Job 4:12-21

2. The Visionno mortal can question God's just acts. (Job 4:12-21)

TEXT 4:12-21

12 Now a thing was secretly brought to me,

And mine ear received a whisper thereof.

13 In thoughts from the visions of the night,

When deep sleep falleth on men,

14 Fear came upon me, and trembling,

Which made all my bones to shake.

15 Then a spirit passed before my face;

The hair of my flesh stood up.

16 It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof;

A form was before mine eyes:

There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

17 Shall mortal man be more just than God?

Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

18 Behold, he putteth no trust in his servants;

And his angels he chargeth with folly:

19 How much more them that dwell in houses of clay,

Whose foundation is in the dust,
Who are crushed before the moth!

20 Betwixt morning and evening they are destroyed:

They perish for ever without any regarding it.

21 Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them?

They die, and that without wisdom.

COMMENT 4:12-21

Job 4:12Eliphaz now relates the content of a night's vision to Job (Job 33:15). The description is of the terrifying psychological effects of a nightmare.[66]

[66] E. Robertson, Bulletin of John Rylands Library, 42, (1960), 417. Note the powerful therapeutic effect of expressionlong before Freud developed his theory of dream analysis. Elihu regards dreams as warningsJob 33:15.

Job 4:13The Hebrew word seippim occurs only here and Job 20:2. Its root meaning is probably be disquieted or deeply troubled. The deep sleep is the same that fell on Adam in Genesis 2:21.

Job 4:14The extreme form of pathological behavior manifested here reveals the terrible consequences of the nightmare long after the experience.

Job 4:15Besides experience (Job 4:8; Job 5:3), Eliphaz brings a proof from a private revelation (headJob 4:16). He powerfully describes a mysterious audition. In Job 4:12 he calls it a dabar or word and semes or a whisper which produced dread. He may be claiming supernatural authority for the wisdom that he is dispensing to Job. The word translated spirit can mean mind or breath. Nowhere else does the Old Testament use this word of disembodied spirits. The shades in Sheol are called repa-im. When the witch of Endor raised Samuel, he is called elohim. The word translated in A.V. is passed literally means glided, and is in the imperfect form, which means that he is still passing through the experience, or is again passing through it. The hair (sa-a-rat means a single hair) of my flesh creeped.[67]

[67] M. Dahood, Biblica, XLVIII, 1967, 544ff, repoints the text to read tempest or storm. This is not necessary, and stood up is used only here (in intensive form) and Psalms 119:120, and means that the flesh creeped. Experience effected his whole body. See also Dhorme, Job, p. 50.

Job 4:16It stood still! The object is unnamed. The Hebrew consists of but a single word. It is as though Eliphaz is attempting to catch his breath as the horror of that moment returns to Eliphaz (Rowley, Job, p. 55). The awe-inspiring voice of silence is now contrasted with the voice of thunder.

Job 4:17the A.V. translates more just than God, and this is grammatically possible, but Job has never suggested that he was. Better, I think, is the translation righteous before God. Eliphaz has received this vision sometime in the past and is not connected with Job's soliloquy, and Job had not yet attacked God's holiness and righteousness. The meaning is that no man can be considered just and pure in comparison with God. No one is blameless or innocent before our holy God. Eliphaz is emphasizing that Job should accept God's verdict.

Job 4:18The servants are the angels in the next line. Old Testament angelology does not make a distinction between good and evil angels. Satan appears among the angels in Job 1:6.[68] The angels are charged with (toh-o-lah) error. The word is used only here and the A.V. is probably correct in rendering it folly.

[68] See Paul Heinisch, Theology of the Old Testament (The Liturgical Press, 1955), pp. 138ff; L. Kohler, Old Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, E. T., 1957), pp. 166ff; see entire range of Kittel articles on vocabulary discussed above.

Job 4:19If angels are impure, how much more (the Hebrew can also mean how much less, i.e., Job 4:18 a) is man whose body is dust. The houses are figures for bodies (2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Peter 1:14). The same argument is repeated in Job 15:15-16. Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15:42-54 that resurrection is necessary to ultimately modify man's corruptible body, though the corruption is death and not unrighteousness as here. Man is compared to the moth. Man is crushed by God like man crushes a moth. The moth is one of the easiest insects to catch and crush (Pope, Job, p. 38).

Job 4:20Man's life is quickly over between morning and evening.[69]

[69] M. Dahood, The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, ed. by J. L. McKenzie, 1962, esp. p. 55 regarding the phrase without regarding it. Dahood repoints the Hebrew to mean without name or unimportant. The extra m he regards as an enclitic ending and gives Ugaritic grammar evidence in support.

Job 4:21Some commentators object to the Hebrew textstent cord, but this makes perfectly good sense. The verb (ns-') used in three passages in Isaiah (Job 40:24; Job 33:20; and Job 38:12), and is a technical term for pulling stakes and ropes and moving on. The context of Eliphaz's speech is the contrast between men and angels, vis-a-vis God, and not the fate of the wicked. In essence, he says that man does not live long enough to acquire adequate wisdom to understand.