Job 4:6

_IS NOT THIS THY FEAR, THY CONFIDENCE, THY HOPE, AND THE UPRIGHTNESS OF THY WAYS?_ Is not this thy fear, thy confidence ... - Does thy fear, thy confidence, etc., come to nothing? Does it come only to this, that thou faintest now? Rather (Job 15:4), 'Is not thy fear [of God], thy confidence, and the uprightness of thy ways, thy hope?' (Job 8:14). "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent?" (Maurer). But Luke (Luke 13:2) shows that though there is a retributive divine government even in this life, yet we cannot judge by the mere outward appearance. "One event is outwardly to the righteous and to the wicked" (Ecclesiastes 9:2

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?...

Verse 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....

IS NOT THIS THY FEAR, THY CONFIDENCE? - There has been considerable variety in the interpretation of this verse. Dr. Good renders it, Is thy piety then nothing? thy hope Thy contidence? or the uprightness of thy ways? Noyes renders it, Is not thy fear of God thy hope, And the uprightness of thy ways the confidence? Rosenmuller translates it, Is not in thy piety and integrity of life Thy confidence and hope? In the Vulgate it is translated, “Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the

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...

[IS] NOT [THIS] THY FEAR,.... The fear of God, that which is of him, comes from him, is a grace of his implanted in the hearts of his people at conversion, and is increased and encouraged, and drawn forth into fresh exercise through the grace and goodness of God displayed; for a slavish fear, or a fear of punishment, of wrath and damnation, is not the true grace of fear, which maybe in unregenerate men, and even in the devils; but this lies in a reverential affection for God on account of his goodness, and in a carefulness not to offend him on that account; in an hatred of sin, and a departure from it; in an attendance on the worship of God, and is sometimes put for the whole of it; and is accompanied with faith in God, joy in the Holy Ghost, humility of soul, and holiness of heart and life: now Job professed to have this fear of God in his heart, and was thought to have it; this was his...

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...

IS NOT... ? Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6. The Authorized Version of 1611 reads "confidence; the uprightness of thy ways and thy hope? "First altered in the Cambridge edition of 1638. Name of editor is unknown....

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