Job 4:17-21 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

This is what the vision said. Translate as mg.: Shall mortal man be just before God, shall a man be pure before his maker? Even the angels are fallible, how much more man, who inhabits a house of clay, i.e. a body formed from the dust (Genesis 2:7; Genesis 3:19; 2 Corinthians 5:1). Observe that we are not yet at the point of view of the later Judaism and the NT, according to which some angels are good, some bad. All are fallible. Again, observe that man's sin fulness is deduced simply from his creatureliness, especially, however, from his being made from the dust. The spirit that appears to Eliphaz knows nothing of the Fall as an explanation of human sin. His thought is rather that if the angels, who are of spirit (which was conceived by the ancient world in general as a finer kind of matter) are not perfect in God's sight, man. who is of the dust, must even less be so. Men are ephemerals (Job 4:20) they are crushed like the moth (Job 4:19 mg.) : how can such creatures claim perfection before God, or have a right against Him. Men die, just as a tent is taken down when the tent cord is plucked up, and their life comes to an end without their having obtained wisdom, i.e. in the context, the fear of God, that absolute submission to Him, which is the only wisdom for such moths.

Job 4:17-21

17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:

19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?

20 They are destroyedc from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.

21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.