Job 4:7,8

Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, &c.— Recollect, I pray thee, &c. Eliphaz here begins to shew what he suspected. The strong term he uses, who ever perished, being innocent? and his adding what himself had observed of the punishment which sometimes befalls wicked men, contains a shrewd insinuation that he believed Job to have been guilty of some secret sins for which the hand of God was thus heavy on him. It will be proper here to remark in general, that it is natural for men earnest in dispute to carry matters to an extreme on either hand, or at least to be sometimes very unguarded in their expressions; and therefore we are not to interpret in the strictest and severest sense every word which fell from these unwary combatants. For example, from the present verse, or from any similar expressions in their following speeches, we are not to conclude, that these friends, really believed that there never was an instance of the righteous being cut off untimely, but merely that it much seldomer happened thus than otherwise. The strength of the expression is to be allowed for, by attending to the design that they had upon Job, and their zeal in prosecuting it. See note on ch. Job 7:20 and Peters.