Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 4:8
Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
8. even as I have seen ] Rather, as I have seen. The words might be also rendered, when I saw those that ploughed iniquity they reaped it. Eliphaz draws a distinction between two classes of men, on both of whom affliction may come the righteous, who may no doubt sin and be chastised for their sin, but who do not perish under their chastisements (see ch. Job 5:17 seq.), and the wicked, whose sinning is, so to speak, a business which they practise as the tiller ploughs and sows his field, and whose harvest is unfailing. The words iniquity and wickedness may mean also affliction and trouble. The two pairs of things correspond to one another. That which the wicked plough and cast into the ground may be iniquity and wickedness, they reap it in the form of affliction and trouble. For the figure comp. Hos 8:7; Hos 10:13.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8 27. Third, surely instead of despairing and murmuring under his afflictions Job should follow a very different way. I, says Eliphaz, putting himself in Job’s place, would seek unto God, all whose doings are directed to the saving of the meek and disappointing the devices of the evil. When He smites, He smites only that He may the more profoundly heal. Happy should the man count himself whom God corrects. for his correction is meant to awaken him out of his dream of evil and lead him into a broader, clearer life, rich in blessings, and to be crowned with a ripe and peaceful end.
This beautiful speech consists of three parts, of which the first contains a single division, ch. Job 4:1-11; the second, two divisions, ch. Job 4:12-21, and ch. Job 5:1-7; and so also the third, ch. Job 5:8-16, and ch. Job 5:17-27.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Even as I have seen – Eliphaz appeals to his own observation, that people who had led wicked lives were suddenly cut off. Instances of this kind he might doubtless have observed – as all may have done. But his inference was too broad when he concluded that all the wicked are punished in this manner. It is true that wicked people are thus cut off and perish; but it is not true that all the wicked are thus punished in this life, nor that any of the righteous are not visited with similar calamities. His reasoning was of a kind that is common in the world – that of drawing universal conclusions from premises that are too narrow to sustain them, or from too few carefully observed facts.
They that plow iniquity – This is evidently a proverbial expression; and the sense is, that as people sow they reap. If they sow wheat, they reap wheat; if barley, they reap barley; if tares, they reap tares. Thus, in Pro 22:8 :
He that soweth iniquity shall reap also vanity.
So in Hos 8:7 :
For they have sown the wind,
And they shall reap the whirlwind:
It hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal
If so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up
Thus, in the Persian adage:
He that planteth thorns shall not gather roses.
Dr. Good.
So Aeschylus:
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Ates aroura thanaton ekkarpizetai.
The field of wrong brings forth death as its fruit.
The meaning of Eliphaz is, that people who form plans of wickedness must reap appropriate fruits. They cannot expect that an evil life will produce ultimate happiness.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 4:8-9
Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
Sowing and reaping
Eliphaz speaks of himself here as an observer of Gods providence; and the result of his observations is, the discernment of the law, that they who plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same. Was Eliphas wrong in this? No. He perceived a very great and important law of the kingdom. Where, then, was he wrong? It was in applying this to Job, and in so easily concluding that his severe sufferings were the consequence of his own individual sins. The friends often expressed most beautiful and important truths, and only failed because they misapplied them. For this law, compare Hos 8:7; Hos 10:12-13; Gal 6:7-8. We see the operation of this law in the natural world. There, in that world, as people sow, so they reap; nor do they ever expect it to be otherwise. But in the moral and spiritual world, nothing is more common than to meet with those who sow iniquity, and yet do not expect to reap of the same, either in this world or in the world to come. Men do not expect any consequences to follow a life of carelessness and impenitence. It may be that you have seen solemn and affecting instances of the operation of this law; if not, ministers of Christ will tell you that they have seen them only too often. They have seen those who have lived careless and self-indulgent lives struggle at last in vain. The hardened heart was but the fulfilment of the solemn law of Gods kingdom. Amongst the many ways of sowing to the flesh, there is one which we cannot omit. It is the indulgence of pride and self-confident feelings. St. Paul speaks of sowing to the Spirit. In which way have you been sowing? Do you wish to escape the consequences–the harvest of misery–which, in the very nature of things, will follow your sowing to the flesh? Through grace you may do it. (George Wagner.)
An old axiom
There was truth underlying the proposition set forth by Eliphaz, applicable to all ages and states of the world. The axiom is a very old one as propounded by Jobs expostulator; it may have been older than he; but it is not so old now as to have become obsolete; nor will it ever become so while the world is the same world, and its Governor is the same God. As St. Paul reproduced it in his day, so may we in ours. Its principle is incorporated with this dispensation as much as with the last. It is its application that is modified under the Gospel; the principle is just the same. It is as true now as it was of old time, that men reap as they sow; that the harvest of their recompense is according to the agriculture of their actions. The difference in the truth, as propounded during the age of Moses, and as recognised in the days of the Son of Man, is, that during the latter, its confirmation and realisation are thrown further forward. The distinction is indicated by the respective forms into which the axiom is cast by Eliphaz and St. Paul. The one saith, They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. The other, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Eliphaz makes both portions of this moral process, present, palpable, perspicuous. The apostle severs the two; projecting the latter portion into the future. With the Jew, this truth was a fact of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. With us, it is rather a matter of faith for the future, the far off, the eternal. Eliphaz states the subject in accordance with the order of the past dispensation; as doth St. Paul with the genius of this. In the eyes of the ancient Israelite, the doctrine of Divine retribution was like some mountain of his native country, which upreared its brow close over against him, overshadowing him whithersoever he went; its rugged aspect being all the more sharply defined through the sunshine of temporal prosperity in which his nation reposed, so long as the people were obedient unto the voice of the Lord their God. As to us, the mountain is in the distance; far away, as Sinai itself is, from many a shore on which the standard of the Redeemers Cross hath been planted; but visible in the distance still, though its outline be rendered indistinct in the twilight of that mystery which now encompasseth Gods government of our world. At the period when Eliphaz reasoned, a state of things had just been inaugurated, under which, as a rule, retribution of a temporal kind was to follow every transgression and disobedience; when punishment was to be contemporaneous with the commission of crime; and when a man would begin to reap the fruit of his deeds shortly after his sowing. And the reasoner could not understand how the patriarch, or anyone else, could be an exception to the rule; still less, that a state of things inaugurated by both the teaching and the history of Jesus Christ, under which the rule itself would become the exception, was to succeed. That was a state under which God judged men for their sins continually and instantaneously; this a state under which God is not judging them; seeing He hath appointed a day in which He will judge them by that Man whom He hath ordained; through whose intercession at the right hand of the Father, judgment is at present suspended. Now it is our consolation to know that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth; then the man whom the Lord chastened, He might have had a controversy with, and was visiting for his misdeeds. (Alfred Bowen Evans.)
Is the old axiom true still
1. It is so far true as to assure us that there is a righteous Governor and a just Judge of the world. We cannot apply the rule laid down by Eliphaz. It is a rule to us no longer. We have no right to fix upon any individual or nation upon earth, and to affirm that Almighty God is dealing with the one or the other in a way of retribution, because they may be suffering such and such things. But, notwithstanding this, there is a principle at work in the affairs of men, so far manifest as to show that the world is not left to take its chance, and that the children of men cannot do as they please.
2. It is so far true as it hath respect to the natural constitutions of men. Men cannot transgress the principles of their nature with impunity, nor run counter to the rules of their constitution unharmed. Nature is not to be trifled with. And the retribution that followeth the violation of physical laws is a sure pledge of a retribution that will follow the infringement of moral.
3. It is true so far as to obviate the necessity of our ever taking vengeance into our own hands. God repayeth that we need not. Vengeance is His, that it may not be ours. It has been said, God avengeth those that do not avenge themselves.
4. It is true so far as to inspire us with a salutary fear for ourselves. There is to be a resurrection of action as well as of agents; of deeds as well as of doers; of works as well as of men. And we know not how soon, as to some of its details, this resurrection may take place. The transgressor is never safe. Whatsoever wrong any man hath done may be required of him at any time. (Alfred Bowen Evans.)
The life of the sinner a foolish agriculture
I. Human life is a sowing and a reaping. All the actions of a mans life are inseparable, united by the law of causation. One grows out of another as plants out of seed. The sowing and the reaping, strange to say, go on at the same time. In reaping what we sowed yesterday, we sow what we shall have to reap tomorrow.
II. Lifes reaping is determined by its sowing. I have seen, they that plow iniquity, etc. Like begets like everywhere, the same species of seed sown will be reaped in fruit. He that soweth hemlock will not reap wheat, but crops of hemlock. All moral actions are moral seeds deposited in the soul.
III. The reaping of the sinner is a terrible destiny. What a destiny this: to be reaping wickedness, to be reaping whirlwinds of agony. From this subject learn–
1. The great solemnity of life. There is nothing trifling. The most volatile sin is a seed that must grow, and must be reaped. Take care!
2. The conscious rectitude of the sinners doom. What is hell? Reaping the fruit of sinful conduct. The sinner feels this, and his conscience will not allow him to complain of his fate.
3. The necessity for a godly heart. All actions and words proceed from the heart: out of it are the issues of life. Hence the necessity of regeneration. (Homilist.)
Sinful sowing and penal reaping
1. That to be a wicked man is no easy task; he must go to plough for it. It is ploughing, and you know ploughing is laborious, yea, it is hard labour.
2. That there is an art in wickedness. It is ploughing, or, as the word imports, an artificial working. Some are curious and exact in shaping, polishing, and setting off their sin. So to say such a man is an abomination worker, or a lie maker, notes him not only industrious, but crafty, or (as the prophet speaks) wise to do evil.
3. That wicked men expect benefit in ways of sin, and look to be gainers by being evil-doers. They make iniquity their plough; and a mans plough is so much his profit, that it is grown into a proverb, to call that (whatsoever it is) by which a man makes his living or his profit, his plough. Every man tills in expectation of a crop; who would put his plough into the ground to receive nothing? It is even so with wicked men, when they are stoning, they think themselves thriving, or laying up that in the earth a while, which will grow and increase to a plentiful harvest. What strange fancies have many to be rich, to be great, by ways of wickedness! Thus they plough in hope, but they shall never be partakers of their hope.
4. That every sinful act persisted in shall have a certain sorrowful reward.
5. That the punishment of sin may come long after the committing of sin. The one is the seedtime, and the other a reaping time; there is a great distance of time between sowing and reaping. The seeds of sin may lie many years under the furrows.
6. That the punishment of sin shall be proportionable to the degrees of sin. He shall reap the same, saith the text, the same in degree. If ye sow sparingly, ye shall reap sparingly; on the other side, if ye sow plentifully, ye shall reap plentifully.
7. Punishment shall not exceed the desert of sin.
8. That the punishment of sin shall be like the sin in kind. It shall be the same, not only in degree, but also in likeness. Punishment often bears the image and superscription of sin upon it. You may see the fathers face and feature in the child. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Gal 6:7). (J. Caryl.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. They that plough iniquity] A proverbial form of speech drawn from nature. Whatever seed a man sows in the ground, he reaps the same kind; for every seed produces its like. Thus Solomon, Pr 22:8: “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity.” And St. Paul, Ga 6:7-8: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he who soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” And of the same nature is that other saying of the apostle, He that soweth sparingly, shall reap sparingly, 2Co 9:6.
The same figure is employed by the Prophet Hosea Ho 8:7: They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind; and Ho 10:12-13: Sow to yourselves in righteousness; reap in mercy. Ye have ploughed wickedness; ye have reaped iniquity. The last sentence contains, not only the same image, but almost the same words as those used by Eliphaz.
Our Lord expresses the same thing, in the following words: Mt 7:16-18: Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. So the Greeks: –
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Aesch. , ver. 607.
“The field of iniquity produces the fruit of death.”
, .
IB. , ver. 823.
“For oppression, when it springs,
Puts forth the blade of vengeance; and its fruit
Yields a ripe harvest of repentant wo.” – POTTER.
The image is common every where because it is a universal law of nature.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As thou hast never seen any example of a righteous man cut off, so on the contrary I have seen many examples of wicked men cut off for their wickedness. Or, As far as I have observed; or, But as I have seen or experienced.
They that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness; they that designedly and industriously work wickedness, first plotting and preparing themselves for it, and then continuing to pursue and execute it, as husbandmen first plough up and prepare the ground, and then cast in the seed. Compare Pro 22:8; Hos 10:13.
Reap the same, i.e. iniquity, or such trouble or injury (for so also the Hebrew word avert signifies) as they cause to others. Or, the fruit of their iniquity, the just recompence and punishment of it, which is oft called sin or iniquity, as Gen 4:7; Num 12:2; 16:26; 32:23. Compare Gal 6:7,8.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. they that plough iniquity . . .reap the same (Pro 22:8;Hos 8:7; Hos 10:13;Gal 6:7; Gal 6:8).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Even as I have seen,…. Here he goes about to prove, by his own experience, the destruction of wicked men; and would intimate, that Job was such an one, because of the ruin he was fallen into:
they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same; figurative expressions, denoting that such who devise iniquity in their hearts, form and plan schemes of it in their minds, signified by “plowing iniquity”, and who were studious and diligent to put into practice what they devised; who took a great deal of pains to commit sin, and were constant at it, expressed by “sowing wickedness”: these sooner or later eat the fruit of their doings, are punished in proportion to their crimes, even in this life, as well as hereafter, see Ho 8:7 Ga 6:7; though a Jewish commentator b observes, that the thought of sin is designed by the first phrase; the endeavour to bring it into action by the second; and the finishing of the work, or the actual commission of the evil, by the third; the punishment thereof being what is expressed in Job 4:9; the Targum applies this to the generation of the flood.
b R. Simeon Bar Tzemach.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(8) They that plow iniquity.Comp. Gal. 6:7-8; and comp. also the strange expression of Isa. 5:18.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Even as ( so far as) they that plough iniquity A principle profoundly true, everywhere a matter of observation, and often expressed in a like figure. The error of Eliphaz is, that he perverts it. He makes great suffering an evidence and a measure of personal sin. He intimates that all suffering is the harvest of wrong doing, which was not true, for instance, in the case of Job. He is right when he says that all sin will sooner or later be punished; he is wrong when he reasons that the individual can have no suffering that does not spring from his own sins. Illustrations abound. Thus AEschylus:
Nothing worse,
In whatever cause, than impious fellowship;
Nothing of good is reaped: for when the field
Is sown with wrong, the ripen’d fruit is death.
Cicero cites a Latin proverb, “As you sow you will reap.” De Orat., 2:94. The Institutes of Manu teach the Hindu that all diseases are the punishment of past offences, and they assign a particular disease to each particular crime. Chap. 11. The teaching of the sacred books of the Chinese would, perhaps, be more readily accepted by Eliphaz: “The good or evil which Heaven sends to men depends upon their virtue.” Shoo-King, IV, ch. 4. Striking instances might be adduced in illustration of the thought that to the very field where iniquity was perpetrated retribution often comes. The grandson of Ahab is himself slain by treachery in the portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. 2Ki 9:25-26. Hoffman was the first to remark, that, according to Act 1:18, Judas must have met his end in the very field he bought with the price of a Saviour’s blood. All sin is seminal. Seed of every kind carries within itself the germ, and as some say the form, of the future growth. Sin is essentially retributive. It embodies the elements of retribution. Change of place and lapse of time do not affect their vitality. “Sin ( peccasse) is the first and greatest punishment of those that sin. Nor is any wickedness unpunished: since in wickedness is the punishment of wickedness.” SENECA, Epist, 97.
Job 4:8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
Ver. 8. Even as I have seen ] And therefore can boldly say: for what so sure as sight? See Num 11:23 Gen 34:1-2 . Diligent inspection of a thing, and deep consideration upon it, makes confidence, which is the fruit of experience.
That they plow iniquity, and sow wickedness
And sow wickedness
Reap the same they that plow: Psa 7:14-16, Pro 22:8, Jer 4:18, Hos 8:7, Hos 10:12, Hos 10:13, 2Co 9:6, Gal 6:7, Gal 6:8
Reciprocal: Job 15:31 – for vanity Job 21:27 – I know Psa 7:15 – and is Pro 1:31 – General Pro 24:30 – went Isa 17:11 – the harvest Jer 2:17 – Hast thou Mic 7:13 – for Zep 3:3 – princes
Job 4:8. Even as I have seen, &c. As thou hast never seen any example of a righteous man cut off, so I have seen many of wicked men cut off for their wickedness. They that plough, &c. They that designedly work wickedness, first preparing themselves for it, and then continuing to execute it, as husbandmen first plough the ground, and then cast in the seed. See the margin. In other words, the observation I have made of such persons is, they are so far from reaping any advantage from their iniquitous practices, that those practices return on their own heads, and their sinful schemes and contrivances recoil wholly on themselves.
4:8 Even as I have seen, they that {e} plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.
(e) They who do evil cannot but receive evil.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes