Job 4:21

their excellency go away This verse is obscure. The word rendered go awaymeans to pull out, as a pin or the posts of a gate, Judges 16:3; Judges 16:14 (English version, went away with), or the stake of a tent, Isaiah 33:20 (be removed). This is probably the original meaning. Then the word is used in a secondary, more general sense, to break up an encampment, to remove or journey, to depart, e.g. very often in Numbers 33. In the present verse the verb is pass., and probably has its original sense, plucked up, or torn out. The word translated excellencyhas that meaning, e.g. Genesis 49:3; Proverbs 17:7. In other places the word means a cord, Judges 16:7-9, the string of a bow, Psalms 11:2; and similarly Job 30:11. The figurein the Poet's mind here is the pulling down of a tent, to which the death of man is compared; so in Isaiah 38:12, where the meaning is, my habitation is removed. The meaning cordsuits this figure better than excellency, and the sense would be, their tent-cord is torn away. As to the relation of the two clauses of the verse to one another, the construction is probably the same as in ch. Job 4:2, if one should venture … wilt thou be grieved? Therefore,

If their tent-cord is torn away in them,

Do they not die, and not in wisdom?

There is an emphasis on die; the moment the tent falls, through the tearing-away of the cord that upheld it, the inhabitant wholly perishes. It is not necessary to ask what the tent-cord is. The cord belongs to the figure, and is scarcely to be interpreted of the soul.

They die without attaining unto wisdom. This trait heightens the darkness of the picture of man's condition. He is not only frail, his frailty is but another side of his moral imperfection, and this cleaves to him to the very end.

There is something very wise and considerate as well as profoundly reverential in these words of the aged speaker. He does not touch Job's murmurs directly, but seeks to reach them by suggesting other thoughts to Job. First, he speaks of the exalted purity of God, to awaken reverence in Job's mind. Then he descends to the creatures and seeks to look at them as they appear unto God. In His eyes, so sublime is He in holiness, all creatures, angels and men, are erring. Thus Eliphaz makes Job cease to be an exception, and renders it more easy for him to reconcile himself to his history and acknowledge the true cause of it. He is but one where all are the same. There is nothing strange in his having sinned (ch. Job 5:6-7). Neither, therefore, are his afflictions strange. But it will be something strange if he murmurs against God.