Job 4:21

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

Their excellency - (Psalms 39:11; Psalms 146:4; 1 Corinthians 13:8). But Umbreit by an Oriental image from a bow useless, because unstrung. 'Their nerve or string would be torn away.' Michaelis, better in accordance with Job 4:19, makes the allusion be to the cords of a tabernacle taken down (Isaiah 33:20; Isaiah 38:12; Isaiah 54:2; Jeremiah 10:20), 'Is not their cord in them snapped asunder?' (so that their tabernacle falls down, 2 Corinthians 5:1).

They die, even without wisdom - rather, 'They would perish, yet not according to wisdom,' but according to arbitrary choice, if God were not infinitely wise and holy. The design of the Spirit is to show that the continued existence of weak man proves the inconceivable wisdom and holiness of God, which alone says man from ruin (Umbreit). Bengel shows from Scripture that God's holiness х qaadowsh (H6918), holy], comprehends all his excellencies and attributes. As holiness and wisdom are inseparable, so sin and folly (cf. Job 4:18). DeWette loses the scope in explaining it of the shortness of man's life contrasted with the angels, 'before they have attained to wisdom.' The English version seems to me good sense, and accords with the parallelism: 'Their excellency (or their cord) goes away: they die, and their wisdom dies with them.'-literally, not with wisdom (Psalms 49:14; Psalms 49:17; Job 36:12).

Remarks:

(1) How much easier it is to give good counsel to the afflicted, than to act on that good counsel when we are in affliction ourselves! Many a one who has, like Job, "instructed many, and strengthened the weak hands," has fainted in the day of his own calamity. The day of trial is the testing day. "If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small" (Proverbs 24:10).

(2) Teachers of religion especially ought to be careful that the religious consolations which they minister to others officially, should be realized in their own experience personally. Nothing is more calculated to give power to exhortation, than that it should be recommended by example; and nothing gives more occasion to the enemies or false professors of religion to blaspheme, than that the otherwise godly man should be seen to he impatient in adversity, and seemingly unsustained by those holy principles which he had urged upon others.

(3) Still there are special cases, like that of Job, which call for tender dealing and sympathy, rather than harsh suspicious and insinuations of insincerity. Job was no hypocrite, though so sorely tried; nor are severe afflictions, and even impatience on the part of the sufferer, proofs, as Eliphaz thought, that such a one must be a knave, or else a self-deceiver in religion, and therefore especially obnoxious to God's displeasure. We ought to be very slow in forming unfavourable opinions of others, and particularly of those whose general course of life has been that of consistent children of God. "Charity hopeth all things," and "rejoiceth not in iniquity."

(4) Eliphaz' premises are sound, though his harsh inference as to Job was unwarranted. When we, like Job, curse the day of our birth (Job 3:1), under the pressure of present sufferings, we virtually arraign God's wisdom and God's holiness, which are inseparable, and set ourselves up as good and wise before God. But man's utter frailty and speedy mortality demonstrate how vain is his claims to either purity or wisdom in the presence of the all-holy, all-wise God. Still Eliphaz had much to learn from Job, notwithstanding minor blemishes. Better a diamond with a flaw, than a pebble without one. His faith, sincerity, integrity and even, in the main, patience (Job 1:1; Job 2:1), were most remarkable, and will be throughout all ages a noble example of the power of God's grace (James 5:10).