Job 4

Then Eliphaz, a man from Teman, spoke up and said:

1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

NoteEliphaz is the first of Job's three friends to reply to him. Teman was a district of Edom, south-east of the Dead Sea, with a reputation in the ancient world for wisdom (compare Jeremiah 49:7), so the name marks Eliphaz out as a sage rather than merely an acquaintance. He is answering the outburst Job has just made in chapter 3.

2If someone tries to say a word to you, will it wear you out? Yet who can hold back from speaking?

2If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?

3Look, you have taught many people, and you have given strength to hands that hung down weakly.

3Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.

NoteDrooping hands and buckling knees are stock Hebrew images for loss of nerve, not for physical illness. Eliphaz means Job used to be the man who put courage back into frightened people.

4Your words held up people who were stumbling, and you steadied knees that were giving way.

4Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.

5But now trouble has come to you, and you are worn out. It touches you, and you are shaken.

5But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.

6Isn't your fear of God what you rely on? Isn't the honest way you have lived what you hope in?

6Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

Note"Fear" here translates a Hebrew term for reverence toward God (piety, the whole of a person's religious life), not fright. The verse can be read two ways, and translators divide: either "your piety is your confidence and your blameless life your hope" (a statement), or a question, "isn't your piety what you rely on?" Either way the point is that Job's record ought to be his security.

7Think back, please: who ever died as an innocent person? Where were people who did right ever wiped out?

7Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

8From what I have seen, people who plow up wrong and plant wickedness harvest the very same thing.

8Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

9One breath from God, and they are gone. One blast of his anger, and they are finished.

9By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.

NoteIn Hebrew the word for nose or nostrils doubles as the word for anger, because anger was pictured as hot, snorting breath. The same term ruach covers breath, wind and spirit, so "the breath of God" is also "the blast of God", a storm wind that flattens what it hits.

10The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, but the teeth of the young lions get broken.

10The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

NoteHebrew uses five different words for lion across these two verses, a display of vocabulary rather than five different animals. Lions were a standard image for violent, predatory people; the picture of a lion whose teeth are smashed and whose cubs scatter is a picture of a powerful man's household destroyed.

11The old lion dies because he finds nothing to hunt, and the lioness's cubs are scattered in every direction.

11The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.

12Now a word was brought to me in secret. My ear caught only a whisper of it.

12Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.

NoteThe Hebrew verb suggests something furtive, a word slipped or stolen to him rather than openly delivered, and the noun rendered "whisper" means a mere scrap or faint rustle of sound. Eliphaz is claiming a revelation, but stressing how little of it he caught.

13It came in troubled thoughts from visions in the night, at the hour when people fall into deep sleep.

13In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,

NoteThe "deep sleep" is a specific Hebrew word for a heavy, God-sent trance, the same word used of the sleep that fell on Adam in Genesis 2:21 and on Abram in Genesis 15:12. It marks what follows as more than an ordinary dream.

14Fear came over me, and shaking, and it made every bone in my body tremble.

14Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

15Then a spirit moved past my face, and the hair on my body stood up.

15Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:

NoteThe Hebrew word here, ruach, means wind, breath, or spirit, and the verb can mean glide or blow past. The line is genuinely ambiguous: a spirit-being passing his face, or a draft of wind that made his hair stand on end. Ancient and modern readers have taken it both ways.

16It stood still, but I could not make out its shape. A form was there before my eyes. There was silence, and then I heard a voice say:

16It 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,

NoteThe Hebrew reads roughly "silence, and a voice I heard," which can be understood as a hush followed by speech, or as a single phrase, a hushed, murmuring voice. The word for "form" is a rare one used elsewhere of a likeness or shape that can be seen but not identified.

17Can a human being, who must die, be more in the right than God? Can a man be more pure than the God who made him?

17Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

NoteThe Hebrew preposition allows two readings that pull in different directions: "Can a mortal be more righteous than God?" or "Can a mortal be righteous before God?", that is, can anyone be found in the right when standing in God's presence. The word for "mortal" is one that carries the sense of frailty and death built into it.

18Look, God puts no trust in those who serve him, and he charges even his angels with being at fault.

18Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:

Note"Those who serve him" here means the heavenly court, the angels named in the second half of the line, not human worshipers. The word translated "fault" or "folly" is uncertain in Hebrew; suggestions range from error and unreliability to something like straying. The argument is from the greater to the lesser: if even heavenly beings fall short, humans certainly do.

19How much more, then, those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are set in the dust, who are crushed as easily as a moth.

19How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?

Note"Houses of clay" means human bodies, made from the ground and returning to it, as in Genesis 2:7 and 3:19. The last clause is obscure in Hebrew and can be read as "crushed like a moth" (as easily as one crushes a moth) or "crushed before the moth" (destroyed sooner than a moth is). Either way the point is how little force it takes.

20Between morning and evening they are broken to pieces. They are gone forever, and no one even notices.

20They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without any regarding it.

Note"From morning to evening" is an idiom for the span of a single day: they are gone between sunrise and sunset, with no one keeping count.

21Is not whatever holds them up pulled away from them? They die, and they die without wisdom.

21Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

NoteThe Hebrew word here can mean either a tent-cord or what is left over, an excess or excellence. So the line is either "is not their tent-cord pulled up?" (the image of a collapsing tent, a nomad's whole dwelling gone in a moment) or "does not whatever is best in them depart?" The rendering keeps the wording open because the Hebrew is.