Job 4 · a question people ask
Is Eliphaz comforting Job here, or accusing him?
The chapter gives Eliphaz's words, not his tone or his reasons. The friends had come "to sympathize with him and to comfort him" (2:11). Eliphaz begins with a question, "If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved?" (4:2), and recalls the good Job had done (4:3-4). Then he says, "But now it has come to you, and you faint" (4:5), asks, "Isn’t your piety your confidence?" (4:6), and goes straight on to "who ever perished, being innocent?" (4:7). In chapter 4 he never says outright that Job has sinned. In his last speech he asks, "Isn’t your wickedness great?" (22:5). And Job says to all three friends, "You are all miserable comforters!" (16:2). These notes don't decide what was in Eliphaz's heart; the verses are here for you to weigh.
The verses
“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.”
““If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking? Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have supported him who was falling, you have made the feeble knees firm. But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled. Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope? “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?”
“Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.”
““I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!”