NOTES for Job 4:1-21

What could Job's friends say in response to the bitter words they had heard from him? What can one say to a man who curses his own life? Job's friends are deeply religious men, sincere in their own way. Some of them, like Eliphaz, are no strangers to spiritual experience of their own. They know the right answers to questions like Job's and are ready to help their friend, to share with him what they have. Eliphaz, of course, did not fail to remind Job of the past: had he not himself comforted others in similar circumstances? He probably had. Job remains silent, and we can only guess what he now thinks of the words with which he once comforted others in similar situations. How did those words seem to him now?

Probably not very fitting—but we can only guess at that. Another of Eliphaz's arguments, however, carries more weight: it comes from personal experience. Eliphaz had had his own encounters with God. Face to face. At night. Almost like Jacob—but unlike Jacob, Eliphaz had no thought of wrestling. He merely trembled, and the hair on his head stood on end with terror. Like Jacob, Eliphaz received his blessing, in proportion to his own resolve. Jacob was told: you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.

Eliphaz heard something different: can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be purer than his maker? Well, to each his own. And now Eliphaz is ready to share his experience with Job: can a man be purer than his Maker, even if he is the most righteous of the righteous? The argument seems unassailable: it is not for a human being to contend with God, whoever that person may be. But, in essence, this is no answer to the question at all. If a human being cannot contend with God, does that mean righteousness is pointless? Does it mean there is no difference between the righteous and the sinner? For Job—and for anyone else, too—such a conclusion would be a complete spiritual and moral nightmare. Where, then, is the way out?

Job's friends, of course, could not leave unanswered the cry they had heard, although that cry was in essence addressed not to them but to God. Still, as Eliphaz observed, who could compel him, or any of those taking part in the conversation that had begun, to be silent (v. 2)? All the more when the subject was such fundamental matters as righteousness and humility before God! And Eliphaz begins his exhortation. He, like the rest of Job's friends, says things that are completely correct from the point of view of any religion.

Indeed, Job had surely more than once had to speak encouraging words to those who found themselves in a difficult situation, perhaps one like the situation in which Job himself now found himself (vv. 3-4). And now Eliphaz calls Job to courage. He says to him: what sort of example are you showing to those whom you used to support (v. 5)? The call to courage is followed by a quite traditional, religiously impeccable reflection that God does not abandon the righteous person, that he will not perish, that righteous Job should not despair, that he may boldly rely on his righteousness and be confident that everything will end well for him, since he is not wicked (vv. 6-11).

Such a speech might seem like the speech of a professional religious optimist, highly inappropriate and even somewhat mocking, if Eliphaz were not being utterly frank with Job, the way people are frank only with close friends. He shares with Job his own deeply personal, even one might say intimate, experience of a revelation he himself had lived through (vv. 12-21). Its meaning is quite understandable: a human being is never clean and blameless before God, so no one can be certain of anything when it comes to relationship with Him. And if that is so, then anything can happen even to a righteous person; a righteous life cannot be a one-hundred-percent guarantee against troubles and misfortunes. Still, Job is a righteous man, and he has nothing to fear. He need only rely on God, trust Him completely, and all will be well.

In response to Job's lament over the meaninglessness of a life filled with unbearable suffering, his friends, after a long silence, venture to speak to him. It is important for the reader to notice what the prologue tells us: Job's friends sat silently beside him with their garments torn. This makes their compassion genuine and their speeches far from glib. Beginning his address, Job's first friend, Eliphaz, regrets that his words may cause Job fresh pain, but ventures to speak nonetheless. He draws on the fact that Job himself supported those who suffered in their hour of need, bringing them words of truth and comfort.

The meaning of what Eliphaz says is both true and terrible. In a night vision, it was revealed to him that no human being could compare with God in purity and blamelessness. This is so: God alone is perfect. No one among humanity is righteous—Holy Scripture says this repeatedly, and the spiritual experience of any normal person confirms it. Even the Angels, servants of the Almighty, cannot compare with him in righteousness.

The axiomatic claim that all people are sinners leads Eliphaz to conclude that all who perish—and every human being is mortal—perish for their sins. Eliphaz asks Job to recall whether he has ever seen a truly innocent sufferer. He assumes that the answer can only be no. Yet we must note that Eliphaz's logic is flawed. Every sufferer is certainly a sinner. But it does not follow that they suffer for their sins and are therefore to blame for their own torment. Nevertheless, Old Testament theologians and thinkers were accustomed to thinking precisely this way.

At any rate, Eliphaz says that suffering is the fruit of a person's own sins, and that no one in the world suffers innocently. Wickedness arouses God's anger against a person, and so he sends punishment upon the sinner. Job, who considers himself righteous, is simply mistaken about himself. In fact, he too is guilty before God, and must therefore repent and humbly accept his punishment. The cause of his suffering is his sin; its purpose is recompense and correction.