Jobchapter 4
21 verses · KJVJob book hub →
Key verse
Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 12 to 21.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Eliphaz the Temanite opens the first cycle, gently and then not. He recalls how Job once strengthened weak hands, then presses the retribution axiom: 'who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the upright cut off?' (4:7): 'they that plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.' He stakes his authority on a night vision: a thing secretly brought to him, dread and trembling, 'a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up,' and a still voice asking, 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?' Even God's angels, he adds, are charged with folly.
Context
Poetry · Unknown · Job overview
Where the chapter sits
Job 4 falls in Dialogue: three cycles (chapters 3–27). Job's opening complaint (3); three rounds with Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar; the friends' rigid retribution theology; the third cycle breaks: Zophar does not speak again. The dialogue exhausts itself as argument.
Before it: Prose prologue: heavenly court, chapters 1–2. After it: Hymn to wisdom, chapters 28.
The whole shape of Job→The world behind this chapter
Job 4The history
Eliphaz is from Teman, a district of Edom with a reputation across the region for wisdom, Jeremiah later asks whether counsel has perished from Teman. He speaks first because he is the eldest and the most respected, and he begins with real courtesy, reminding Job that he has strengthened many weak hands in his time.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
His authority rests on two things his world respected. The first is the settled principle that the innocent do not perish and the upright are not cut off, plough trouble, reap trouble. This was not a private opinion; it was the standard wisdom of the whole ancient Near East, taught in Egypt and Mesopotamia as well as in Israel, and it is mostly what the Book of Proverbs also says.
The second is a night vision. He describes a spirit passing before his face, the hair of his flesh standing up, a form he cannot make out, and a voice in the silence. Dream and vision oracles were a recognised channel of revelation in that world, and claiming one was a claim to unarguable authority. Hearers were meant to notice that the content of the vision, that no mortal is righteous before God, that even the angels are charged with folly, is true as far as it goes, and is being used to answer a question it was not addressed to.
The lion imagery in the middle uses several different words for lion, the roaring one, the fierce one, the old one, the whelps, a poetic sweep meaning the whole predatory household. His point is that the strongest wicked are broken and scattered anyway.
What it meant to them
Eliphaz says nothing a devout hearer would have flagged as heresy. That is what makes the speech dangerous. Every sentence is orthodox, and the conclusion, that Job's disaster proves Job's guilt, is the one the whole book exists to demolish.
First hearers were being trained to distinguish a true statement from a true diagnosis. Suffering is often the harvest of sin. It is not always. Treating a rule as a law turns comfort into accusation.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- John E. Hartley, The Book of Job
A. Eliphaz: Who Ever Perished Being Innocent?
1. (vv. 1-6)
a.Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: Eliphaz opens with a question that already answers itself, who can withhold himself from speaking, so his gentleness is a formality before the argument begins. He reminds Job of the counsel Job himself once gave the weak and the falling, thou hast strengthened the weak hands, and then turns that very memory into an accusation at verse five, but now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest. Henry notes the unkindness of measuring a man's own medicine against him the moment he needs it himself. Gill reads the question of verse six, is not this thy fear, thy confidence, as Eliphaz already doubting whether Job's religion was ever more than a comfortable theory.
Job 4:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Job 4:1
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 4:1
“Eliphaz--the mildest of Job's three accusers. The greatness of Job's calamities, his complaints against God, and the opinion that calamities are proofs of guilt, led the three to doubt Job's integrity.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 4:2, 1 voice
Job 4:2
“If we assay to commune with thee - Margin, A word. Hebrew - הנסה דבר dâbâr hanı̂câh. “May we attempt a word with thee?” This is a gentle and polite apology at the beginning of his speech - an inquiry whether he would take it as unkind if one should adventure on a remark in the way of argument. Jahn, in characterizing the part which Job’s three friends respectively take in the controversy, says: “Eliphaz is superior to the others in discernment and delicacy. He begins by addressing Job mildly; and it is not until irritated by opposition that he reckons him among the wicked.” Wilt thou be grieved? - That is, Wilt thou take it ill? Will it be offensive to you, or weary you, or tire your patience? The word used here (לאה lâ'âh) means to labor, to strive, to weary, to exhaust; and hence, to be weary, to try one’s patience, to take anything ill. Here it is the language of courtesy, and is designed to introduce the subsequent remarks in the kindest manner. Eliphaz knew that he was about to make observations which might implicate Job, and he introduced them in as kind a manner as possible. There is nothing abrupt or harsh in his beginning. All is courteous in the highest degree, and is a model for debaters. But who can withhold himself from speaking? - Margin, “Refrain from words.” That is, “the subject is so important, the sentiments advanced by Job are so extraordinary, and the principles involved are so momentous, that it is impossible to refrain.” There is much delicacy in this. He did not begin to speak merely to make a speech. He professes that be would not have spoken, if he had not been pressed by the importance of the subject, and had not been full of matter. To a great extent, this is a good rule to adopt: not to make a speech unless there are sentiments which weigh upon the mind, and convictions of duty which cannot be repressed.”
Job 4:3, 2 voices
Job 4:3
“Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. If the text of the historical account be regarded in itself, it is of great service to the reader, that in blessed Job, instead of the ripping up of vices, proclaim is made of his virtues by his reviling friends; for the testimony to our manner of life is never so strong, as when commendable things are told by him, who aims to fasten guilt upon our head.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:3
“Behold, thou hast instructed many - That is, thou hast instructed many how they ought to bear trials, and hast delivered important maxims to them on the great subject of the divine government. This is not designed to be irony, or to wound the feelings of Job. It is intended to recall to his mind the lessons which he had inculcated on others in times of calamity, and to show him how important it was now that he should reduce his own lessons to practice, and show their power in sustaining himself.”
Job 4:4, 1 voice
Job 4:4
“Thy words have upholden him that was falling - That is, either falling into sin, or sinking under calamity and trial. The Hebrew will bear either interpretation, but the connection seems to require us to understand it of one who was sinking under the weight of affliction. The feeble knees - Margin, “bowing.” The knees support the frame. If they fail, we are feeble and helpless. Hence, their being weak, is so often used in the Bible to denote imbecility.”
Job 4:5, 1 voice
Job 4:5
“But now it is come upon thee - That is, calamity; or, the same trial which others have had, and in which thou hast so successfully exhorted and comforted them. A similar sentiment to that which is here expressed, is found in Terence: Facile omnes, cum valemus, recta consilia aegrotis damus. And. ii. i. 9. It toucheth thee - That is, affliction has come to yourself. It is no longer a thing about which you can coolly sit down and reason, and on which you can deliver formal exhortations.”
Job 4:6, 2 voices
Job 4:6
“Is not this thy fear - I think Coverdale hits the true meaning: Where is now thy feare of God, thy stedfastnesse, thy pacience, and the perfectnesse of thy life? If these be genuine, surely there is no cause for all this complaint, vexation, and despair. That this is the meaning, the next words show.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 4:6
“Thy fear - We now plainly see what was the nature of thy fear of God, thy confidence in him, the uprightness of thy ways, and thy hope in God's mercy. Thy present carriage discovers that it was but mere talk and appearance. Innocent - Therefore thou art guilty of some great, though secret crimes, and thy sin hath now found thee out.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (v. 7)
a.Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?: Eliphaz states the friends' whole case in a single question, remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent, the claim that suffering proves guilt worked backward into a promise that innocence guarantees safety. Clarke notes the question is meant to be unanswerable, yet the reader of chapter one already holds the counterexample sitting in the ashes in front of him. Wesley calls the appeal to observation itself the flaw, since Eliphaz has seen only what suffering he has witnessed and never what heaven permits unseen.
Job 4:7, 1 voice
Job 4:7
“Did not righteous Abel perish being innocent? and was he not cut off in the beginning of his days? Was not righteous Lot burnt out of house and harbour, and forced to retire to a melancholy cave? Was not righteous Jacob a Syrian ready to perish?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 8-9)
a.Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity: Eliphaz supports his doctrine with a farmer's proverb, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same, sowing and reaping standing in for sin and its punishment. By the blast of God they perish extends the figure to a direct act of judgment, breath and wind doing what the plow and harvest only pictured. Barnes notes that the observation is true as a general rule of providence and false as a universal law applied without exception to one man's case.
Job 4:9, 1 voice
Job 4:9
“The man of sin is said to be consumed with the breath of Christ's mouth, 2 Thess. ii. Some think that in attributing the destruction of sinners to the blast of God, and the breath of his nostrils, he refers to the wind which blew the house down upon Job's children, as if they were therefore sinners above all men because they suffered such things.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
4. (vv. 10-11)
a.The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion: The lion images widen the doctrine from farming to power: the roaring lion, the fierce lion's voice and the young lion's teeth are all broken together, and the old lion perishes for lack of prey while her whelps are scattered. Delitzsch reads the fivefold naming of the lion as deliberate excess, strength named every way it can be named only to be dismantled every way in turn. Gill takes the picture as Eliphaz's claim that no strength, however fierce or established, stands against God's judgment on the wicked.
Job 4:10, 1 voice
Job 4:10
“ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken. Forasmuch as the nature of every thing is compounded of different elements, in Holy Writ different things are allowably represented by anyone thing. For the lion has magnanimity, it has also ferocity: by its magnanimity then it represents the Lord, by its ferocity the devil. Hence it is declared of the Lord, Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David hath prevailed.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:11, 1 voice
Job 4:11
“The old lion - The word used here, לישׁ layı̂sh, denotes a lion, “so called,” says Gesenius,” from his strength and bravery,” or, according to Urnbreit, the lion in the strength of his old ago; see an examination of the word in Bochart, Hieroz. P. i. Lib. iii. c. 1, p. 720. Perisheth for lack of prey - Not withstanding his strength and power. That is, such a thing sometimes occurs. Eliphaz could not maintain that it always happened.”
B. Eliphaz's Night Vision: Can Mortal Man Be Just Before God?
1. (vv. 12-14)
a.Now a thing was secretly brought to me: Eliphaz turns from proverb to private experience, now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof, introducing the vision that will carry his doctrine's authority. The setting is deep sleep and midnight, the hour thoughts from the visions of the night names directly, and fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake describes a physical terror before any word is spoken. Davidson notes that Eliphaz stakes his whole argument on this private experience rather than on any word of Scripture, since none had yet been given him to appeal to. Henry observes that fear and trembling before an unnamed presence is itself evidence of nothing certain, since terror can attend a true visitation or a troubled imagination alike.
Job 4:12, 3 voices
Job 4:12
“Now a hidden word was spoken to me. For the invisible Son is called 'the hidden Word,' concerning Whom John saith, In the beginning was the Word. Which he the same person teaches to be 'hidden' in that he adds, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But this 'hidden Word' is delivered to the minds of the Elect, when the power of the Only-Begotten Son is made manifest to believers.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:12
“Now a thing was secretly brought to me - To give himself the more authority, he professes to have received a vision from God, by which he was taught the secret of the Divine dispensations in providence; and a confirmation of the doctrine which he was now stating to Job; and which he applied in a different way to what was designed in the Divine communication.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 4:12
“And it is but a little of divine knowledge that the best receive in this world. We know little in comparison with what is to be known, and with what we shall know when we come to heaven. How little a portion is heard of God! ch. xxvi.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 4:13, 2 voices
Job 4:13
“In thoughts - Amidst the tumultuous and anxious thoughts which occur in the night. The Hebrew word rendered thoughts, (שׂעפים śâ‛ı̂phı̂ym), means thoughts which divide and distract the mind. From the visions of the night - On the meaning of the word visions, see the notes at Isa 1:1. This was a common mode in which the will of God was made known in ancient times. For an extended description of this method of communicating the will of God, the reader may consult my Introduction to Isaiah, Section”
Job 4:13
“Visions differed from dreams herein, that God imparted his mind to men in dreams when asleep, but in visions, when they were awake. And these visions sometimes happened by day, but most frequently by night. Sleep - In the dead of the night, when men usually are in a deep sleep; though Eliphaz was not now asleep.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 4:14, 1 voice
Job 4:14
Fear came upon me - Margin, “Met me.” The Chaldee Paraphrase renders this, “a tempest,” זיקא. The Septuagint, φρίκη frikē - “shuddering,” or “horror.” The sense is, that he became greatly alarmed at the vision. Which made all my bones to shake - Margin, as in Hebrew, the multitude of my bones. A similar image is employed by Virgil, Obstupuere auimis, gelidusque per ima cucurrit Ossa tremor; Aeneid ii. 120. “A cold tremor ran through all their bones.”
2. (vv. 15-17)
a.Then a spirit passed before my face: A spirit passed before my face and stood, its form indiscernible, until a voice out of the silence asked the doctrine's climax, shall mortal man be more just than God, shall a man be more pure than his maker. Gill reads the spirit as a true angelic messenger, God's own answer confirming what Eliphaz already believed. Delitzsch treats the spirit's identity as left open by the text itself, a voice whose sentence is sound in itself without settling whether the messenger who spoke it was sent from God. The words themselves are true, and the book's own crux is whether Eliphaz then applied a true word to a false case.
Job 4:15, 2 voices
Job 4:15
“Then a spirit passed before my face - He does not intimate whether it was the spirit of a man, or an angel who thus appeared. The belief in such apparitions was common in the early ages, and indeed has prevailed at all times. No one can demonstrate that God could not communicate his will in such a manner as this, or by a messenger deputed from his immediate presence to impart valuable truth to people. The hair of my flesh stood up - This is an effect which is known often to be produced by fear.”
Job 4:15
“A spirit - An angel in visible shape, otherwise he could not have discerned it. Stood up - Through that excessive horror caused by so glorious, unusual, and terrible a presence.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 4:16, 2 voices
Job 4:16
“It stood still--At first the apparition glides before Eliphaz, then stands still, but with that shadowy indistinctness of form which creates such an impression of awe; a gentle murmur: not (English Version): there was silence; for in 1Ki 19:12, the voice, as opposed to the previous storm, denotes a gentle, still murmur.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 4:16
“An image - I saw some visible resemblance, though in a confused manner. Silence - The spirit, which possibly had made some noise with his motion, now standing still made no noise; all other persons and things about me were silent, and I also kept in my voice and breath, that I might distinctly hear. In the Hebrew, the words run thus, silence and a voice I heard.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 4:17, 2 voices
Job 4:17
“Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Human righteousness compared with the righteousness of God is unrighteousness, for even a candle is seen to shine bright in the dark, but being set in the ray of the sun its light is darkened. What then did Eliphaz learn when he was transported in contemplation, saving that man cannot be justified in comparison with God?”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:17
“Shall mortal man - Or, shall feeble man. The idea of “mortal” is not necessarily implied in the word used here, אנושׁ 'ĕnôsh. It means man; and is usually applied to the lower classes or ranks of people; see the notes at Isa 8:1. The common opinion in regard to this word is, that it is derived from אנשׁ 'ânash, to be sick, or ill at ease; and then desperate, or incurable - as of a disease or wound; Jer 15:18; Mic 1:9; Job 34:”
3. (vv. 18-21)
a.Behold, he put no trust in his servants: Eliphaz pushes the doctrine further down: if God puts no trust in his own servants and charges his angels with folly, how much less can men of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, escape being crushed before the moth. Clarke reads the moth as the frailest of all creatures set as the measure of how quickly a house of clay is destroyed, from morning to evening, without any regarding it. Wesley notes the final line, they die, even without wisdom, as Eliphaz's own conclusion drawn ahead of the evidence, since neither he nor Job yet knows why this particular man is dying.
Job 4:18, 3 voices
Job 4:18
“Behold, His servants are not stedfast, and in His Angels He found folly: How much more in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which shall be consumed as by the moth? Though the Angelical nature, by being fixed in contemplation of the Creator, remains unchangeable in its own state, yet hereby, that it is a created being, it admits in itself the variableness of change. Now to be changed is to go from one thing into another, and to be without stability in one's self.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:18
“Behold, he put no trust in his servants - This verse is generally understood to refer to the fall of angels; for there were some of those heavenly beings who kept not their first estate: they did not persevere to the end of their probation, and therefore fell into condemnation, and are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day; Jud 1:”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 4:18
“I think it would bear this reading, repeating the negation, which is very common: He will put no trust in his saints; nor will he glory in his angels (in angelis suis non ponet gloriationem) or make his boast of them, as if their praises, or services, added any thing to him: it is his glory that he is infinitely happy without them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 4:19, 1 voice
Job 4:19
“How much less - (אף 'aph). This particle has the general sense of addition, accession, especially of something more important;” yea more, besides, even.” Gesenius. The meaning here is, “how much more true is this of man!” He puts no confidence in his angels; he charges them with frailty; how much more strikingly true must this be of man!”
Job 4:20, 2 voices
Job 4:20
“They shall be cut off from morning to evening. For the sinner is 'cut off from morning to evening,' in that from the beginning of his life to the end thereof he is ever getting wounded by the commission of sin. For the reprobate by increase in wickedness are at all times redoubling blows upon themselves, cut off by which, they may fall headlong into the pit. And it is well said of them by the Psalmist, Bloody and deceitful men shall not halve their days.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book Vpatristic
Job 4:20
“They are destroyed from morning to evening - In almost every moment of time some human being comes into the world, and some one departs from it. Thus are they “destroyed from morning to evening.” They perish for ever - יאבדו yobedu; peribunt, they pass by; they go out of sight; they moulder with the dust, and are soon forgotten. Who regards the past generation now among the dead?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 4:21, 2 voices
Job 4:21
“Doth not their excellency ... - Dr. Good renders this, “Their fluttering round is over with them,” by a very forced construction of the passage. Translators and expositors have been very much divided in opinion as to its meaning; but the sense seems to be, that whatever is excellent in people is torn away or removed. Their excellence does not keep them from death, and they are taken off before they are truly wise. The word “excellency” here refers not only to moral excellency or virtue, but everything in which they excel others.”
Job 4:21
“The design of the spirit is to show that the continued existence of weak man proves the inconceivable wisdom and holiness of God, which alone save man from ruin [UMBREIT]. BENGEL shows from Scripture that God's holiness (Hebrew, kadosh) comprehends all His excellencies and attributes.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Job 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on A. B. Davidson, The Book of Job, Cambridge Bible; Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book V; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley and Matthew Henry.
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