1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 2 "If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking? 3 Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands. 4 Your words have supported him who was falling, You have made firm the feeble knees. 5 But now it is come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled. 6 Isn't your piety your confidence? Isn't the integrity of your ways your hope? 7 "Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off? 8 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same. 9 By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed. 10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken. 11 The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad. 12 "Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it. 13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, 14 fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. 15 Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. 16 It stood still, but I couldn't discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then 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 puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error. 19 How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth! 20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it. 21 Isn't their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.'
Eliphaz answers; and accuses Job of impatience, and of despondence in the time of adversity, Job 4:1-6; asserts that no innocent man ever perished, and that the wicked are afflicted for their sins, Job 4:7-11; relates a vision that he had, Job 4:12-16, and what was said to him on the occasion, Job 4:17-21.
INTRODUCTION TO JOB 4
Job's sore afflictions, and his behaviour under them, laid the foundation of a dispute between him and his three friends, which begins in this chapter, and is carried on to the end of the thirty first; when Elihu starts up as a moderator between them, and the controversy is at last decided by God himself. Eliphaz first enters the list with Job, Job 4:1; introduces what he had to say in a preface, with some show of tenderness, friendship, and respect, Job 4:2; observes his former conduct in his prosperity, by instructing many, strengthening weak hands and feeble knees, and supporting stumbling and falling ones, Job 4:3; with what view all this is observed may be easily seen, since he immediately takes notice of his present behaviour, so different from the former, Job 4:5; and insults his profession of faith and hope in God, and fear of him, Job 4:6; and suggests that he was a bad man, and an hypocrite; and which he grounds upon this supposition, that no good man was ever destroyed by the Lord; for the truth of which he appeals to Job himself, Job 4:7; and confirms it by his own experience and observation, Job 4:8; and strengthens it by a vision he had in the night, in which the holiness and justice of God, and the mean and low condition of men, are declared, Job 4:12; and therefore it was wrong in Job to insinuate any injustice in God or in his providence, and a piece of weakness and folly to contend with him.
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