Job 4:13

A deep sleep — tardemah — is a term never used of natural sleep. It is used of sleep that is either supernatural, for a special purpose (Gen. 2:21; Gen. 15:12; Job 4:13; Job 33:15), or spiritual, part of God's governmental dealing with man. (Prov. 19:15; Isa. 29:10.)

In the days of the patriarchs, we may say that God gave no revelation of Himself except to the individual. God made His mind known this way to Noah, to Abraham, and even to those who were largely ignorant of Him, like Abimelech and Laban (Gen. 20:3, etc.; Gen. 31:24). A dream or vision was often used, but it was a divine revelation. Eliphaz refers to such a communication, in beautiful language...

God has often used visions of the night. It is true we have something a great deal better. We have the vision of the day. We have the great vision of Christ shown in flesh. We have the vision of God showing Himself, and God speaking and acting for us in this world of sin and death... Fear and trembling came on him. Clearly he did not have enough grace. Grace does not make people afraid like this. It is judgment that does so, and this is what these good men are full of; they were full of the spirit of judgment.

From verse 12 onwards, the position Eliphaz takes becomes clearer. He starts to describe a terrifying experience of his own. He saw a spirit appear, and heard a word of warning about man's frailty and impurity before his Maker. What he heard is perfectly true. No mortal man can be more pure or just than God. In both he falls infinitely short of God's glory.

Every word may be true in itself; He says it all with the utmost dignity and force. Yet he misapplies it, and it is one-sided, so as a whole it is wrong in effect. Eliphaz assumes that God is displaying His government right now. He assumes God measures out prosperity or trouble in exact proportion to what people deserve. This is false ground. It spoils the application, above all to someone like Job, whom Satan was allowed to attack.

But a vision or dream is meant to apply directly to the one who has it, and Eliphaz missed that one important fact. In the same way, we may hear good teaching which we think fits others better than ourselves. Eliphaz could see that Job's excellence was going away. But the excellence of Eliphaz would go away too, as with all men... If Eliphaz had learned the lesson God intended, he would not have spoken to Job the way he did.

These sentences make it clear that Eliphaz belonged to the class of 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, so far as we are concerned. But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience. Yet thousands make that mistake.