Reflections on Job 4

 Job 04 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Eliphaz from Teman said:
2. Please be patient and listen to what I have to say.
3. Remember how your words
4. have guided and encouraged many in need.
5. But now you feel discouraged when struck by trouble.
6. You respect God and live right, so don't lose hope!
7. No truly innocent person has ever died young.
8. In my experience, only those who plant seeds of evil harvest trouble,
9. and then they are swept away by the angry breath of God.
10. They may roar and growl like powerful lions. But when God breaks their teeth,
11. they starve, and their children are scattered.
12. A secret was told to me in a faint whisper--
13. I was overcome by sleep, but disturbed by dreams;
14. I trembled with fear,
15. and my hair stood on end, as a wind blew past my face.
16. It stopped and stood still. Then a form appeared-- a shapeless form. And from the silence, I heard a voice say,
17. "No humans are innocent in the eyes of God their Creator.
18. He finds fault with his servants and even with his angels.
19. Humans are formed from clay and are fragile as moths, so what chance do you have?
20. Born after daybreak, you die before nightfall and disappear forever.
21. Your tent pegs are pulled up, and you leave this life, having gained no wisdom."

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Not only had Job lost everything - possessions and family and health, now he must listen to his friends berate him. In effect, he had also lost his friends. He had no one to offer comfort and consolation. He was entirely alone except for God, and he no doubt felt distanced from Him as well, for though he did not curse God he was convinced his suffering came from God and he did not know why.

As we begin to see in this first round of speeches from Job's friends, they held to the theology that suffering is always a result of one's sin. An erroneous theology held by many and which is shown to be erroneous in Job's experience. Eliphaz was the first friend to speak following Job's rant about not being born and was probably shocked by what Job had said. He wasted no time striking out at Job saying in effect, "you who have helped and encouraged others in their suffering cannot help yourself now that this has happened to you." Yes, Job had encouraged others who were suffering, now why was Eliphaz not encouraging Job? Instead he criticized him for not being able to comfort himself. What a friend!

Having made this jab at Job, Eliphaz drew back to take a full swing at him, beginning to lay out his case that suffering is the result of one's sin. He approached it with the question, "who has perished when he was innocent?" A question he assumed could only be answered in the negative. Then he drew upon the supposed authority of his experience. But experience is only as good as our understanding of it. Unless we seek to understand God's perspective on our experiences what we learn from them can be false. Eliphaz's experience told him that, "those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same." And this, he was saying, was Job's problem. He had plowed injustice and was now reaping the same. But the only evidence of Job's injustice was his suffering which Eliphaz wrongly assumed could only be a result of sin. What a low blow to be so unjustly accused by your friend!

Eliphaz first drew upon the authority of his experience, now he would draw upon a supposed higher authority by suggesting he had received a vision. From where this vision came is elusive. It was a word whispered in his ear in secret at night, "when deep sleep descends on men." In this vision a figure stood before him that he could not recognize and spoke to him in a quiet voice saying: "Can a person be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?" (4:17) He seems to be saying that Job, who was not more righteous than God, had no right to be speaking to God as he had. If a man suffers it is his own fault and he should not be blaming God. If Job persisted in these actions he would "die without wisdom." No doubt Job would get the wisdom he needed, though, if he would just listen to Eliphaz.