Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
Ver. 17. Shall mortal man] Sorry sinful man, a very mixture and hodge podge of dirt and sin, Miser, aerumnis et peccatis obnoxius.
Be more just than God?] Or, be just rather than God? as Luke 18:14. This is the matter of the vision; and it is (saith Diodati) a revelation of the doctrine of the free remission of sins, and of the sinner's justification by grace, through his faith in the promised mediator. But Eliphaz turns it another way, and misapplying it to Job, would there hence evince, that all his present sufferings were the proceeds of his own sin, and so from the process of God's justice. The truth is, Job had blurted out some words in the former chapter that reflected somewhat upon God: he had also bitterly cursed the day and services of his birth; this latter, if Eliphaz had sharply reproved Job for, he had done him a friendly good office: but he waives that part, et quae desperat nitescere posse, relinquit; the other, of clearing God's justice, he takes up and presseth it too far, to prove this unsound position: that whosoever is greatly afflicted by God, and for a long time together, that man is to be numbered with the wicked, though no other evidence or witness, appear or speak a word against him; for if he be innocent, how shall God be just that punisheth him? But Eliphaz should have known that afflictions are of two sorts, penal and probational; these latter are not simply for punishment of men's sins, but for trial and exercise of their graces, to humble them, to prove them, and to do them good at their latter end, Deuteronomy 8:16. Wait till God have made an end of his work (and we must not judge God's works, saith Peter Martyr, ante quintum actum, before the fifth act), and we shall see the effect both just and good. This Job had scarcely the patience to do, as appeareth by sundry passages of his; howbeit he ever preserved high and holy thoughts of God, neither at any time questioned his justice and purity, or complained of his dealings with him, and dispensations toward him, as unrighteous, though now and then, through the extremity of his pain, the anguish of his spirit, and the provocation of his friends, some unwary speeches slipped from him.
Shall man be more pure than his maker?] Take man in his prime and pride, in his best estate and utmost strength, when and wherein he is most a man, בבר Vir a viribus, a man of the first magnitude, of the highest elevation (as one fitly phraseth it), both in parts, gifts, and graces; shall he be more pure than his Maker? never think it. Man, compared with his Maker, hath no purity or righteousness at all, no, not so much as a show or shadow of it; just he may be, or pure, by participation from God (saith Austin), but neither just nor pure, in comparison to God: he surpasseth all notion, and surmounteth all creatures, he hath no parallel; so true he is, that all men are liars; so pure, that all men are filthy; so just, that all men are wicked; so incomparably great and glorious, that the angels make their addresses to him with greatest self abasement. For what reason?