Job 4-5--Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper

Job 4-5
English Standard Version

Eliphaz Speaks: The Innocent Prosper​
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 God 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 before 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 like 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,
    and the thirsty pant after his 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 evil 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.”

---

Eliphaz will be the first of Job's friends to respond to Job, and we'll find out later that this is because he is the oldest of the friends so they all defer to him. In fact, we'll see them continue this pattern of letting Job speak (maybe he was the oldest among the group?) and then proceeding from oldest to youngest.

As we go on in the book and each has more to respond to, the arguments and responses get longer, and I'll try to cover each argument in its entirety without breaking it up at all, which could mean that many days we'll be covering multiple chapters at a time (like today).  Because of this, I'll do my best to summarize and respond to the main themes rather than always go verse-by-verse.

First Eliphaz demands an opportunity to respond without Job getting angry, but it's that kind of comment of "I want to say something, and I don't want you to get angry" that you say right before you say something that you know is going to make someone angry, and probably makes the situation worse because now they know it's coming and they are already starting to get a little riled up before you even start to talk.

Eliphaz's argument can be boiled down to this--God punishes the wicked and prospers the righteous.  Eliphaz thinks that Job has some hidden sin in his life that God is trying to excise and that Job's argument about his integrity is a sham because Eliphaz doesn't believe in a God who punishes the righteous.  Therefore it is easy for Eliphaz to conclude that since it appears that Job is being punished by God, that Job must not be as righteous as he claims.

Eliphaz appeals to both general revelation (things everyone can see in nature) and special revelation (secret truths that he knows that have not been revealed to everyone else).  Before we continue let's address the fact that what we find in the Bible is all in the category of "special revelation" because not everyone has access to those truths, not only because not everyone has the Bible, but because God tells us that the eyes and minds of unbelievers have been blinded by both their flesh and the devil (and sometimes by God Himself) so that they might not see and understand the truth without the work of the Holy Spirit.  With that said, we should be very careful about listening to anyone who claims to have a "new word" from the Lord in the present age.  In that day (remember, we're around the time of Abraham), special revelation wouldn't be that strange.  But listen to how the "truth" that Eliphaz is speaking of came to him:  

1:12 “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:..."

So, is this how we see God operate in revealing truth to them?  Usually not, though from time to time He does speak to people in dreams and visions, but He seems to make it clear to them who it is who is speaking and the messages is make clear to them, and usually the Lord tells his people "Do not be afraid" when He shows up or sends an angelic messenger to convey a message to His people.  What Eliphaz spoke of sounds more like consorting with demons (like how people put themselves in a drug-induced trance to connect to the "spirit realm") than having a vision from the Lord.  While I can't be certain that drugs were involved here, some of the statements made by Eliphaz here and in other places do make me wonder if he was a "spiritual" man but not a "godly" man in that he tried to connect with and listen to any spirit that would speak to him--sometimes this would even be his own spirit which is possibly what he's describing here.

Do not confuse your "inner voice" or the "whisper that you hear in the night" with the voice of the Lord.  In fact, 1 John 4 tells us to "test the spirits" for this very reason, because not every voice and not every spirit comes from the Lord.  Only those that confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God and give Him the glory that He is due are from God.  Those that refuse to honor Jesus as the Son of God and refuse to give Him the glory that He alone is due are of the spirit of the anti-Christ.

Eliphaz makes the argument that God was quick to judge the rebellion of the demons and he has seen God bring swift justice in nature and this message seems to remind him that men should tremble and be afraid of the swift justice of God, and Eliphaz is sure that's is what is going on here in Job's life.  That draws Eliphaz to only one conclusion--Job is in the wrong and needs to cry out to God for wisdom and understanding because perhaps Job truly believes he's innocent, but God has seen something in Job that even Job does not see.

Eliphaz does say some pretty amazing things about God that are mostly true, yet his "truth" is mixed with error and we will see that God said that He did not give these words to Eliphaz at the end of the story, so we need to be careful about reading what Eliphaz is saying.  We need not throw everything out, but we need to weigh it all against the whole of Scripture that we now have available to us (a benefit that Job did not have at the time).  Sometimes it's a bad truth claim, sometimes it's a bad presupposition on Eliphaz's part about who God is and how He operations, other times Eliphaz may be exactly right about how things usually happen, but that doesn't mean that God will always operate that way and we know that He's making a special exception to the usual and ordinary in this case from the scene we saw in chapters 1 and 2 that Job and his friends don't know about at this point...it seems that God reveals this truth to Job later after everything was over.

Eliphaz concludes his remarks seemingly by arguing (quite correctly) that nothing touches those that belong to God unless God allows it and that God's punishment is good because everything God allows is God and is meant ultimately to heal us and not harm us, but then he takes a leap to say this means that somehow God will definitely act in a certain way towards the righteous and that they will have prosperity and long life--it's the prosperity gospel that we have talked so much about in our small group.  For those that haven't been part of our small group, watch this one-hour version of American Gospel:  Christ Alone--40 minutes of the documentary and 20 minutes of testimonies).  If you're interested in the full documentary of American Gospel:  Christ Alone (AG1) and/or American Gospel:  Christ Crucified,(AG2) you can find more information on how to view or order these and other American Gospel productions at http://www.americangospelfilm.com/

We'll see many such "false gospels" presented by Job's friends here in the book of Job and while his friends are well-meaning, they do not know God or His truth and their pleasantries and platitudes were not helpful to Job in his current time of crisis.  We have the benefit of not only seeing everything that happened to Job but seeing everything that happened to Christ and all that the apostles and other New Testament writers have to say.  Jesus was familiar with our infirmities and weaknesses and because He came and lived in this world and lived life without sin, He could be our substitutionary atonement, but He could also be our mediator that Job asks for in this book.  No more would men need spirits to come to them in dreams to reveal the truth to them, because God came down in the flesh and spoke His Word through the Living Word of God--Jesus Christ, the Son of God.