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September 23, 2023

Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.

Reading along with us in Job? Here’s today’s reading:

Job 4 (NIV)

Eliphaz
1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2“If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
But who can keep from speaking?
3 Think how you have instructed many,
how you have strengthened feeble hands.…..Continue Reading

Next: Job 5

Back: Job 3

This Post Has 12 Comments
  1. Eliphaz breaks the silence of Job’s friends that had been sitting with him in silence. Brave to be the first friend to speak into job’s situation even if his response is a bit misguided. First, he gives him the “practice what you preach” approach….he explains The Job tells other to be strong in trials so he needs to do the same. However, I think most would argue this is a trial unlike any other! Next, he recognizes the pain his friend is in and wants to give him some solace or reason for why it is happening and so he expresses that this must be a judgement from some wrongdoing or sin on the part of Job. He even shares that a spirit revealed this to him in a dream and perhaps that too was Satan but we do know that this trial is really just a result of Satan’s doing to test Job’s faith.

  2. Sometimes it can be hard to read Job specially the friends of Job for they might have some words of truth but it is mixed also with error. Example in chapter 4 is Eliphaz where he starts with his own assumptions about why Job is suffering and feels that Job most had sinned. He rebukes Job and says that he [ Job] helped others by instructing them and has strengthened the weak hands but is now mocking Job that he is faint. Eliphaz is what we would call a cold fish with no compassion for others but only lives in his own self righteousness. Such as the Pharisees of Jesus time. He believes that if bad things happen to someone it must be because of sin. This is starting with the wrong assumption. For bad things happen to everyone for we are in a fallen world because of sin. It says in a reference book of mine. [ All the Men of the Bible] That this Temanite descendant was a law unto himself. His name means refined gold but his fine gold was that of self glory and of self opinion from which he would not budge. As a wise man he gloried in his wisdom, and represented the orthodox wisdom of his day. Eliphaz was a religious dogmatist, basing all his deductions upon a solitary remarkable experience he had, namely that of a spirit passing before his face, causing his hair to stand up. As a result of this weird occasion he felt he had a message of divine justice to declare. Thus his speeches, delivered with a sacerdotal pathos are hard, cruel, and rigidly dogmatic. His folly was that he tried to press Job into the mold of his own experience. I think by also understanding who Eliphaz was it helps us understand better. I know it helped me understand. I hope this research helped others. God bless you all.

  3. Job 4. Someone has to be the first to speak!
    Eliphaz opens the dialogue, which sounds good in one part, but bad in another. Vs 7 who ever perished, being innocent, or where were the righteous cut off?
    So I agree with this, all have sinned in Romans, and I will spare for the sake of ten righteous, Genesis.

    So, is Eliphaz implying this came upon Job because he was evil, or his house?

    A teleevangelist of note said Hurricane Kstrina was God’s wrath on New Orleans.

    My Bible reminds me, Luke 13, that terrible things happen, and we will all die, unless we repent. The point being, death, evil doesn’t happen to evil only, but upon all of us. We ought to be about God’s business, tending the fruitless fig tree, nourishing it, that it may prosper and not perish. -Gordy

  4. Kelly, I agree with your view, and am glad our views match the others. Job is hurting in such a bad way, I just cannot imagine. And how do you come along side someone like him?

    Good point, Eliphaz puts it in his face, you consoled others, follow your own advice! It’s a wonder Job didn’t punch him out! Anyway, that kind of counsel stings the hurting, adds salt to the wound.

    Let’s not be that way. -gy

  5. Eliphaz sits in judgment on Job and assumes that Job has sinned.
    It is difficult to recognize that Job’s friends are wrong, because much of what they say is correct, but they present a false dichotomy.
    “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?”
    How do you answer that?
    I am still in awe of Job’s ability to declare his righteousness. Of course, our perspective is Christ and his perspective is the law. He knows he hasn’t violated the law.

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