Job 4

After apologising for speaking, Eliphaz expresses his surprise at hearing complaints from Job, who had so often encouraged others (2-5); asks why he does not confide in his uprightness, since it is not the innocent but the wicked, however powerful they may be, who perish (6-11); refers to a communication made to him in a vision, to show how wrong Job was in arraigning his Maker (12-21); asserts that man has no reason to complain, since the cause of affliction is in himself (v. 1-7); and concludes by exhorting Job to cast himself upon God, whose greatness and goodness are shown both in Nature and in the government of the world (8-16), and by showing the happy consequences of submission to Divine chastisements (17-27).

Is not this thy fear, etc.? Rather, “Is not thy fear (i.e., thy piety) thy confidence? thy hope, is it not also the uprightness of thy ways?” See R.V. “Your blameless life, let that encourage you” (Moffatt).

7 who ever perished, being innocent? This sentence contains the essential principle on which the whole argument of Job’s friends is based.

8. Even as I have seen. Rather, “So far as I have seen.”

10. The roaring of the lion, etc. Unjust, cruel men are often compared in the Scriptures to wild beasts: see Psa. x. 9, etc. In this and the next verse five different names are given to the lion in the Hebrew; showing how common those animals once were in that region.

11 the stout lion’s whelps. Rather, as R.V., “the whelps of the lioness.”

12. Now a thing, etc. Or, “And to me a word came stealing; my ear caught a whisper of it.”

17. Shall mortal man, etc.? 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. (Conant.) All that is spoken in this vision is true in itself; but the use made of it by Eliphaz is wrong.

18. His angels He charged with folly (or, “error”). As even the most exalted spirits are imperfect, compared with the infinite perfection of the Deity, how much more so is man!

19. How much less. Rather, “How much more” (R.V.).

houses of clay. That is, bodies made of dust.

crushed before the moth. This may mean either, “sooner than is the moth”, or, “just as the moth is crushed.”

21. Doth not their excellency, etc.? Or, “Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them?” (R.V.); referring to life under the figure of a tent (as in Isa. xxxviii. 12).