Chapter 2: Satan again comes before the presence of God, where he is again told by God, “Hast thou considered my servant Job...?”, and that Job “still holdeth fast his integrity” although Satan “movedst” God “to destroy him without cause.” This use of wording – that Satan moved God – is said by commentators to indicate importunity, and not any power that Satan, a corrupt lesser being, to move the omnipotent and unchangeable. Satan is given power to touch Job's flesh but not to take his life. Job refuses to curse God despite his wife's plea, and is joined by his three friends in silent mourning for seven days and nights.
Chapter 3: Job curses the day of his birth. V11 “Why died I not from the womb”. V13 “For now should I have lien still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest”. V17 “There the wicked cease from troubling”. In verse 14, Job talks of "kings and counsellers of the earth which built desolate places for themselves" which, according to commentators, is a potential reference to sepulchres or maybe even the pyramids.
Chapter 4: Speech of Eliphaz the Temanite. He first commends Job on his prior work in V3 before cutting him down, as that his "integrity" is vain V6. V7 “who ever perished, being innocent?”. V8 “Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same”. By these comments, Eliphaz is trying to cause Job to declare his guilt as the cause of his suffering. In v12-17, Eliphaz speaks of a vision received while sleeping bringing the message “Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?”
Chapter 5: Continuing speech of Eliphaz. He first asks of Job which saint he would turn to in order to make comparison of his cause (v1), i.e. what saint had suffered as he had yet being good. He then relays stories of the foolish and silly being destroyed by such affliction (v2-5). In this, Eliphaz seems to even make mention of Job's children being crushed in verse 4 and that Job was one who was foolish and had taken root but then his habitation was cursed (v3). Eliphaz states that affliction doesn't come from the dust, meaning that we cannot blame fortune for our troubles (v6). But "man is born unto trouble" because of his sinful nature inherited from Adam (v7). Then he encourages Job to seek to God with his cause v8, to remember that God's discipline is good v17, and that just as He wounds, He also binds up v18 and can deliver from all troubles v19-21 and set Job back at peace v24.
K&D on Job 5:22-27
All that Eliphaz says, considered in itself, is blameless. He censures Job's vehemence, which was certainly not to be approved. He says that the destroying judgment of God never touches the innocent, but certainly the wicked; and at the same time expresses the same truth as that placed as a motto to the Psalter inPsalm 1:1-6, and which is even brilliantly confirmed in the issue of the history of Job. When we find Isaiah 57:1, comp. Psalm 12:2, in apparent opposition to this, אבד הצּדּיק, it is not meant that the judgment of destruction comes upon the righteous, but that his generation experiences the judgment of his loss (aetati suae perit). And these are eternal truths, that between the Creator and creature, even an angel, there remains an infinite distance, and that no creature possesses a righteousness which it can maintain before God. Not less true is it, that with God murmuring is death, and that it is appointed to sinful man to pass through sorrow. Moreover, the counsel of Eliphaz is the right counsel: I would turn to God, etc. His beautiful concluding exhortation, so rich in promises, crowns his speech.
It has been observed (e.g., by Löwenthal), that if it is allowed that Eliphaz (Job 5:17.) expresses a salutary spiritual design of affliction, all coherence in the book is from the first destroyed. But in reality it is an effect producing not only outward happiness, but also an inward holiness, which Eliphaz ascribes to sorrow. It is therefore to be asked, how it consists with the plan of the book. There is no doctrinal error to be discovered in the speech of Eliphaz, and yet he cannot be considered as a representative of the complete truth of Scripture. Job ought to humble himself under this; but since he does not, we must side with Eliphaz.
He does not represent the complete truth of Scripture: for there are, according to Scripture, three kinds of sufferings, which must be carefully distinguished.
It has been observed (e.g., by Löwenthal), that if it is allowed that Eliphaz (Job 5:17.) expresses a salutary spiritual design of affliction, all coherence in the book is from the first destroyed. But in reality it is an effect producing not only outward happiness, but also an inward holiness, which Eliphaz ascribes to sorrow. It is therefore to be asked, how it consists with the plan of the book. There is no doctrinal error to be discovered in the speech of Eliphaz, and yet he cannot be considered as a representative of the complete truth of Scripture. Job ought to humble himself under this; but since he does not, we must side with Eliphaz.
He does not represent the complete truth of Scripture: for there are, according to Scripture, three kinds of sufferings, which must be carefully distinguished.
(Note: Our old dogmatists (vid., e.g., Baier, Compendium Theologiae positivae, ii. 1, §15) and pastoral theologians (e.g., Danhauer) consider them as separate. Among the oldest expositors of the book of Job with which I am acquainted, Olympiodorus is comparatively the best.)
The godless one, who has fallen away from God, is visited with suffering from God; for sin and the punishment of sin (comprehended even in the language in עון and חטּאת) are necessarily connected as cause and effect. This suffering of the godless is the effect of the divine justice in punishment; it is chastisement (מוּסר) under the disposition of wrath (Psalm 6:2; Psalm 38:2; Jeremiah 10:24.), though not yet final wrath; it is punitive suffering (נקם, נגע, τιμωρία , poena). On the other hand, the sufferings of the righteous flow from the divine love, to which even all that has the appearance of wrath in this suffering must be subservient, as the means only by which it operates: for although the righteous man is not excepted from the weakness and sinfulness of the human race, he can never become an object of the divine wrath, so long as his inner life is directed towards God, and his outward life is governed by the most earnest striving after sanctification. According to the Old and New Testaments, he stands towards God in the relation of a child to his father (only the New Testament idea includes the mystery of the new birth not revealed in the Old Testament); and consequently all sufferings are fatherly chastisements, Deuteronomy 8:5; Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12:6, Revelation 3:19, comp. Tob. 12:13 (Vulg.). But this general distinction between the sufferings of the righteous and of the ungodly is not sufficient for the book of Job. The sufferings of the righteous even are themselves manifold. God sends affliction to them more and more to purge away the sin which still has power over them, and rouse them up from the danger of carnal security; to maintain in them the consciousness of sin as well as of grace, and with it the lowliness of penitence; to render the world and its pleasures bitter as gall to them; to draw them from the creature, and bind them to himself by prayer and devotion. This suffering, which has the sin of the godly as its cause, has, however, not God's wrath, but God's love directed towards the preservation and advancement of the godly, as its motive: it is the proper disciplinary suffering (מוּסר or תּוכחת, Proverbs 3:11; ðáéäåéHeb 12). It is this of which Paul speaks, 1 Corinthians 11:32. This disciplinary suffering may attain such a high degree as entirely to overwhelm the consciousness of the relation to God by grace; and the sufferer, as frequently in the Psalms, considers himself as one rejected of God, over whom the wrath of God is passing. The deeper the sufferer's consciousness of sin, the more dejected is his mood of sorrow; and still God's thoughts concerning him are thoughts of peace, and not of evil (Jeremiah 29:11). He chastens, not however in wrath, but בּמשׁפּט, with moderation (Jeremiah 10:24).
Nearly allied to this suffering, but yet, as to its cause and purpose, distinct, is another kind of the suffering of the godly. God ordains suffering for them, in order to prove their fidelity to himself, and their earnestness after sanctification, especially their trust in God, and their patience. He also permits Satan, who impeaches them, to tempt them, to sift them as wheat, in order that he may be confounded, and the divine choice justified, - in order that it may be manifest that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, are able to separate them from the love of God, and to tear away their faith (אמונה) from God, which has remained stedfast on Him, notwithstanding every apparent manifestation of wrath. The godly will recognise his affliction as such suffering when it comes upon him in the very midst of his fellowship with God, his prayer and watching, and his struggling after sanctification. For this kind of suffering - trial - Scripture employs the expressions נסּה (Deuteronomy 8:2, Deuteronomy 8:16) and בּחן(Proverbs 17:3), πειρασμός (James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:6., Job 4:19; comp. Sir. 2:1ff.). Such suffering, according to a common figure, is for the godly what the smelting-furnace or the fining-pot is to precious metals. A rich reward awaits him who is found proof against the trial, temptation, and conflict, and comes forth from it as pure, refined gold. Suffering for trial is nearly allied to that for chastisement, in so far as the chastisement is at the same time trial; but distinct from it, in so far as every trial is not also chastisement (i.e., having as its purpose the purging away of still existing sin).
A third kind of the suffering of the righteous is testimony borne by suffering, - reproach, persecution, and perhaps even martyrdom, which are endured for the sake of fidelity to God and His word. While he is blessed who is found proof against trial, he is blessed in himself who endures this suffering (Matthew 5:11., and other passages); for every other suffering comes upon man for his own sake, this for God's. In this case there is not even the remotest connection between the suffering and the sinfulness of the sufferer. Ps 44 is a prayer of Israel in the midst of this form of suffering. Σταυρός is the name expressly used for it in the New Testament - suffering for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
Without a knowledge of these different kinds of human suffering, the book of Job cannot be understood. “Whoever sees with spiritual eyes,” says Brentius, “does not judge the moral character of a man by his suffering, but his suffering by his moral character.” Just the want of this spiritual discernment and inability to distinguish the different kinds of suffering is the mistake of the friends, and likewise, from the very first, the mistake of Eliphaz. Convinced of the sincere piety of his friend, he came to Job believing that his suffering was a salutary chastisement of God, which would at last turn out for his good. Proceeding upon this assumption, he blames Job for his murmuring, and bids him receive his affliction with a recognition of human sinfulness and the divine purpose for good. Thus the controversy begins. The causal connection with sin, in which Eliphaz places Job's suffering, is after all the mildest. He does not go further than to remind Job that he is a sinner, because he is a man.
But even this causal connection, in which Eliphaz connects Job's sufferings, though in the most moderate way, with previous sin deserving of punishment, is his πρώτον ψεῦδος . In the next place, Job's suffering is indeed not chastisement, but trial. Jehovah has decreed it for His servant, not to chasten him, but to prove him. This it is that Eliphaz mistakes; and we also should not know it but for the prologue and the corresponding epilogue. Accordingly, the prologue and epilogue are organic parts of the form of the book. If these are removed, its spirit is destroyed.
But the speech of Eliphaz, moreover, beautiful and true as it is, when considered in itself, is nevertheless heartless, haughty, stiff, and cold. For (1.) it does not contain a word of sympathy, and yet the suffering which he beholds is so terribly great: his first word to his friend after the seven days of painful silence is not one of comfort, but of moralizing. (2.) He must know that Job's disease is not the first and only suffering which has come upon him, and that he has endured his previous afflictions with heroic submission; but he ignores this, and acts as though sorrow were now first come upon Job. (3.) Instead of recognising therein the reason of Job's despondency, that he thinks that he has fallen from the love of God, and become an object of wrath, he treats him as self-righteous; and to excite his feelings, presents an oracle to him, which contains nothing but what Job might sincerely admit as true. (4.) Instead of considering that Job's despair and murmuring against God is really of a different kind from that of the godless, he classes them together, and instead of gently correcting him, present to Job the accursed end of the fool, who also murmurs against God, as he has himself seen it. Thus, in consequence of the false application which Eliphaz makes of it, the truth contained in his speech is totally reversed. Thus delicately and profoundly commences the dramatical entanglement. The skill of the poet is proved by the difficulty which the expositor has in detecting that which is false in the speech of Eliphaz. The idea of the book does not float on the surface. It is clothed with flesh and blood. It is submerged in the very action and history.
A third kind of the suffering of the righteous is testimony borne by suffering, - reproach, persecution, and perhaps even martyrdom, which are endured for the sake of fidelity to God and His word. While he is blessed who is found proof against trial, he is blessed in himself who endures this suffering (Matthew 5:11., and other passages); for every other suffering comes upon man for his own sake, this for God's. In this case there is not even the remotest connection between the suffering and the sinfulness of the sufferer. Ps 44 is a prayer of Israel in the midst of this form of suffering. Σταυρός is the name expressly used for it in the New Testament - suffering for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
Without a knowledge of these different kinds of human suffering, the book of Job cannot be understood. “Whoever sees with spiritual eyes,” says Brentius, “does not judge the moral character of a man by his suffering, but his suffering by his moral character.” Just the want of this spiritual discernment and inability to distinguish the different kinds of suffering is the mistake of the friends, and likewise, from the very first, the mistake of Eliphaz. Convinced of the sincere piety of his friend, he came to Job believing that his suffering was a salutary chastisement of God, which would at last turn out for his good. Proceeding upon this assumption, he blames Job for his murmuring, and bids him receive his affliction with a recognition of human sinfulness and the divine purpose for good. Thus the controversy begins. The causal connection with sin, in which Eliphaz places Job's suffering, is after all the mildest. He does not go further than to remind Job that he is a sinner, because he is a man.
But even this causal connection, in which Eliphaz connects Job's sufferings, though in the most moderate way, with previous sin deserving of punishment, is his πρώτον ψεῦδος . In the next place, Job's suffering is indeed not chastisement, but trial. Jehovah has decreed it for His servant, not to chasten him, but to prove him. This it is that Eliphaz mistakes; and we also should not know it but for the prologue and the corresponding epilogue. Accordingly, the prologue and epilogue are organic parts of the form of the book. If these are removed, its spirit is destroyed.
But the speech of Eliphaz, moreover, beautiful and true as it is, when considered in itself, is nevertheless heartless, haughty, stiff, and cold. For (1.) it does not contain a word of sympathy, and yet the suffering which he beholds is so terribly great: his first word to his friend after the seven days of painful silence is not one of comfort, but of moralizing. (2.) He must know that Job's disease is not the first and only suffering which has come upon him, and that he has endured his previous afflictions with heroic submission; but he ignores this, and acts as though sorrow were now first come upon Job. (3.) Instead of recognising therein the reason of Job's despondency, that he thinks that he has fallen from the love of God, and become an object of wrath, he treats him as self-righteous; and to excite his feelings, presents an oracle to him, which contains nothing but what Job might sincerely admit as true. (4.) Instead of considering that Job's despair and murmuring against God is really of a different kind from that of the godless, he classes them together, and instead of gently correcting him, present to Job the accursed end of the fool, who also murmurs against God, as he has himself seen it. Thus, in consequence of the false application which Eliphaz makes of it, the truth contained in his speech is totally reversed. Thus delicately and profoundly commences the dramatical entanglement. The skill of the poet is proved by the difficulty which the expositor has in detecting that which is false in the speech of Eliphaz. The idea of the book does not float on the surface. It is clothed with flesh and blood. It is submerged in the very action and history.
Chapter 6: Job's reply to Eliphaz
1) His grief and pain are worthy of complain (v1-4,6-7). Of course he didn't complain when he wasn't suffering ch 4:3-4, but neither does an ass complain when it doesn't have grass (v5). Maybe his complaints are the salt that makes the unsavoury able to be eaten (v6)
2) Wish to die (v8-12). It is his request (v8), that God would give the final stroke (v9) that would give him comfort (v10) because there is nothing left to hope for or do in life (v11) and his flesh and strength are not so much (v12).
3) And yet, his wisdom and ability to retort are not gone (v13), and Job begins to censure Eliphaz (v14-30)
a) His friend that should show pity does not: a lack of fear in God to oppress the poor (Ex 22: 22-24) and a retort against the accusation that Job's fear of God was not, but only that he feared loosing his integrity (ch 4:6)
b) They are deceitful as a brook that swells when fed by snow, giving hope for refreshment later, but then wanes away when help is needed (v15-18). Using the example of travelers from the arid Tema and Sheba in dry Arabia, Job shows the confounding of this misleading appearance of helpfulness (v19-20).
c) They seem afraid (v21) that Job might ask them for something (v22) or to defend him in his helplessness (v23)
d) If they would teach Job where he erred, he would listen (v24) because of the force of good and right words, as opposed to their arguments (v25). But they pick at the words of one who is in suffering without looking at his suffering and the reason for his words (v26) and overwhelm him (27). "The poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard" (Ecc 9:16). If they were to just look on him in earnest, they could discern if he actually was lying (v28). They should think again and judge rightly (v29) for he was well able to taste evil (v30)
Chapter 7: Job continues. The overall thoughts (Poole) Our times are like those of hirelings, restless and hopeless. Death desirable. His days are as a weaver’s shuttle; his life is as wind; and he was consumed out of this world, and should appear in it no more, Job 7:1-10. Therefore he will speak to God, Job 7:11,12: is tired out and weary of life, Job 7:13-16. Man unworthy of God’s notice, Job 7:17-19. He confesseth his sin, and prayeth for forgiveness, Job 7:20,21.
Chapter 8: Speech of Bildad the Shuhite.
John Gill:
In this chapter Bildad enters the discussion with Job; proceeding upon the same lines as Eliphaz, he reproves him for his long and loud talk, Job 8:1; asserts the justice of God in his providence, of which the taking away of Job's children by death for their transgression was an instance and proof, Job 8:3; and suggests, that if Job, who had not sinned so heinously as they had, and therefore was spared, would make his submission to God, and ask forgiveness of him, and behave for the future with purity and uprightness, he need not doubt but God would immediately appear and exert himself on his behalf, and bless him and his with prosperity and plenty, Job 8:5; for this was his ordinary way of dealing with the children of men, for the truth of which he refers him to the records of former times, and to the sentiments of ancient men, who lived longer, and were more knowing than he and his friends, on whose opinion he does not desire him to rely, Job 8:8; and then by various similes used by the ancients, or taken from them by Bildad, or which were of his own inventing and framing, are set forth the short lived enjoyments, and vain hope and confidence, of hypocrites and wicked men; as by the sudden withering of rushes and flags of themselves, that grow in mire and water, even in their greenness, before they are cut down, or cropped by any hand, Job 8:11; and by the spider's web, which cannot stand and endure when leaned upon and held, Job 8:14; and by a flourishing tree destroyed, and seen no more, Job 8:16; and the chapter is concluded with an observation and maxim, that he and the rest of his friends set out upon, and were tenacious of; that God did not afflict good men in any severe manner, but filled them with joy and gladness; and that he would not long help and prosper wicked men, but bring them and their dwelling place to nought; and this being the case of Job, he suggests that he was such an one, Job 8:20.
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