Bible Commentaries
Job 4

Verses 1-21

Now begins the great controversy between Job and his friends, which occupies the major portion of the Book. This controversy moves in three cycles. The first, commencing here, runs through chapter fourteen. In it each of the three friends speaks to Job, and is answered by him.

The first speaker, Eliphaz, commenced with a courteous apology for speaking at all, and yet a declaration that he could not withhold himself. After expressing surprise at Job's complaint, and asking if his integrity ought not to be a sufficient guarantee of his safety, he proceeded to a general explanation of the problem of suffering, declaring it to be God's punishment of wickedness, a harvest for which there must have been a previous sowing. He argued the truth of this by insisting on the fact of man's sin in the sight of God. This had been revealed to him in a solitary hour, in the dead of night, by a mystic presence, a form. The inference of this is that Job's suffering was the result of Job's sin.