Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
Ver. 1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite] Then, when Job had laid about him in this sort; and, giving his tongue too much liberty to lash out, had uttered words little better than blasphemous and contumelious against God; then Eliphaz, Temanites ille, the first born of Esau, Genesis 36:4 (saith R. Salomon), brought up in the bosom of Isaac, and so inured to revelations from on high. Others think he descended of Teman, nephew to Esau, &c. A man of great wisdom he was, and of great discourse; one that could speak his mind fitly, and did it freely. He seems to have been the chief of the three for age and authority, and therefore begins; pretending to be moved thereunto by zeal for God's glory, not a little impaired by Job's impatience savouring of hypocrisy, and arguing eum ficto fucatoque cordo fuisse, that he had been little better than a dissembler. A causeless and uncharitable charge; enough to have driven him into desperation. The Rabbis speak so well of Job's three friends, that they used to say in a Proverb (Bava bathra Perech 1), Let a man either get him such friends as Job had, or else get him out of the world (like as Chrysippus was wont to say, Aut mentem, aut restim comparandam). But Gregory the Great saith, that these three, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, do fitly set forth heretics, who begin to speak smoothly at first, as if they meant no harm to him to whom they speak, but only good, to purchase his benevolous attention, but soon come to speak words which much hurt the hearer, and greatly trouble him, &c.