how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.
Eliphaz has just described a night vision. The voice he heard drives one point home. If God finds fault even in His heavenly servants, what standing can a man have — a creature housed in mud, resting on dust, and snapped as easily as a moth? Commentators agree the words are true. What divides the chapter is whether they were true for Job.
A voice in the night
The verse is not Eliphaz's own reasoning. He gives it as a message that reached him in the night:
William KellyNext Eliphaz gives, in a mysterious and dreadful style, a message of the night. It had pressed one thing on his own soul. Earthly, sinful, weak man is foolish to claim he is more just than God by putting God's dealings on trial.
Houses of clay
The image comes from ordinary building work. It matters what the cheapest houses in that world were made of:
Morrish Bible DictionaryTemporary houses and those for the poor were often built of mud. A thief could dig straight through such a wall, and left alone these houses soon became a heap of rubbish.
That is the body a man lives in. One writer draws the same comparison while insisting man is still a marvel:
James McBroomWith all his marvellous ability, desires and far-reaching activity, he lives in a house of clay. He is a vessel made of dust, and it cannot rise above the earth it is part of. In his moral and spiritual nature he is fitted to rise up and answer the deepest thoughts of God. Yet his body ties him to the creation beneath him. Man is indeed a marvellous piece of divine workmanship.
Crushed like the moth
The moth is short-lived, and the comparison is not flattering. Here man's death points to something deeper than weakness:
Samuel RidoutCompared with God's holiness, even the heavenly beings are unclean. The seraphim veil their faces as they proclaim Him. How much less can mortal man, whose mortality is a witness of his sin, boast of himself. His breath is in his nostrils. His life is over in a day, like a story that is told — like the short-lived moth.
True — and still beside the point
Commentators do not dispute the doctrine. They dispute the use Eliphaz makes of it:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThis vision describes the greatness and majesty of God and of course is again true. That it was a real vision cannot be doubted. Man's smallness, his utter nothingness, is made known in this vision. But did this meet the need of suffering Job? It could not explain the reason for Job's suffering. And something like this is suggested by these words: Job, you are just like other men before God, and your present affliction shows it. You thought you were right with God, and that He blessed and protected you. But He is holy and just, so your suffering shows you are reaping the consequences of your sin, as others do.
The flaw: Eliphaz turns a truth about all men into a verdict on one man:
Samuel RidoutThis is all quite true, and in another setting it would fit well. But, as already said, it misses the mark. It does not meet Job's need. True, in God's sight all are an unclean thing. But does that cancel the truth that righteousness does exist in the children of God? If all are unclean in God's sight, then Eliphaz must take his place beside Job, a thing he is by no means ready to do.
A message meant for its hearer
Eliphaz never counted himself among the crushed. That mistake carries a lesson for anyone who listens to teaching:
Leslie M. GrantEliphaz was applying it only to Job, not to himself. He did not consider himself "crushed before a moth" and "broken in pieces." But a vision or dream is meant to apply directly to the person who has it. Eliphaz missed that one important fact. Similarly, we may hear good ministry which we think to be more applicable to others than to ourselves. Eliphaz could see that Job's excellence was going away. But his own excellence would go away too, as it does with all men.
What God thinks of the house of clay
Man's frailty is only one half of the account. The other half comes from God's side:
J. N. DarbyIt is a testimony to man's lowliness, if we look at man as he is in himself — "crushed," as Job says, "before the moth." But the moment I reach God's thoughts about man, I see God setting him over the works of His hand, and crowning him with glory and honour. That has put man into a wonderful place.
Summary
- Clay. The image is a mud hut on a dust footing — the kind of house that collapses into rubbish if left alone. That is the body every person lives in.
- Moth. Death is more than fragility. Man's mortality itself witnesses that he is a sinner before a holy God.
- True. Commentators do not question the vision's doctrine. Man's nothingness before God is real, and Eliphaz reported it faithfully.
- Misfired. Eliphaz aimed at Job a truth that covered himself as well. It explained nothing about Job's suffering, and it let Eliphaz stand outside a verdict he belonged in.
- Crowned. In himself, man is crushed like a moth. In God's thoughts, God sets him over the works of His hands and crowns him with glory and honour.