Job 4:18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Behold, &c. For it deserves thy serious consideration. These and the following words seem to be the words of Eliphaz, explaining the former vision, and applying it to Job's case, and enforcing it by further arguments. He put no trust in his servants That is, in his angels, as appears both by the next words of this verse, in which, by way of explication and restriction, they are termed his angels; and by the verse following, where men are opposed to them. They are called his servants by way of eminence, the general name being here appropriated to the chief of the kind, to intimate that sovereign dominion which the great God hath, even over the glorious angels, and much more over men: and God is said to put no trust in them, because if they were left to themselves, and the supplies of God's power and grace were withdrawn from them, they would not even continue to exist, much less to be loyal and faithful. And his angels he charged with folly That is, with vanity, weakness, infirmity, imperfection, in comparison with himself, their Maker. The word תהלה, toholah, here rendered folly, is one of the απαξ λεγομενα, the words only once occurring, and of consequence the more difficult to be understood. The Chaldee paraphrast renders it iniquity; Ab. Ezra, folly; Schultens derives it from an Arabic word, which denotes lapsing, or from another, which signifies deficiency, or imperfection. Houbigant renders the clause, And in his angels mutability was found. The most probable opinion seems to be, that this refers to the angels who foolishly and wickedly fell from God.