Job 4:6

WHO EVER PERISHED BEING INNOCENT?

"Is not the fear of God thy confidence,

And the integrity of thy ways thy hope?

Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent?

Or where were the righteous cut off?

According as I have seen, they that plow iniquity,

And sow trouble, reap the same.

By the breath of God they perish,

And by the blast of his anger are they consumed.

The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion,

And the teeth of the young lions are broken.

The old lion perisheth for lack of prey,

And the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad."

"Whoever perished, being innocent" (Job 4:7)? What a colossal error was this? One must suppose that Eliphaz never heard of Abel. One of the great Biblical proverbs is that one must not yoke the ox with the ass; and some of the most fantastic theological blunders are the result of doing that very thing. Men seize upon some truth, and then yoke it up with some fantastic error. The truth is that God does indeed bless, protect and provide for his people; but there is also a tremendous amount of wickedness in the world that very frequently vents its hatred and destruction against the righteous. Satan, of course, is the implacable foe of all mankind, and especially of the righteous.

"According as I have seen" (Job 4:8). Eliphaz' theology is here revealed to have been based upon his personal observation. No man's personal experience and observation constitute any solid ground for his theology. "The true theology rests upon the authority of divine revelation, and not upon limited human observation and speculation. Unfortunately, also, as Job later pointed out, Eliphaz' observations and statistics were inaccurate (Job 21:17ff)."[3]

"The fundamental difference between Job and his friends is that they invariably found the cause of misfortune in the unfortunate, and Job, as for himself, found the cause in God."[4] However the real cause of Job's terrible misfortune did not lie in either center, but squarely in Satan. The Bible does not reveal whether or not Job ever knew this. The most glorious prayer ever recorded carries that epic line, "Deliver us from the evil one."

Job 4:10,11 are a rhetorical phase of Eliphaz' speech, a metaphor, in which the lions are the wicked, and their destruction, God's inevitable destruction of them. It was true only in the imagination of Eliphaz.

Then, in Job 4:12, Eliphaz introduced that tale about the vision he had; and, as we read it, it reminded us of some of those visions claimed by those prime time TV charlatans. No one could make a bigger mistake than to suppose that God really spoke to Eliphaz in a dream or vision. Commentators differ on just where the vision ends; but we accept the opinion that it was concluded only by the end of this chapter.