Charles Ellicott Commentary Job 4

If we assay. —Rather, perhaps, Has one ever attempted? or, Has a word ever been tried? It appears from Job 29:9-10, that Job was held in great honour and reverence by all, and Eliphaz regarded him with awe such as would have constrained him to be silent, but he is so convinced that Job is wrong and deserves reproof, that he cannot refrain from speaking. He strikes a note, however, which the friends all sound, namely, that it is the wicked who suffer, and that all who suffer must be wicked. This, in a variety of forms, is the sum and substance of what they have to say.

Behold, you have instructed many.—There is a conspicuous lack of feeling in Eliphaz. Without any true sympathy, however, he may have given the outward signs of it (Job 2:12–13).

He charges Job with an inability to derive from his own principles the support which he had expected them to afford to others, and seems almost to rejoice malevolently that one who had been so great a help to others was now in need of help himself. Calamity touches you, and you are overwhelmed by it.

Is not this thy fear, thy confidence ...? —The meaning seems to be, “Should not your fear or piety be your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope? Should not the piety you were so ready to commend to others supply a sufficient ground of hope for yourself?” Or we may understand, “Is not your reverence, your confidence, your hope, and your integrity shown to be worthless if you faint as soon as adversity touches you?” The drift of the speaker is virtually the same in either case.

Remember, I ask you, who ever perished, being innocent?—He challenges Job’s experience and quotes his own as proof of the universal connection between sin and suffering.

In doing so, his object may be to insinuate that Job is sinful; or, as seems perhaps more probable, and certainly more gracious, to prove to him that if he is what he was supposed to be, that itself is a ground of hope, since no innocent person is allowed to perish.

He utters here a half-truth, which, however, is after all true, since God will never fail, though He may try, those who trust in Him.

They that plow iniquity. —Compare Galatians 6:7-8; and compare also the strange expression of Isaiah 5:18.