Eliphaz reproves Job, who, having consoled others in adversity, nevertheless desponds himself. He affirms, that it was a thing unheard of, for an innocent man to perish; on the contrary, that the wicked perish at the blast of God, and are destroyed for ever.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 4:1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite— The three friends who came to comfort Job, disgusted, as it seems, with the bitterness of his complaint, change their purpose, and, instead of consolation, vent the severest reproaches against him. The eldest of these three extraordinary comforters condemns his impatience; desires Job to recollect himself; not to give way to fruitless lamentations, but to put in practice those lessons which he had often recommended to others; Job 4:3-6. He reminds him of that (as they thought) infallible maxim, that "those who reap misery must have sown iniquity;" a maxim which he confirms by his own particular experience, and which he supposes was assented to by all mankind: and, in the display of this maxim, he throws in many of the particular circumstances attending Job's calamity; intimating, that he must have been a great, though secret oppressor, and that therefore the breath of God had blasted him at once, Job 4:7-11; and he confirms the truth of his principles by a revelation which he says was made to him in a vision; Job 4:12 to the end. See Bishop Lowth and Heath.