Eliphaz charges Job with impatience – Book of Job, chapter 4

Eliphaz charges Job with impatience, and pretends that God never afflicts the innocent.

[1] Then Eliphaz the Themanite answered, and said: [2] If we begin to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill, but who can withhold the words he hath conceived? [3] Behold thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands: [4] Thy words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast strengthened the trembling knees: [5] But now the scourge is come upon thee, and thou faintest: it hath touched thee, and thou art troubled.

[6] Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of thy ways? [7] Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed? [8] On the contrary I have seen those who work iniquity, and sow sorrows, and reap them, [9] Perishing by the blast of God, and consumed by the spirit of his wrath. [10] The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the whelps of lions are broken:

[11] The tiger hath perished for want of prey, and the young lions are scattered abroad. [12] Now there was a word spoken to me in private, and my ears by stealth as it were received the veins of its whisper. [13] In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men, [14] Fear seized upon me, and trembling, and all my bones were affrighted: [15] And when a spirit passed before me, the hair of my flesh stood up.

[16] There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before my eyes, and I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind: [17] Shall man be justified in comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his maker? [18] Behold they that serve him are not steadfast, and in his angels he found wickedness: [19] How much more shall they that dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as with the moth? [20] From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.

[21] And they that shall be left, shall be taken away from them: they shall die, and not in wisdom.

Commentary

[17] “Shall man be justified in comparison of God”: These are the words which Eliphaz had heard from an angel, which, ver. 15, he calls a spirit.