Bible Commentaries

The Argument of Eliphaz.
I.

Job 4:3-4). Sometimes an encouraging word by way of review helps a man to listen, to think, and to pray. All the beneficent past was not forgotten, the comforters knew the former status of Job—the chief man in the land, the prime counsellor; a very fountain of consolation; a man who was asked for and sought for when the whole horizon darkened with thunder. Sometimes we need to be reminded of our better selves. It may do us good to be told that once we were good, brave, wise, tender. A reference of that kind may bring tears to a strong man's eyes, and make him say in his heart—"If you think of me so kindly as all that, God helping me, I will pluck up courage and try again to be as good a man as you have supposed me to be." We lose nothing in our education of men by words of encouragement, seasonably and lovingly spoken. What is appropriate to a sufferer is sometimes appropriate to a prodigal. Tell him that once he was the bravest in the whole set at school, whose face would have gathered up into unutterable scorn at the bare mention of a lie or a thing mean and cowardly; tell him of the days when his name was a charm, a watchword, which had only to be spoken and at once it would symbolise honour, integrity, unselfishness. Let us try that species of medicament when we attempt to heal wounds that are gaping and bleeding, and that mean swift death.

Eliphaz is now entitled to say, "But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled" ( Job 4:5). I see no taunt in these words. The man is rather called to recollection of what he himself would have said to other men, and, in the sixth verse, "Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?"—simply means, in a broad sense: Recall thine own principles; hasten to thine own sureties, and strong towers, and refuges; thou didst point them out with eloquence and unction to other men, now will they not be enough for thyself? Flee unto them, and accept sanctuary at the hands of God. Then Job was but human, for he did quail under desolations, and losses, and torments, concerning which he had comforted other men. If he live to get out of this, he will comfort them as he never comforted them before. We cannot tell (reading the history as if we had not read it before) what will become of this man; but if he survive this night—all nights grouped into one darkness—he will speak as he has never spoken before; he will be but a little lower than the angels.

In the seventh verse Eliphaz appears to be reproachful and bitter, and to suggest that Job had been playing the part of a hypocrite:—"Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off." How easy it would be to spoil that music by one rough tone; and how difficult it is to lift those words into music such as one strong man could communicate to another, more than his equal once in strength and dignity. But apart from the immediate application to Job's case, here is a sublime historical testimony. Leaving Job for a moment, here is a challenge to the men who have read history—"Who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off?" Eliphaz knew of no such case, and Eliphaz, by his own talk, whoever he was, was not a little Job 4:8-9).

Then he falls into the images of the lions, so difficult to put into our language, because we have to help ourselves by epithets to give the full meaning of the metaphor of the lion. But the whole meaning of Eliphaz is this: Wickedness does perish: men that plough iniquity reap the black harvest; when they appear to come to the mountain-top it is that they may be the farther blown away into the infinite void. Thus the great comforter puts both cases before Job 4:12-19? It is only due to the Bible, whoever wrote it, to say that scholars learned in every tongue have confessed the sublimity of this representation of the revelation of God to the human soul. Let us read it:—

"Now a thing was secretly brought to me"—literally, Now a thing was stealthily brought to me; or, more literally still, Now a thing was stolen for me: a spirit put forth, as it were, a felonious hand, and brought something down from heaven to me; this is no idea of my own which I am now about to tell thee, Job; I will show thee a secret or stolen truth—"and mine ear received a little thereof": there was much more that I could not follow; our words are such poor little vessels they cannot hold all heaven's rain; my vessels gave out, not God's Job 4:17).

This is the test of all messages. Say that a spirit has spoken to you, and we have a right to ask, What message did he deliver? Put that question in regard to this communication from the spirit-land. Say to Eliphaz, If a spirit spoke to thee, tell us his words, and by the words we will judge the quality and character of the spirit. Was it some frivolous communication he made? Let the communication speak for itself—"Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?" When a spirit speaks such words we know that the spirit is of God. To this test we would subject the Bible, always and everywhere. What does it say? What is the burden of its song? What is the purport of its message? If it be a book of frivolous anecdote, of maundering, pointless sentiment, of dream without practical value, of consolation that never touches the broken heart, then the world will be the richer for its banishment from all study; but if the book be self-evidencing, if it speak to us as if it knew us, if it can touch the wound without hurting it, if it can sit up with us all night, however long the night Job 4:5

This is the same in all human experience.—It is easy to carry the burdens of others.—It may be quite delightful to speak to men who are suffering as to the way in which they should bear themselves in the hour of trial.—He can best sympathise who has most suffered.—It is one thing to see sorrow at a distance, and another to admit it into the innermost room in our own house and live within it night and day.—These are the times, however, when we can show our true spiritual quality.—So long as the affliction was at a distance we merely talked about it, but when it came near us we felt it, and under the agony of our feeling we showed what our souls were really trusting to.—Well-borne trial is the finest argument that can be set up on behalf of the grace of God.—The promises of Scripture are not so many jewels to be worn as a necklace; they are to be appropriated, and to become part of our very selves, giving us strength, patience, dignity, so that even the smell of fire shall not pass upon us when we go through the furnace of trial.—He can preach best who has had largest experience, it may be even of ill-health, loss, disappointment, and bereavement.—He also can read the Bible best who has passed through similar experience.—Every trial that comes to Us furnishes an opportunity through which the soul can show the fulness of the grace of heaven.—If Christian men fall down in trial, what are un-Christian men to think of them and of their faith? If the very sons and princes of God quail in the day of adversity as do other men, what, then, has their religion done for them? By their depression, their fear, their want of light and hope, they not only show their own nature, they actually bring discredit upon the very religion which they profess.—How did such men come to take up with such a religion? What possible motive could they have for identifying themselves with a faith which, beyond all other faiths, is marked by heroic characteristics?—Cowards must not be numbered with those who follow the banner of the brave.—Some men have been greater in affliction than they have ever been in prosperity.—Their friends did not know them as to their real quality until they were called upon to carry heavy burdens, and to be tried by perils in the city, and perils in the wilderness, and perils on the sea, and perils amongst false brethren,—it was amidst such testing perils that the true quality of the spirit was disclosed, and that many a man who was thought timid and frail discovered himself to be a very giant in the family of God.—There is another aspect of the case which enables us to address men who are sensitive themselves whilst encouraging other men to be noble and brave under assault.—The men referred to exhort others not to take heed of neglect or insult or dishonour; they say those who suffer from such attacks ought to be above them, ought not to resent them, ought to treat them with moderation and perhaps with occasional contempt: but how is it when the very same attacks are made upon themselves? Then how energetic they are in repelling them, how sensitive to every unkind word, how strong in their self-love, how violent in their self-conceit!—Example is better than precept.—To exhort another man to be magnanimous is not half so good as to be magnanimous under trial of any kind.

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Now a thing was secretly brought to me."— Job 4:12

Things which are so brought are often the best things.—They are not meant for the bodily eye, which can see but imperfectly, but for the vision of the soul, which, where the character is good, is strong and clear.—We call the sum of our experiences, "impressions," "feelings," "impulses,""tendencies;" we are afraid to characterise or define them by some positively religious name.—Who, for example, dare say he was inspired? Who has sufficient religious boldness to say that the Holy Spirit fell upon him, and taught him this or that, or awakened his faculties to such and such an exercise?—Those who are believers in the Bible ought to have no hesitation in using religious terms for the definition of religious impressions.—Inspiration is always a secret communication.—The Spirit of God steals, so to speak, upon the spirit of man, suddenly, in darkness, in out-of-the-way places, and, communing with him, transforms him into a new being, increasing his faculties both in number and strength, and clothing him with new and beneficent power.—When a good impulse stirs the heart, better trace it to a high origin than to a low one.—When we are moved in the direction of self-sacrifice for the good of others we should instantly seal the action of the Spirit with the name of God, and thus give it sanctity and nobleness, and turn it into an imperative and gracious obligation.—When a man supposes anything has been secretly brought to him from heaven, it was not meant that it should be locked up in his own heart; the very man who says that a secret message was delivered to him now begins to speak of it and to relate it all in graphic detail.—We should repeat this experience.—Who has not had conviction of sin?—Who has not known the mysterious action of conscience?—Who has not felt deeply and irresistibly that this world is not all, but that upon the horizon of time there gleams the beginning of eternity?—We should speak of these better impulses, these religious exhortations and ecstasies; we should never be ashamed of them, but hold them as in our personal trust for the benefit of the common family of man.—Great ideas were never meant to be merely personal possessions; "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty"—intellectually and spiritually as well as financially. "He that watereth shall be watered also himself."—Make no secret of your best ideas, your noblest impulses, your highest enthusiasms; tell them to others; the very stating of them may be as the declaration of gospels, the revelations of the unseen kingdom of Christ.—Of course the wise man will not throw his pearls before swine; he will study circumstances, opportunities, and conditions; the very spirit that brought the secret thing to him will indicate the right time and place under which he is to make revelations! of what he has seen and known and handled of the word of life.—Some gospels are to be preached to solitary persons; other gospels are to be thundered as it were from mountain-tops, and to be made known in all their majesty and grandeur and beneficence to the whole family of mankind.—The heart at once identifies messages which have been brought from heaven: there is no disguising or perverting such messages so as to obliterate their identity.—Even when but poorly delivered there is something about them which declares a heavenly origin.—This is emphatically so with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.—Even when men are tempted to ridicule it, they seem to be trifling with a temple, to be bringing into disdain the noblest tower ever built upon the earth and reaching to heaven.—There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.—Perhaps even the commonest soul knows true music from false: there is something in it which claims a species of kinship with the man and awakens him into a new and blessed consciousness.