Ch. 4–31. The debate between Job and his friends on the question of his sufferings and on the meaning of evil in general

This Debate occupies the whole body of the Book. It attaches itself to Job’s passionate cry for death and his impatient allusions to Heaven in ch. 3. The tone of this speech the friends cannot refrain from reprobating—they must speak (ch. Job 4:2); and thus the warfare of words commences. The subject to begin with is Job’s sufferings, but naturally the discussion widens out, so as to embrace the whole question of the meaning and purposes of calamity or evil in general. As the debate on the meaning of suffering occupies so large a portion of the Book, we must assume that one of the main intentions of the Author in writing his poem was to let light in upon this question from various sides and present ancient and current as well as new views regarding it. And as he allows the three friends to be brought to silence by Job, we may be sure that it was his purpose to discredit the theories which they represented and to teach that they could not any longer be maintained. Job in his speeches has no theory, he contributes nothing positive. The part he plays is merely negative and destructive. But in confuting the friends he clears the ground of the old encumbrances, and in their place the Author himself brings forward his new truth regarding the meaning of suffering, which he exhibits in a highly dramatic form in the Prologue. Both Job and his friends debate the question ignorant of the real cause of Job’s calamities, and neither they nor he approach the true solution. The Author allows us who watch the debate to know that Job’s sufferings were a trial of his righteousness. Thus the Prologue serves the same purpose as the prologue in the Greek drama, it introduces the actors, and supplies the spectators with the information needful to understand the action.

The Author allows three persons to confront Job and maintain against him the traditional beliefs. It is possible that the number as well as the names of Job’s friends may belong to the tradition upon which the Author worked. If not, he may mean to indicate by the number three the widespread currency and general acceptance of the views they advocate. The friends have each a well-marked individuality, and represent distinct aspects of religious conviction among mankind. Eliphaz, who on each occasion opens the debate, is the most dignified, the calmest and most considerate, and perhaps the oldest of Job’s friends. He is a man almost of Prophetic rank, who speaks with the composure and authority and clear eye of a seer, as one to whom revelations by vision have been granted from Heaven (Job 4:12 seq.). Bildad, a man of less consideration, is a representative of the class of the Wise (Jeremiah 18:18; Proverbs 1:6); an observer of life, one who generalizes on the ways of God to man, whose mind is stored with the priceless moral precedents of past ages, and who reposes upon the conclusions of thoughtful men of all times (ch. 8). While Zophar is the private religious man of strong personal conviction, who doubtless lives by the truth he believes, and cannot imagine how any one should question it; who gets irritated and indulges in unworthy imputations against any one who disputes the truth of his principles. All three were sincere men, though their sincerity had never perhaps been put to the proof as Job’s had been.

The three friends come to the contemplation of Job’s sufferings, and to the discussion of the meaning of them, with a principle which they all agree in holding. Like all Shemitic thinkers they have no idea of what we call second causes. In their view God is in immediate relation to the world and the lives of men, and does all directly that happens. Evil and Good come immediately from His hand; and being a righteous ruler every event of His providence must be either a reward of good or a retribution on evil. It is invariably well with the righteous and ill with the wicked, or perhaps more strictly, it is invariably well with righteousness and ill with wickedness. For even the righteous may do evil, for what man is he that sinneth not? and his evil will bring down punishment upon it. But God is far from being an impersonal moral balance, weighing out happiness and adversity according to the deserts of men, with no interest in their fate. On the contrary, His eyes are on the righteous, and though He chastens them for their sin, His chastisement is not in order that they may perish (Job 4:7), it is correction, meant to wean them from their evil and turn them again in humility and repentance unto righteousness. Therefore “happy is the man whom God correcteth” (ch. Job 5:17); such correction is an arrest laid upon him in his way of evil. Calamity therefore is not in itself decisive of the character of a man, though it is decisive of the fact that he has sinned. The issue of calamity only can shew what a man really is. If he is a righteous man, he accepts it as the warning of God and turns from his evil, and his future life is filled with blessings from God, and he shall enjoy length of days and all prosperity (Job 4:19-21). If he is evil he murmurs and rejects the divine correction, and brings wrath upon himself and perishes (Job 4:2). These principles explain the course pursued by the three friends towards Job. However strange it might seem to them they had no help but to conclude that Job, though a righteous man as they had always thought him, and continued to think him, had been guilty of acts of sin very displeasing unto God. And the temper he displayed under his afflictions alarmed them: it was the very temper of the ungodly (Job 4:2). Hence one after another they earnestly warn and exhort him to turn in humility and repentance unto God; and they draw bright pictures of the happy future which he shall yet enjoy.

As for Job he agreed with his three friends in believing that all events occurred through the immediate agency of God; good and evil came directly from His hand. Further he agreed with them that evil or suffering was inflicted by God on those whom He held guilty of having sinned. But Job’s consciousness of his own innocence forbad his drawing the conclusion with his friends that he had been guilty of great and specific offences. He knew he had not. He was driven therefore to the conclusion that, though he was not guilty, God had resolved to hold him guilty (Job 9:29 and often), and treat him as if he were so. Hence he is led to charge God with injustice. This feeling shines dimly through his words in ch. 3, and his friends detected it, but under their provocations and insinuations of his guilt he boldly avows his conviction of God’s injustice, and throws it out with a passionate fury appalling to a reverent mind. This however is but one side of the conflict going on in his mind. There are other currents of feeling that run side by side with this one. The action of the drama is nothing else than the progress of feeling in Job’s mind under his sufferings and the views regarding them presented by his friends. This progress, however, will be better understood when the chapters are read.

It is evident that the alienation of Job’s mind from God was increased and his feelings embittered by the insinuations and the misdirected advice of his friends. We should be deviating, however, from the line of the Author’s conception if we were to regard the provocations of the friends as a third or separate temptation. Job’s trial was merely his afflictions, narrated in the prologue. This trial continued. The friends only set it in a particular light. Before they arrived, or at least before they spoke, Job’s mind had already drifted away from the attitude of reverent submission which he took up when his afflictions newly befell him. The friends add to his perplexity, but they are little else than voices that give body to the thoughts that must have risen and struggled in his own mind. It is to be noticed that the Satan no more appears. With the infliction of Job’s calamities his part is ended. The supernatural agencies of the Prologue are no more called into requisition. It is plain indeed that the scenes in the Prologue are nothing but a splendidly dramatic form adopted by the Author for putting before us his new truth that calamities may befall the righteous not for any evil they have done but in order to try their righteousness and through the trial to perfect it.

The great debate is divided into three circles of speeches: (1) ch. 4–14; (2) ch. 15–21; (3) ch. 22–31. Each of these three circles contains six speeches, one by each of the three friends in succession, with a reply from Job. In the last round, however, the third speaker, Zophar, fails to come forward. This is a confession of defeat; and Job, resuming the thread of his reply to Bildad, carries it through a series of chapters, in which, with a profound pathos, he contrasts his former greatness with his present misery, protests his innocence before Heaven, and adjures God to reveal to him the cause of his afflictions.

CHAPTER 4

Ch. 4–14. The first circle of speeches

Ch. 4, 5. The speech of Eliphaz

Eliphaz attaches his speech to Job’s despairing cry in ch. 3. The tone of Job’s words and his state of mind seem to him strange and very far from right. And though he would gladly be silent and spare one in Job’s condition, yet he is constrained to speak (Job 4:2). Proceeding to speak, Eliphaz gives expression to three thoughts, each of which bears on the tone and temper displayed by Job in his cry of despair (ch. 3).

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.

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.

2. If we assay to commune] lit. if one should assay a word with thee. be grieved] This word is rendered thou faintest, Job 4:5. It means to be weary; this may be equivalent either to be impatient, Isaiah 1:14, or to be exhausted. It is difficult to decide here. We may render, leaving the ambiguity, will it be too much for thee? Eliphaz speaks unwillingly, and would spare Job, but he is compelled by the frame of mind in which he sees his friend.

3. the weak hands] lit. the hands hanging down, a sign of helplessness and despondency, 2 Samuel 4:1; Isaiah 13:7. Comp. Job’s words of himself, ch. Job 29:15-16.

4. the feeble knees] lit. as margin, the bowing, or tottering, knees; the figure being that of one tottering under a heavy load, which he is ready to sink beneath. See Isaiah 35:3-4; Hebrews 12:12.

5. it is come upon thee] Rather, it cometh. It is the calamity, which Eliphaz does not care further to particularize.

art troubled] Or, art confounded, losest self-possession, as Job had indeed described himself as one wholly perplexed, “whose way was hid,” Job 3:23.

We must beware of supposing that there is any flavour of sarcasm in the words of Eliphaz, as if he hinted that Job found it an easier thing to administer comfort to others than to take home the comfort to himself. Such a thing is wholly foreign to the mood of Eliphaz at starting, who, though he does find something to blame in Job’s state of mind, is perfectly sincere and friendly. It is equally irrelevant to the connexion.

Those whom Job had consoled are to be supposed pious men under trials. Job, as a man of deep religious experience, was able to set before them such views of providence, and of the uses of adversity in God’s hand, and open up such prospects to them, that he upheld and confirmed them. The Job 4:3-5 are incomplete, and form the foreground to Job 4:6-7, which express the real point of the statement of Eliphaz.

6. Is not this thy fear?] This verse should read,

Is not thy fear of God thy confidence?

And thy hope, is it not the perfection of thy ways?

When Job comforted others he no doubt would refer to their god-fearing life as a ground of hope that God would give them a happy issue out of their afflictions. Eliphaz desires that Job should apply the same medicine to himself. He assumes that Job is a god-fearing man.

7. Eliphaz would have Job remember that the afflictions of the righteous are disciplinary, and not designed for their destruction—who ever perished being innocent? He puts his principle first negatively, the righteous do not perish under affliction; and then positively, it is the wicked, they who plough iniquity that reap it, Job 4:8 seq.

8. even as I have seen] Rather, as I have seen. The words might be also rendered, when I saw those that ploughed iniquity … they reaped it. Eliphaz draws a distinction between two classes of men, on both of whom affliction may come—the righteous, who may no doubt sin and be chastised for their sin, but who do not perish under their chastisements (see ch. Job 5:17 seq.), and the wicked, whose sinning is, so to speak, a business which they practise as the tiller ploughs and sows his field, and whose harvest is unfailing. The words iniquity and wickedness may mean also affliction and trouble. The two pairs of things correspond to one another. That which the wicked plough and cast into the ground may be iniquity and wickedness, they reap it in the form of affliction and trouble. For the figure comp. Hosea 8:7; Hosea 10:13.

8–27. Third, surely instead of despairing and murmuring under his afflictions Job should follow a very different way. I, says Eliphaz, putting himself in Job’s place, would seek unto God, all whose doings are directed to the saving of the meek and disappointing the devices of the evil. When He smites, He smites only that He may the more profoundly heal. Happy should the man count himself whom God corrects. for his correction is meant to awaken him out of his dream of evil and lead him into a broader, clearer life, rich in blessings, and to be crowned with a ripe and peaceful end.

This beautiful speech consists of three parts, of which the first contains a single division, ch. Job 4:1-11; the second, two divisions, ch. Job 4:12-21, and ch. Job 5:1-7; and so also the third, ch. Job 5:8-16, and ch. Job 5:17-27.

9. by the blast of God] Better,

By the breath of God they perish,

And by the blast of his anger are they consumed.

The destructive judgment of God upon the wicked is described as a fiery breath coming from His mouth, as the hot wind of the desert withers and burns up the grass, cf. Isaiah 40:7; Amos 1:2.

10, 11. The sudden destruction of the wicked is thrown by Eliphaz into another graphic figure, the breaking-up and dispersion of a den of lions. There are five words used for lion in these verses, some of which are epithets taken from the characteristics of the lion; they are: lion, roaring lion (rather than, fierce lion), young lion, Job 4:10, and strong (or, old) lion, and lioness—the whelps of the lioness, Job 4:11. Between the lion and the wicked whom Eliphaz describes there are two points of resemblance; first, their strength or power; and second, their inherent violence of nature. This is the kind of men on whom afflictions fall that are final. The picture of the breaking-up of the lion’s home is very graphic; in the midst of the strong lion’s roaring and tearing of his prey by a sudden stroke his roaring is silenced and his teeth dashed out; thus disabled he perishes for lack of prey; and the whelps having no provider are scattered abroad. The reality of the figure is seen in the breaking-up of the home of the wicked, ch. Job 5:2-5.

12. Now a thing] Or, and a word. Eliphaz proceeds to another point, but he introduces it calmly, though with deepening earnestness in his tone; it is something additional, and he appends it by the simple and.

a little thereof] Rather, the whisper thereof. His ear caught it all, but the whole of it was but a whisper.

12–5:7. Turning to Job’s murmurs against heaven, Eliphaz points to the unapproachable purity of God and the imperfection of all creatures, and warns Job against such complaints

Having expressed his wonder that a righteous man like Job should fall into such utter despair under afflictions, forgetting that to the righteous affliction is but a discipline, Eliphaz seeks to draw Job back to consider what is the real cause of all affliction. This is the imperfection of man, an imperfection which he shares indeed with all created beings, in the highest of whom to God’s eye there is limit and possible error. And this being so, murmuring can only aggravate his affliction by provoking the anger of God.

The passage falls into two divisions. In the first, Job 4:12-21, Eliphaz contrasts the holiness of God with the imperfection of all creatures, even the pure spirits on high, and much more a material being like man, and thus indirectly suggests to Job the true secret of his troubles. In the second, ch. Job 5:1-7, having laid this broad foundation, he builds on it a warning to Job against his murmurs. Only the wicked resent God’s dealing with them, and by doing so bring increased wrath upon themselves till they perish.

With great delicacy and consideration Eliphaz, instead of impressing the imperfection of man on Job directly, narrates how this truth was once impressed upon himself by a voice from heaven. It was in the dead of night, when all around were in deep sleep. His mind was agitated by perplexing thoughts arising out of visions of the night. Suddenly a great terror fell upon him. Then there passed before his face a breath. And there seemed to stand before him a form, too dim to discern, from which came forth a still voice, which said, Can man be righteous with God? Or, Can a man be pure with his Maker? Even to the holy angels He imputeth error, how much more to frail and earthly man? Job 4:12-21.

Applying to Job this truth, so impressively taught to himself, Eliphaz asks, If Job appeals against God, whether any of the holy beings, who minister between God and men, will listen to his appeal? (ch. Job 5:1). Nay, it is only the wicked who resent the afflictions of God, and by their rebellious impatience increase their afflictions till they are destroyed. Such an instance he had himself seen. He saw a fool, a rebellious murmurer against Heaven, spreading forth his roots and giving promise for a moment of prosperity. But suddenly destruction came upon him. His harvest was seized by the hungry robber; the rights of his children were trampled upon; and his home was broken up and desolate (Job 4:2-5). And finally, Eliphaz condenses into a vivid aphorism his teaching in this section: for trouble springs not out of the ground—it is not accidental nor a spontaneous growth of the soil. But man is born unto trouble—it is his nature so to act that by his evil deeds he brings trouble upon himself. Out of his heart rises up evil as naturally as the fire sends forth sparks (Job 4:6-7).

13. This revelation which came to him secretly or “stealthily,” as the word means, was given in the dead of night. He had had visions on his bed, and perplexing, tangled thoughts filled his heart. God’s providence and ways to man, no doubt, were the subject of his thoughts.

The night was recognised of old as favourable to deeper thought from its stillness. Then the mind was less distracted and ranged more freely in the regions of higher truth. And revelations from heaven often came to men in the night-season; cf. Zechariah 1:8, and the story of Nathan’s oracle to David in regard to building the Temple, 2 Samuel 7:3-4; also the words of the Psalmist, “My reins also instruct me in the night-seasons,” Psalm 16:7.

14. Eliphaz depicts graphically the circumstances in which he received the message from heaven. In the dead night, in the midst of his perplexing thoughts upon his bed, a supernatural terror suddenly seized him. Then he was conscious of a breath passing before him, Job 4:15. Then he seemed to perceive a figure in his presence, too dim, however, to be discerned; and at last a whisper of a voice gave utterance to the awful words that expressed the relations of man to God, Job 4:16. So awful were the impressions of that night, that Eliphaz in recalling the circumstances almost feels himself in the midst of them again, and he falls into the present tense in describing them: a breath passeth before my face … an image is before mine eyes … and I hear a voice, &c.

15. then a spirit] Rather, a breath. It was something which he felt; that which he saw follows in Job 4:16. The word spirit does not seem used in the Old Testament in the sense of an apparition.

16. it stood still] It is the mysterious object in his presence.

there was silence, and I heard a voice] lit. stillness and a voice I heard, i. e. probably, I heard a still voice; cf. “whisper,” Job 4:12.

17. be more just than God] This translation is possible. It is very unnatural, however; for though, if a man were found complaining of God’s ways, the immediate inference might be that he was making himself more righteous (at least in the perception of moral rectitude) than God, such an inference does not seem drawn by any of the speakers, the idea of a man being more righteous than God being too absurd to suggest itself. The charge brought against Job was that he made God unrighteous, not that he claimed to be more righteous than He. Two senses seem possible, either,

Can man be righteous before God?

Can a man be pure before his Maker?

a sense which the phrase has Numbers 32:22, and is adopted by the Sept.; or, can man be in the right in his plea against God? a meaning which the phrase has in the speeches of Elihu, ch. Job 32:2. This latter sense is less suitable to the second clause of the verse. The first and more general sense is the more probable because, of course, the vision appeared to Eliphaz before Job’s calamities befell him and had no direct reference to them. This sense also suits the scope of the following verses, and the general aphorism ch. Job 5:6-7 with which Eliphaz sums up this paragraph of his speech, and is most in harmony with the studiously general tone of Eliphaz’s first discourse.

18. he put no trust] Better, he putteth.

he charged with folly] Rather, he chargeth with error. The “servants” of God are here His heavenly ministers, as the parallel, “angels”, indicates. The word “folly” (tohŏlah) does not occur again in Heb., and its meaning must be in some measure conjectural. Dillmann has drawn attention to an Ethiopic root tahala, to err, and the word may be connected with this stem and mean error.

19. houses of clay] The verse refers to men, and their “houses of clay” are their bodies, which are of the dust, Genesis 2:7; Genesis 3:19; 2 Corinthians 5:1.

whose foundation] Men’s bodies being compared to houses are now spoken of as, like houses, having a foundation. They are not only of earth, they are founded on earth—of the earth earthy. They are built of earth, derived from earth, limited to earth. The accumulation of terms enhances the material nature of man in opposition to the spirits on high. Yet even these spirits are limited, and, as creatures, not absolute in their holiness, and to God’s eye even erring. No words could more strongly express God’s unapproachable holiness.

before the moth] The words may mean: sooner, easier, than the moth is crushed. They can hardly mean in the connexion, by the moth; although the moth is usually elsewhere spoken of as the destroyer, ch. Job 13:28; Isaiah 50:9; Isaiah 51:8, and not as the object of destruction. The phrase before might have a sense similar to what it has in ch. Job 3:24, like the moth; so the Sept.

20. from morning to evening] i. e. from a morning to an evening, in the course of a single day, cf. Isaiah 38:12. They are short-lived as ephemerids.

without any regarding] i. e. without any one noticing it; so insignificant and of no account are they, that they pass away unobserved, like ephemeral insects. The words might mean, without any of them laying to heart; they are thoughtless in their sinful levity, an idea parallel to “without wisdom” in the next verse. Job 4:19 described how easily men are destroyed, this verse describes how soon. All is meant to widen the chasm between men and God, and by giving Job right thoughts of God, and of himself a man, to bring back his mind to a becoming attitude towards Heaven.

21. their excellency go away] This verse is obscure. The word rendered go away means to pull out, as a pin or the posts of a gate, Jdg 16:3; Jdg 16:14 (English version, went away with), or the stake of a tent, Isaiah 33:20 (be removed). This is probably the original meaning. Then the word is used in a secondary, more general sense, to break up an encampment, to remove or journey, to depart, e.g. very often in Numbers 33. In the present verse the verb is pass., and probably has its original sense, plucked up, or torn out. The word translated excellency has that meaning, e.g. Genesis 49:3; Proverbs 17:7. In other places the word means a cord, Jdg 16:7-9, the string of a bow, Psalm 11:2; and similarly Job 30:11. The figure in the Poet’s mind here is the pulling down of a tent, to which the death of man is compared; so in Isaiah 38:12, where the meaning is, my habitation is removed. The meaning cord suits this figure better than excellency, and the sense would be, their tent-cord is torn away. As to the relation of the two clauses of the verse to one another, the construction is probably the same as in ch. Job 4:2, if one should venture … wilt thou be grieved? Therefore,

If their tent-cord is torn away in them,

Do they not die, and not in wisdom?

There is an emphasis on die; the moment the tent falls, through the tearing-away of the cord that upheld it, the inhabitant wholly perishes. It is not necessary to ask what the tent-cord is. The cord belongs to the figure, and is scarcely to be interpreted of the soul.

They die without attaining unto wisdom. This trait heightens the darkness of the picture of man’s condition. He is not only frail, his frailty is but another side of his moral imperfection, and this cleaves to him to the very end.

There is something very wise and considerate as well as profoundly reverential in these words of the aged speaker. He does not touch Job’s murmurs directly, but seeks to reach them by suggesting other thoughts to Job. First, he speaks of the exalted purity of God, to awaken reverence in Job’s mind. Then he descends to the creatures and seeks to look at them as they appear unto God. In His eyes, so sublime is He in holiness, all creatures, angels and men, are erring. Thus Eliphaz makes Job cease to be an exception, and renders it more easy for him to reconcile himself to his history and acknowledge the true cause of it. He is but one where all are the same. There is nothing strange in his having sinned (ch. Job 5:6-7). Neither, therefore, are his afflictions strange. But it will be something strange if he murmurs against God.