Remember, I pray thee, who that was innocent has perished? and where were the upright cut off?
Eliphaz asks Job a question that sounds like comfort but works like an accusation. He challenges Job to name one innocent person who was ever destroyed. Behind it lies a rule about how God runs the world. The book of Job sets out to correct that rule.
The question is not really a question. It is a trap. If God is just and Job is suffering, only one conclusion is left.
Eliphaz had told Job he was a pious and righteous man (verse 6). And now he tells him: "Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?" Only those who plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap what they have sown. God makes them perish in His wrath. They are cut off even if they were like strong lions. What dogmatic logic! Job, if you are righteous and suffering like this, then God has no justice at all. But if God is just, then you have plowed iniquity and sown wickedness, and all your suffering is your own harvest.
The pressure of that logic is felt by Job long before he can answer it.
But while these things are true, generally, Eliphaz has lost all distinction between the righteous and the wicked, and presses Job into a dilemma which he is already beginning to feel — either he or God is unjust!
Notice what Eliphaz appeals to. Not to a word from God, but to what he has watched happen.
These sentences make it clear. Eliphaz belonged to that class of people who argue mainly from their own experience. His motto was, "As I have seen." Now, what we have seen may be all true enough, so far as we are concerned. But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience. It is a mistake thousands make. What, for instance, had the experience of Eliphaz to do with Job? Perhaps he had never met a case just like it. And if there is a single point of difference between the two cases, then the whole argument from experience counts for nothing.
Eliphaz meant the question to be unanswerable. The Bible answers it early, in the death of Abel at his brother Cain's hand.
"Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?" — now he comes to his false comfort... Well, what about Abel? I am beginning early enough in the Bible, and with a clear example... there was Abel that perished. We are speaking about perishing in this world. Job never had a question about the next, and they were looking not at the next world but at this. It is not a question of faith at all. It was a question of sight. They were drawing all their conclusions from what they saw. That is always a false ground for a believer... Abel was righteous, and the unrighteous man cut him off. Abel was completely guiltless. Cain could not endure it, because the LORD accepted Abel's offering.
There is an obvious objection: Eliphaz lived long before Genesis was written down.
No doubt he knew nothing of Genesis, since that book was likely not written in his day. Yet people still knew ancient things through tradition they had kept with care. What about Abel? He perished being innocent. The first disaster recorded after sin entered the world disproved the position Eliphaz took up.
Eliphaz never produces a charge. He reads Job's ruined circumstances backwards into Job's character.
He had no evidence at all that Job had sinned, but he treated Job's condition as evidence enough that he must have sinned. He says, "Who that was innocent ever perished?" But Job had not perished. "Where were the upright cut off?" But Job was not cut off... there was not the slightest sign that this applied to Job. God called him "a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil" (Job 1:8).
One case destroys the rule completely. God pointed to it in His very first promise of a Deliverer.
There surely, if anywhere, is the pattern of all perfection in this world. Was He to pass through without suffering? Would the serpent spare Him?... God's first revelation about the Seed of the woman, the coming Deliverer, should have guarded them, like others, from the sad mistake the book of Job sets out to correct. It is a bruised One that is to bruise Satan finally... Does suffering, even suffering no one can match, mean there was evil in Him? Not at all. So the theory is false. The theory says the only cause of a man's suffering in this world is evil that God sees in him. And the measure of truth in it does not make the falsehood less harmful. It makes it more harmful.
- Rule. Eliphaz assumes the innocent are never destroyed. So suffering must mean guilt. It is a rule built from one man's observation.
- Trap. That rule forces Job into a dilemma: either he is a secret sinner, or God is unjust.
- Refutation. Abel answers it. He was righteous and guiltless, yet an unrighteous man cut him off — the first disaster after sin entered the world.
- Assumption. Eliphaz had no evidence against Job. He treated Job's suffering as the proof. God had called Job blameless and upright.
- Test. Measure the rule against Christ. He suffered more than anyone, yet no evil was in Him. The rule is false, whatever truth it holds.
Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity and sow mischief, reap the same.
Eliphaz, the first of Job's friends to speak, ends his opening argument with a picture from farming: the harvest tells you what was planted. The question is whether that saying, true as it sounds, explains why Job lost everything.
The word for "plow" carries more than farming. It is also used as a picture of plotting evil.
The word literally means to break up the ground for planting. It is also used as a picture of "plotting" wickedness. Job 4:8; Hosea 10:13. Israel, looking back on the trials they went through, says, "The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows." Psalm 129:3. This surely points to what the blessed Lord suffered on earth, above all the scourging.
Eliphaz builds his case on one phrase: "As I have seen." His own experience is his whole authority.
These sentences make it clear that Eliphaz was one of those people who argue very much from their own experience. His motto was, "As I have seen." Now, what we have seen may be true enough for us. But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience, and thousands still fall into it. What, for instance, had the experience of Eliphaz to do with Job? Perhaps he had never met a case exactly like it. And if there is a single point of difference between the two cases, then the whole argument from experience counts for nothing.
The saying itself is sound. The error is the man Eliphaz pins it on.
In this speech Eliphaz takes trouble to show Job that everyone on the earth reaps what he sows. "As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same" (Job 4:8). All he says is true in principle, but in Job's case it is false. It is right in itself and wrong in its application. Often the wicked grow old in sin, while the good are cut off in the strength of their youth. The ungodly often live in plenty while those who fear God have to do without the common necessities of life.
Eliphaz had already asked who ever perished being innocent. The very first death recorded after sin entered the world answers him.
But in his next paragraph (verses 7-11) Eliphaz completely misunderstands the situation. He asks, "Who that was innocent ever perished?" ... What about Abel? He perished being innocent. Why, the first disaster recorded after sin entered the world disproved the position Eliphaz took up. The righteous Abel was cut off. So the idea, which he worked out with his picture of the lions, breaks down. Reaping disaster does not always mean that those who reap "plow iniquity and sow trouble."
The mistake is not only in the logic. It shapes how Eliphaz treats his friend.
This harshness shows a wrong principle in Eliphaz, and it comes out more plainly as he goes on. For him sin and suffering are root and fruit. He knows no classes of suffering. He does not tell the righteous apart from the wicked. So in the end he turns out to be a false accuser of his friend.
The words never name Job. One writer sees Satan himself behind the thrust.
Quick as thought, Satan gives the thrust he gave to Job: "As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same." "By the breath of God they perish." This is the thin end of Satan's great wedge. It is the first hint that Job is a hypocrite. We shall find this wedge driven, blow after blow, as we go on in the book.
The law of sowing and reaping is still true. Forgiveness does not cancel it, and it does not cancel forgiveness.
"Whatever one sows, that will he also reap." The sin of sowing weeds may be forgiven, but the reaping must match the sowing. The first is grace, the second is government. Each acts in its own sphere, and neither interferes with the other... God let David walk the courts of the sanctuary as a subject of grace (2 Samuel 12:20). Only later did David climb the rough slopes of the Mount of Olives as a subject of government (2 Samuel 15:30). We may safely say this: David's heart never felt divine grace more deeply than at the very time he was feeling the righteous action of divine government.
- Plowing — The word for tilling soil also pictures plotting evil. Wrong deeds start as plans.
- Seeing — Eliphaz argues from what he has watched happen. One case unlike his own, and the argument counts for nothing.
- Sowing — The saying is true in principle but false about Job. The wicked often grow old in plenty while those who fear God go without.
- Accusing — Treat suffering and sin as root and fruit, and you stop comforting your friend and start accusing him.
- Reaping — The harvest is real, but it is God's government, not our verdict on a friend. Forgiven sin still has a harvest, and grace is felt most deeply there.
By the breath of +God they perish, and by the blast of his nostrils are they consumed.
Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, has just laid down his rule: those who plow iniquity reap the same. Verse 9 shows God collecting that harvest by His own breath — and the question is whether this neat rule fits the man in front of him.
One writer traces this phrase through Scripture while commenting on a New Testament passage that uses the same picture. He finds it covers both creation and judgment, and puts this verse with the judgment passages.
"The breath of his mouth" expresses the inner energy of divine power (whether creative, Ps. 33:6, or judicial, 2 Sam. 22:16, Job 4:9, Ps. 18:15, Isa. 11:4, Isa. 30:33) with which the Lord will dispatch the lawless one.
Another writer checks where else Scripture uses the phrase.
"The breath, or spirit of his mouth" does not, as far as I can gather from Scripture, mean "the gospel" or the "saving influences of the Spirit." Job 4:9-15, 30; Isaiah 30:28 and 33 all use the phrase of judgment on wicked persons, not of converting influences on men's souls.
Put the verse back with the two before it and the argument becomes a trap with only two exits.
Eliphaz had told Job he was a pious and righteous man (verse 6). And now he tells him: "Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?" Only those that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap what they have sown. God makes such to perish in His wrath. They are cut off even if they were like strong lions. What dogmatic logic! Job, if you are righteous and suffering like this, then God is without any justice. But if God is justice, then you have plowed iniquity and sown wickedness, and all your suffering is your own harvest.
The statement is true. The error is treating what sometimes happens as a rule that always holds.
Eliphaz shows in a very animated and striking way what is a general modern principle — "As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same." But it is not an absolute rule. There are those who have sown and plowed iniquity too, and yet they have reaped a good deal in this world. They have stored up wealth and honour to the highest degree, and have become kings and emperors and all the rest of it. It was extremely short-sighted to talk as he did. "By the breath of God they perish" — sometimes. That is true, and Job never denied it, without making it an absolute truth or an absolute falsehood — "and by the blast of his anger they are consumed."
One name from the opening pages of the Bible collapses the whole structure.
In his next paragraph (verses 7-11) Eliphaz completely misunderstands the situation. He asks, "Who that was innocent ever perished?" … What about Abel? He perished being innocent. The first disaster recorded after sin entered the world disproved the position Eliphaz took. The righteous Abel was cut off. So the idea, which he developed by his figure of the lions, broke down. Reaping disaster does not necessarily mean that those who reap "plow iniquity and sow trouble."
Abel was the son of Adam and Eve, and his brother Cain killed him.
Notice where Eliphaz got his rule. He watched, and then he generalised.
These sentences make it clear that Eliphaz belonged to the kind of people who argue mostly from their own experience. His motto was, "As I have seen." Now, what we have seen may be true enough, so far as we are concerned. But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience, and yet thousands fall into it.
So the problem is not in any single sentence Eliphaz speaks.
Every word may be true in itself; all is said with the greatest dignity and force; yet it is misapplied and one-sided, and so, in effect, mistaken as a whole. Eliphaz assumes that God is displaying His government right now, measuring out prosperity or hardship to each person exactly as they deserve. This is false ground, and it ruins the application, especially to one like Job.
- Breath. God acts directly. The same power that creates also judges, and Scripture uses this phrase of judgment on the wicked, not of saving influence.
- Rule. Eliphaz turns that judgment into the fixed law of every life. Suffering proves guilt, so either Job is a sinner or God is unjust.
- Sometimes. It does happen, but it is not an absolute rule. Many plow iniquity and still gather wealth and honour in this world.
- Abel. One innocent man cut off at the start of the Bible is enough to break the rule, and it breaks over Job too.
- Misapplied. True words go wrong as a whole when one man's experience becomes the law for everyone, and Job is the proof.