Job Chapter 4

4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

4:2 "If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

4:3 Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.

(b) You have comforted others in their afflictions but you cannot now comfort yourself.

4:4 Your words have supported him who was falling, You have made firm the feeble knees.

4:5 But now it is come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

4:6 Isn't your piety your confidence? Isn't the integrity of your ways your hope?

4:7 "Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

(d) He concludes that Job was reproved seeing that God handles him so extremely, which is the argument that the carnal men make against the children of God.

4:8 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.

4:9 By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

(f) He shows that God needs no great preparation to destroy his enemies: for he can do it with the blast of his mouth.

4:10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

(g) Though men according to their office do not punish tyrants (whom for their cruelty he compares to lions, and their children to their whelps) yet God is able and his justice will punish them.

4:11 The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

4:12 "Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.

(h) A thing I did not know before was declared to me by vision, that is that whoever thinks himself just will be found a sinner when he comes before God.

4:13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

4:14 fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

(i) In these visions which God shows to his creatures, there is always a certain fear joined, that the authority of it might be had in greater reverence.

4:15 Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.

4:16 It stood still, but I couldn't discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

(k) When all things were quiet or when the fear was relieved as God appeared to Elijah, (1 Kings 19:12).

4:17 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

(l) He proves that if God punished the innocent, the creature would be more just than the creator, which was blasphemy.

4:18 Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.

(m) If God finds imperfection in his angels when they are not maintained by his power, how much more shall he lay folly to man’s charge when he would justify himself against God?

4:19 How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

(n) That is, in this mortal body, subject to corruption, as in (2 Corinthians 5:1).

4:20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

4:21 Isn't their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.'