Job 4:7

Who ever perished, being innocent?

Divine retributions

This grand maxim, of a just and sure retribution at the hand of God, must be admitted to be sound and true. His blessing is over the righteous, and His face “against them that do evil.” Job takes exception to this as a rule of God’s providential dealings with mankind, and rejects the inference that, because he is now overwhelmed in trouble, he has been a transgressor. As to the extent of his friend’s suspicions, he was right. But still, the rule laid down by Eliphaz must be considered as holding universally. But the reasons of the present proceedings of God are not always within the ken of human observation; the short prosperity of the wicked may be both for a judgment to others and for their own manifestation and increased punishment. Under the execution of the holy discipline, it is not for innocency and righteousness that the children of God suffer; but most commonly for sin--sin unacknowledged and unconfessed; or with some view to their correction and advancement in holiness, where they were too remiss in perfecting it in the fear of God. Eliphaz’s maxim was not altogether wrong, even as applied to Job. But his inference of secret hypocrisy, or of some outward notorious transgression, from the judgment that had overwhelmed him, was altogether unwarranted. He is mistaken, too, as well as the poor sufferer himself, if he concluded that this affliction was remediless, and sent for his utter destruction. How different was the aspect of his calamity when the end of the Lord was seen! (John Fry, B. A.)