Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 22:4
Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?
4. God’s treatment of men being for their sakes and according to what they are, it is inconceivable that He should chastise them for their piety.
for fear of thee ] Rather, for thy (godly) fear, thy piety; comp. ch. Job 4:6, Job 15:4 for this use of the word fear by Eliphaz. The words scarcely contain the idea that if God derived advantage from men’s piety He might be supposed to afflict them in order to increase their godliness (Ew.). The simple thought is that man’s conduct does not affect God. If God deals with man it is on account of man himself. Can it be supposed then that God would afflict a man because he is pious? ( Job 22:4). This is too extravagant a suggestion, therefore if Job is afflicted it is for his sins ( Job 22:5). Job 22:4 forms a mere foreground to Job 22:5 seq., in order to suggest by contrast the real cause of Job’s calamities.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? – Or, rather, will he come into trial, and argue his cause before a tribunal, because he is afraid that his character will suffer, or because he feels himself bound to appear, and answer to the charges which may be brought? The language is all taken from courts of justice, and the object is, to reprove Job as if he felt that it was necessary that God should appear and answer to what he alleged against him.
Will he enter with thee into judgment? – Will he condescend to enter on a trial with one like thee? Will he submit his cause to a trial with man, as if he were an equal, or as if man had any right to such an investigation? It is to be remembered, that Job had repeatedly expressed a desire to carry his cause before God, and that God would meet him as an equal, and not take advantage of his majesty and power to overwhelm him; see Job 13:3, note; Job 13:20-21, notes. Eliphaz here asks, whether God could be expected to meet a man, one of his own creatures, in this manner, and to go into a trial of the cause. He says that God was supreme; that no one could bring him into court; and that he could not be restrained from doing his pleasure by any dread of man. These sentiments are all noble and correct, and worthy of a sage. Soon, however, he changes the style, and utters the language of severe reproach, because Job had presumed to make such a suggestion. Perhaps, also, in this verse, a special emphasis should be placed on thee. Will God enter into trial with thee … a man whose wickedness is so great, and whose sin is infinite? Job 22:4-5.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. For fear of thee?] Is it because he is afraid that thou wilt do him some injury, that he has stripped thee of thy power and wealth?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Will, or doth, or
would he reprove thee, i.e. punish thee? For this word is frequently used of real rebukes or chastisements, as hath been oft noted.
For fear of thee; because he is afraid, lest if he should let thee alone, thou wouldst grow too great and powerful for him, as princes ofttimes crush those subjects of whom they are afraid. Surely no. As thy righteousness cannot profit him, so thy wickedness can do him no hurt. Or, for thy piety or religion, which is commonly called by the name of fear. Doth he punish thee because thou fearest and servest him, as thou dost insinuate? No surely, but for thy sins, as it follows.
Will he enter with thee into judgment, and condemn thee? to wit, for the reason last mentioned, as appears from the Hebrew text, where the words lie thus, Will he for fear of thee
reprove thee, or
enter with thee into judgment?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Is the punishment inflictedon thee from fear of thee, in order to disarm thee? as Job hadimplied (see on Job 7:12; Job7:20; and Job 10:17).
will he enter . . . intojudgment?Job had desired this (Job 13:3;Job 13:21). He ought rather tohave spoken as in Ps 143:2.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Will he reprove thee for fear of thee?…. That is, chastise, correct, and afflict, for fear that hurt should be done unto him; no, he will not; for as the goodness of men does not profit him, the sinfulness of men does not hurt him, see Job 35:6. Kings and civil magistrates sometimes chastise offenders, not only to do justice to them, but through fear of them, lest, if spared or connived at, they should be hurtful to the state, and overturn it; but though sin is an act of hostility against God, and strikes at his being and government, yet he is in no fear of being ruined or dethroned, or of having his government taken out of his hands, and therefore does not chastise men on that account: or “for thy fear” m, for thy fear of God, thy piety; or “for thy religion”, as Mr. Broughton translates the word. Job had often suggested that good men, such that truly feared God, are afflicted by him, and therefore his own afflictions were no objection to his character, as a man that feared God, and eschewed evil, Job 1:1; and in this sense Eliphaz uses the word, Job 4:6; and here he intimates, as if, according to the notion of Job, that God afflicted him, and other good men, because they feared him, and which he observes, as a great absurdity; whereas, on the contrary, he chastised him for his sins, as Job 22:5 shows; but though God does not afflict men for their goodness, but for sins, yet they are only such that fear him, and whom he loves, that he chastises in a fatherly way, see Heb 12:6;
will he enter with thee into judgment? that is, will he, in reverence to thee, out of respect to so great a person (speaking ironically), in condescension to one of so much consequence, will he regard thy request, so often made, as to come into judgment with thee, and to admit of thy cause being pleaded before him, and to give the hearing of it, and decide the affair in controversy? or rather, will he not plead against thee, and condemn thee for thy sins, as follow? in this sense it is to be deprecated, and not desired, see Ps 143:2.
m “an de religione tua”, Junius Tremellius “ob timorem tuum”, so some in Drusius; “num ob pietatem tuam”, others in Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) Will he reprove thee.That is, Because He standeth in awe of thee. Will He justify his dealings with thee?
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. For fear of thee For (the sake of) thy fear, (Job 4:6; Job 15:4.) “A genuine Eliphazian word,” not artificially “assigned him by the poet,” as Ewald holds. Will he reprove thee, ( punish thee, Ewald,) that he may get gain by thy worship and piety? What advantage would it be to him to answer thy summons to trial? A judicial phrase. Job 9:32; Job 13:3; Job 13:22. No, if he reprove it must be on account of sin, which thought paves the way to the conclusion.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 22:4. Will he reprove thee Will he dispute with thee concerning thy religion? Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 22:4 Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?
Ver. 4. Will he reprove thee for fear of thee? ] Doth he plague and punish thee thus, for fear that in time thou mayest grow so overly good, that he cannot reward thee, or so overly great, that he cannot command thee? No such matter. Others read it thus: Would he reprove thee for thy religion? Vox timoris sire religionis active sumitur, &c. (Merlin), Would he come into judgment with thee? q.d. Surely God would not deal thus harshly with thee if thou didst truly fear him; but thou art a wicked wretch, as Job 22:5 . Either God punisheth thee for thy piety or thy sinfulness. Not for the former, doubtless (for piety is profitable to all things, &c.), therefore for the latter. This is Eliphaz’s argument here. But Austin makes answer (besides what Job doth in the two following chapters), Tract. in Joan. 124, God chastiseth his best children sometimes for his own glory, as Joh 9:3 , sometimes for their good; as, namely, for prevention, probation, purgation, preparation, either to the performance of some special service or to the receipt of some special blessing, &c., Vel ad demonstrationem debitae miseriae, vel ad emendationem labilis vitae, vel ad exercitationem necessariae patientiae.
Will he enter with thee into judgment?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 22:4-11
Job 22:4-11
THAT LIST OF SPECIFIC SINS WHICH ELIPHAZ CHARGED TO JOB
“Is it for thy fear of him that he reproveth thee,
That he entereth with thee into judgment?
Is not thy wickedness great?
Neither is there any end to thine iniquities.
For thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for naught,
And stripped the naked of their clothing.
Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink,
And thou hast witholden bread from the hungry.
And as for the mighty man, he had the earth:
And the honorable man, he dwelt in it.
Thou hast sent widows away empty,
And the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
Therefore snares are round about thee,
And sudden fear troubleth thee,
Or darkness, so that thou canst not see,
And abundance of waters cover thee.”
Eliphaz here was sailing through the wicked imaginations of his own heart. Job was guilty of none of these things. The envy and hatred he had for the former estate of Job as a mighty man of wealth and power appear here in the specifics of these imagined sins of Job. They were precisely the things that were usually charged against the rich by those who were envious of them or hated them.
“Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for naught” (Job 22:6). “The law required that a garment taken as a pledge had to be returned before sundown (Deu 24:10-13).”
“The mighty man, he had the earth” (Job 22:8) “This is an oblique reference to Job as an arrogant land-grabber who dispossessed his weaker neighbors.”
“Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee” (Job 22:1). “The very things that Bildad had predicted concerning the wicked in a general sense (Job 18:8-11) were here applied specifically to Job.”[ The thrust of the words of Eliphaz here was the blunt allegation that, you are getting exactly the punishment that your inhuman sins deserve.
E.M. Zerr:
Job 22:4-5. God will not argue with man in order to get him to do right, yet Job ought to repent of his wickedness.
Job 22:6-10. Since Job denied being guilty of any specific sin, Eliphaz named a number of them as suggestions in hope that he would admit them.
Job 22:11-14. Eliphaz implied that Job was making his claim of innocence because he did not really know how great and wise the Lord is.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
reprove: Psa 39:11, Psa 76:6, Psa 80:16, Rev 3:19
for fear: Job 7:12
will he enter: Job 9:19, Job 9:32, Job 14:3, Job 16:21, Job 23:6, Job 23:7, Job 34:23, Psa 130:3, Psa 130:4, Psa 143:2, Ecc 12:14, Isa 3:14, Isa 3:15
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 22:4. Will he reprove thee That is, rebuke, chastise, or punish thee; for fear of thee? Because he is afraid lest, if he should let thee alone, thou wouldst grow too great and powerful for him: surely no. As thy righteousness cannot profit him, so thy wickedness can do him no hurt.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
22:4 Will he reprove thee for fear {b} of thee? will he enter with thee into judgment?
(b) Lest you should reprove or hurt him?