Remember, I pray thee, who [ever] perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
Ver. 7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?] Why? that hath many a one, as the world counteth and calleth perishing: "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart," Isaiah 57:1. And it was given unto the beast, to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, Revelation 13:7. So it seemed to be, though so it never was, Revelation 12:11. The first man that died, died for religion, so early came martyrdom into the world; and John Baptist was put to death in prison without all show of law, right, or reason, as if God had been nothing aware of any such matter, as that martyr phrased it (Acts and Mon.). Indeed, if Eliphaz meant it of perishing eternally, neither Job nor any one else could produce an instance of a godly man so perishing; but for temporal miseries it is sure that never any out of hell have met with more than the most holy and harmless heirs of heaven. See Hebrews 11:1,40, and you will say so. But the Scriptures, haply, were not written when Eliphaz uttered this speech; howbeit, he might have observed the contrary to what he here seemeth to affirm, appealing to Job's own experience for proof. And the truth is, if men were so well read as they might in the story of their own lives, they might have a divinity of their own, by noting experiments; such as that ll9th Psalm is in a manner wholly made up of. Remember, saith he here; and the philosopher saith, that experience is nothing else but mulplex memoria, because of the memory of the same thing often done, ariseth experience. Eliphaz, therefore, after that he had given Job his turn to search his experiences, brings forth his own in the next verse.