Commentary - Job 4:7-11

Bird's-eye view

Here we have the opening salvo from Eliphaz the Temanite, the first of Job’s friends to offer his counsel. And we must say at the outset that the problem with Job’s counselors is not that they were entirely wrong, but rather that they were right woodenly. They come to Job with a series of theological truisms, which are indeed true in their proper place, but which are dreadfully misapplied here. Eliphaz begins with what amounts to a defense of God’s perfect justice, a principle no sane believer would deny. His argument is simple: God punishes the wicked and preserves the innocent. Since Job is clearly being punished, the conclusion, though unspoken for now, is inescapable. This is a tidy system, a clean theological syllogism. The trouble is that it is being applied to a man whose life has been anything but tidy, and it completely misses the unseen reality of the heavenly conflict that God Himself initiated.

Eliphaz’s counsel is a classic example of what we might call a theology of immediate and direct retribution. He appeals to experience, to what he has "seen," and lays out a cause-and-effect relationship between sin and suffering. While Scripture certainly teaches the principle of sowing and reaping, Eliphaz presents it as an inflexible and exhaustive explanation for all human suffering. He is a man with a neat theological box, and he is determined to fit the sprawling, chaotic mystery of Job’s agony into it. In doing so, he offers no real comfort, only an indictment wrapped in pious language. He speaks of God’s power, His breath, His anger, but he has no category for the kind of trial Job is enduring, a trial designed not for punishment, but for the glory of God and the testing of faith.

Outline

Context In Job

We are just coming off Job’s raw and agonizing lament in chapter 3, where he cursed the day of his birth. His initial, faithful response to tragedy (Job 1:21; 2:10) has given way to the crushing weight of his suffering. His friends have sat with him in silence for seven days, and now, with Job’s outburst, the silence is broken. Eliphaz, likely the eldest and most respected, speaks first. His words do not come into a vacuum. They are a direct response to Job’s despair. Job has questioned the goodness of his own existence, and Eliphaz responds by questioning the foundation of Job’s righteousness. He means to comfort, to bring Job back to what he sees as theological sanity, but his approach is that of a prosecutor, not a pastor. He is setting up the central conflict of the book’s dialogue: the nature of God’s justice and the meaning of suffering when easy answers fail.

Verse by Verse Commentary

7 “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright wiped out?

Eliphaz opens with a rhetorical question, a challenge to Job’s memory and, by implication, his integrity. The question is designed to have only one answer. In the grand scheme of God’s justice, the truly innocent do not perish. The upright are not ultimately destroyed. Eliphaz is laying down his foundational premise. He is establishing the rules of the debate, and those rules are simple: God is just, and His justice is always manifest in the observable outcomes of human lives. He is appealing to a universal law of moral cause and effect. The problem is not with the premise that God is just. The problem is with Eliphaz’s limited, earth-bound understanding of how that justice works out in a fallen world, especially when there are cosmic battles raging in the heavenlies that he knows nothing about. He sees Job’s perishing condition and concludes, based on his rigid formula, that innocence must be absent.

8 According to what I have seen, those who plow wickedness And those who sow trouble harvest it.

Here Eliphaz moves from a general principle to his personal observation. "According to what I have seen." This is the language of empirical theology. He is not, at this point, quoting Scripture or divine revelation; he is leaning on his own experience. And what has he seen? He has seen the principle of the harvest. Those who plow wickedness and sow trouble reap a crop of the same. This is a powerful agricultural metaphor, and it is a true one. Paul says much the same thing in Galatians: a man reaps what he sows (Gal. 6:7). The Bible is replete with this principle. The issue, once again, is not the truth of the statement but its application. Eliphaz sees Job’s harvest of calamity and works backward to assume a sowing of wickedness. He is a detective who has found a body and has decided that the man standing nearest must be the culprit, without considering any other evidence. He is applying a general truth as though it were an ironclad, exceptionless law for every individual circumstance, which it is not.

9 By the breath of God they perish, And by the wind of His anger they come to an end.

Having established the "what", that the wicked are judged, Eliphaz now explains the "how." Their destruction is not an accident of fate; it is a direct act of God. It is "by the breath of God" that they perish. It is "by the wind of His anger" that they are consumed. This is high and majestic language, and it rightly describes the awesome power of a sovereign God. His breath, which gives life, can also take it away. His anger is not a petty human emotion but a holy and terrifying force. Eliphaz is theologically orthodox here. He believes in a God who is actively involved in the affairs of men, a God who judges sin. But in the context of speaking to a suffering saint, this true statement becomes a cruel weapon. He is painting a picture of the God who is currently afflicting Job, and the portrait is that of a God of pure, retributive wrath. He leaves no room for the possibility that the "wind" blowing through Job's life might be for a purpose other than judgment for some hidden sin.

10 The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion, And the teeth of the young lions are broken.

Eliphaz now turns to the world of nature for an illustration. The wicked, in their strength and ferocity, are like lions. They are at the top of the food chain, powerful, fearsome, and seemingly untouchable. He speaks of the roaring lion, the fierce lion, the young lions, a picture of comprehensive and multi-generational power. But what happens to them? God breaks their teeth. The very instruments of their predatory strength are shattered. God’s power is so absolute that He can effortlessly neutralize the most formidable earthly powers. This is a vivid and true depiction of God's sovereignty over the proud and the violent. The wicked may roar and threaten, but God can and does de-fang them.

11 The lion perishes for lack of prey, And the whelps of the lioness are scattered.

The illustration concludes with the ultimate fate of these powerful, wicked men. Not only are their teeth broken, but their entire enterprise comes to ruin. The mighty lion, the apex predator, starves to death. His source of sustenance is cut off. And his legacy is destroyed, the "whelps of the lioness are scattered." His family line, his dynasty, is brought to nothing. The point is that the destruction of the wicked under God’s judgment is total and complete. It is a powerful image, but think of what Job hears. He has lost his children. They have been scattered, not into the wilderness, but into the grave. He has lost his livelihood, his prey. Eliphaz, intending to describe the fate of the wicked, has just painted a perfect portrait of Job’s own situation. The application is as subtle as a blacksmith's hammer. Job is the lion whose teeth are broken, whose children are scattered. The diagnosis, in Eliphaz's mind, is clear.

Application

The counsel of Eliphaz is a standing warning to all who would minister to the suffering. It is a warning against "wooden" theology. It is entirely possible to speak true things in a way that is profoundly false and damaging. The principle of sowing and reaping is true. God's judgment on the wicked is true. His sovereignty over the proud is true. But truth without love, truth without wisdom, truth misapplied, becomes a bludgeon. We must be very careful not to take our tidy theological systems and use them to explain away the profound mysteries of God’s providence in someone’s life.

When we encounter suffering, our first instinct should not be to find the hidden sin that "caused" it. Our first instinct must be compassion, to weep with those who weep. We do not know the whole story. We are not sitting in the heavenly council. We see the effect, but we do not always see the cause, and we certainly do not see the ultimate purpose. Eliphaz thought he knew, and in his knowing, he condemned a righteous man and misrepresented God.

Finally, this passage forces us to confront the inadequacy of any system of salvation that relies on our own innocence. Eliphaz’s premise, that the innocent do not perish, is ultimately only true in Jesus Christ. He was the only truly innocent one, and yet He perished. He was wiped out. He was plowed under the wickedness of men and harvested the trouble of our sin. The teeth of the Lion of Judah were not broken, but He allowed Himself to be slain. Why? So that we, who are by no means innocent, might not perish. Job’s story points beyond itself to the ultimate story of the cross, where God’s justice and mercy meet in a way that Eliphaz’s simple formula could never comprehend.