The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken.
Eliphaz closes this part of his speech with a picture from the wild. The strongest hunter alive is silenced and toothless. Two questions follow. Is this a true rule about how God deals with people? And has Eliphaz any right to aim it at the broken man in front of him?
The lion picture
Why lions? A lion is strength that nothing seems able to match.
William KellyThen he brings in the lions as a picture. However strong and great and matchless a lion may be, he may still be broken. And so it is with men who play the lion in the world.
The verse names the animal three times over — the lion, the fierce lion, the young lions. The roar goes quiet. The teeth are broken. Nothing of the hunter survives.
Aimed at Job
Eliphaz never names his friend. But the picture fits Job's own fall from wealth to ruin, and that is the effect he wants.
Leslie M. GrantHe does not even consider the difference between a believer and an unbeliever in the way God deals with them. An unbeliever, because of his sin, may perish by the blast of God and by the breath of His anger. The strength of this evil may be compared to the roaring of a lion, but even the teeth of the young lions would be broken. Job could be compared to a lion in the earlier strength of his wealth, so now he was like a lion that perishes, or a lioness losing her cubs. Eliphaz does not say this to encourage Job. He says it to imply that Job must have brought this disaster on himself by secret sin.
True in general, false as a rule
What Eliphaz says does happen. The mistake is turning a common observation into a fixed law that must explain every case.
William KellyEliphaz shows in a lively and striking way what is a general modern principle — "As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." But it is not an absolute rule. There are people who have sown and plowed iniquity too, and yet they have reaped a good deal in this world. They have piled up wealth and honour in the highest degree. They have become kings and emperors and all the rest of it. It was very short-sighted to talk as he did. "By the blast of God they perish" — sometimes.
The earliest days of the Bible hold one case Eliphaz cannot explain.
F. B. HoleWhat about Abel? He perished being innocent. The first disaster recorded after sin entered the world disproved the position Eliphaz took up. The righteous Abel was cut off. So the idea he built up with his picture of the lions broke down. Reaping disaster does not have to mean that those who reap "plow iniquity and sow wickedness."
The trap it sets
Because Eliphaz treats suffering as proof of guilt, he leaves Job only two doors, and both of them are bad.
Samuel RidoutNo matter how strong and mighty they are, they are cut off, like fierce lions with their teeth broken out. These things are true in general. But Eliphaz has lost all distinction between the righteous and the wicked. He presses Job into a dilemma Job is already beginning to feel — either he or God is unjust!
The root of the error is his method. He treated his own observation as the final word. He never asked whether he had ever seen Job doing evil (Leslie M. Grant).
The warning for friends
The lion image is not just bad logic. It is a hard thing to say to a friend in the middle of his trials.
Samuel RidoutWhat he says is true. Job had comforted others in times of distress, and he should have borne up under his own trials. Yet would we not expect some words of sympathy from a friend — a "brother born for adversity"? Would grace not teach us to "weep with those who weep"? ... This harshness shows a wrong principle in Eliphaz, and it comes out more clearly as he goes on. For him, sin and suffering are root and fruit. He knows no classes of suffering. He fails to tell the righteous and the wicked apart, and so in the end he turns out to be a false accuser of his friend.
So the safeguard is simple: never read a person's heart off their circumstances. "We are bound to wait for solid fact ... sometimes a good man may be in such circumstances that appearances are very much against him" (William Kelly).
Summary
- Broken. Roar, voice, teeth — the verse takes the lion apart piece by piece. The mightiest human strength can break, and men "who play the lion in the world" are not exempt.
- Aimed. Eliphaz never names Job, but the ruined lion is Job. The picture hints at secret sin behind visible loss.
- Partly true. Sowing wickedness often does reap disaster. But it is not an absolute rule: plenty of wicked men gather wealth and honour instead.
- Disproved. Abel perished innocent. The first disaster after sin entered the world already breaks Eliphaz's rule.
- Cruel. Eliphaz loses the line between the righteous and the wicked. That leaves Job a false choice — he is unjust, or God is — and turns a friend into an accuser.