Job 4 KJV
Eliphaz's First Speech
Job Chapter 4: Eliphaz's First Speech
Eliphaz's nocturnal vision (vv. 12-16) stands out as one of the few places in wisdom literature where a human claims direct sensory experience of a spirit's silent passage, complete with physical reactions like hair standing on end, underscoring the limits of human perception before divine mystery.
1hen Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
2 If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?
3 Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.
4 Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.
5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.
6 Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
9 By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.
10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
11 The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lionโs whelps are scattered abroad.
12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.
13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
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 destroyed 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.
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Did You Know?
Eliphaz's nocturnal vision (vv. 12-16) stands out as one of the few places in wisdom literature where a human claims direct sensory experience of a spirit's silent passage, complete with physical reactions like hair standing on end, underscoring the limits of human perception before divine mystery.
Verse 18's assertion that God 'charged his angels with folly' introduces an early theological claim about imperfection among celestial beings, which later Jewish and Christian interpreters connected to traditions of fallen angels without explicit reference to Genesis 6.
The lion metaphor in verse 11 ('the old lion perisheth for lack of prey') subtly echoes Canaanite Baal imagery of the storm god as lion-slayer, repurposed here to argue that even the mighty cannot escape divine retribution, blending Israelite wisdom with surrounding mythic motifs.
Eliphaz's opening question in verse 2 ('who can withhold himself from speaking?') frames his speech as an involuntary response to Job's words, mirroring prophetic compulsion formulas and revealing the dialogic tension between friendship and theological confrontation in the book.
The chapter's emphasis on the 'breath' of God destroying the wicked (v. 9) anticipates the later whirlwind speeches, creating a literary thread where divine ruach functions both as agent of judgment in human discourse and as the medium of God's own self-revelation.