Lenten Study Job Ch 4
Community is a wonderful thing to have around you when things start to go sideways. Friends to comfort, people to help, and someone to understand what is going on. It is one of the principal strengths of the Christian church. It is how we become the hands and feet of Jesus assisting our neighbor. It is very hard to do when inwardly we carry the pride of self-reliance and wonder why those around us don’t just “snap out of it” or “walk it off” or “just get over it.”
"There was a man in the land of Uz" by andrevanb is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
Proverbs 16:18 (NASB)
23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.
Proverbs 29:23 (NASB)
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
Job 4:1 (NASB)
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar have sat outside with Job for seven days, and no one said a word. Then, Job breaks the silence in chapter three. Job’s words are all about his sorrow, suffering, and pain. Keep in mind Job is considered by all those around him to be a very upright and righteous man. This is a very god-fearing society, upright in all they do and say, or at least they try to be.
2 “If one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? But who can refrain from speaking?
Job 4:2 (NASB)
It’s nice that Eliphaz is trying to be polite and he doesn’t to be the cause of more discomfort for his friend. But he adds that he’s going to talk anyway because he cannot help himself.
3 “Behold you have admonished many, And you have strengthened weak hands.
4 “Your words have helped the tottering to stand, And you have strengthened feeble knees.
Job 4:3-4 (NASB)
In Job’s sphere of influence, he has often been the one sought for council when people weren’t sure what to do. Job has been the person who offered advice to people during their times of distress. Job has been the one that supplied encouragement to those suffering. Eliphaz points this out, laying the groundwork for his own words back to the encourager.
Many in our lives provide us with strength and encouragement. In every human life, there are those we rely on to give us strength. We call them mentors, leaders, fathers, mothers, big brothers and big sisters, or any other name given to someone we endow with authority to speak into our lives. We do this because we trust these people. We do this because those people have earned our trust through shared experiences. These four men are friends, which means they have granted each other authority to speak what they see as truth into each other’s lives. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are about to give Job what they consider truth in the coming chapters.
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 God your confidence, And the integrity of your ways your hope?
Job 4:5-6 (NASB)
Eliphaz is absolutely right in this statement. Job is a man of God. He does base his life on God’s word, His ways, and His definitions of good and evil. Eliphaz is reminding Job and us of this fact. This is important because there is a lot of predestination in the way lives were lived during the time of Job. They saw everything as being God’s will, just how He wanted things even when we could not fathom why it was the way it was. It must be right because it was God’s will. Even when bad things happened to good people and they couldn’t comprehend why it must be for a good reason, or God wouldn’t have allowed it to happen or set it in motion. We see some of that in the Book of Job because no one but God and Satan know why these things are happening to Job.
7 “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed?
Job 4:7 (NASB)
This is why Eliphaz is worried Job is going to get upset. He first reminds Job when he dealt with someone who appeared righteous and upright but was in the midst of a calamity. Job has had these kinds of conversations before. Eliphaz knows this, and he knows the counsel Job gave to those people. He is about to give Job the same advice, and he knows from experience with those other times that Job isn’t going to take it well. However, he is hopeful his words of caution beforehand will help Job understand that Eliphaz is not trying to accuse Job of something or be mean in what he says next.
8 “According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity And those who sow trouble harvest it.
9 “By the breath of God they perish, And by the blast of His anger they come to an end.
Job 4:8-9 (NASB)
There it is. Eliphaz tells Job this calamity is all his fault for doing something God didn’t like.
10 “The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion, And the teeth of the young lions are broken.
11 “The lion perishes for lack of prey, And the whelps of the lioness are scattered.
Job 4:10-11 (NASB)
In just a few words, Eliphaz has summed up everything that has happened to Job. Job is the lion, but all the things that make a lion the king of the jungle, powerful, and strong are gone. He doesn’t want to dwell on the various hardships and calamities individually, and he wants to frame his friend as kindly as he can, thus the analogy of the lion.
12 “Now a word was brought to me stealthily, And my ear received a whisper of it.
13 “Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night, When deep sleep falls on men,
14 Dread came upon me, and trembling, And made all my bones shake.
15 “Then a spirit passed by my face; The hair of my flesh bristled 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:
Job 4:12-16 (NASB)
Have you ever had one of those moments, either reading scripture or trying to puzzle through something else, when a new way of looking at it suddenly springs forth? AHA! We shout as this new concept, skill, thought, or approach springs to mind, almost as if planted there by someone fully formed. This “AHA!” moment fills us with energy to tackle the problem in light of the new information, opens up a broad new approach, or becomes a set of thoughts and concepts about life that change the way we do things. The business world calls this a Paradigm Shift or Thinking Outside the Box. In this case, Eliphaz had an AHA! moment about why Job was having the troubles he was having, and he ascribes it to a spirit of God.
17 ‘Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?
Job 4:17 (NASB)
What do you think? Can people be fully and actually righteous before God? Do you comprehend what that question means for any human being if your answer is yes? Do you understand what it means if your answer is no? Stop a moment and think those through before you read my thoughts on that because I’m going to tell you what I think.
If we answer Eliphaz’s question with a yes, it means human beings can fulfill all the laws of God without fail. We can be perfect in this life, upright, and righteous before God. It means we can live a human existence without breaking the laws of God, without sinning.
If we answer Eliphaz’s question with a no, it means we absolutely are in trouble. It means we will, at some point at least once in our lives, break one or more of God’s laws. It means that even though we might appear to be upright and righteous to the world around us, we are, in fact, not upright and righteous at all.
There are no other answers possible here. The answer is either yes, we can live without sinning, or no, we cannot live without sinning. To use the turn of phrase, you cannot be a little bit pregnant here.
This information, by the way, is not foreign to Job. Job has made these statements to other people before. That was the point Eliphaz was making to Job back in verse 7. Eliphaz’s question to Job was rhetorical. The three friends know these things about Job. Eliphaz is merely reminding Job in his grief because he has lost sight of so much he needs grounding again in reality, or so Eliphaz believes.
19 ‘How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before the moth!
Job 4:19 (NASB)
Self-reliance is a good thing. Being able to pick oneself up by one’s own bootstraps is a valuable skill to have. The business world calls it being a Self-Starter. When we see this quality in men and women, we call them capable, filled with initiative, or give them the title of leader.
However, if we let this admirable quality become dominant, we stop letting other people work in their skills around us. This turns what would be a virtuous quality into a sinful one called pride. Eliphaz thinks this is something Job needs to be reminded of, and perhaps we get a small glimpse here in chapter four of the thing that plagues Job most in his life, his pride.
19 ‘How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before the moth!
20 ‘Between morning and evening, they are broken in pieces; Unobserved, they perish forever.
21 ‘Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them? They die, yet without wisdom.’
Job 4:19-21 (NASB)
Eliphaz concludes this chapter with a statement that juxtaposes pride with ignorance. People who aren’t aware they are prideful are even more likely to fall prey to problems. Eliphaz is implying a kindness to Job here. He’s suggesting Job knows pride is bad and knows he has been prideful. He reminds him of the people Job has counseled on this very topic and what he has said in the past. It is sort of a left-handed compliment here because both those who are in the midst of their pride and know it have troubles, as do those who haven’t yet identified pride as a problem. Eliphaz is merely suggesting Job’s troubles could get even worse if he weren’t aware of his pride.