Job 4:1

_THEN ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE ANSWERED AND SAID,_ Eliphaz - the mildest of Job's three accusers. The greatest of Job's calamities, and his complaints against God, and the opinion that calamities are proofs of guilt, led the three to doubt Job's integrity....

1-6 Satan undertook to prove Job a hypocrite by afflicting him; and his friends concluded him to be one because he was so afflicted, and showed impatience. This we must keep in mind if we would understand what passed. Eliphaz speaks of Job, and his afflicted condition, with tenderness; but charges him with weakness and faint-heartedness. Men make few allowances for those who have taught others. Even pious friends will count that only a touch which we feel as a wound. Learn from hence to draw off the mind of a sufferer from brooding over the affliction, to look at the God of mercies in the affliction. And how can this be done so well as by looking to Christ Jesus, in whose unequalled sorrows every child of God soonest learns to forget his own?...

CHAPTER IV _Eliphaz answers; and accuses Job of impatience, and of_ _despondence in the time of adversity_, 1-6; _asserts that no innocent man ever perished, and that the wicked_ _are afflicted for their sins_, 7-11; _relates a vision that he had_, 12-16, _and what was said to him on the occasion_, 17-21. NOTES ON CHAP. IV Verse 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. Having now sufficiently contemplate

THEN ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE ANSWERED - See the notes at Job 2:11....

EXPOSITION Job having ended his complaint, Eliphaz the Temanite, the first-named of his three friends (Job 2:11), and perhaps the eldest of them, takes the word, and endeavours to answer him. After a brief apology for venturing to speak at all (verse 2), he plunges into the controversy. Job has assumed that he is wholly guiltless of having given any cause for God to afflict him. Eliphaz lays it down in the most positive terms (verses 7, 8) that the innocent never suffer, only the wicked are afflicted. He then passes on to the description of a vision which has appeared to him (verses 12-21), from which he has learnt the lesson that men must not presume to be "more wise than their Maker." JOB 4:1 THEN ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE ANSWERED AND SAID (see the comment on...

THEN ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE ANSWERED AND SAID. When Job was done cursing his day, and had finished his doleful ditty on that subject, then Eliphaz took the opportunity of speaking, not being able to bear any longer with Job and his behaviour under his afflictions; Eliphaz was one of Job's three friends that came to visit him, Job 2:11; very probably he might be the senior man, or a man of the greatest authority and power; a most respectable person, had in great esteem and reverence among men, and by these his friends, and therefore takes upon him to speak first; or it may be it was agreed among themselves that he should begin the dispute with Job; and we find, that in the close of this controversy the Lord speaks to him by name, and to him only, Job 42:7; he "answered"; not that Job directed his discourse to him, but he took o

ELIPHAZ Eliphaz is a religious dogmatist whose dogmatism rests upon a mysterious and remarkable experience (Job 4:12). Did a spirit ever pass before Job's face? Did Job's hair of his flesh ever stand up? Then let him be meek while one so superior as Eliphaz declares the causes of his misfortunes. Eliphaz says many true things (as do the others), and often rises into eloquence, but he remains hard and cruel, a dogmatist who must be heard because of one remarkable experience....

CHAPTER S 4-5 THE FIRST ADDRESS OF ELIPHAZ _ 1. He rebukes Job (Job 4:1)_ 2. The righteous are not cast off (Job 4:6) 3. An awe-inspiring vision (Job 4:12) 4. Experience and exhortation (Job 5:1) 5. Happy is the man whom God correcteth (Job 5:17) With this chapter the long and tedious controversy between Job and his three visitors begins. His pitiful lamentation brings forth the addresses of his friends. Eliphaz and Bildad speak thrice, each answered by Job, and Zophar twice with corresponding rebuttals by Job. Job delivers his last word, the length

Eliphaz is provoked to reply, in spite of his unwillingness, by the tone of Job's speech, which seems to him altogether irreverent. He wonders that Job, who had comforted so many others in trouble, should fall into such despair, when trouble has come to himself. Eliphaz assumes that Job is a righteous man; Job 6 is not meant as sarcasm. Eliphaz would suggest simply that Job's trouble has caused him to leave the standing-ground of religion. His complaint (ch. 3) was unsuitable. Eliphaz does not see that Job had been occupied with the problem of God's behaviour to him, a problem which is quite outside the circle of the ideas in which Eliphaz, like the rest of the friends, moves. For them religion has no concern with God's behaviour to man, but only with man's behaviour to God. Eliphaz, therefore recalls Job to the fear of God, whence he has fallen by his unsuitable complaints. He should kn...

ANSWERED AND SAID. replied and said. The _idiom_ (App-6) requires that the first verb (where nothing has been as yet said) must be rendered according to the context: "spake", "prayed", "began", "concluded", &c. Here it. replied and said. See note on Deuteronomy 1:41....