Job 4:1-21 | DiscipleDeck

Bible Commentary

Job 4:1-21

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public Domain

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."

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Job 4 — OverviewJob 4 · Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole BibleJob having warmly given vent to his passion, and so broken the ice, his friends here come gravely to give vent to their judgment upon his case, which perhaps they had communicated to one another apart, compared…Job 4 — OverviewJob 4 · Treasury of Scripture KnowledgeJob 4:1, Eliphaz reproves Job for want of religion; Job 4:7, He teaches God’s judgments to be not for the righteous, but for the wicked; Job 4:12, His fearful vision to humble the excellency of creatures before God.Job 4 — OverviewJob 4 · John Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleJob's sore afflictions, and his behaviour under them, laid the foundation of a dispute between him and his three friends, which begins in this chapter, and is carried on to the end of the thirty first; when Elihu starts…Job 4:1-6Job 4:1-6 · Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole BibleIn these verses, I. Eliphaz excuses the trouble he is now about to give to Job by his discourse (v. 2): "If we assay a word with thee, offer a word of reproof and counsel, wilt thou be grieved and take it ill?"…Job 4:1Job 4:1 · The Pulpit CommentaryThen Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said (see the comment on Job 2:11).Job 4:1Job 4:1 · The Pulpit CommentaryEliphaz the visionary. After Job has broken the seven days' silence, each of his friends assays to comfort him, with that most irritating form of consolation—unsolicited advice. Although, perhaps, some of the critics…