4 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
Yet who can keep from speaking?
3 Behold, you have instructed many,
and you have strengthened the weak hands.
4 Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
5 But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
6 Is not your fear of God1 your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
7 “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
8 As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
9 By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
10 The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
12 “Now a word was brought to me stealthily;
my ear received the whisper of it.
13 Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on men,
14 dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
15 A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh stood up.
16 It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17 ‘Can mortal man be in the right before2 God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
18 Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like3 the moth.
20 Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;
they perish forever without anyone regarding it.
21 Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,
do they not die, and that without wisdom?’
5 “Call now; is there anyone who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
2 Surely vexation kills the fool,
and jealousy slays the simple.
3 I have seen the fool taking root,
but suddenly I cursed his dwelling.
4 His children are far from safety;
they are crushed in the gate,
and there is no one to deliver them.
5 The hungry eat his harvest,
and he takes it even out of thorns,4
and the thirsty pant5 after his6 wealth.
6 For affliction does not come from the dust,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground,
7 but man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward.
8 “As for me, I would seek God,
and to God would I commit my cause,
9 who does great things and unsearchable,
marvelous things without number:
10 he gives rain on the earth
and sends waters on the fields;
11 he sets on high those who are lowly,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12 He frustrates the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
13 He catches the wise in their own craftiness,
and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.
14 They meet with darkness in the daytime
and grope at noonday as in the night.
15 But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth
and from the hand of the mighty.
16 So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts her mouth.
17 “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;
therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.
18 For he wounds, but he binds up;
he shatters, but his hands heal.
19 He will deliver you from six troubles;
in seven no evil7 shall touch you.
20 In famine he will redeem you from death,
and in war from the power of the sword.
21 You shall be hidden from the lash of the tongue,
and shall not fear destruction when it comes.
22 At destruction and famine you shall laugh,
and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.
23 For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,
and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.
24 You shall know that your tent is at peace,
and you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.
25 You shall know also that your offspring shall be many,
and your descendants as the grass of the earth.
26 You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,
like a sheaf gathered up in its season.
27 Behold, this we have searched out; it is true.
Hear, and know it for your good.”8
Section Overview
Chapter 3 was a realistic picture of and poem from a devastated man. He was not cursing God but was cursing the day of his birth. One wonders, “What was his relationship with God at this point?” It is hard to know. He was not cursing God, but he also was not praying to God (3:4 and 3:23 were the only times Job mentioned God, and both verses are in some way negative). It appears that Job was trying to tame his tongue. He wanted to curse God, and in some instances he came quite close to crossing the line. But, no, he is still in a relationship with God. And it is a relationship, with its ups and downs. God is not speaking to him, and he is not (not now at least) speaking to God, only about God.
In chapters 4–5 a new voice is heard. Eliphaz will offer some words about God (Job 4:6, 9, 17; 5:8, 17) to Job. Essentially, his forty-seven-verse poem (4:2–5:27) is a two-point sermon to Job in response to Job’s depressing monologue (3:3–26). He wants Job to understand, first, that he is guilty before God, and second, that he needs to go to God for restoration.
Section Outline
Response
We all know that “the world is not a random place; actions have consequences, and the consequences correspond to the actions.”54 We all know that we reap what we sow (cf. Gal. 6:7). And we all know that good things often happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But not always—life is not that simple.
But Eliphaz did not get the message. As we examine the first response to Job’s sufferings and speech, we are introduced to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar’s retribution theology. It is not full-blown here. In fact, chapters 4–5 sound tame compared to the later speeches (or rebukes!): “Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities” (Job 22:5), as Eliphaz later puts it to Job. But what we have here is the first sermon to suffering Job, one that is filled with a mixture of truth and error.
So that we might not fall into the same folly as Eliphaz, it is crucial to see what he should have seen. Sight is one of the important themes in the book of Job. Job repeatedly speaks of “deep darkness” that has come upon him, a darkness that is not only that of physical suffering, but also, and more foundationally, that of not being able to see who God is and what he is up to. When God finally reveals himself to Job (chs. 38–41), Job replies to that revelation by saying, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (42:5).
The language of sight is used also by Eliphaz in his sermon to Job in chapters 4–5. He uses it to speak of commonsense observations based on experience. In 4:8 he observes, “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.” Then in 5:3 he reiterates this idea: “I have seen the fool taking root, but suddenly I cursed his dwelling.” Put simply, Eliphaz has seen that sin has consequences. He explains to Job that just as crops perish for a reason—perhaps a bad seed or poor cultivation—so there is an obvious reason for his suffering. His suggestion is that it is Job’s high anthropology (Job thinks his sin is not the cause of his calamities) and his low theology (Job should be praising God, not cursing his birth).
Yet, it is not Job but Eliphaz who is blind to himself and his God. While he claims that he has received a vision at night and heard a voice (a so-called word from the Lord; cf. 4:12–16), his vision is still obscured. He is not seeing straight. Or better, he is simply shortsighted. How so?
First, Eliphaz does not see Satan.55 That is, the reality and forces of evil opposition are nowhere on his retribution-theology radar. He assumes that the only force fighting against Job is Job himself—the evil of his fallen condition. And while his flesh is surely waging war against him, as it does with us all, there is more to the story, as we know. We have read chapters 1–2. We know that “Satan” is to blame. We know that Job is having a devil of a fight with the Devil, or at least a supernatural being who is acting devilish. So, while Eliphaz claims that he has had supernatural spiritual vision, what he really needs is a futuristic visit from the apostle Paul. He needs a trip to the seventh heaven and a dose of Ephesians 6:11–12:
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Eliphaz needs to know that Satan not only can hinder us (“we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us”; 1 Thess. 2:18) but is out to devour us (“Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”; 1 Pet. 5:8). There is a spiritual battle within us. There is a spiritual battle all around us.
Eliphaz did not see Satan, but we should. We should pray the Lord’s Prayer, ending with “deliver us from evil” (or, “the evil one”; Matt. 6:13 ESV mg.). We should echo Martin Luther’s Morning Prayer:
I thank Thee, my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy dear Son, that Thou hast kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray Thee to keep me this day also from sin and all evil, that all my doings and life may please Thee. For into Thy hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Thy holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me. Amen.
We are to see what Eliphaz did not see, namely, that Satan is for real; although he is not the cause of all suffering, Satan loves to tempt and test and try God’s people, as he did Job. As he was responsible for Job’s sores and losses, so he is responsible at times (and we often do not know when) for taking from us, tempting us, squeezing us with all the powers of hell. Just because God is sovereign over Satan, this does not mean that Satan—“the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11)—is not at work in this world, busy working against Christ’s kingdom.
Second, Eliphaz does not see the possibility of a heavenly mediator. In Job 5:1 he asks, “Call now; is there anyone who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” Eliphaz does not think that mere mortals like Job can find access to God through some supernatural being. To him, there is no angel to call nor messianic mediator to call upon. It is just sinful Job versus holy God. But that is not the full story, and Job knows it. He knows that he has, or at least hopes that he has, a “witness . . . in heaven” (16:19) and even a “Redeemer” who “lives” (19:25). And we know so much more. We know that “there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). As Christians, we know that there is someone strong enough to save. We know that in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus to save us from our sins and to crush Satan’s head—to vindicate the righteous and punish the wicked. In Jesus, we have salvation. In Jesus, we have a mediator.
Third, and related to the second point, Eliphaz does not see the cross. He does not understand that an innocent mediator might one day mediate between God and man through human suffering. If he saw Jesus on the tree, he would have agreed with the mockers: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40). And if he was a disciple, he would have wanted Jesus to recover like Superman from this kryptonite moment—to push the nails out from his hands and feet, whisk away the wicked to the Hall of Justice, and rescue the weeping women. And if he was at Calvary, we can surmise that the farthest thought from his mind would have been to grasp that Jesus played the role of the true Super Man by being the Suffering Man and that through his sacrificial death and then glorious resurrection and eternal enthronement he forgave sins, destroyed the works of the Devil, and brought meaning to any and all innocent suffering.
What a blessed vantage point we have. We can answer Eliphaz’s question, “Who that was innocent ever perished?” (Job 4:7) with the simplest of Sunday School answers: Jesus! “The word of the cross,” as Paul writes, “is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). What else is it? It is wisdom, the very wisdom of God. “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:22–24). The wisdom of the cross is the word from the Lord that Eliphaz needed. It is also the wisdom we need.