Job 4 · a question people ask
Are the words of Eliphaz's night vision true?
The voice asks, "Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" (4:17), and the chapter gives it only as Eliphaz reports it (4:12-16). Christians read these words in more than one way, each resting on verses. Both readings agree on what the book says around them: the LORD said Job was ruined "without cause" (2:3), and the LORD said to Eliphaz, "you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), without saying which of his words he meant.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
True in themselves
Those who hold this view take the question of 4:17 as true, whoever first spoke it. They point to other Scripture that says the same: a psalm prays, "Don’t enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous" (Psalm 143:2), and Job himself asks, "how can man be just with God?" (9:2), with the same Hebrew words for man and be just as 4:17 (tap just). And since Paul quotes words from the next chapter of the same speech with "it is written" (1 Corinthians 3:19; see Job 5:13), they don't take 42:7 to mean that every sentence Eliphaz spoke was false. Paul's quotation is not from the vision, so they don't rest the vision's truth on it. What they find wrong is his reasoning from Job's suffering, "who ever perished, being innocent?" (4:7), when the LORD had said Job was ruined "without cause" (2:3).
Job 4:17 · Psalm 143:2 · Job 9:2 · 1 Corinthians 3:19 · Job 5:13 · Job 4:7 · Job 2:3
Held at a distance
Those who hold this view don't build teaching on the vision itself. They point to how little the chapter says about where it came from: "a thing was secretly brought to me" (4:12), and "I couldn’t discern its appearance" (4:16); the chapter doesn't say it came from God. They note that the voice says God "puts no trust in his servants" (4:18), while the LORD calls Job "my servant Job" and says, "I will accept him" (42:8). And they note that the LORD's words in 42:7 are spoken to Eliphaz by name. What Scripture teaches about man before God they take from passages like Psalm 143:2 themselves, not from the vision.
Job 4:12 · Job 4:16 · Job 4:18 · Job 42:7-8 · Psalm 143:2
The verses
““Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying, ‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?”
“The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.””
“It was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”