6 Hath not thy piety been thy confidence, and the perfection of thy ways thy hope?
And Jehovah said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and abstaineth from evil? And Satan answered Jehovah and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is spread abroad in the land.
My foot hath held to his steps; his way have I kept, and not turned aside. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have laid up the words of his mouth more than the purpose of my own heart.
For I delivered the afflicted that cried, and the fatherless who had no helper. The blessing of him that was perishing came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was as a mantle and a turban. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; I was a father to the needy, and the cause which I knew not I searched out; And I broke the jaws of the unrighteous, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
I made a covenant with mine eyes; and how should I fix my regard upon a maid? For what would have been [my] portion of +God from above, and what the heritage of the Almighty from on high? Is not calamity for the unrighteous? and misfortune for the workers of iniquity? Doth not he see my ways, and number all my steps? If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot hath hasted to deceit, (Let me be weighed in an even balance, and +God will take knowledge of my blamelessness;) If my step have turned out of the way, and my heart followed mine eyes, and if any blot cleaveth to my hands; Let me sow, and another eat; and let mine offspring be rooted out. If my heart have been enticed unto a woman, so that I laid wait at my neighbour's door, Let my wife grind for another, and let others bow down upon her. For this is an infamy; yea, it is an iniquity [to be judged by] the judges: For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase. If I have despised the cause of my bondman or of my bondmaid, when they contended with me, What then should I do when ùGod riseth up? and if he visited, what should I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not One fashion us in the womb? If I have withheld the poor from [their] desire, or caused the eyes of the widow to fail; Or have eaten my morsel alone, so that the fatherless ate not thereof, (For from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, and I have guided the [widow] from my mother's womb;) If I have seen any perishing for want of clothing, or any needy without covering; If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my lambs; If I have lifted up my hand against an orphan, because I saw my help in the gate: [Then] let my shoulder fall from the shoulder-blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone! For calamity from ùGod was a terror to me, and by reason of his excellency I was powerless. If I have made gold my hope, or said to the fine gold, My confidence! If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much; If I beheld the sun when it shone, or the moon walking in brightness, And my heart have been secretly enticed, so that my mouth kissed my hand: This also would be an iniquity for the judge, for I should have denied the ùGod who is above. If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, and exulted when evil befell him; (Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse;) If the men of my tent said not, Who shall find one that hath not been satisfied with his meat? -- The stranger did not lodge without; I opened my doors to the pathway. If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom, Because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and went not out of the door, ... Oh that I had one to hear me! Behold my signature: let the Almighty answer me! And let mine opponent write an accusation! Would I not take it upon my shoulder? I would bind it on to me [as] a crown; I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I come near to him. If my land cry out against me, and its furrows weep together; If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, and have tormented to death the souls of its owners: Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and tares instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
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Commentary on Job 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
Job 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 notes upon it and talked it over among themselves, and found they were all agreed in their verdict, that Job's afflictions certainly proved him to be a hypocrite; but they did not attack Job with this high charge till by the expressions of his discontent and impatience, in which they thought he reflected on God himself, he had confirmed them in the bad opinion they had before conceived of him and his character. Now they set upon him with great fear. The dispute begins, and it soon becomes fierce. The opponents are Job's three friends. Job himself is respondent. Elihu appears, first, as moderator, and at length God himself gives judgment upon the controversy and the management of it. The question in dispute is whether Job was an honest man or no, the same question that was in dispute between God and Satan in the first two chapters. Satan had yielded it, and durst not pretend that his cursing his day was a constructive cursing of his God; no, he cannot deny but that Job still holds fast his integrity; but Job's friends will needs have it that, if Job were an honest man, he would not have been thus sorely and thus tediously afflicted, and therefore urge him to confess himself a hypocrite in the profession he had made of religion: "No,' says Job, "that I will never do; I have offended God, but my heart, notwithstanding, has been upright with him;' and still he holds fast the comfort of his integrity. Eliphaz, who, it is likely, was the senior, or of the best quality, begins with him in this chapter, in which,
By all this he aims to bring down Job's spirit and to make him both penitent and patient under his afflictions.
Job 4:1-6
In these verses,
Job 4:7-11
Eliphaz here advances another argument to prove Job a hypocrite, and will have not only his impatience under his afflictions to be evidence against him but even his afflictions themselves, being so very great and extraordinary, and there being no prospect at all of his deliverance out of them. To strengthen his argument he here lays down these two principles, which seem plausible enough:-
Job 4:12-21
Eliphaz, having undertaken to convince Job of the sin and folly of his discontent and impatience, here vouches a vision he had been favoured with, which he relates to Job for his conviction. What comes immediately from God all men will pay a particular deference to, and Job, no doubt, as much as any. Some think Eliphaz had this vision now lately, since he came to Job, putting words into his mouth wherewith to reason with him; and it would have been well if he had kept to the purport of this vision, which would serve for a ground on which to reprove Job for his murmuring, but not to condemn him as a hypocrite. Others think he had it formerly; for God did, in this way, often communicate his mind to the children of men in those first ages of the world, ch. 33:15. Probably God had sent Eliphaz this messenger and message some time or other, when he was himself in an unquiet discontented frame, to calm and pacify him. Note, As we should comfort others with that wherewith we have been comforted (2 Co. 1:4), so we should endeavour to convince others with that which has been powerful to convince us. The people of God had not then any written word to quote, and therefore God sometimes notified to them even common truths by the extraordinary ways of revelation. We that have Bibles have there (thanks be to God) a more sure word to depend upon than even visions and voices, 2 Pt. 1:19. Observe,