Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being
innocent?
&c.] 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 ( Ecclesiastes
7:15 ) ( Isaiah 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.