Introduction
Job's sore afflictions, and his behaviour under them, laid the
foundation of a dispute between him and his three friends, which begins
in this chapter, and is carried on to the end of the thirty first; when
Elihu starts up as a moderator between them, and the controversy is at
last decided by God himself. Eliphaz first enters the list with Job,
\\#Job 4:1\\; introduces what he had to say in a preface, with some show of
tenderness, friendship, and respect, \\#Job 4:2\\; observes his former
conduct in his prosperity, by instructing many, strengthening weak
hands and feeble knees, and supporting stumbling and falling ones,
\\#Job 4:3,4\\; with what view all this is observed may be easily seen,
since he immediately takes notice of his present behaviour, so
different from the former, \\#Job 4:5\\; and insults his profession of
faith and hope in God, and fear of him, \\#Job 4:6\\; and suggests that
he was a bad man, and an hypocrite; and which he grounds upon this
supposition, that no good man was ever destroyed by the Lord; for the
truth of which he appeals to Job himself, \\#Job 4:7\\; and confirms it
by his own experience and observation, \\#Job 4:8-11\\; and strengthens
it by a vision he had in the night, in which the holiness and justice
of God, and the mean and low condition of men, are declared,
\\#Job 4:12-21\\; and therefore it was wrong in Job to insinuate any
injustice in God or in his providence, and a piece of weakness and
folly to contend with him.
