A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.
Eliphaz has just told Job that a message reached him in the night, and now he describes what came with it. Everything he says to Job afterwards rests on this moment, so two questions matter: what was it, and was he right to build on it?
A Shape in the Dark
The verse describes a sensation more than a sighting. He felt something before he saw anything. His body reacted before his mind could name it.
Samuel RidoutWith deep seriousness and great poetic beauty, Eliphaz describes his vision of the greatness and holiness of God. In the silent hours of the night, a ghostly figure came before him and made him tremble with a dread he could not name. Though he saw nothing, he felt the whisper of "a still small voice," that made his hair stand up.
The experience left a mark on him, and one writer reads a purpose behind it.
Leslie M. GrantEliphaz uses vivid language to describe a night vision he had in private, and it affected him deeply. He was clearly in a deep sleep when a fit of fear and trembling shook him (v.14). A spirit passed before his face, causing his hair to stand up. A form was there, but he could not make out what it looked like. No doubt God meant this to get the serious attention of Eliphaz, and He succeeded.
Dread, Not Comfort
The reaction was terror. That tells you something about the message Eliphaz was carrying to a suffering man.
William KellyGod has often used visions of the night. It is true we have something far better. We have the vision of the day. We have the great vision of Christ shown in human flesh. We have the vision of God showing Himself, and God speaking and acting for us in this world of sin and death... The fear and trembling that came over him show 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.
This dread of the unknown was not unique to Eliphaz. It gripped the disciples too, at the very moment help arrived:
The Bible TreasuryThe appearance of their Master filled them with more alarm than the fury of the storm seems to have done. The same fear that Eliphaz described — the fear of the unknown — took hold of them.
A True Warning
Whatever the form was, no one can fault what it said.
F. B. HoleHe begins to tell of a terrifying experience of his own. He saw some kind of spirit, and he received a word of warning about man's weakness and impurity in the presence of 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.
Right Message, Wrong Target
The failure was in the delivery. Eliphaz took a private warning and aimed it at somebody else.
Leslie M. GrantSuch words are true, and they apply to all mankind. But Eliphaz applied them only to Job, not to himself... But a vision or dream is meant for the person who has it, and Eliphaz missed that one important fact. In the same way, we may hear good teaching and think it fits other people better than it fits us... If Eliphaz had learned the lesson God intended, he would not have spoken to Job the way he did.
Experience Made Into a Rule
Eliphaz builds his argument on what he saw that night. One writer names the habit behind that:
C. H. MackintoshThese sentences make it clear that Eliphaz belonged to the kind 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 complete mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience, and thousands make that mistake. What, for instance, had the experience of Eliphaz to do with Job? It went for nothing in Job's case. As soon as Eliphaz stopped speaking, Job went on with the tale of his own sorrows, without paying the slightest attention to his words.
Summary
- Received. Something passed before Eliphaz in the dark. He felt it more than he saw it, and his hair stood on end at a form he could not make out.
- Real. The word that came with it was true — no mortal is more pure or more just than his Maker.
- Redirected. A dream is meant for the one who has it. Eliphaz aimed it at Job instead of himself, and that single move turned truth into cruelty.
- Rule. He rested his case on what he had seen himself. One man's experience cannot become the rule for another man's suffering.
- Replaced. Night visions have given way to something better: the vision of the day — God shown in Christ. What Eliphaz felt was dread, and dread is the mark of judgment, not of grace.