Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 4:7
Remember, I pray thee, who [ever] perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
7. Eliphaz would have Job remember that the afflictions of the righteous are disciplinary, and not designed for their destruction who ever perished being innocent? He puts his principle first negatively, the righteous do not perish under affliction; and then positively, it is the wicked, they who plough iniquity that reap it, Job 4:8 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? – The object of this question is manifestly to show to Job the inconsistency of the feelings which he had evinced. He claimed to be a righteous man. He had instructed and counselled many others. He had professed confidence in God, and in the integrity of his own ways. It was to have been expected that one with such pretensions would have evinced resignation in the time of trial, and would have been sustained by the recollection of his integrity. The fact, therefore, that Job had thus fainted, and had given way to impatient expressions, showed that he was conscious that he had not been altogether what he had professed to be. There must have been, is the meaning of Eliphaz, something wrong, when such calamities come upon a man, and when his faith gives way in such a manner. It would be contrary to all the analogy of the divine dealings to suppose that such a man as Job had professed to be, could be the subject of overwhelming judgments; for who, I ask, ever perished, being innocent? It is a settled principle of the divine government, that no one ever perishes who is innocent, and that great calamities are a proof of great guilt.
This declaration contains the essence of all the positions held by Eliphaz and his colleagues in this argument. This they considered as so established that no one could call it in question, and on the ground of this they inferred that one who experienced such afflictions, no matter what his professions or his apparent piety had been, could not be a good man. This was a point about which the minds of the friends of Job were settled; and though they seem to have been disposed to concede that some afflictions might happen to good men, yet when sudden and overwhelming calamities such as they now witnessed came upon them, they inferred that there must have been corresponding guilt. Their reasoning on this subject – which runs through the book – perplexed but did not satisfy Job, and was obviously based on a wrong principle – The word perished here means the same as cut off, and does not differ much from being overwhelmed with calamity. The whole sentence has a proverbial cast; and the sense is, that when persons were suddenly cut off it proved that they were not innocent. Job, therefore, it was inferred, could not be a righteous man in these unusual and very special trials.
Or where were the righteous cut off? – That is, by heavy judgment; by any special and direct visitation. Eliphaz could not mean that the righteous did not die – for he could not be insensible to that fact; but he must have referred to sudden calamities. This kind of reasoning is common – that when men are afflicted with great and sudden calamities they must be especially guilty. It prevailed in the time of the Savior, and it demanded all his authority to settle the opposite principle; see Luk 13:1-5. It is that into which people naturally and easily fall; and it required much observation, and long experience, and enlarged views of the divine administration, to draw the true lines on this subject. To a certain extent, and in certain instances, calamity certainly does prove that there is special guilt. Such was the case with the old world that was destroyed by the deluge; such was the case with the cities of the plain; such is the case in the calamities that come upon the drunkard, and such too in the special curse produced by indulgence in licentiousness. But this principle does not run through all the calamities which befall people. A tower may fall on the righteous as well as the wicked; an earthquake may destroy the innocent as well as the guilty; the pestilence sweeps away the holy and the unholy, the profane and the pure, the man who fears God and him who fears him not; and the inference is now seen to be too broad when we infer, as the friends of Job did, that no righteous man is cut off by special calamity, or that great trials demonstrate that such sufferers are less righteous than others are. Judgments are not equally administered in this world, and hence, the necessity for a future world of retribution; see the notes at Luk 13:2-3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 4:7
Who ever perished, being innocent?
Divine retributions
This grand maxim, of a just and sure retribution at the hand of God, must be admitted to be sound and true. His blessing is over the righteous, and His face against them that do evil. Job takes exception to this as a rule of Gods providential dealings with mankind, and rejects the inference that, because he is now overwhelmed in trouble, he has been a transgressor. As to the extent of his friends suspicions, he was right. But still, the rule laid down by Eliphaz must be considered as holding universally. But the reasons of the present proceedings of God are not always within the ken of human observation; the short prosperity of the wicked may be both for a judgment to others and for their own manifestation and increased punishment. Under the execution of the holy discipline, it is not for innocency and righteousness that the children of God suffer; but most commonly for sin–sin unacknowledged and unconfessed; or with some view to their correction and advancement in holiness, where they were too remiss in perfecting it in the fear of God. Eliphazs maxim was not altogether wrong, even as applied to Job. But his inference of secret hypocrisy, or of some outward notorious transgression, from the judgment that had overwhelmed him, was altogether unwarranted. He is mistaken, too, as well as the poor sufferer himself, if he concluded that this affliction was remediless, and sent for his utter destruction. How different was the aspect of his calamity when the end of the Lord was seen! (John Fry, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. Remember, I pray thee] Recollect, if thou canst, a single instance where God abandoned an innocent man, or suffered him to perish. Didst thou ever hear of a case in which God abandoned a righteous man to destruction? Wert thou a righteous man, and innocent of all hidden crimes, would God abandon thee thus to the malice of Satan? or let loose the plagues of affliction and adversity against thee?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Give me one example hereof out of all thy experience or reading.
Who ever perished, i.e. was so utterly undone, as thou art, so miserably afflicted by such unparalleled and various judgments from God and men, all conspiring against thee?
Being innocent; who had not by his wickedness provoked so merciful a God to do that which is so unusual, and in some sort unpleasing to himself. Therefore thou art guilty of some great, though secret, crimes, and thy sin hath now found thee out, and hath brought down these stupendous plagues upon thee.
Where were the righteous cut off by the sickle of Divine vengeance before his time, which is like to be thy case? His judgment herein was rash and false, but not without some appearance of truth; for God had made many promises, not only of spiritual and eternal, but also of temporal, blessings, to all that should faithfully serve and obey him, which accordingly he did from time to time confer upon them, as we see by the examples of Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and doubtless many others which had lived in or before their days. And this was Gods usual method under all the times of the Old Testament, as we see by the people of Israel, who were generally either in a happy and flourishing, or in an afflicted and miserable, state, according to their obedience to God, or their apostacy from him. And therefore it is not strange that they fell into this mistake. But allowing for this mistake, and the consequence of it, his uncharitable opinion of Job, the method which he useth with Job is commendable, and to be imitated by others in their dealing with persons in sickness or affliction; for he doth not flatter him in his sins, nor immediately and unseasonably apply comforts to him, but endeavours to convince him of his sins, and to bring him to repentance, as the only regular way to his remedy.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?…. Here Eliphaz appeals to Job himself, and desires him to recollect if ever anyone instance had fallen under his observation, in the whole course of his life, or it had ever been told him by credible persons, that an “innocent” man, by whom he means not one entirely free from sin original or actual, for he knew there was no such persons in the world, since the fall of Adam, but a truly good and gracious man, who was not guilty of any notorious and capital crime, or did not live a vicious course of life; if he ever knew or heard of any such persons that “perished”, which cannot be understood of eternal ruin and destruction, which would be at once granted, that such as these described can never perish in such a sense, but have everlasting life; nor of a corporeal death, which is sometimes the sense of perishing, since it is notorious that innocent and righteous persons so perish or die, see Ec 7:15
Isa 57:1; and could it be meant of a violent death, an answer might have been returned; and Eliphaz perhaps was not acquainted with it himself, that that innocent and righteous person Abel thus perished by the hands of his brother: but this is rather to be understood of perishing by afflictions, sore and heavy ones, not ordinary but extraordinary ones; and which are, or look like, the judgments of God on men, whereby they lose their all, their substance, their servants, their children, as well as their own health, which was Job’s case; and therefore if no parallel instance of an innocent person ever being in the like case, it is insinuated that Job could not be an innocent man:
or where were the righteous cut off? such as are truly righteous in the sight of God, as well as before men, who have the gift of righteousness bestowed on them, and live soberly, righteously, and godly; in what age or country was it ever known that such persons, in their family and substance, were cut off by the hand and providence of God, and abandoned and forsaken by him, and reduced to such circumstances that there could be no hope of their ever being in prosperous ones again? and Job now being in such a forlorn and miserable case and condition, it is suggested, that he could not be a righteous man: but admitting that no such instance could be produced, Eliphaz was too hasty and premature in his conclusion; seeing, as it later appeared, Job was not so cut off, abandoned, and forsaken by God, as not to rise any more; for his latter end was greater than his beginning: and besides, innocent and righteous persons are often involved in the same calamities as wicked men are, and their afflictions are the same; only with this difference, to the one they are the proper punishment of sin, to the other they are fatherly chastisements and trials of their grace, and issue in their good; the Targum explains it of such persons, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, none such as they perishing, or being cut off.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? 8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. 9 By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. 10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken. 11 The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.
Eliphaz here advances another argument to prove Job a hypocrite, and will have not only his impatience under his afflictions to be evidence against him but even his afflictions themselves, being so very great and extraordinary, and there being no prospect at all of his deliverance out of them. To strengthen his argument he here lays down these two principles, which seem plausible enough:–
I. That good men were never thus ruined. For the proof of this he appeals to Job’s own observation (v. 7): “Remember, I pray thee; recollect all that thou hast seen, heard, or read, and give me an instance of any one that was innocent and righteous, and yet perished as thou dost, and was cut off as thou art.” If we understand it of a final and eternal destruction, his principle is true. None that are innocent and righteous perish for ever: it is only a man of sin that is a son of perdition, 2 Thess. ii. 3. But then it is ill applied to Job; he did not thus perish, nor was he cut off: a man is never undone till he is in hell. But, if we understand it of any temporal calamity, his principle is not true. The righteous perish (Isa. lvii. 1): there is one event both to the righteous and to the wicked (Eccl. ix. 2), both in life and death; the great and certain difference is after death. Even before Job’s time (as early as it was) there were instances sufficient to contradict this principle. Did not righteous Abel perish being innocent? and was he not cut off in the beginning of his days? Was not righteous Lot burnt out of house and harbour, and forced to retire to a melancholy cave? Was not righteous Jacob a Syrian ready to perish? Deut. xxvi. 5. Other such instances, no doubt, there were, which are not on record.
II. That wicked men were often thus ruined. For the proof of this he vouches his own observation (v. 8): “Even as I have seen, many a time, those that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap accordingly; by the blast of God they perish, v. 9. We have daily instances of that; and therefore, since thou dost thus perish and art consumed, we have reason to think that, whatever profession of religion thou hast made, thou hast but ploughed iniquity and sown wickedness. Even as I have seen in others, so do I see in thee.”
1. He speaks of sinners in general, politic busy sinners, that take pains in sin, for they plough iniquity; and expect gain by sin, for they sow wickedness. Those that plough plough in hope, but what is the issue? They reap the same. They shall of the flesh reap corruption and ruin, Gal 6:7; Gal 6:8. The harvest will be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow, Isa. xvii. 11. He shall reap the same, that is, the proper product of that seedness. That which the sinner sows, he sows not that body that shall be, but God will give it a body, a body of death, the end of those things, Rom. vi. 21. Some, by iniquity and wickedness, understand wrong and injury done to others. Those who plough and sow them shall reap the same, that is, they shall be paid in their own coin. Those who are troublesome shall be troubled, 2Th 1:6; Jos 7:25. The spoilers shall be spoiled (Isa. xxxiii. 1), and those that led captive shall go captive, Rev. xiii. 10. He further describes their destruction (v. 9): By the blast of God they perish. The projects they take so much pains in are defeated; God cuts asunder the cords of those ploughers, Psa 129:3; Psa 129:4. They themselves are destroyed, which is the just punishment of their iniquity. They perish, that is, they are destroyed utterly; they are consumed, that is, they are destroyed gradually; and this by the blast and breath of God, that is, (1.) By his wrath. His anger is the ruin of sinners, who are therefore called vessels of wrath, and his breath is said to kindle Tophet, Isa. xxx. 33. Who knows the power of his anger? Ps. xc. 11. (2.) By his word. He speaks and it is done, easily and effectually. The Spirit of God, in the word, consumes sinners; with that he slays them, Hos. vi. 5. Saying and doing are not two things with God. The man of sin is said to be consumed with the breath of Christ’s mouth,2Th 2:8; Isa 11:4; Rev 19:21. Some think that in attributing the destruction of sinners to the blast of God, and the breath of his nostrils, he refers to the wind which blew the house down upon Job’s children, as if they were therefore sinners above all men because they suffered such things. Luke xiii. 2.
2. He speaks particularly of tyrants and cruel oppressors, under the similitude of lions, Job 4:10; Job 4:11. Observe, (1.) How he describes their cruelty and oppression. The Hebrew tongue has five several names for lions, and they are all here used to set forth the terrible tearing power, fierceness, and cruelty, of proud oppressors. They roar, and rend, and prey upon all about them, and bring up their young ones to do so too, Ezek. xix. 3. The devil is a roaring lion; and they partake of his nature, and do his lusts. They are strong as lions, and subtle (Psa 10:9; Psa 17:12); and, as far as they prevail, they lay all desolate about them. (2.) How he describes their destruction, the destruction both of their power and of their persons. They shall be restrained from doing further hurt and reckoned with for the hurt they have done. An effectual course shall be taken, [1.] That they shall not terrify. The voice of their roaring shall be stopped. [2.] That they shall not tear. God will disarm them, will take away their power to do hurt: The teeth of the young lions are broken. See Ps. iii. 7. Thus shall the remainder of wrath be restrained. [3.] That they shall not enrich themselves with the spoil of their neighbours. Even the old lion is famished, and perishes for lack of prey. Those that have surfeited on spoil and rapine are perhaps reduced to such straits as to die of hunger at last. [4.] That they shall not, as they promise themselves, leave a succession: The stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad, to seek for food themselves, which the old ones used to bring in for them, Nah. ii. 12. The lion did tear in pieces for his whelps, but now they must shift for themselves. Perhaps Eliphaz intended, in this, to reflect upon Job, as if he, being the greatest of all the men of the east, had got his estate by spoil and used his power in oppressing his neighbours, but now his power and estate were gone, and his family was scattered: if so, it was a pity that a man whom God praised should be thus abused.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
(7) Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent?He challenges Jobs experience, and quotes his own in proof of the universal connection between sin and suffering. In so doing, his object may be to insinuate that Job is sinful; or, as seems perhaps more probable, and certainly more gracious, to prove to him that if he is what he was supposed to be, that itself is a ground of hope, inasmuch as no innocent person is allowed to perish. He utters here a half-truth, which, however, is after all true, inasmuch as God will never fail, though He may try, those who trust in Him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Who perished, being innocent Eliphaz strangely overlooks the fact that the first recorded human death was the murder of a good and innocent man. The killing of Abel was premeditated if we may trust the Septuagint, Targums, and other ancient versions. The Septuagint thus begins the sad tale, “And Cain said unto Abel, his brother, Let us go out into the field,” etc.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 4:7-8. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, &c. Recollect, I pray thee, &c. Eliphaz here begins to shew what he suspected. The strong term he uses, who ever perished, being innocent? and his adding what himself had observed of the punishment which sometimes befalls wicked men, contains a shrewd insinuation that he believed Job to have been guilty of some secret sins for which the hand of God was thus heavy on him. It will be proper here to remark in general, that it is natural for men earnest in dispute to carry matters to an extreme on either hand, or at least to be sometimes very unguarded in their expressions; and therefore we are not to interpret in the strictest and severest sense every word which fell from these unwary combatants. For example, from the present verse, or from any similar expressions in their following speeches, we are not to conclude, that these friends, really believed that there never was an instance of the righteous being cut off untimely, but merely that it much seldomer happened thus than otherwise. The strength of the expression is to be allowed for, by attending to the design that they had upon Job, and their zeal in prosecuting it. See note on ch. Job 7:20 and Peters.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
(7) Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? (8) Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. (9) By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. (10) The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken. (11) The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.
This reasoning of Eliphaz was false and ill-grounded. Many an innocent person, as Eliphaz could not but well know, had perished. The murder of Abel, by Cain, led the van; and the history of the world furnished out continual examples. Indeed it was this very circumstance which gave even the heathens themselves cause to argue, that there must be another world for rewarding the good, and punishing the bad. So that Eliphaz brought forward an argument here to distress Job, that he himself ought to have known the falseness of. Poor Job! how sharp were his exercises, when though Satan had seemingly withdrawn, yet truly not so, but to attack him with other weapons.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who [ever] perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
Ver. 7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? ] Why? that hath many a one, as the world counteth and calleth perishing: “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart,” Isa 57:1 . And it was given unto the beast, to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, Rev 13:7 . So it seemed to be, though so it never was, Rev 12:11 . The first man that died, died for religion, so early came martyrdom into the world; and John Baptist was put to death in prison without all show of law, right, or reason, as if God had been nothing aware of any such matter, as that martyr phrased it (Acts and Mon.). Indeed, if Eliphaz meant it of perishing eternally, neither Job nor any one else could produce an instance of a godly man so perishing; but for temporal miseries it is sure that never any out of hell have met with more than the most holy and harmless heirs of heaven. See Heb 11:1-40 , and you will say so. But the Scriptures, haply, were not written when Eliphaz uttered this speech; howbeit, he might have observed the contrary to what he here seemeth to affirm, appealing to Job’s own experience for proof. And the truth is, if men were so well read as they might in the story of their own lives, they might have a divinity of their own, by noting experiments; such as that ll9th Psalm is in a manner wholly made up of. Remember, saith he here; and the philosopher saith, that experience is nothing else but mulplex memoria, because of the memory of the same thing often done, ariseth experience. Eliphaz, therefore, after that he had given Job his turn to search his experiences, brings forth his own in the next verse.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
who . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
who ever: Job 9:22, Job 9:23, Psa 37:25, Ecc 7:15, Ecc 9:1, Ecc 9:2, Act 28:4, 2Pe 2:9
Reciprocal: Job 8:6 – thou wert Job 8:20 – God Job 11:14 – iniquity Job 13:4 – ye are forgers Job 13:7 – General Job 22:5 – not thy Job 22:20 – our substance
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 4:7. Remember, I pray thee Consult thy own experience, observation, or reading, and produce one example. Who ever perished That is, was so utterly undone as thou art, so miserably afflicted by such unparalleled and various judgments from God and men, all conspiring against thee; being innocent Who had not, by his wickedness, provoked so merciful a God to do what is so unusual, and contrary to his gracious nature. Therefore thou art guilty of some great, though secret crimes, and thy sin hath now found thee out, and brought down these stupendous calamities upon thee. Or, where were the righteous cut off? By the sword of divine vengeance before his time, which is likely to be thy case. Thus Eliphaz here advances another argument to prove Job a hypocrite, taken not only from his impatience under afflictions, but from his afflictions themselves. His judgment herein was undoubtedly rash and false, but not without some appearance of truth; for God had made many promises, not only of spiritual and eternal, but also of temporal blessings to all that should faithfully serve and obey him, which he accordingly from time to time conferred on such, as we see in the examples of Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and doubtless many others who had lived in or before their days. And, indeed, this was Gods usual method in all the times of the Old Testament, as we see by the people of Israel, who were generally either in a happy and flourishing, or in an afflicted and miserable state, according to their obedience to God, or apostacy from him. And, therefore, it is not strange that Eliphaz and his friends fell into this mistake.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who [ever] perished, being {d} innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?
(d) He concludes that Job was reproved seeing that God handles him so extremely, which is the argument that the carnal men make against the children of God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Eliphaz’s view of suffering 4:7-11
This is one of the clearest expressions of Eliphaz’s view of why people suffer and his view of the basis for the divine-human relationship (Job 4:7). He believed good people always win and the bad always lose. He was asserting that Job’s sins were finding him out. Bildad and Zophar shared this conclusion, but experience does not support it, as Job pointed out later. Eliphaz also explained the basis for his arguments: personal experience (Job 4:8). Unfortunately, any one person’s individual experience is too limited to provide enough data with which to answer the great questions Job and his friends discussed.