Job 4:6 Commentary and Bible Study

He points Job at what he suggests is the remedy for all his troubles: ‘Is not your reverence [fear] your confidence? And the integrity of your ways your hope?’ (NKJ). Your problem, Job, is that you have stopped fearing God, and you have abandoned the integrity of your conduct. This is not just said about Job’s overreaction to his troubles and his extravagant speech in chapter 3; it is an explanation for why those troubles have come upon Job in the first place. Even before his property and family were destroyed, and his health broke down, he had already abandoned the fear of God, and begun to walk in sin. That is Eliphaz’ explanation for what has happened. For him, Job’s outburst is of the same character as his former secret wickedness, and the one proves the other. He and the other friends cannot accept that Job might be a godly man who is speaking rashly because of the severity of his suffering. Eliphaz also assumes that he is not guilty of the sin that Job must be guilty of, and therefore is in a position to correct him, being a more righteous man than Job.‘You, Job,’ he says, ‘are being punished by God for some wickedness, for it is impossible that God should ever treat an innocent man in this way. He has brought you close to death, and you are about to be cut off. Repent of your sin, and you will be restored and made whole again. It is all so simple in his mind. He needs an explanation for what is happening to Job, but his explanation is consistent with his own dubious theology. There are of course some aspects of what he has said that Job would agree with. Job would agree (Joseph Caryl): ‘1. That all the afflictions and calamities which befall man are seen and known by God; 2. That God is the author and efficient cause, the orderer and disposer of all those afflictions and calamities; 3. That God is unquestionably sovereign over all. He does no wrong, nor can he do any injury to his creature, whatever affliction he lays upon them, or however long they last.’ What they do not agree about is ‘4. That whoever is good and does good shall receive a present reward, in the same measure as the good he has done: and say Job’s three friends, but not Job, that whoever is wicked and does wickedly shall be punished in the present, in the same measure as the evil that he has done.’In order to use this remedy, Job will have to accept Eliphaz’ diagnosis of the cause of his suffering. That however, he cannot do. Eliphaz is out of his depth. He explains Job’s suffering as the result of some easily identified sin which apparently Job is not admitting, or facing up to, or repenting of. The reader has been told the true cause of what is happening, and knows that Eliphaz is completely wrong about this, and Job cannot admit this false explanation without abandoning his integrity. He knows he still has a sinful nature, and that it constantly tries to express itself, but he does not accept that he is being punished for some known but secret sin.