Job 4:4

Chapter 4:1-5. Eliphaz is the most dogmatic of the three friends, and in his first address he makes much of the greatness and justice of God. He had come to comfort, but he could bring little comfort to the afflicted man. He begins very politely: "If one replied to you (to Job's lament), would you be grieved? But who can refrain from speaking?" But at once he stabs Job to the heart.

Eliphaz the Temanite appears to be the oldest and the more dignified of the three friends. He rebukes Job first of all for a lack of firmness in facing the deep distress that had come on his family and himself. He is not content with this. He also blames Job: the man who knew so well how to meet others in their sorrows failed when the trouble came on himself.

In his opening words, Eliphaz begins the criticism that runs through everything the friends say. What he says is completely true. Job had comforted others in times of distress, so he should have borne up under his own trials. And yet would we not expect some words of sympathy from a friend — a "brother born for adversity"? Would not grace always teach us to "weep with those who weep"? The blessed Man of Sorrows did not scold sufferers like this. Human sorrow moved Him with compassion, even to tears. It is this harshness that shows a wrong principle in Eliphaz, which comes out more clearly as he goes on.

Simple, all this — to see and say it about someone else! With the chill and the shadow on us, is it always so easy? "You have instructed many … your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees: but now it has come upon you, and you faint." (Job 4:3-5.) So it is indeed with more than Job. At the critical moment, when we are called on to show strength, there is nothing but weakness. The arguments we used with others stand where they did, but they are of no use. No one has disproved them, yet they do not comfort us. We need more than argument: only the living strength of the God of strength is enough in the day of personal need. And it is a terrible thing, perhaps, to realise then how much of the energy that has carried us along was not that strength.

And now Satan renews the attack through his friend Eliphaz. He shoots poisoned arrows through Eliphaz's lips, in chapter 4:3-8. "You have instructed many." It is terrible when Satan can fix a poor believer's thoughts on himself like this. "What!" he says, "is this you? You, who profess so much — you who instruct others — you who are looked up to? What dishonour you will bring on the name of Christ if all that you are comes out before the world. Your sin is dreadful, because of the very profession you make." … 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.

There must be school time in God's family, and everything must be fully tested and proved. If we are walking with God, are we not aware how little we are able to help one another? It is painful to see how well able we seem to be to find the weak points in one another. To tell a man he is at the bottom of a deep ditch is one thing; it is quite another to be able, through grace, to lift him out of it. We must know the hand and heart of God, and His sustaining power, for ourselves. Then we can meet others in their varied circumstances. Like a skilled doctor, we shall know what each medicine is worth and be ready to use it. The doctor must have gone to school to learn. In the same way, we must walk through this great hospital of suffering — this present world. We must taste the comfort of God ourselves before we can offer it to others.