAT TRUTH. He who links himself with great truths is exalted by them. They honour him who houours them. They bring him to glory and true renown. R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Ver. 1. Eliphaz the visionary.
After Job has broken the seven days" silence, each of his friends assays to comfort him, with that most irritating form of consolation unsolicited advice. Although, perhaps, some of the critics have thought they detected greater differences Between the three friends than are really apparent from the narrative, we cannot but notice certain distinctive features. What they have in common is more pronounced than their points of difference. Thus they all three are friends of Job, who really desire to show their sympathy and help the sufferer. They all tender unasked counsel. They all assume an irritating position of superiority. They all adhere to the prevalent dogma that great calamity is to be accounted for as the punishment of great sin. They all believe in the justice of God and his readiness to forgive and restore if Job will but confess his sins and humble himself. But they manifest certain interesting differences. The first friend to speak is Eliphaz, who appears as a seer of visions.
I THERE ARE MEN WHO SEEM TO BE NATURALLY IN AFFINITY WITH THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. All men are not able to see the sights with which these men are familiar. They are the seers of visions. Too often such men are visionaries and nothing else. They are so wrapt up in the excitement of their experiences of another world that they have no interest or capacity left for the discharge of present earthly duties. It would go ill with us if there were many such unpractical people among us. But even these men have their sphere, and there are higher visionaries to whom we should be pro-roundly grateful. It is a great descent from Paul the apostle in the third heavens to "Sludge the medium" at a seance. The follies of spiritualism should not blind us to the revelations of true seers. Even the half-mad visions of a Blake have given the world some wonderful fruits of imagination, that would never have grown on the stock of conventional worldly experience.
II TRUTH IS NOT ALWAYS FOUND WITH THE SEER OF VISIONS. God"s seer will see God"s truth. If the veil is lifted from before the unseen world, some genuine revelations must appear. God has given us truths of the Bible in some cases through the visions of his prophets. But the mere affirmation of a vision is no voucher for the truth of what is said. The seer may be a deceiver, he may be a deluded fanatic, or he may see a vision of "lying spirits." Therefore what he says must be tested, and should not be accepted on the mere authority of his vision. Here was the mistake of Eliphaz, who thought to overawe and silence Job by the recital of his vision. It is safer to turn from all such pretensions to the clear "word of prophecy" and the historical revelation of Christ. Our religion is based, not on visions, but on historical facts.
III IT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO CULTIVATE SYMPATHY WITH THE UNSEEN WORLD. If we are not visionaries, we need not be materialists. Though we do not look for spiritualistic manifestations, we need not be Sadducees who believe in no spirits. There is a vision of God for the pure in heart, which can deceive none, and which is the inspiration of this world"s highest service. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said.
Job_4:1-21
Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said.
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The first colloquy
At this point we pass into the poem proper. It opens with three colloquies between Job and his friends. In form these colloquies closely resemble each other. But while similar in form, in spirit they differ widely. At the outset the friends are content to hint their doubts of Job, their suspicion that he has fallen into some secret and heinous sin, in general and ambiguous terms; but, as the argument rolls on, they are irritated by the boldness with which he rebuts their charges and asserts his integrity, and grow ever more candid and harsh and angry in the denunciation of his guilt. With fine truth to nature, the poet depicts Job as passing through an entirely opposite process. At first, while they content themselves with hints and ambiguous givings-out, with insinuating in general terms that he must have sinned, and set themselves to win him to confession and repentance, he is exasperated beyond all endurance, and challenges the justice both of man and God; for it is these general charges, these covert and undefined insinuations of some occulted guilt, which, because it is impossible to meet them, most of all vex and disturb the soul. But as, in their rising anger, they exchange ambiguous hints for open, definite charges, by a fine natural revulsion, Job grows even more calm and reasonable; for definite charges can be definitely met; why then should he any longer vex and distress his spirit? More and more he turns away from the loud, foolish outcries of his friends, and addresses himself to God, even when he seems to speak to them. (Samuel Cox, D. D.)
The message of the three friends
When Job opened his mouth and spoke, their sympathy was dashed with pious horror. They had never in all their lives heard such words. He seemed to prove himself far worse than they could have imagined. He ought to have been meek and submissive. Some flaw there must have been: what was it? He should have confessed his sin, instead of cursing life, and reflecting upon God. Their own silent suspicion, indeed, is the chief cause of his despair; but this they do not understand. Amazed, they hear him; outraged, they take up the challenge he offers. One after another the three men reason with Job, from almost the same point of view, suggesting first, and then insisting that he should acknowledge fault, and humble himself under the hand of a just and holy God. Now, here is the motive of the long controversy which is the main subject of the poem. And, in tracing it, we are to see Job, although racked by pain and distraught by grief--sadly at disadvantage, because he seems to be a living example of the truth of their ideas--rousing himself to the defence of his integrity and contending for that as the only grip he has of God. Advance after advance is made by the three, who gradually become more dogmatic as the controversy proceeds. Defence after defence is made by Job, who is driven to think himself challenged not only by his friends, but sometimes also by God Himself through them. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar agree in the opinion that Job has done evil and is suffering for it. The language they use, and the arguments they bring forward are much alike. Yet a difference will be found in their way of speaking, and a vaguely suggested difference of character. Eliphaz gives us an impression of age and authority. When Job has ended his complaint, Eliphaz regards him with a disturbed and offended look. How pitiful! he seems to say but also, How dreadful, how unaccountable! He desires to win Job to a right view of things by kindly counsel; but he talks pompously, and preaches too much from the high moral bench. Bildad, again, is a dry and composed person. He is less the man of experience than of tradition. He does not speak of discoveries made in the course of his own observation; but he has stored the sayings of the wise and reflected upon them. When a thing is cleverly said he is satisfied, and he cannot understand why his impressive statements should fail to convince and convert. He is a gentleman like Eliphaz, and uses courtesy. At first he refrains from wounding Jobs feelings. Yet behind his politeness is the sense of superior wisdom--and wisdom of ages and his own. He is certainly a harder man than Eliphaz. Lastly, Zophar is a blunt man with a decidedly rough, dictatorial style. He is impatient of the waste of words on a matter so plain, and prides himself on coming to the point. It is he who ventures to say definitely, Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth,--a cruel speech from any point of view. He is not so eloquent as Eliphaz, he has no air of a prophet. Compared with Bildad, he is less argumentative. With all his sympathy--and he too is a friend--he shows an exasperation which he justifies by his zeal for the honour of God. The differences are delicate, but real, and evident even to our late criticism. In the authors day the characters would probably seem more distinctly contrasted than they appear to us. Still, it must be owned, each holds virtually the same position. One prevailing school of thought is represented, and in each figure attacked. It is not difficult to imagine three speakers differing far more from each other. One hears the breathings of the same dogmatism in the three voices. The dramatising is vague, not at all of our sharp, modern kind, like that of Ibsen, throwing each figure into vivid contrast with every other. (Robert A. Watson, D. D.)
Eliphaz as a natural religionist
See such an one estimating mans character.
I. He regarded the fact that a man suffered as proof of his wickedness. It is true that the principle of retribution is at work amongst men in this world. It is also true that this principle is manifest in most signal judgments. But retribution here, though often manifest, is not invariable and adequate; the wicked are not always made wretched, nor are the good always made happy in this life. To judge a mans character by his external circumstances is a most flagrant mistake.
1. Suffering is not necessarily connected (directly) with sin.
2. Suffering seems almost necessary to the human creature in this world.
3. Suffering, as a fact, has a sanitary influence upon the character of the good.
II. He regarded the murmuring of a man under suffering as a proof of his wickedness. Job had uttered terrible complaints. Eliphaz was right here: a murmuring spirit is essentially an evil. In this complaining spirit Eliphaz discovers two things. Hypocrisy. Ignorance of God. He then unfolds a vision he had, which suggests three things.
1. That man has a capacity to hold intercourse with a spirit world.
2. That mans character places him in a humiliating position in the spirit world.
3. That mans earthly state is only a temporary separation from a conscious existence in the spirit world. (Homilist.)
The error of Eliphaz
Let us avoid the error of Eliphaz, the Temanite, who, in reproving Job, maintained that the statute of requital is enforced in all cases, rigorously and exactly--that the world is governed on the principle of minute recompense--that sin is always followed by its equivalent of suffering in this present life. This is not so. To the rule of recompense we must allow for a vast number of exceptions. The penalty does not always follow directly on the heels of sin. It is oftentimes delayed, may be postponed for years, may possibly never be inflicted in this world at all And meantime the wicked flourish. They sit in places of honour and authority. As it is said, The tabernacles of robbers do prosper, and they that provoke God are secure. They are not in trouble as other men. They increase in riches, and their eyes stand out with fatness. Yea, I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?
1. It is not because God is unobservant. Ah, no. The iniquities of the wicked are not hid from Mine eyes, saith the Lord. He seeth our ways, pondereth our goings, hath set a print upon the very heels of our feet.
2. Nor is it because of any indifference on the part of God. Seeing our sin, He abhors it; otherwise He would not be God.
3. Nor is it for want of power. The tide marks of the deluge, remaining plain upon the rocks even unto this day, attest what an angry God can do. Why then is the sinner spared? And why is the just penalty of his guilt not laid upon us here and now? Because the Lord is merciful. Sweep the whole heavens of philosophy for a reason and you shall find none but this, the Lord is merciful. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
A few practical inferences--
1. The fact that a sinner is afflicted here will not exempt him hereafter from the just penalty of his ill-doing. We say of a man sometimes when the darkest waves of life are rolling over him, He is having his retribution now. But that cannot be.
2. The fact that a sinner does not suffer here is no evidence that he will always go scot-free. If the sentence be suspended for a timer it is only for a time--and for a definite end. The Roman emblem of Justice was an old man, with a two-edged sword, limping slowly but surely to his work.
3. The fact that the wicked are sometimes left unpunished here, is proof conclusive of a final day of reckoning. For the requital is imperfect. Alas, for justice, if its administration is to be regarded as completed on earth!
4. The fact that compensation is often delayed so long, in order that the sinner may have abundant room for repentance, is a complete vindication of Gods mercy though the fire burn forever.
5. The fact that all sin must be and is in every case, sooner or later, followed by suffering, proves the absolute necessity of the vicarious pain of Jesus. God sent forth His only-begotten and well-beloved Son to bear in His own body on the tree the retribution that should have been laid upon us. So He redeemed the lost, yet did no violence to justice. And thus it comes about that God can be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Job 4, 5
VII.
THE THINGS ELIPHAZ HAD SEEN
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Job 4, 5
ELIPHAZ SPEAKS
THE ideas of sin and suffering against which the poem of Job was written come now dramatically into view. The belief of the three friends had always been that God, as righteous Governor of human life, gives felicity in proportion to obedience and appoints trouble in exact measure of disobedience. Job himself, indeed, must have held the same creed. We may imagine that while he was prosperous his friends had often spoken with him on this very point. They had congratulated him often on the wealth and happiness he enjoyed as an evidence of the great favour of the Almighty. In conversation they had remarked on case after case which seemed to prove, beyond the shadow of doubt, that if men reject God affliction and disaster invariably follow. Their idea of the scheme of things was very simple, and, on the whole, it had never come into serious questioning. Of course human justice, even when rudely administered, and the practice of private revenge helped to fulfil their theory of Divine government. If any serious crime was committed, those friendly to the injured person took up his cause and pursued the wrong doer to inflict retribution upon him. His dwelling was perhaps burned and his flocks dispersed, he himself driven into a kind of exile. The administration of law was rude, yet the unwritten code of the desert made the evildoer suffer and allowed the man of good character to enjoy life if he could. These facts went to sustain the belief that God was always regulating a mans happiness by his deserts. And beyond this, apart altogether from what was done by men, not a few accidents and calamities appeared to show Divine judgment against wrong. Then, as now, it might be said that avenging forces lurk in the lightning, the storm, the pestilence, forces which are directed against transgressors and cannot be evaded. Men would say, Yes, though one hide his crimes, though he escape for long the condemnation and punishment of his fellows, yet the hand of God will find him: and the prediction seemed always to be verified. Perhaps the stroke did not fall at once. Months might pass; years might pass; but the time came when they could affirm, Now righteousness has overtaken the offender; his crime is rewarded; his pride is brought low. And if, as happened occasionally, the flocks of a man who was in good reputation died of murrain, and his crops were blighted by the terrible hot wind of the desert, they could always say, Ah! we did not know all about him. No doubt if we could look into his private life we should see why this has befallen. So the barbarians of the island of Melita, when Paul had been shipwrecked there, seeing a viper fasten on his hand, said, "No doubt this is a murderer whom, though he hath escaped from the sea, yet justice suffereth not to live."
Thoughts like these were in the minds of the three friends of Job, very confounding indeed, for they had never expected to shake their heads over him. They accordingly deserve credit for true sympathy, inasmuch as they refrained from saying anything that might hurt him. His grief was great, and it might be due to remorse. His unparalleled afflictions put him, as it were, in sanctuary from taunts or even questionings. He has done wrong, he has not been what we thought him, they said to themselves, but he is drinking to the bitter dregs a cup of retribution.
But when Job opened his mouth and spoke, their sympathy was dashed with pious horror. They had never in all their lives heard such words. He seemed to prove himself far worse than they could have imagined. He ought to have been meek and submissive. Some flaw there must have been: what was it? He should have confessed his sin instead of cursing life and reflecting on God. Their own silent suspicion, indeed, is the chief cause of his despair; but this they do not understand. Amazed they hear him; outraged, they take up the challenge he offers. One after another the three men reason with Job, from almost the same point of view, suggesting first and then insisting that he should acknowledge his fault and humble himself under the hand of a just and holy God.
Now, here is the motive of the long controversy which is the main subject of the poem. And, in tracing it, we are to see Job, although racked by pain and distraught by grief-sadly at disadvantage because he seems to be a living example of the truth of their ideas-rousing himself to the defence of his integrity and contending for that as the only grip he has of God. Advance after advance is made by the three, who gradually become more dogmatic as the controversy proceeds. Defence after defence is made by Job, who is driven to think himself challenged not only by his friends, but sometimes also by God Himself through them.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar agree in the opinion that Job has done evil and is suffering for it. The language they use and the arguments they bring forward are much alike. Yet a difference will be found in their way of speaking, and a vaguely suggested difference of character. Eliphaz gives us an impression of age and authority. When Job has ended his complaint, Eliphaz regards him with a disturbed and offended look. "How pitiful!" he seems to say; but also, "How dreadful, how unaccountable!" He desires to win Job to a right view of things by kindly counsel; but he talks pompously, and preaches too much from the high moral bench. Bildad, again, is a dry and composed person. He is less the man of experience than of tradition. He does not speak of discoveries made in the course of his own observation; but he has stored the sayings of the wise and reflected upon them. When a thing is cleverly said he is satisfied, and he cannot understand why his impressive statements should fail to convince and convert. He is a gentleman, like Eliphaz, and uses courtesy. At first he refrains from wounding Jobs feelings. Yet behind his politeness is the sense of superior wisdom-the wisdom of ages, and his own. He is certainly a harder man than Eliphaz. Lastly, Zophar is a blunt man with a decidedly rough, dictatorial style. He is impatient of the waste of words on a matter so plain, and prides himself on coming to the point. It is he who ventures to say definitely: "Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth,"-a cruel speech from any point of view. He is not so eloquent as Eliphaz, he has no air of a prophet. Compared with Bildad he is less argumentative. With all his sympathy-and he, too, is a friend-he shows an exasperation which he justifies by his zeal for the honour of God. The differences are delicate, but real, and evident even to our late criticism. In the authors day the characters would probably seem more distinctly contrasted than they appear to us. Still, it must be owned, each holds virtually the same position. One prevailing school of thought is represented and in each figure attacked.
It is not difficult to imagine three speakers differing far more from each other. For example, instead of Bildad we might have had a Persian full of the Zoroastrian ideas of two great powers, the Good Spirit, Ahuramazda, and the Evil Spirit, Ahriman. Such a one might have maintained that Job had given himself to the Evil Spirit, or that his revolt against providence would bring him under that destructive power and work his ruin. And then, instead of Zophar, one might have been set forward who maintained that good and evil make no difference, that all things come alike to all, that there is no God who cares for righteousness among men; assailing Jobs faith in a more dangerous way. But the writer has no such view of making a striking drama. His circle of vision is deliberately chosen. It is only what might appear to be true he allows his characters to advance. One hears the breathings of the same dogmatism in the three voices. All is said for the ordinary belief that can be said. And three different men reason with Job that it may be understood how popular, how deeply rooted is the notion which the whole book is meant to criticise and disprove. The dramatising is vague, not at all of our sharp, modern kind like that of Ibsen, throwing each figure into vivid contrast with every other. All the authors concern is to give full play to the theory which holds the ground and to show its incompatibility with the facts of human life, so that it may perish of its own hollowness.
Nevertheless the first address to Job is eloquent and poetically beautiful. No rude arguer is Eliphaz, but one of the golden-mouthed, mistaken in creed but not in heart, a man whom Job might well cherish as a friend.
I.
The first part of his speech extends to the eleventh verse. With the respect due to sorrow, putting aside the dismay caused by Jobs wild language, he asks, "If one essay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?" It seems unpardonable to add to the sufferers misery by saying what he has in his mind; and yet he cannot refrain. "Who can withhold himself from speaking?" The state of Job is such that there must be thorough and very serious communication. Eliphaz reminds him of what he had been-an instructor of the ignorant, one who strengthened the weak, upheld the falling, confirmed the feeble. Was he not once so confident of himself, so resolute and helpful that fainting men found him a bulwark against despair? Should he have changed so completely? Should one like him take to fruitless wailings and complaints? "Now it cometh upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art confounded." Eliphaz does not mean to taunt. It is in sorrow that he speaks, pointing out the contrast between what was and is. Where is the strong faith of former days? There is need for it, and Job ought to have it as his stay. "Is not thy piety thy confidence? Thy hope, is it not the integrity of thy ways?" Why does he not look back and take courage? Pious fear of God, if he allows himself to be guided by it, will not fail to lead him again into the light.
It is a friendly and sincere effort to make the champion of God serve himself of his own faith. The undercurrent of doubt is not allowed to appear. Eliphaz makes it a wonder that Job had dropped his claim on the Most High; and he proceeds in a tone of expostulation, amazed that a man who knew the way of the Almighty should fall into the miserable weakness of the worst evildoer. Poetically, yet firmly, the idea is introduced:-
Bethink thee now, whoever, being innocent, perished,
And where have the upright been destroyed
As I have seen, they who plough iniquity
And sow disaster reap the same.
By the wrath of God they perish,
By the storm of His wrath they are undone.
Roaring of the lion, voice of the growling lion,
Teeth of the young lions are broken;
The old lion perisheth for lack of prey,
The whelps of the lioness are scattered.
First among the things Eliphaz has seen is the fate of those violent evildoers who plough iniquity and sow disaster. But Job has not been like them and therefore has no need to fear the harvest of perdition. He is among those who are not finally cut off. In the tenth and eleventh verses (Job_4:10-11) the dispersion of a den of lions is the symbol of the fate of those who are hot in wickedness. As in some cave of the mountains an old lion and lioness with their whelps dwell securely, issuing forth at their will to seize the prey and make night dreadful with their growling, so those evildoers flourish for a time in hateful and malignant strength. But as on a sudden the hunters, finding the lions retreat, kill and scatter them, young and old, so the coalition of wicked men is broken up. The rapacity of wild desert tribes appears to be reflected in the figure here used. Eliphaz may be referring to some incident which had actually occurred.
II.
In the second division of his address he endeavours to bring home to Job a needed moral lesson by detailing a vision he once had and the oracle which came with it. The account of the apparition is couched in stately and impressive language. That chilling sense of fear which sometimes mingles with our dreams in the dead of night, the sensation of a presence that cannot be realised, something awful breathing over the face and making the flesh creep, an imagined voice falling solemnly on the ear, -all are vividly described. In the recollection of Eliphaz the circumstances of the vision are very clear, and the finest poetic skill is used in giving the whole solemn dream full justice and effect.
Now a word was secretly brought me,
Mine ear caught the whisper thereof;
In thoughts from visions of the night,
When deep sleep falls upon men,
A terror came on me, and trembling
Which thrilled my bones to the marrow.
Then a breath passed before my face,
The hairs of my body rose erect.
It stood still-its appearance I trace not.
An image is before mine eyes.
There was silence, and I heard a voice-
Shall man beside Eloah be righteous?
Or beside his Maker shall man be clean?
We are made to feel here how extraordinary the vision appeared to Eliphaz, and, at the same time, how far short he comes of the seers gift. For what is this apparition? Nothing but a vague creation of the dreaming mind. And what is the message? No new revelation, no discovery of an inspired soul. After all, only a fact quite familiar to pious thought. The dream oracle has been generally supposed to continue to the end of the chapter. But the question as to the righteousness of man and his cleanness beside God seems to be the whole of it, and the rest is Eliphazs comment or meditation upon it, his "thoughts from visions of the night."
As to the oracle itself: while the words may certainly bear translating so as to imply a direct comparison between the righteousness of man and the righteousness of God, this is not required by the purpose of the writer, as Dr. A.B. Davidson has shown. In the form of a question it is impressively announced that with or beside the High God no weak man is righteous, no strong man pure; and this is sufficient, for the aim of Eliphaz is to show that troubles may justly come on Job, as on others, because all are by nature imperfect. No doubt the oracle might transcend the scope of the argument. Still the question has not been raised by Jobs criticism of providence, whether he reckons himself more just than God; and apart from that any comparison seems unnecessary, meeting no mood of human revolt of which Eliphaz has ever heard. The oracle, then, is practically of the nature of a truism, and, as such, agrees with the dream vision and the impalpable ghost, a dim presentation by the mind to itself of what a visitor from the higher world might be.
Shall any created being, inheritor of human defects, stand beside Eloah, clean in His sight? Impossible. For, however sincere and earnest any one may be toward God and in the service of men, he cannot pass the fallibility and imperfection of the creature. The thought thus solemnly announced, Eliphaz proceeds to amplify in a prophetic strain, which, however, does not rise above the level of good poetry.
"Behold, He putteth no trust in His servants." Nothing that the best of them have to do is committed entirely to them; the supervision of Eloah is always maintained that their defects may not mar His purpose. "His angels He chargeth with error." Even the heavenly spirits, if we are to trust Eliphaz, go astray; they are under a law of discipline and holy correction. In the Supreme Light they are judged and often found wanting. To credit this to a Divine oracle would be somewhat disconcerting to ordinary theological ideas. But the argument is clear enough, -If even the angelic servants of God require the constant supervision of His wisdom and their faults need His correction, much more do men whose bodies are "houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth"-that is, the moth which breeds corrupting worms. "From morning to evening they are destroyed"-in a single day their vigour and beauty pass into decay.
"Without observance they perish forever," says Eliphaz. Clearly this is not a word of Divine prophecy. It would place man beneath the level of moral judgment, as a mere earth creature whose life and death are of no account even to God. Men go their way when a comrade falls, and soon forget. True enough. But "One higher than the highest regardeth." The stupidity or insensibility of most men to spiritual things is in contrast to the attention and judgment of God.
The description of mans life on earth, its brevity and dissolution, on account of which he can never exalt himself as just and clean beside God, ends with words that may be translated thus:-
"Is not their cord torn asunder in them? They shall die, and not in wisdom."
Here the tearing up of the tent cord or the breaking of the bow string is an image of the snapping of that chain of vital functions, the "silver cord," on which the bodily life depends.
The argument of Eliphaz, so far, has been, first, that Job, as a pious man, should have kept his confidence in God, because he was not like those who plough iniquity and sow disaster and have no hope in Divine mercy; next, that before the Most High all are more or less unrighteous and impure, so that if Job suffers for defect, he is no exception, his afflictions are not to be wondered at. And this carries the further thought that he ought to be conscious of fault and humble himself under the Divine hand. Just at this point Eliphaz comes at last within sight of the right way to find Jobs heart and conscience. The corrective discipline which all need was safe ground to take with one who could not have denied in the last resort that he, too, had
"Sins of will, Defects of doubt and taints of blood."
This strain of argument, however, closes, Eliphaz having much in his mind which has not found expression and is of serious import.
III.
The speaker sees that Job is impatient of the sufferings which make life appear useless to him. But suppose he appealed to the saints-holy ones, or angels-to take his part, would that be of any use? In his cry from the depth he had shown resentment and hasty passion. These do not insure, they do not deserve help. The "holy ones" would not respond to a man so unreasonable and indignant. On the contrary, "resentment slayeth the foolish man, passion killeth the silly." What Job had said in his outcry only tended to bring on him the fatal stroke of God. Having caught at this idea, Eliphaz proceeds in a manner rather surprising. He has been shocked by Jobs bitter words. The horror he felt returns upon him, and he falls into a very singular and inconsiderate strain of remark. He does not, indeed, identify his old friend with the foolish man whose destruction he proceeds to paint. But an instance has occurred to him-a bit of his large experience-of one who behaved in a godless, irrational way and suffered for it; and for Jobs warning, because he needs to take home the lesson of the catastrophe, Eliphaz details the story. Forgetting the circumstances of his friend, utterly forgetting that the man lying before him has lost all his children and that robbers have swallowed his substance, absorbed in his own reminiscence to the exclusion of every other thought, Eliphaz goes deliberately through a whole roll of disasters so like Jobs that every word is a poisoned arrow:-
Plead then: will any one answer thee;
And to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
Nay, resentment killeth the fool,
And hasty indignation slayeth the silly,
I myself have seen a godless fool take root;
Yet straightway I cursed his habitation:-
His children are far from succour,
They are crushed in the gate without deliverer
While the hungry eats up his harvest
And snatches it even out of the thorns,
And the snare gapes for their substance.
The desolation he saw come suddenly, even when the impious man had just taken root as founder of a family, Eliphaz declares to be a curse from the Most High; and he describes it with much force. Upon the children of the household disaster falls at the gate or place of judgment; there is no one to plead for them, because the father is marked for the vengeance of God. Predatory tribes from the desert devour first the crops in the remoter fields, and then those protected by the thorn hedge near the homestead. The man had been an oppressor; now those he had oppressed are under no restraint and all he has is swallowed up without redress.
So much for the third attempt to convict Job and bring him to confession: It is a bolt shot apparently at a venture, yet it strikes where it must wound to the quick. Here, however, made aware, perhaps by a look of anguish or a sudden gesture, that he has gone too far, Eliphaz draws back. To the general dogma that affliction is the lot of every human being he returns, that the sting may be taken out of his words:-
"For disaster cometh not forth from the dust,
And out of the ground trouble springeth not;
But man is born unto trouble
As the sparks fly upward."
By this vague piece of moralising, which sheds no light on anything, Eliphaz betrays himself. He shows that he is not anxious to get at the root of the matter. The whole subject of pain and calamity is external to him, not a part of his own experience. He would speak very differently if he were himself deprived of all his possessions and laid low in trouble. As it is he can turn glibly from one thought to another, as if it mattered not which fits the case. In fact, as he advances and retreats we discover that he is feeling his way, aiming first at one thing, then at another, in the hope that this or that random arrow may hit the mark. No man is just beside God. Job is like the rest, crushed before the moth. Job has spoken passionately, in wild resentment. Is he then among the foolish whose habitation is cursed? But again, lest that should not be true, the speaker falls back on the common lot of men born to trouble-why, God alone can tell. Afterwards he makes another suggestion. Is not God He who frustrates the devices of the crafty and confounds the cunning, so that they grope in the blaze of noon as if it were night? If the other explanations did not apply to Jobs condition, perhaps this would. At all events something might be said by way of answer that would give an inkling of the truth. At last the comparatively kind and vague explanation is offered, that Job suffers from the chastening of the Lord, who, though He afflicts, is also ready to heal. Glancing at all possibilities which occur to him, Eliphaz leaves the afflicted man to accept that which happens to come home.
IV.
Eloquence, literary skill, sincerity, mark the close of this address. It is the argument of a man who is anxious to bring his friend to a right frame of mind so that his latter days may be peace. "As for me," he says, hinting what Job should do, "I would turn to God, and set my expectation upon the Highest." Then he proceeds to give his thoughts on Divine providence. Unsearchable, wonderful are the doings of God. He is the Rain-giver for the thirsty fields and desert pastures. Among men, too, He makes manifest His power, exalting those who are lowly, and restoring the joy of the mourners. Crafty men, who plot to make their own way, oppose His sovereign power in vain. They are stricken as if with blindness. Out of their hand the helpless are delivered, and hope is restored to the feeble. Has Job been crafty? Has he been in secret a plotter against the peace of men? Is it for this reason God has cast him down? Let him repent, and he shall yet be saved. For
Happy is the man whom Eloah correcteth,
Therefore spurn not thou the chastening of Shaddai.
For He maketh sore and bindeth up;
He smiteth, but His hands make whole.
In six straits He will deliver thee;
In seven also shall not evil touch thee.
In famine He will rescue thee from death,
And in war from the power of the sword.
When the tongue smiteth thou shalt be hid;
Nor shalt thou fear when desolation cometh.
At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh;
And of the beasts of the earth shalt not be afraid.
For with the stones of the field shall be thy covenant;
With thee shall the beasts of the field be at peace.
So shalt thou find that thy tent is secure,
And surveying thy homestead thou shalt miss nothing
Thou shalt find that thy seed are many,
And thy offspring like the grass of the earth;
Thou shalt come to thy grave with white hair,
As a ripe shock of corn is carried home in its season.
Behold! This we have searched out: thus it is.
Hear it, and, thou, consider it for thyself!
Fine, indeed, as dramatic poetry; but is it not, as reasoning, incoherent? The author does not mean it to be convincing. He who is chastened and receives the chastening may not be saved in those six troubles, yea seven. There is more of dream than fact. Eliphaz is apparently right in everything, as Dillmann says; but right only on the surface. He has seen that they who plough iniquity and sow disaster reap the same. He has seen a vision of the night, and received a message; a sign of Gods favour that almost made him a prophet. He has seen a fool or impious man taking root, but was not deceived; he knew what would be the end, and took upon him to curse judicially the doomed homestead. He has seen the crafty confounded. He has seen the man whom God corrected, who received his chastisement with submission, rescued and restored to honour. "Lo, this we have searched out," he says; "it is even thus." But the piety and orthodoxy of the good Eliphaz do not save him from blunders at every turn. And to the clearing of Jobs position he offers no suggestion of value. What does he say to throw light on the condition of a believing, earnest servant of the Almighty who is always poor, always afflicted, who meets disappointment after disappointment, and is pursued by sorrow and disaster even to the grave? The religion of Eliphaz is made for well-to-do people like himself, and such only. If it were true that, because all are sinful before God, affliction and pain are punishments of sin and a man is happy in receiving this Divine correction, why is Eliphaz himself not lying like Job upon a heap of ashes, racked with the torment of disease? Good orthodox prosperous man, he thinks himself a prophet, but he is none. Were he tried like Job he would be as unreasonable and passionate, as wild in his declamation against life, as eager for death.
Useless in religion is all mere talk that only skims the surface, however often the terms of it may be repeated, however widely they find acceptance. The creed that breaks down at any point is no creed for a rational being. Infidelity in our day is very much the consequence of crude notions about God that contradict each other, notions of the atonement, of the meaning of suffering, of the future life, that are incoherent, childish, of no practical weight. People think they have a firm grasp of the truth; but when circumstances occur which are at variance with their preconceived ideas, they turn away from religion, or their religion makes the facts of life appear worse for them. It is the result of insufficient thought. Research must go deeper, must return with new zeal to the study of Scripture and the life of Christ. Gods revelation in providence and Christianity is one. It has a profound coherency, the stamp and evidence of its truth. The rigidity of natural law has its meaning for us in our study of the spiritual life.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain First Course of the Speeches. First Dialogue,—Eliphaz and Job
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JOB AND HIS THREE FRIENDS
First Course of the Speeches. First Dialogue,—Eliphaz and Job
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First Speech of Eliphaz
Eliphaz censures Job for his impatience, and hints at sin as the cause of his suffering. Job_4:1. “Then Eliphaz the Temanite,” &c. First of the three in age and experience. The mildest of Job’s accusers, and superior to the rest in discernment and delicacy. His tone friendly and modest, but pours vinegar rather than oil on Job’s wounds. A wise man of the class of Solomon, Heman, and Ethan (1Ki_4:30-31). Maintains that no innocent person is ever left to perish (Job_4:7). His statements sound in themselves, but false in their application. His speech the product of a genuine, pious, wise man of the east. Characterized by the legality and narrowness of the age in which he lived. Sadly wanting in sympathy and heart. Eliphaz immensely Job’s inferior in intelligence, though his superior in age.
I. Introduction (Job_4:2).
“If we assay,” &c. Begins with gentleness and courtesy. Reproof to be given, not only with love in the heart, but tenderness on the tongue. The razor cuts cleanest when whetted with oil. Tenderness especially due to sufferers.—“Wilt thou be grieved,” or “take it ill?” As difficult to bear reproof in trouble as it is to give it. Patiently to bear reproof, the sign of an honest, if not a gracious heart (Pro_16:32). Next to the not deserving of a reproof is the well taking of it [Bishop Hall]. No little grace required to say “Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness” (Psa_141:5).—“But who can withhold himself,” &c. The reason of his speaking. Compelled by conscience. Good to speak and act only from conviction of duty. Care to be taken, however, that that conviction be an enlightened one. Compulsion from our own spirit not to be mistaken for impulsion from God’s. Better not to speak at all than not to speak to the purpose.
II. The Reproof. Contains—
1. A testimony to Job’s past character and conduct, (Job_4:3-4). “Thou hast instructed many,” &c. Job’s conduct to others in similar circumstances to his own. “Instructed,”—“strengthened,” “upheld.”—Noble testimony—(l.) To his sympathy and warmth of heart;
(2.) To his wisdom and intelligence—“hast instructed”;
(3.) To his zeal and self-denying activity on behalf of others—“instructed many”;
(4.) To his experience in the things of God, fitting him for a spiritual comforter. Job’s character not merely one of uprightness and integrity, but of kindness and benevolence. Elipbaz endorses the testimony—a “perfect” as well as an “upright” man. Does this, however, less to praise his past, than to censure his present conduct. Confirms Job’s own testimony of himself (Job_29:13, &c.; Job_30:25). Job the opposite of a selfish character. Improved his prosperity and influence for the comfort and benefit of others. A true priest and minister to the neighbourhood in which he lived. Not only prayed and sacrificed for others, but imparted instruction and consolation to them. Not only feared God himself, but sought to lead others to do the same. Sought to stimulate to duty and to strengthen under trial. Performed for those in trouble the part of Jonathan to David (1Sa_23:16). His conduct enjoined as a New Testament duty (Isa_35:3; Heb_12:12). Practised by Christians as a New Testament grace (Rom_15:14; 1Co_16:15; Heb_6:10; 1Th_5:11). The work and ministry of Christ himself, Job’s antitype (Isa_42:3; Isa_61:1-3). Instruction placed first, as the means and foundation of the rest. The word of truth the medium to be employed in healing sick and wounded spirits (Psa_107:20).
Christian Ministry
Especially one of instruction and consolation (Isa_40:12). Requires an enlightened mind, a tender heart, and a gracious tongue. Abundant room for such a ministry in a sinning and suffering world. Dark minds, weak hands, and tottering knees to be met with everywhere. The feeble, the falling, and the fallen, the church has with it always. The whole creation travailing together in pain; and believers, with the first fruits of the Spirit, groaning within themselves (Rom_8:22-23). Cases especially requiring such a ministry:—
1. Affliction, personal or domestic;
2. Bereavement;
3. Temporal losses and misfortunes;
4. Persecution and cruel treatment from others;
5. Spiritual darkness and temptation;
6. Sorrow and contrition for sin;
7. Infirmities of age and approaching dissolution. “ ‘Till tears are wiped away, and hearts cease to ache, and sin no longer desolates, every believer has a mission in this world” [Beecher]. Grounds of consolation and support in the character and truth of God (1Sa_23:16. The Old and New Testaments the storehouse of Divine consolations (Rom_15:4). Lamentations 3, Romans 8, and Hebrews 12. especially rich in such topics. The believer and well-instructed scribe to be always ready to draw out of this treasury (Mat_13:52).—Topics of consolation in time of trouble and affliction:—
(1.) The character of God, as compassionate and faithful;
(2.) The hand of God in all our afflictions;
(3.) God’s gracious purposes in sending trouble;
(4.) The shortness and lightness of affliction as compared with the “eternal weight of glory” for which it is preparatory;
(5.) The promises of pardon, grace, guidance, provision, and protection to the end;
(6.) Christ Himself as our Redeemer, in whom we have all things;
(7.) His example as a sufferer;
(8.) His sympathy in our affliction.
2. The censure. “But now,” &c. To commend with a “but” is a wound rather than a consolation [Trapp]. Christ’s reproofs, however, sometimes given with such a “but” (Rev_2:14).—“Now it is come upon thee,”—viz., trouble. Storms prove the ship’s seaworthiness.—“And thou faintest.” Same word as in Job_4:2, rendered “grieved.” An unfeeling reproach. Eliphaz a sorry imitator of what he had just commended in Job. Forgets the unprecedented character of Job’s sufferings. Charges him with being either a pretender to the virtue he had not, or a neglector of what he had. Job’s antitype similarly taunted,—“He saved others,” &c. (Mat_27:42). Yet suggests an important truth both for Christians and ministers.
Ministerial Consistency
Heed to be taken not to preach to others without practising ourselves. The people’s ears not to be holier than the preacher’s heart. Jewish Rabbies condemned for teaching others whilst not teaching themselves (Rom_2:21). Self application of enforced truth the preacher’s duty as well as the people’s. The exhortation of the lips to be seconded by the testimony of the life. Present doings not to shame former sayings [Trapp]. One said of Erasmus, “There is more of Christ’s soldier in his book than in his bosom.” The easiest thing to give good counsel, the hardest to act on it. Self application of Divine truth man’s duty, but God’s gift. Sustaining grace needed by the strongest as well as the weakest. The saddest fall, that “when a standard bearer fainteth” (Isa_40:28). To “faint” in the day of adversity proves our strength is small (Pro_24:10). The believer’s duty to do each day’s work with Christian diligence, and to bear each day’s cross with Christian patience. The charge of Eliphaz though not the kindest, yet true. Job had both “fainted,” and was “troubled,” or confounded. The language of chap. 3. a sad contrast to that of chap. 1 and
2. The shield of faith vilely cast away. How is the mighty fallen!—Faith and patience in the greatest taints subject to eclipse. Job had with Peter walked on the water; but now, with Peter, begins to sink in it.—Inconstancy written on all creature-excellence. Only One able to say “I change not,” (Mal_3:6). David’s mountain stands strong till God hides His face, and he is troubled (Psa_30:7). Job to learn that his own strength is weakness, and that his righteousness is of God and not of himself. The strong man must glory only in the Lord (ch. Job_29:20; Jer_9:23-24). Job, like Paul, to be shorn of his strength, that the power of Christ may rest upon him (2Co_12:9). Only he who waits on the Lord renews his strength, so as to walk without fainting (Isa_40:31). In spite of dashing waves the limpet clings to the rock through its own emptiness.—(Job_4:6). “Is not this thy fear,” &c. Apparently a cruel charge of hypocrisy. Probably, however, not so decided and direct as appears in our version. Perhaps more correctly read: “Is not thy fear [of God] thy confidence, and thy hope, the uprightness of thy ways?” That is, “Should it not be so?’ Doctrine: A man’s religion ought to give him confidence in time of trouble. Like his former statement, the question of Eliphaz a testimony to Job s piety. An endorsement of ch. Job_1:1. Job admitted to have been distinguished for his fear of God and integrity of life. The only question now, “Is it real?” Eliphaz begins to suspect it.—The “fear of God” another word for religion. That fear, when genuine, coupled with “uprightness” of life. True religion ever accompanied with its twin-sister, morality. True piety ought to give “confidence” in regard to the present, and “hope” in regard to the future. The words of Eliphaz a great truth falsely applied. The 46th Psalm an exemplification of that truth. Habakkuk’s Song another (Hab_3:17-18). For this result, however, the fear of God to be coupled with
Faith in God
Job’s fear of God unshaken, but his faith in God beclouded. A past religious and moral life in itself not sufficient to stay the mind in trouble. The peace of God that keeps the heart and mind, the result of faith in Jesus Christ (Php_4:7). Not a blameless or God-fearing life, but a mind stayed on God and trusting in Him, keeps the soul in perfect peace (Isa_26:3). Such a trust, however, the usual outcome and accompaniment of such a life. Faith in God, and the fear of God make the soul triumph in every trouble. “Let us sing the 46th Psalm, and let them do their worst” [Luther, when threatened by enemies]. “My father is at the helm,” enough to quiet the soul in every storm. “He has nothing to fear who has Cæsar for his friend” (Seneca] For Cæsar, substitute Christ. The privilege of believers, eagle-like, to hold on their career through storms and tempests. “The righteous is as bold as a lion,” i.e., with faith in exercise. Job’s faith, like that of the disciples, tested in a storm and found defective (Mar_4:40). Sometimes, however, breaks through the cloud, and triumphs over all opposition (Job_23:10; Job_16:19; Job_19:25-27; Job_13:15). There are times when the believer’s faith is scarcely able to keep head above water.
III. Exhortation, with veiled Reproof (Job_4:7).
“Remember, I pray thee,” &c. Skilfully ambiguous. May serve either for conviction or consolation. History a useful teacher, but requires intelligence to read its lessons. The part of true wisdom to mark, record, and improve God’s dealings in Providence (Psa_107:43). His works made to be remembered (Psa_111:4). Asaph’s and David’s conduct in times of trouble (Psa_77:11-12; Psa_143:5).—“Whoever perished being innocent?” Literally: “Who is that innocent person who hath perished?” Asks for any such known example. Eternity not in view. “Perished” by some signal judgment. “Cut off” by some sudden catastrophe. Reference to Job’s own case. Job not yet “cut off;” hence consolation in the question. The innocent “cast down but not destroyed.” Paul’s experience (2Co_4:9; 2Co_6:9). David’s (Psa_71:20). Job all but “cut off;” hence the question for conviction. Can Job be an innocent person? No such person has ever perished. No example, ac cording to Eliphaz, of a godly man cut off by any signal judgment or overwhelming catastrophe. The opposite side maintained by Job. The godly fall with the ungodly (ch Job_9:22-23). Same truth taught, Ecc_9:2-3; Eze_21:3. The godly often suffer while the wicked prosper (Job_12:5-6; Job_21:7; Psa_73:3; Psa_73:12). The first recorded death of a believer a violent and bloody one. Saints at times “killed all the day long,” and their “blood shed like water” (Psa_44:22; Psa_79:3). Paul glories in the long martyr-roll of the Old Testament, as the church has since done in that of the New (Heb_11:35-37). Thousands of the faithful “cut off” in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (Dan_11:33). Still, Job’s case an unusual one, and not belonging to any of these classes. His crushing calamities apparently direct from the hand of God. Everything seemed to proclaim him an object of the Divine anger. “God smites, hence there is guilt,”—an instinct of humanity (Act_28:3-4). Hence the suspicion of his friends, and Job’s own perplexity (ch. Job_13:24; Job_16:9-14; Job_19:10-11). Faith has often a hard battle to fight against appearances and carnal reasoning. Job’s friends instead of aiding his buffeted and sometimes staggering faith, help his unbelief. Their object, to make him out, and bring him to acknowledge himself to be, other than he had appeared. The experience of Job a foreshadowing of that of Jesus (Isa_53:3-4; Mat_27:43; Mat_27:46).
V. Eliphaz adduces his own observation for Job’s conviction (Job_4:8).
“Even as I have seen.” Useful for the preacher to substantiate his arguments and appeals by facts of his own observation.
Sin and its Consequences
1. Sin. “They that plough iniquity,”—practise wrong, especially in relation to others. A cruel thrust at Job, as if this had been his character, and that for which he was now suffering. “Plough” iniquity—practise it carefully, industriously, painfully, perseveringly, and with expectation of profit (Pro_22:8; Hos_8:7; Hos_10:13. Sinners sore labourers (Pro_6:17; Isa_59:5; Jer_9:5). Satan the worst master; keeps his servants at hard work with miserable wages.—“And sow wickedness,” or “mischief;”—continue to prosecute wicked and oppressive schemes. The character of tyrants to oppress others with the view of enriching themselves. Sin gradual and progressive. One sin prepares the way for another. Ploughing prepares for sowing. The sinner urged on to persevere in sin. One sin to be followed by another, in order to gain the result, as ploughing by sowing. “Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse” (2Ti_3:13). Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we advance in it [Barrow].
2. Its consequences. “Reap the same;”
(1.) The profit of their sin.
(2.) The punishment of it. Retribution corresponding with the sin, constantly recognised in the Bible (Isa_33:1; Rev_13:10; Mat_7:2; Jas_2:13). Exemplified in Adonibezek (Jud_1:7); and in the persecutors of the church (Rev_16:6). The Egyptians, who drowned Israel’s infants in the Nile, are themselves drowned in the Red Sea. Countries distinguished for persecution, as Spain with its Inquisition, and France with its Bartholomew Massacre, distinguished also for the horrors of bloody revolutions and civil wars. Charles IX. of France, who ordered the Massacre of 1575, expired in a bloody sweat, exclaiming, “What blood! What murders! What shall I do? I am lost for ever.” Under God’s government, sin followed by suffering as a body by its shadow (Num_32:23). Men constantly sowing either to the flesh or the spirit (Gal_6:7-8). The crop according to the seed.
(Job_4:9). The fate of the prosperous wicked. Cruelly held forth by Eliphaz as if to terrify Job and identify his case with theirs. The case of Job and his children terribly resembling it. Truth misapplied assumes the nature and produces the effect of error. “By the blast (or breath) of God they perish.” A mere breath of God sufficient for the destruction of the ungodly. “Thou didst blow with thy wind,” sung over the ruin of Pharaoh’s host and of the Spanish Armada. The whirlwind that overthrows the dwelling and wrecks the ship, but the breath of the Almighty. The wicked driven away by God’s breath as so much dust or chaff before the wind (Psa_1:4). The breath that made the world can as easily destroy it (Psa_33:6).—“By the breath of his nostrils are they consumed,” like vegetation scorched and burnt up by the hot wind of the desert (Jer_4:11; Eze_17:10; Hos_13:15). The life of the ungodly is—
(1.) Laborious and painful in its efforts;
(2.) Often prosperous for a time in its results;
(3.) Miserable in its end. “Consumed,” by Divine judgments in this life, or by the experience of His wrath in the life to come. The former mainly intended by Eliphaz, without exclusion of the latter. True, as to what frequently happens. Examples,—the Antediluvians, and the Cities of the Plain. Its universality implied by Eliphaz, but denied by Job (ch. Job_21:7-14; Job_12:6). Sentence against an evil work not always speedily executed (Ecc_8:11). Some wicked men punished here, to save God’s providence; only some to save his patience and promise of future judgment [Augustine]. The preservation of the ungodly only a reservation. God’s forbearance no acquitance. Divine justice slow but sure. Has leaden heels but iron hands. The longer in drawing the arrow, the deeper the wound. [Brookes.]
(Job_4:10). Same truth poetically set forth under another figure. “The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion,”—supply “is silenced.” The threatening of the rich oppressor and the terror inspired by it come to an end. “Lions” used in Scripture as the symbol of cruel and rapacious men (Psa_57:4; Jer_1:17; Zep_3:3). The figure common in Arab poetry for the rich and powerful. Furnished by the deserts of Arabia in which Eliphaz lived. The reference cruelly intended by him to Job and his three sons.—“The teeth of the young lions are broken.” The means of wicked men’s doing mischief and practising oppression ultimately taken from them. The teeth of the tyrant and persecutor sooner or later broken. Examples:—Belshazzar (Dan_5:22; Dan_5:30); Herod (Act_12:23); Nero (2Ti_4:17). Heartless allusion to the condition of Job and his family.—(Job_4:11). “The old lion perisheth.” Various aspects, and perhaps species, of the lion indicated. Usual with Arab poets to express the same thing by several synonymous terms; each, however, with a variety of idea. Various forms and degrees of wickedness, and various classes of persecutors and oppressors; as lions differ in ferocity, age, and strength. Common with Scripture to represent moral character under the figure of various animals: cruelty by the lion and bear; rapacity by the wolf and the leopard; subtlety by the fox and the serpent; uncleanness by the swine and the dog; innocence by the dove; meekness by the lamb; industry by the ant. Some animals with natures and habits for imitation, others the reverse. The inferior creatures, in the variety of their natures and habits, the divinely-constituted symbols of the various characters and dispositions of men. The natural world a Divine mirror of the moral and spiritual.
VI. The vision (Job_4:12)
“Now a thing was secretly brought to me,” &c. The vision related by Eliphaz:—
(1.) To gain authority to his own reasoning and doctrine;
(2.) To reprove Job’s murmuring, and sinful reflection on the Divine procedure;
(3.) To humble his apparent self-righteousness, and convince him he was a sinner. The doctrine of the vision true but misapplied by the narrator. Visions frequently afforded: in patriarchal times in the absence of a written revelation (ch. Job_33:15-16). One of the “divers manners” (Heb_1:1). Such communications given “secretly,” in the absence of other parties, (Dan_10:7-8). Eliphaz probably awake and revolving past midnight visions,—“in thoughts,” &c. The description allowed to excel all others of a similar kind in sublimity and horror. Sublime without being obscure, circumstantial without being mean [Kitto]. Wonderful grouping of impressive ideas. Midnight—solitude—deep silence—approach of the spectre—its gliding and flitting motion—its shadowy, unrecognisable form—its final stationary attitude—the voice—the awful silence broken by the solemn question of the spirit—the chill horror of the spectator—trembling in all his limbs—the hair of his body standing up from fear. Much more connected with the earth than is ordinarily visible. Man surrounded with a countless invisible population of intelligent creatures. “Myriads of spiritual beings walk the earth” [Milton]. Man an object of intense interest both to good and bad spirits. Communication with the spirit world at present confined within narrow limits; partly through our physical nature, still more through our fallen condition. Man in his present state naturally alarmed at spiritual and supernatural appearances (Dan_10:7-8). Special strength required to endure such appearances and receive such communications (Dan_10:17-19). Flesh and blood unable to inherit the kingdom of God (1Co_15:50). Man’s natural body to be changed into a spiritual one to hold fellowship with the spirit world (1Co_15:44).—“Mine ear received a little thereof;” Heb., “a whisper.” The amount received, only a whisper as compared with a full outspoken speech. All we know of God, a mere whisper in comparison with mighty thunder (ch. Job_26:14). Little of Divine truth communicated compared with what is to be known (1Co_13:9). The greatest part of what we know, the least-part of what we know not Things heard by Paul in Paradise unlawful or impossible to be uttered (2Co_12:4). Truth communicated only as we are able to receive it (Mar_4:33; Joh_16:12). “Even in the Scripture, I am ignorant of much more than I know” [Augustine].—(Job_4:16). “There was silence and I heard a voice;” or, “Silence, and a voice I heard,” i.e. a still small voice, as 1Ki_19:12. Deep silence the result of the spectre’s appearance, and the preparation for its communication. Silence within the hearer’s soul as well as in the world without. Enjoined in the Divine presence and in receiving Divine communications (Hab_2:20). Silence in heaven before the sounding of the seven trumpets (Rev_8:1). The “foot” to be “kept,” and silent attention to be maintained in the house of God (Ecc_5:1-2). Preparation of heart necessary for receiving Divine truth (Psa_85:8; 1Sa_3:9). Silence from—
(1.) The voice of pride and self conceit;
(2.) The opinions and wisdom of the flesh;
(3.) The desires and cravings of corrupt nature;
(4.) The impatient clamourings of selfwill.
The Spectre’s Communication
(Job_4:17). “Shall mortal man be more just than God,”—or, “be just before God?” The object of the communication on the part of the spirit,—
(1.) To silence man’s murmurings against the Divine procedure, as if man were more just than God (ch. Job_3:10-23; Job_35:2; Job_40:8). To murmur under trouble is to reflect on the Divine wisdom and goodness, and to make ourselves more righteous than God. In the view of Eliphaz, this the sin into which Job had fallen. The sin to which great and accumulated suffering especially exposes our fallen nature. That into which Asaph had nearly fallen (Psa_73:2). God as righteous when he afflicts a good man as when he punishes a bad one. Jeremiah’s Divine philosophy,—“Wherefore doth a living man complain?” (Lam_3:39). It is “of God’s mercies” that a saint as well as a sinner is “not consumed” (Lam_3:22). One single sin, seen in its real character, enough to shut the mouth of every complainer. Just views of the character of God and of the nature of sin calculated to silence murmurs under heaviest troubles.
(2.) To humble man’s pride, and to prove every man in God’s sight a sinner. The object of the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. The lesson Job was intended to learn, and did learn (ch. Job_42:5). Taught Isaiah by the vision of the Divine glory in the Temple (Isa_6:1, &c.); and Peter by the miraculous draught of fishes (Luk_5:8). The object of the Gospel to teach how a man may be just before God. The law-fulfilling and justice-satisfying work of Christ, God’s way of making a man righteous before Him. God justifies only “the ungodly that believe in Jesus” (Rom_4:5; Luk_18:10; Luk_18:14). The reason obvious (Rom_3:10; Rom_3:23). To become righteous, a man must take the place of a sinner,—his real character. The sinner becomes righteous before God in accepting the righteousness of another. RIGHTEOUS IN CHRIST,—our peace in life, our joy in death, and our passport into the New Jerusalem (Jer_23:5-6; Isa_45:24; 1Co_1:30; 2Co_5:21). Job a “perfect man” according to law; but in order to evangelical perfection, his comeliness, like Daniel’s, to be “turned into corruption” in him (Dan_10:8). The saint’s highest attainment to know himself a poor sinner, and Christ a rich Saviour. “I a poor sinner am, but Jesus died for me,” (Wesley’s deathbed testimony).—The believer’s perfection, thoroughly to know his absolute imperfection. Education, example, correction, and punishment, may do much for a man, but cannot make him a poor sinner [Krummacher]. “A sinner is a sacred thing; the Holy Ghost has made him so” [Hart].
Job_4:18. “Behold.” Always indicating something important, and calling for special attention. Uncertain whether, in what follows, the spirit or Eliphaz himself is the speaker. The object,—to humble man, and more especially Job, as in nature and character so much inferior to the angels. The constant aim of Job’s “friends,” to bring him down from his excellency (Psa_62:4).—“He put no trust in his servants.” Angels God’s servants by way of eminence (Psa_103:20-21; Psa_104:4). The highest honour of a creature is to be a servant of his Creator. God’s service not only our freedom, but our glory. God’s dominion over all created intelligences. The Seraphim his servants. Man as well as angel must serve; but he may choose his master.
“Thou canst not choose but serve; man’s lot is servitude.
But thou hast thus much choice—a bad lord or a good.”
God puts no trust in the angels, as being:—
1. Mutable and unstable. Many of them fell; others might, but for sustaining grace. God alone unchangeable (Mal_3:6; Jas_1:17). Angels secure, like men, only by a Divine act of election (1Ti_5:21).
2. Imperfect and liable to err. Fallibility and imperfection stamped on all creature-excellence. God only wise (Rom_16:27); only holy (Rev_15:4); only true (Joh_17:3). Infallibility a Divine attribute, claimed by, the Pope while arrogating to himself, as the pretended head of the Church, the promise of the Holy Ghost made by Christ to His Apostles.—“His angels He charged with folly;”—
(1) allowed;
(2) marked;
(3) visited, sin in them. “Angels,” so called from their office as God’s messengers or agents. “Sons of God,” from their nature (see ch. Job_1:6). Probable allusion in the text to the fall of some of them (Jud_1:6);—“kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” (2Pe_2:4). Rebellion against God the height of folly in man or angel. Sinning angels dealt with according to their folly (Jud_1:6; 2Pe_2:4). The fall of angels as possible and as likely as the fall of men. Their fall a mystery, but clearly revealed. Man’s fall connected with that of angels which preceded it. Fallen intelligences, human or angelic, naturally the tempters of others.—The angel’s fall a lesson of humility to man (Job_4:19). “How much less,” i.e. can He trust men; or, “how much more” must He charge men with folly. The fallibility and imperfection of men argued from that of angels. Job pronounced and esteemed a “perfect man.” His spirit and conduct under his trials at first in accordance with this character. Conscious himself of his spotless life (ch. 29, 31). Too ready to glory in it (Job_31:35-37). Appeared to maintain it in a way unbecoming in one who was a sinner (Job_33:9; Job_9:17; Job_10:7). Needed to be taught more deeply the imperfection of his perfection. His perfection not even that of an imperfect angel, but of a man. The object of the Book of Job, as of God’s dealings in general, to hide pride from man (Job_33:17). The dust the place of the highest and the holiest before his maker.
Poetical and affecting description of
Man’s Condition and Circumstances
1. As inhabiting a frail and humble body—(Job_4:19). “Who dwell in houses of day.” Oriental houses of the poorer classes usually of clay or mud dried in the sun. These naturally of the frailest and humblest character. Contrasted with the houses of the great,—usually of hewn stone. Man’s fleshly body so spoken of (2Co_5:1). Adam = red earth. Hence used as the name of the race (Gen_2:15). Flesh a sign and cause of weakness (Isa_31:3; Gen_6:3; Psa_78:39). Contrasted with the angels, who are spirits, and therefore strong (Isa_31:3; Psa_103:20). Man’s present body as “natural,” contrasted with his resurrection body as “spiritual” (1Co_15:42-44; 2Co_5:1).
2. Formed out of the ground and returning to it. “Whose foundation is in the dust.” The elements of man’s body those of the ground on which he treads. Man frequently reminded of his origin to keep him humble. His lowly origin an enhancement of redeeming love. God’s Son took not on Him (or, “took not hold of”) the nature of angels, but that of Abraham (Heb_2:16). Man in his creation made lower than the angels;. in his regeneration, higher (Psa_8:4, &c.; Rom_8:16-17). His return to dust natural, but not necessary. The Divine sentence on Adam’s transgression (Gen_3:19; Psa_93:3; Ecc_12:7). Hitherto but two authentic exceptions (Gen_5:24; 2Ki_2:11. “ ‘Dust to dust’ concludes earth’s noblest song.”
3. Weak and easily destroyed. “Crushed before the moth.” Crushed to death as easily as a moth is crushed between the fingers; or, crushed “in presence of a moth,” which can prove his death. Man’s body so frail that the slightest accident can terminate his existence. Pope Adrian actually choked by a gnat. A dish of lampreys the death of an English king. Man’s continued existence the result of Divine preservation ch. Job_19:12). “Strange that a harp of thousand strings,” &c.
4. Constantly liable to death, and on the way to it (Job_4:20). “They are destroyed from morning to evening.” Liable every moment to accident, disease and death. A continual tendency to dissolution. The seeds of disease and death inherent in man’s frame. Death the immediate consequence of the fall (Gen_2:17). Man’s life itself is death in constant development. “The moment we begin to live,” &c. Man crushed “between morning and evening.” An insect life. Man an ephemeral; his life a day.
5. Cut off in death from the visible world without ability to return to it. “They perish for ever.” Man’s death a finality. Only one life. Appointed once to die (Heb_9:27). “The bourne from whence no traveller returns.” Man as water spilt upon the ground, not to be taken up again (2Sa_14:14). Art can embalm and preserve the body, but not put life into it. Galvanism can move the limbs, but not restore the life. Resurrection here out of view. The text speaks of what is apparent, natural, and ordinary. Resurrection the result of a new dispensation and a second Adam. Jesus Christ the resurrection and the life. Christ the first fruits (1Co_15:20; 1Co_15:23). Specimens of bodily resurrection already afforded;—
(1) In Christ himself;
(2) In those restored to life by Himself and by others through His power;
(3) In those who rose and left their graves after His resurrection (Mat_27:52; Mat_27:63). The resurrection of all believers at His second coming (1Co_15:23; 1Th_4:15-17). To be followed by a general resurrection (Rev_20:5; Joh_5:28-29). A new earth the habitation of risen saints (2Pe_3:13).
6. Unnoticed in death by higher orders of beings. “Without any regarding it;”—i.e., as to any appearance of it. No attempt made by angelic beings to prevent it. No expression heard of sorrow or concern on account of it. Man dies in silence from the other world as if unnoticed and disregarded. This, however, only in appearance (see Luk_16:22; Psa_72:14; Psa_116:15).
7. Stripped of all the excellence possessed on earth (Job_4:21). “Doth not their excellence which was in them go away?” Not only the best and most excellent thing which was with them,—as riches, dignity, power, &c,—but which was in them,—as beauty and strength of body, powers and endowments of mind (Psa_49:14; Psa_49:17; Ecc_9:10). True, however, only in appearance, and in regard to the body. The spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecc_12:7). All excellence departs from the body, but not from the man. Excellencies of the spirit develope and bloom in a higher sphere. A holy character immortal, and survives the tomb. Grace the only glory that a man can carry with him into the spirit-world.
8. Dying without attaining to wisdom. “They die, even without wisdom.” Man attains in this life to comparatively little knowledge in natural things, and to still less in spiritual ones (1Co_13:9-13). Sir Isaac Newton’s death-bed estimate of his attainments in science,—a little child gathering pebbles on the sea-shore, with the ocean of unexplored knowledge before him. “The greatest part of what I know is the least part of what I know not” [Augustine].
Most die without true and saving wisdom (Mat_7:14; 2Ti_3:15). Man’s wisdom in life is rightly to prepare for death (Psa_90:12; Deu_32:29).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Job 4:13-17
Job 4:13-17
I. Consider the spectre itself and its appearance. (1) It was produced by a likeness of moral state. It was a time of thought. But this does not convey all the idea of the passage. The Hebrew word here used for thought comes from a root signifying the boughs of a tree, and it has been rendered, "in the high places of the forests of thought." The mind was wandering amazed; the labyrinthine way stretched out on every hand; the mind trod the dark pathways. (2) Fear anticipated the vision. Fear unbolts the bars of the room and admits the spectre to our presence. Our world is a house full of fears, because the Fall has removed us into the night, away from God.
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II. Notice, next, the question. The ghost’s question touches very appropriately and comprehensively the whole topic also of the book of Job. (1) How large is the field of thought the message covers. It is the assertion of the purity and universality of Divine Providence. Rising from the small circle of interests, beyond the boundary of our time, the spirit suggests the sweep of Providence. (2) But the ghost’s question had another department—it was directed to the defectibility of man. Consider God, but consider thyself—thy littleness, thy narrowness, the limited sphere of thy vision. These two thoughts face each other with mute aspects of despair and power. This is all they will say: Man is weak, God is strong; God is omnipotent, man is helpless. (3) Hitherto the ghost only crushed; it was not the purpose of the spectre to do more. It asked of man the question which had its root only in the eternal and illimitable will. It referred all to God. But the message of the ghost, no doubt, included the following chapter, which must be read along with it.
III. The ghost is asking this question still: "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" Our age is baffled by the same perplexities which alarmed Job and his friends. It is from God Himself that man derives the terrors which scare him. The alarm, the fear, the awe, the moral misery—these are the assertion of the Divine within the soul. To the alarmed conscience now God comes by the Saviour, not by an apparition. The conscience is calmed amidst its highest terrors by the "blood of sprinkling" and by the night-breezes of Gethsemane. From the darkness of Calvary comes a consolation to dispel all evil spirits and all night fears.
E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 261.
References: Job 4:15-17.—H. Melvill, Sermons on Less Prominent Facts, vol. ii., p. 60. Job 4:18.—E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. i., p. 1. Job 4—A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, p. 93. Job 4-5—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 321; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 76. Job 5:6, Job 5:7.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 314.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The First Speech of Eliphaz (Job 4, 5)
The First Speech of Eliphaz (Job 4, 5)
Eliphaz is the principal and probably the oldest of the three friends: cp. Job_32:6. He is also the most considerate. But the complainings of Job in Job 3 had evidently deepened in him the bad impression which must have been created by Job's sufferings, and being ignorant of the true cause of his trials he draws false conclusions from them. Whilst admitting that Job is fundamentally a pious man, Eliphaz infers that his sufferings must be the punishment of some sin, and that therefore the correction which God is sending should be received with humility and the sin repented of. These premises, which are held by all the friends, are throughout denied and combated by Job.
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1-11. Eliphaz gently rebukes Job for yielding to despair, since the godly do not perish under their affliction, but it is the wicked who reap the evil they have sown.
2. Note the courtesy of Eliphaz. He loses his temper in later speeches.
2-5. Eliphaz is greatly struck with the reverse in Job's fortunes. He who had been the great comforter of those in distress is now overcome by his own troubles. Observe that Eliphaz quite underrates their severity, and ignores the wonderful resignation Job has displayed.
4. Cp. Job_29:12-17.
5. It is come] i.e. calamity.
6. RV 'Is not thy fear (of God) thy confidence, and thy hope the integrity of thy ways?' 'Surely Job may reckon on the uprightness of his past life as a pledge of speedy deliverance! He must not despair. The v. is important as proving that the friends recognised Job's fundamental goodness, into whatever sins he may have suffered himself to be betrayed.
7-9. Whereas gross sinners are sure to be cut off, the righteous man, though he may have to suffer for his faults, has reason to hope that he will not perish.
10, 11. The wicked, who are compared to lions, will certainly be destroyed: cp. Psa_22:13.
12-21. By way of awakening in Job a sense of sin Eliphaz describes a vision in which was revealed to him the perfect purity of God, and the imperfection in His sight of men and even of angels. We have here one of the most wonderful passages in literature. The secrecy, the hush, the sudden panic, the breath that passes over the face, the hair erect with horror, the shadowy figure whose form he cannot discern, the silence broken by the voice, all combine to produce the impression of terror, and terror not of the definitely known, but of the vague and mysterious, leaving the imagination full play to heighten it.
15. A spirit] rather, 'a breath.'
17. RM 'Shall mortal man be just before' (i.e. in the eyes of) 'God? Shall a man be pure before his Maker?'
18. He put no trust] because of their imperfections. Servants] attendant angels.
19. Houses of clay] perishing bodies: cp. 2Co_5:1. If spiritual beings like the angels were imperfect, how much more men with material bodies. Before] RM 'like.'
20. From morning to evening] i.e. in a day.
21. Doth not, etc.] rather, 'Is not their tent-cord (or tent-peg) pulled up in them?' The falling tent is a figure of collapse and death. Even without wisdom] i.e. without having learnt the great lessons of life.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Eliphaz is a religious dogmatist whose dogmatism rests upon…
Eliphaz
Eliphaz is a religious dogmatist whose dogmatism rests upon a mysterious and remarkable experience Job 4:12-16. Did a spirit ever pass before Job’s face? Did Job’s hair of his flesh ever stand up? Then let him be meek while one so superior as Eliphaz declares the causes of his misfortunes. Eliphaz says many true things (as do the others), and often rises into eloquence, but he remains hard and cruel, a dogmatist who must be heard because of one remarkable experience.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain CHAPTERS 4-5 The First Address of Eliphaz
CHAPTERS 4-5 The First Address of Eliphaz
1. He rebukes Job (Job 4:1-5)
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2. The righteous are not cast off (Job 4:6-11)
3. An awe-inspiring vision (Job 4:12-21)
4. Experience and exhortation (Job 5:1-16)
5. Happy is the man whom God correcteth (Job 5:17-27)
With this chapter the long and tedious controversy between Job and his three visitors begins. His pitiful lamentation brings forth the addresses of his friends. Eliphaz and Bildad speak thrice, each answered by Job, and Zophar twice with corresponding rebuttals by Job. Job delivers his last word, the lengthy speech of chapters 27-31 in which he gives a summary of what he contended for, namely, his own integrity, but the problem of his suffering remains unexplained.
The controversy is progressive. The thought which the three friends follow is that all suffering is the result of the justice of God and therefore punitive. For this principle they contend in a dogmatic way. As the controversy continues they become more harsh, suspicious and finally almost abusive. Job’s answers are first marked by despair; then hope enters in. In a measure he rises above his sufferings in answering his friends in a sharp way. He has the last word, but, as already stated, the mystery and problem of his suffering is not cleared up.
Eliphaz’s address is first in the series of controversies in which each maintains the punitive character of suffering and each answer given by Job (chapters 6-7; 9-10; 12-14) is filled with despair reflecting the state of his mind. After these preliminary remarks we briefly examine each address and Job’s answers.
Job 4:1-5. Eliphaz is the most dogmatic of the three friends and in his first address makes much of the greatness and justice of God. He had come to comfort; but little comfort could he bring to the afflicted one. He begins very politely. “If one replied to thee (to Job’s lament) wouldst thou be grieved? But who can refrain from speaking?” But at once he stabs Job to the heart.
Behold thou hast instructed many
And thou hast strengthened the weak hands
Thy words have upholden him that was stumbling;
And thou hast strengthened oft the feeble knees.
But now it is come upon thee and what grief?
Because it toucheth thee, thou art troubled.
Hath not thy piety been thy confidence,
And the perfection of thy ways thy hope?
All this was of course perfectly true. But he did not understand what Job needed in his suffering. The words of Eliphaz, the wise man from Teman, must have acted upon Job like an application of an irritant to a bleeding wound. What Job needed was tender sympathy, a good Samaritan, to pour oil and to give him wine. But Eliphaz reveals in this at once the harshness of his nature, the lack of discernment between the suffering of the righteous and the wicked, and finally he develops into a false accuser.
Job 4:7-11. Eliphaz had told Job he was a pious and righteous man (verse 6). And now he tells him: “Remember I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or when were any righteous ones cut off?” Only those that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap what they have sown. God makes such to perish in His wrath. They are cut off even if they were like strong lions. What dogmatic logic! Job, if thou art righteous and suffering thus, then God is destitute of all justice; but if God is justice, then thou hast plowed iniquity and sown wickedness and all thy suffering is thine own harvest.
Job 4:12-21. The words which follow, describing a vision which Eliphaz had, are so sublime that we must quote them.
Now a thing was brought secretly to me,
Mine ear did catch a whispering thereof
In thoughts from visions of the night
When deep sleep falleth upon men:
Great fear came upon me, and trembling too,
It made my very bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face;
The hair of my flesh stood up--
I stopped--but nothing could I then discern--
I looked, and lo, I saw a form
Silence: and then I heard a voice--
“Shall mortal man be more just than God?
Shall a man be purer than his Maker?
In His own servants He trusteth not,
His angels He chargeth with folly.
How much more than they that dwell in houses of clay
Whose foundation is the dust,
Who are crushed as the moth!
From morning to evening are they smitten
They perish utterly, without any regarding it.
Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them?
They die and without wisdom.”
This vision describes the greatness and majesty of God and of course is again true. That it was a real vision cannot be doubted. Man’s punity, his utter nothingness, is thus made known in this vision. But did this meet the need of afflicted Job? It could not explain the reason of Job’s suffering. And something like this is suggested by these words--Job, you are just like other men before God; your present experience of affliction testifies to this. You thought you were right with God and that He blessed and protected you, but as He is holy and just, your suffering shows, you are reaping the consequences of your sin, as others do.
Job 5:1-16. He gives Job next a bit of experience, which is very true indeed. But the insinuation is wrong. He reasons from experience that suffering is the lot of the wicked, and therefore Job must belong to that class. The advice he gives to Job is in full keeping with his dogmatic assertion.
For man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.
But as for me I will seek unto God,
And unto God commit my cause;
Who doeth great things and unsearchable,
Marvellous things without number.
But the advice, while good, is most subtle, for it is built upon wrong premises. He maintains his previous assertion that Job was an ungodly sinner, reaping what he had sown; with this in view he spoke these words.
Job 5:17-27. The first address of Eliphaz closes with a marvellous climax upon the same wrong premises, that Job had sinned, that he must seek God, but Job had not renounced God; he had not left Him. Otherwise this final utterance of Eliphaz tells out the gracious power of the Almighty in a most blessed way. Read these verses and get the help and comfort which they breathe.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Job having thus given way to his impatience, his…
Job having thus given way to his impatience, his friends thought it their duty to correct him. But instead of showing him in what respect his position was wrong, they proceed according to the assumption that Job must be guilty of some special fault or sin, and chide him accordingly.
v. 1. Then Eliphaz, the Temanite, answered and said,
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v. 2. If we essay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? Eliphaz wanted to be sure from the outset that Job would not misunderstand his friends if they ventured some suggestions, that he would not be insulted or offended if they spoke a word in his behalf. But who can withhold himself from speaking? He felt that he must express his opinion at this time.
v. 3. Behold, thou hast instructed many, namely, with words of loving reproof and admonition, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands, causing the slack hands to take up their tasks with new vigor.
v. 4. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees, by holding men upright who were about to sink down, figuratively speaking, by his moral support, by his encouragement.
v. 5. But now it is come upon thee and thou faintest; now that misfortune, in turn, had struck Job, all his fine admonitions to others were forgotten, and he was faint and impatient. It toucheth thee and thou art troubled, confounded, seized with terror, filled with feebleness and despondency when suffering came to his own door.
v. 6. Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways? or, "Is not thy piety, thy confidence, and thy hope the righteousness of thy ways?" Eliphaz implied that Job surely did not have an evil conscience, that he certainly could and should remember the uprightness of his life, which his friend was not prepared to question.
v. 7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off? This overemphasis on the safety of the upright shows that Eliphaz intended to voice his doubts concerning the unvarying piety of Job, trying to convey the idea that there must have been, after all, something that merited an extraordinary punishment at the hand of God. This thought is now elaborated in detail.
v. 8. Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, sowing mischief in their fields, and sow wickedness, misery and ruin for others, reap the same. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," Gal 6:7-8.
v. 9. By the blast of God they perish, as God breathes upon them in anger, and by the breath of His nostrils are they consumed, like plants which a burning wind scorches, so that they shrivel up and wither away.
v. 10. The roaring of the lion, as he goes forth to seize and tear his prey, and the voice of the fierce lion, of the roarer who shows his angry temper, and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
v. 11. The old lion, he who enjoys the fullness of adult strength, perisheth, wanders about helplessly, for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad, rather, the whelps of the lioness. Lions of every age and of every condition of strength are mentioned in order to picture the destruction of the haughty sinner with all his household. Eliphaz now draws a conclusion which he expresses very carefully.
v. 12. Now, a thing was secretly brought to me, it came to him in a stealthy, mysterious manner, and mine ear received a little thereof, a faint whisper or lisp, as from an oracle, which he hardly dared utter.
v. 13. In thoughts from the visions of the night, in pictures such as the thoughts paint in dreams, when deep sleep falleth on men, when the spirit of man seems to penetrate into superhuman realms,
v. 14. fear came upon me and trembling, meeting him in such a way as to cause a shudder to pass over him, which made all my bones to shake, in a deep and fearful agitation.
v. 15. Then a spirit passed before my face, gliding or flitting before him like the apparition of an angel; the hair of my flesh stood up, as in sudden, extreme terror;
v. 16. it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof, it had the shadowy indistinctness which creates such an impression of awe; an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, rather, a lisping murmur and a voice, a lisping or murmuring voice, saying,
v. 17. Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? The thought contained here is this, that whoever censures the government of God, as Job had done in his complaint, thereby claims to be more just than God and thus becomes guilty.
v. 18. Behold, He put no trust in His servants, the ministering angels; and His angels he charged with folly, to the very spirits of light He imputes error, they cannot compare with Him in holiness and purity;
v. 19. much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, frail men with material, earthly bodies, whose foundation is in the dust, out of which their bodies were originally framed, which are crushed before the moth? utterly consumed as though they were nothing but moths!
v. 20. They are destroyed, beaten into small pieces and thus returned to dust, from morning to evening, their life being but an extremely short span of time; they perish forever without any regarding it, soon dead and rapidly forgotten.
v. 21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? They die, even without wisdom, literally, "Is it not torn away is their cord?" the picture being taken from the quick striking of a tent. Without having found true wisdom in their lives, having lived in short-sightedness and folly all their days, men die, they are cut off and taken away, Psa 90:9-10. Remembering this, the Christian will at all times be constrained to pray: "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. "
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Eliphaz is a man's name. (See: How to Translate…
Eliphaz
Eliphaz is a man's name. (See: How to Translate Names)
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Temanite
A Temanite belongs to the tribe of Teman. (See: How to Translate Names)
will you be impatient?
Eliphaz asks this question in order to make a statement. AT: "you will surely be impatient." (See: Rhetorical Question)
will you be impatient?
"will that annoy you?"
But who can stop himself from speaking?
Eliphaz asks this question to say that no one who sees a friend suffering can remain silent. AT: "No one can restrain himself from speaking (to a friend in such a state as you find yourself)" or "I must speak to you, (seeing that you are in a state of grief)." (See: Rhetorical Question)
See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened weak hands
This verse states a single idea in two different ways. (See: Parallelism)
you have strengthened weak hands
Here "weak hands" represents people who need help. AT: "you have helped others when they needed help" (See: Metonymy)
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:1–14:22 This section begins three rounds of speeches by…
4:1–14:22 This section begins three rounds of speeches by each of Job’s three comforters, each with a response from Job (4:1–27:23). In this first round, Job’s friends exhort him to seek God so that he can again enjoy prosperity.
4:1-2 Eliphaz the Temanite (see study note on 2:11) was the most prominent and probably the oldest of Job’s friends; his speeches are longer and more ornate than the others. • who could keep from speaking out? Eliphaz mimicked the urgency of a prophetic revelation (4:12-16; see Jer 20:9; Amos 3:8).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.