Bible Commentaries
Job 4

Verse 2

4:2 [If] we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but {a} who can withhold himself from speaking?

(a) Seeing your impatience.

Verse 3

4:3 Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou {b} hast strengthened the weak hands.

(b) You have comforted others in their afflictions but you cannot now comfort yourself.

Verse 6

4:6 [Is] not [this] thy {c} fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

(c) He concludes that Job was a hypocrite and had no true fear or trust in God.

Verse 7

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.

Verse 8

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.

Verse 9

4:9 By the {f} blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.

(f) He shows that God needs no great preparation to destroy his enemies: for he can do it with the blast of his mouth.

Verse 10

4:10 The roaring of the {g} lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

(g) Though men according to their office do not punish tyrants

(whom for their cruelty he compares to lions, and their children to their whelps) yet God is able and his justice will punish them.

Verse 12

4:12 Now a thing was {h} secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.

(h) A thing I did not know before was declared to me by vision, that is that whoever thinks himself just will be found a sinner when he comes before God.

Verse 14

4:14 Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones {i} to shake.

(i) In these visions which God shows to his creatures, there is always a certain fear joined, that the authority of it might be had in greater reverence.

Verse 16

4:16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image [was] before mine eyes, [there was] {k} silence, and I heard a voice, [saying],

(k) When all things were quiet or when the fear was relieved as God appeared to Elijah, 1 Kings 19:12.

Verse 17

4:17 Shall mortal man be more {l} just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

(l) He proves that if God punished the innocent, the creature would be more just than the creator, which was blasphemy.

Verse 18

4:18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his {m} angels he charged with folly:

(m) If God finds imperfection in his angels when they are not maintained by his power, how much more shall he lay folly to man’s charge when he would justify himself against God?

Verse 19

4:19 How much less [in] them that dwell in houses of {n} clay, whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed before the moth?

(n) That is, in this mortal body, subject to corruption, as in 2 Corinthians 5:1.

Verse 20

4:20 They are destroyed from {o} morning to evening: they perish for ever {p} without any regarding [it].

(o) They see death continually before their eyes and daily approaching them.

(p) No man for all this considers it.

Verse 21

4:21 Doth not their excellency [which is] in them go away? they die, even without {q} wisdom.

(q) That is, before any of them were so wise, as to think of death.