Eliphaz’s First Speech: A Useless Sermon from a Kind Friend: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross [Job 4,5]

We will look at chapters 4 and 5 today but we won’t read both chapters all at once, we’ll read a few verses at a time and comment on them as we move through it. Job 4 and 5. [pray]

HAVE YOU HAD THE EXPERIENCE of a well-meaning friend giving kind advice that doesn’t help at all? It may have been straightforward advice, exactly the kind you would have given to them. But it brings no comfort to you. Or perhaps you have been, as I have, on the other side, as the one giving what you think is wise and discerning counsel, only to find it was unhelpful. Whichever side of the exchange you and I have been on, the experience is deeply unsatisfactory. It always points to a deeper problem, undiagnosed by the counselor or unrecognized by the one in need.

Job’s three friends have traveled to show Job sympathy and to “comfort him” (2:11). We have seen that these friends share with Job the privilege of being men associated with wisdom and wise counsel. They are not just any old friends; they are counselors whose advice would naturally be sought. So when they sit for those terrible seven days and seven nights of silence, we know that something is wrong.

In chapter 3 Job breaks that silence with the most moving and passionately unsettled lament, spoken, it would seem, to himself more than to anyone else. But his friends are there listening. Or are they really listening? We will have reason to doubt that before long.

Eliphaz speaks first in all three cycles of speeches. Here is the man from Teman in Edom, renowned for its wisdom. Eliphaz is the senior friend, named first in 2:11 and summoned by the Lord as the representative of all three in 42:7.

He speaks kindly, courteously, and sensitively, as best he knows how. He is not pushy or aggressive but respectful. He compliments Job on his past. He seeks to get alongside Job, saying things like “if I were you” (which is the sense of 5:8), appealing with empathy. Sure, he counsels Job, but in the normal tone of the Wisdom Literature, the tone of voice we find all through Proverbs, for example. And yet he does no good.

We are going to listen as positively as we can to what Eliphaz has to say before asking ourselves what we can learn both from what he gets right and from what he gets wrong. If Eliphaz’s speech were a sermon, we might reasonably divide it into four points. “My dear friend Job,” he says, “I must speak to you. And I want to say four things. I want to encourage you to be consistent with what you and I both know to be true. I want to exhort you to be realistic about being mortal and human. I need to warn you to be humble and not try to be too clever. And I want to plead with you to be submissive to God’s discipline.”

Be Consistent [Job 4:1-11]

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said: “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking? Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” (4:1–6)

Eliphaz starts somewhat tentatively as Job sputters to a halt. He begins (v. 2) in essence, “Excuse me, but I wonder if I might get in a word edgewise. If someone does speak to you, are you going to be impatient, irritated, offended, fed up even before I get started? I hope not, for there are things that simply have to be said.”

He essentially goes on, “Listen a moment. I want to remind you that in the good old days you were a jolly good counselor yourself. Many people have been grateful for your advice.” Your words have strengthened many people in the past. “You know the words that need to be spoken to people, the right words, words that give instruction and wisdom. I remember how good you used to be at speaking such words to others, even to us.” It is as if Eliphaz gently rebukes him, “You comforted others, but you cannot comfort yourself.”

“But now [v. 5] hard times have come to you, and you are ‘impatient’ [the same word as in v. 2]; you are fed up, you will not listen properly, you get irritated. Suffering strikes you as the wind struck the house [cf. 1:19], and you will not heed all the good advice you have known for years and have given to others. If I may say so, you are being inconsistent.”

The point is that Job and Eliphaz start with exactly the same worldview. The advice that Eliphaz gives to Job is precisely the advice that Job would have given to Eliphaz had the shoe been on the other foot. Eliphaz is simply appealing to Job to be consistent with the worldview they both know and accept.

So what is this worldview? We have outlined it last week. Its contours will gradually come into view in this and subsequent speeches of the friends. Verse 6 begins to open it up. “Surely,” says Eliphaz, “you are a pious man, and you have integrity or blamelessness. The fact that you fear God and do so genuinely, with integrity, ought to give you confidence and hope as you look to the future.

You and I know that God rewards really pious people with blessings; that is how the universe works. There is moral order. God gives good things to good people. So many times have you said that to others, to encourage them. So what is all this about wishing you had never been conceived and born, about wishing you were dead, about speaking as if you have nothing to look forward to [3:3–26]? You know that must be nonsense, for you are a good person, and good things happen to good people. You must be consistent, dear friend.”

Then Eliphaz goes on to expand on why piety and integrity ought to give hope.

Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? (v. 7)

Verse 7 is a critical verse. Eliphaz says, “Listen to this key truth—give me one example of an innocent person who has died an untimely death, of a morally upright person who has been cut off from life in his prime. You can’t, can you? No, of course you can’t; it has never happened, and it never will.” This is, of course, an unfalsifiable claim, for it assumes what it seeks to prove. It is the kind of claim of which we may say, “Never let the evidence get in the way of a good theory.”

But it is the worldview of many morally serious religious persons. This is what the inhabitants of Malta were thinking when they saw a viper fasten itself to the Apostle Paul. What could they conclude from the fact that this man was about to be killed by a poisonous snake? “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live” (Acts 28:4). There was no doubt about this conclusion for these natives of Malta, just as there was no doubt for Eliphaz. If a person dies an untimely death, this proves that he cannot be morally upright.

I think the implication at this stage is that Job is pious and upright and therefore has grounds for hope. Eliphaz does not yet conclude that Job must be guilty. For now at least he is seeking to encourage Job.

He goes on to expand, from his own eyewitness evidence, on the foundational truth of verse 7:

As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed. (vv. 8–9)

“I have observed,” says Eliphaz, “that when people invest bad things in their lives, they get bad stuff out.” Using a familiar agricultural analogy, he speaks of the wicked plowing and sowing the seeds of sin in their lives. Just as a farmer sowing corn will not reap barley, so it is with moral actions: we reap what we sow. Paul says just the same in Galatians 6:7, and the Lord Jesus uses the same harvest language in Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43. The world is not a random place; actions have consequences, and the consequences correspond to the actions. What Eliphaz misses—and it is vital—is that the harvest is at the close of the age (Matthew 13:39) and not until then.

And it is not just an impersonal process, as the ideas of sowing and reaping might suggest. Rather (v. 9), this is the personal judgment of God. God is angry with sinners; it is as if he flares his nostrils (the word translated “anger” has this sense) and breathes out a gale of angry judgment on the wicked, so that they perish and are consumed. Eliphaz says he has observed this, but with what must be a very selective memory. He goes on to use a vivid metaphor of predatory wickedness:

The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,

the teeth of the young lions are broken.

The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,

and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. (vv. 10–11)

Five words for lion are used, either referring to different types of lions or to various stages of a lion’s development. The lion here is a picture of the wicked, just as David prays against the wicked, “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!” (Psalm 58:6). Although the wicked may roar like lions and prey on the righteous, their teeth will be broken, they will perish, and all the family of wickedness will be scattered. Eliphaz is saying, “That is called moral order, Job, and you know it. And I have observed it over many years.”

Eliphaz appeals, firmly but courteously, to Job to consistently hold to the firm convictions of a settled moral order that he shares (or shared) with Eliphaz and his friends. He also tells Job he needs to...

Be Realistic [Job 4:12-5:7]

But the tone changes in the next section. What follows is strange, even a bit spooky, where he mixes a philosophical religious system with a kind of mystical spirituality.

Now a word was brought to me secretly;

my ear received the whisper of it.

Amid thoughts from visions of the night,

when deep sleep falls on men,

dread came upon me, and trembling,

which made all my bones shake.

A spirit glided past my face;

the hair of my flesh stood up.

It stood still,

but I could not discern its appearance.

A form was before my eyes;

there was silence, then I heard a voice … (vv. 12–16)

The focus of this strange account is the message that follows in verse 17. But let us notice how it is introduced the message. A strange thing happens… Eliphaz says… “I want to tell you what happened to me, Job. I want to tell you about a message given specifically ‘to me,’ a supernatural message. It came to me secretly, in a ‘whisper’ so that I could hardly discern it. It happened in a deep sleep, it was frightening, a spirit glided past my face, and I heard a quiet voice. It’s an extraordinary build up…what’s the message? what does the voice say?

Can mortal man be in the right before God?

Can a man be pure before his Maker? (v. 17)

This is a remarkable anticlimax. We might have expected some specific revelation about Job and his secret sins or a heavenly revelation of the reason for his sufferings (perhaps an insight into the heavenly scenes of chapters 1, 2). Instead we get a general statement of a kind that would be the staple diet of the wisdom of Eliphaz’s tradition! What is at issue is whether or not it is possible for human beings to be in right relationship with God, to stand before God clean and pure in his presence.

And this is the critical question, which is echoed by Job’s questions: “… how can a man be in the right before God?” (9:2) or “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean [i.e., a mortal]?” (14:4). It is raised again by Eliphaz later—“What is man, that he can be pure? Or he that is born of woman, that he can be righteous?” (15:14)—and by Bildad—“How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?” (25:4). The implied answer from Eliphaz is, he cannot. There is no way that imperfect mortal human beings can stand clean and right in the presence of God. Nowhere on earth is there a man in the right with God. This is the answer of human religion.

But it is also Satan’s answer. The substance of Satan’s challenge in chapters 1, 2 is that no human being on earth is genuinely in the right with God. And so, quite unwittingly no doubt, and meaning well, Eliphaz becomes here the spokesman for Satan. This strange visionary word emanates not from the God of the Bible but from the enemy and the accuser of the brethren.

But we must let Eliphaz continue:

Even in his servants he puts no trust,

and his angels he charges with error;

how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed like the moth.

Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;

they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,

do they not die, and that without wisdom? (vv. 18–21)

Eliphaz backs up his implied answer of verse 17 by arguing that even the supernatural beings in the universe, the angels, are not clean in God’s sight! How much more we mortals, whose bodies are “houses of clay,” are fragile and transient (v. 19).

“So be realistic, Job, about your and my mortality. We are mortal, God is immortal, and the two will not meet. You must be realistic about this.”

Job 5:1–7 continues on this theme:

Call now; is there anyone who will answer you?

To which of the holy ones will you turn? (v. 1)

Eliphaz raises the question of whether there might be a supernatural, heavenly being who will mediate between unclean, dust-like mortals and the immortal God. He says this cannot be. Heaven is quite simply inaccessible to mortals. And yet in asking this, Eliphaz raises a question pregnant with hope for Job. He will later speak of “an arbiter” between him and God (9:33) and of a “witness … in heaven” who “testifies for me” (16:19). Elihu too will speak of “a mediator” (33:23).

Surely vexation kills the fool,

and jealousy slays the simple. (v. 2)

“So,” says Eliphaz, “there is no point getting all hot and bothered about it all, and specifically about what has happened to you. That would be foolish, to be a hothead, impulsive.” The word “jealousy” in verse 2b has the sense of an angry, vexed kicking against what has happened to one. These are “burning, angry emotions only motivate one to erratic behaviour.” “Don’t be like that, Job,” Eliphaz is saying, “for it would be foolish. And you and I (as wise men) know what happens to fools.”

I have seen the fool taking root,

but suddenly I cursed his dwelling.

His children are far from safety;

they are crushed in the gate,

and there is no one to deliver them.

The hungry eat his harvest,

and he takes it even out of thorns,

and the thirsty pant after his wealth. (vv. 3–5)

Again Eliphaz appeals to his eyewitness experience. “I have seen what happens when fools, people who get hot and bothered about injustice in the world and that kind of thing, appear to be settled and secure. They don’t stay that way for long.” Verse 3b is unlikely to mean that Eliphaz wished a curse directly on the home of the fool (as the ESV implies). More likely it means either that he declared it to be cursed(he said, as a wise man, that the fool would not last) or that he observed that the fool’s home was cursed.

Either way Eliphaz observes that bad things happen to people who get ideas above their station so far as God is concerned. “Be warned, Job, and don’t be like that.” Disaster comes to the fool. This is what happens to fools, who are unrealistic about being mortal and get ideas above themselves.

For affliction does not come from the dust,

nor does trouble sprout from the ground,

but man is born to trouble

as the sparks fly upward. (vv. 6, 7)

Verses 6, 7 are not easy to read. They may mean (as in the ESV and NIV) that troubles don’t just appear from nowhere (the ground) but are the result of human sinfulness. Just as sparks defy gravity and fly upward, so human sin leads to terrible sufferings, sufferings that were not what God originally intended for the world. Or it could be implying that humans are born into trouble because the world is under a curse due to the fall, therefore trouble is unavoidable…I think we could agree on both. This warning not to get ideas above ourselves leads naturally to the third thing that Eliphaz says to Job.

Be humble [Job 5:8-16]

In verses 8–16 Eliphaz begins to give Job his clear advice.

As for me, I would seek God,

and to God would I commit my cause,

who does great things and unsearchable,

marvelous things without number:

he gives rain on the earth

and sends waters on the fields;

he sets on high those who are lowly,

and those who mourn are lifted to safety. (vv. 8–11)

The God whom Eliphaz exhorts Job to seek is a beautiful and wonderful God in many ways. He is the God who gives water to enable crops to grow (v. 10); he is the God who lifts up humble and lowly people (v. 11). But he is also the God we cannot understand (v. 9): he does many things, and we cannot search them out and understand them. So let’s not try to be too clever and arrogantly think we can be wiser than God.

He frustrates the devices of the crafty,

so that their hands achieve no success.

He catches the wise in their own craftiness,

and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.

They meet with darkness in the daytime

and grope at noonday as in the night.

But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth

and from the hand of the mighty.

So the poor have hope,

and injustice shuts her mouth. (vv. 12–16)

There are in the world all sorts of “crafty” people (v. 12), taking after the serpent of Genesis 3:1, full of schemes (what they plan to do with “their hands”). They think they can out think God and be wiser than God. But God will always frustrate their schemes. Indeed (v. 13) “he catches the wise in their own craftiness”; this is the only saying from Job that is clearly quoted in the New Testament, by Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:19 (alongside a parallel quote from Psalm 94:11, ESV margin). It is perhaps surprising that Paul should quote as a true and authoritative statement something said by one of Job’s comforters! And yet he does.

And he does so because the statement is true; it is one of the many true things that Eliphaz and his two friends will say. God does trip up men and women who try to be too clever for their own good. Eliphaz thinks that Job is in danger of doing that, and so he warns him. “Don’t do that,” he says, “for the end for such people is that just when they think all is clear [“daytime … noonday”] they find they cannot understand what is happening at all, and they are walking in darkness [v. 14]. But, by contrast [vv. 15, 16] God reaches down to the humble who depend upon him and rescues them. So be humble, and don’t try to be too clever.”

Be Submissive [Job 5:17-27]

Following his theme of humility, Eliphaz concludes with a moving and beautiful appeal to Job to submit himself to the loving disciplines of God.

Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;

therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.

For he wounds, but he binds up;

he shatters, but his hands heal.

He will deliver you from six troubles;

in seven no evil shall touch you. (vv. 17–19)

The blessing pronounced by Eliphaz is the blessing echoed repeatedly in the book of Proverbs and reinforced by the letter to the Hebrews. God disciplines those he loves for their own good. “This,” Eliphaz implies, “is what God is doing with you, Job. I want to exhort you to believe that there is a blessing coming and to hold on to that in hope. Don’t despair. For the God who disciplines will bind up your wounds and heal your brokenness [v. 18, very much as in Hosea 6:1 or Deuteronomy 32:39]. Even if you have six troubles or seven [the idiom speaks of completeness, the full range and entirety of human troubles], you will not finally be scarred by them but will be fully rescued.”

He goes on to spell out some of the dimensions of those possible troubles.

In famine he will redeem you from death,

and in war from the power of the sword.

You shall be hidden from the lash of the tongue,

and shall not fear destruction when it comes. (vv. 20, 21)

Famine and siege warfare go together (v. 20), and then (v. 21) there is false accusation and threats (“the lash of the tongue”) and “destruction.” “God will hide you from these, as he did with Lot in the cave while Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and as he did with Noah in the ark.”

At destruction and famine you shall laugh,

and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,

and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you.

You shall know that your tent is at peace,

and you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing.

You shall know also that your offspring shall be many,

and your descendants as the grass of the earth.

You shall come to your grave in ripe old age,

like a sheaf gathered up in its season. (vv. 22–26)

Verses 22–26 give a lovely picture of the blessing of God, protecting his beloved from what we would call natural and supernatural disasters. “The stones of the field” in verse 23 are a way of speaking of agricultural troubles. In the song of Isaiah 5, the vineyard owner clears the vineyard of stones (Isaiah 5:2). In 2 Kings 3 covering fields with stones is a deliberate act of war (2 Kings 3:19, 25). So to be “in league with” (v. 23a; literally, to “have a covenant with”) the stones is to be “at peace” with what we loosely call Nature, as a consequence of being at peace with God. It is what in Israel later would come to be associated with covenant blessings (e.g. Deuteronomy 27, 28).

In addition, there will be peace on the farm, in the family, and in one’s own body. There will no farm animals missing (v. 24b); there will be many children and grandchildren (v. 25). All of this is beautiful to describe but must have come as a succession of cruel barbs into Job’s heart. He has lost his farm, his animals, his offspring, and his health. None of these blessings are for him, or so it would seem.

There is an irony here, for Eliphaz encourages Job to fear God for exactly the reason the Satan said he had always feared God—for the rewards of piety rather than because God is God.

Behold, this we have searched out; it is true.

Hear, and know it for your good. (v. 27)

Eliphaz concludes with what he believes is good counsel… so...

What’s wrong with Eliphaz’s counsel?

It is a powerful, persuasive and in some ways beautiful sermon, is it not? “My friend Job, whom I love enough to travel with my friends to bring you sympathy and comfort, I want to bring you all the resources of comfort and wisdom known to the world of the morally upright and religious. You know these truths, for you have taught them to others many times. I want gently to encourage you to be consistent with your beliefs, to be realistic about our mortal condition, to be humble and not get ideas above yourself, and gladly to submit to the loving discipline of a good God.”

What is wrong with exhorting Job to be consistent, realistic, humble, and submissive to God? What is wrong with preaching to him a sermon that is quoted with approval by the Apostle Paul?

The problem is that Job’s experience is extreme. Job’s experience was much greater than what is normal for human experience, and he was brought down much lower than is normal for human experience. Although we sometimes like to think we are like Job, we are not often like him at all. He was richer than we will ever be, greater, finer, and nobler. And he became poorer, much poorer, than we will ever be and was brought down into depths of destitution, multiple bereavement, and chronic, isolating sickness that we know only in part.

Both his greatness and his fall speak of a suffering that will ultimately be fulfilled in one unique event in history. Only one human being in history was greater than Job, and only one human being suffered more intensely than he, and utterly without humanly justified cause. Job’s sufferings are not the loving discipline of God. Job is not a morally upright man who has embraced ideas above his station. Job is a believer. Job is in the right before God ultimately by faith in the Christ who was to come, as was Abraham the patriarch.

So Job’s experience can only begin to be comprehended in the light of the cross of Christ. When as Christians we suffer in part as Job suffered, we do so only as those who are in some strange way filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, as Paul referred to in Colossians 1:24.

Christian sufferings are in part a taking up of the cross, a sharing in unjust suffering, a participation in the sufferings of Christ in order that glory and honor may be brought to God on the day of Christ.

Without the cross of Christ Job cannot be understood. This is Eliphaz’s mistake. He and his friends will give us the best that the wisdom of the world can offer, the cream of the wisdom crop that comes from morality and human religion. But without the cross it makes no final sense. Without the cross it’s just innocent suffering.

It is worth pausing to explore this idea of Christians filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, what did Paul mean by that?. We begin to answer that by asking about the connection between sin and suffering.

Suffering, which is an anticipation of death, is God’s just penalty for sin—not necessarily individually but corporately (Romans 5:12). For the unbeliever, every suffering is a foretaste of final judgment and a warning of the horrors of Hell, to which they are heading if they do not repent. When some men asked Jesus about an atrocity, he warned without compromise that unless his hearers repented, these deaths were a foretaste of what they too would have to face (Luke 13:1–5).

But what about the believer? All the sins of the believer have been borne by the Savior; he has paid the penalty and has borne the wrath for every one of their sins, conscious and unconscious, past, present, and future. It follows, therefore, that no suffering of believers can possibly be a punishment for their sin. In the light of the cross, it is all undeserved.

Of course we deserve it by nature, for by nature we are objects of God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:3). However, we are no longer considered “by nature” but as objects of grace. Logically, therefore, we might expect that Christians ought never to suffer, and this is pretty much what the prosperity gospel teaches. Christ has taken upon himself not only our sin, this view says, but our illnesses and diseases (Matthew 8:17).

And yet Christians do suffer, and Paul makes so bold as to describe his own sufferings as “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). We are to suffer with Christ if we hope to be glorified with him (Romans 8:17). There is in Christian discipleship a fellowship or sharing in Christ’s sufferings and a becoming like Christ in his death (Philippians 3:10).

As one commentator said, All this is undeserved, for our sin is paid for and all its entailments covered by the cross. And yet it is necessary. Although our sufferings are not payments for anybody’s sin (that was entirely covered by Christ), they are necessary and have the character of redemptive suffering in the sense that they are a part of God’s redemptive plan to bring the gospel to a needy world.

They are “for the sake of the elect” (2 Timothy 2:10). To understand this enables us both to see Job’s sufferings as a foreshadowing of the ultimate sufferings of Christ and also to see them as continuing in the sufferings of Christians.

Ultimately any counsel that is devoid of the cross will be discouraging and hurtful. Eliphaz has kind intentions, but the impact of his counsel is deeply painful for Job. As Job listens to the blessings outlined by Eliphaz, it cannot escape his attention that he himself has been deprived of them all.

Since the message of Eliphaz is a message of piety and religion rather than the gospel of grace, Job will be driven to despair if he believes it. Any message other than the gospel of the cross will ultimately lead suffering men and women to despair. Only the gospel of the cross can bring true comfort.

Eliphaz says that God “catches the wise in their own craftiness” (5:13). Paul agrees. But the point that Paul makes is that, paradoxically, those who are wise like Eliphaz are reaching beyond themselves. The wisdom of Eliphaz and his friends is turned into foolishness by God, and the foolish things that Job is going to say will, at the end of the day, be fraught with surprising gospel wisdom.