Job 4:17

_SHALL MORTAL MAN BE MORE JUST THAN GOD? SHALL A MAN BE MORE PURE THAN HIS MAKER?_ Mortal man ... a man. Two Hebrew words for man are used: the first implying his feebleness х_ 'ªNOWSH _ (H582)], the second his strength х_ GEBER_ (H1397)]. Whether feeble or strong, man is not righteous before God. MORE JUST THAN GOD ... MORE PURE THAN HIS MAKER. Since this would be self-evident without, an oracle, Umbreit and Maurer, etc., translate 'Is (mortal) man just before (in the presence or judgment of) God!' not "more just than God." Job 9:2, "How should man be just with (margin, before) God?" and Job 25:4 confirm this view. The Hebrew х_ MIN_ (H4480)] expresse

12-21 Eliphaz relates a vision. When we are communing with our own hearts, and are still, Psalms 4:4, then is a time for the Holy Spirit to commune with us. This vision put him into very great fear. Ever since man sinned, it has been terrible to him to receive communications from Heaven, conscious that he can expect no good tidings thence. Sinful man! shall he pretend to be more just, more pure, than God, who being his Maker, is his Lord and Owner? How dreadful, then, the pride and presumption of man! How great the patience of God! Look upon man in his life. The very foundation of that cottage of clay in which man dwells, is in the dust, and it will sink with its own weight. We stand but upon the dust. Some have a higher heap of dust to stand upon than others but still it is the earth that stays us up, and will shortly swallow us up. Man is soon crushed; or if some lingering distemper,...

Verse Job 4:17. _SHALL MORTAL MAN_] אנוש _enosh_; Greek βροτος. poor, weak, dying man. _BE MORE JUST THAN GOD?_] Or, האנוש מאלוה יצדק _haenosh meeloah_ _yitsdak_; shall poor, weak, sinful man be justified before God? _SHALL A MAN_] גבר _gaber_, shall even the _strong_ and _mighty_ _man_, be pure before his Maker? Is any man, considered merely in and of himself, either holy in his conduct, or pure in his heart? No. He must be justified by the mercy of God, through an _atoning_ _sacrifice_; he must be _sanctified_ by the Holy Spirit of God, and thus made a partaker of the Divine nature. Then he is justified before God, and pure in the sight of his Maker: and this is a work which God himself alone can do; so the work is not _man's_ work, but God's. It is false to infer, from the words o

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 Isaiah 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; Jeremiah 15:18; Micah 1:9; Job 34:6. Gesenius (Lex) calls this derivation in question; but if it be the correct idea, then the word used here originally re

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...

SHALL MORTAL MAN BE MORE JUST THAN GOD?.... Poor, weak, frail, dying man, and so sinful, as his mortality shows, which is the effect of sin; how should such a man be more righteous than God? who is so originally and essentially of himself, completely, perfectly, yea, infinitely righteous in his nature, and in his works, both of providence and grace; in chastising his people, punishing the wicked, and bestowing favours upon his friends, even in their election, redemption, justification, pardon, and eternal happiness: yea, not only profane wicked sinners can make no pretensions to anything of this kind, but even the best of men, none being without sin, no, not man in his best estate; for the righteousness he had then was of God, and therefore he could not be more just than he that made him upright. This comparative sense, which our version leads to, is more generally received; but it seems...

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

This is what the vision said. Translate as _mg.:_ Shall mortal man be just before God, shall a man be pure before his maker? Even the angels are fallible, how much more man, who inhabits a house of clay, _i.e._ a body formed from the dust (Genesis 2:7; Genesis 3:19; 2 Corinthians 5:1). Observe that we are not yet at the point of view of the later Judaism and the NT, according to which some angels are good, some bad. All are fallible. Again, observe that man's sin fulness is deduced simply from his creatureliness, especially, however, from his being made from the dust. The spirit that appears to Eliphaz knows nothing of the Fall as an explanation of human sin. His thought is rather that if the angels, who are of spirit

SHALL. ? Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6. MORTAL MAN. Hebrew. _'enosh._ App-14. MAN. strong man. Hebrew. _geber._ App-14....

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. Jo