Job 4King James Version

Eliphaz the Temanite speaks first. He acknowledges Job's past ministry to others and is troubled that now Job cannot handle suffering himself. He argues that the innocent do not perish and that only those who plow iniquity reap it. Then he describes a night vision: a spirit passes his face and speaks a riddle. His conclusion is that no mortal can be more righteous than God, and Job's complaint is misplaced.

Eliphaz is not a cruel man; he is a sincere man with a theology too small for what he is witnessing, and his system requires that Job's suffering prove Job's sin.

7: "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" This is the first statement of the friends' central argument: suffering always implies guilt. It sounds reasonable. It is wrong in Job's case.

Eliphaz describes a vision in the night, a spirit passing his face, hair rising on his head, a voice speaking in the silence. Ancient wisdom circles prized visionary experience as a source of theological authority. Eliphaz is not making this up to win an argument; he believes he has received revelation, and he cannot imagine his revelation could be wrong.

Eliphaz the Temanite, the oldest and most respected of the three friends, speaks from experience and from a night vision. His theology is not malicious; it is the standard wisdom theology of the ancient world, applied in the wrong situation.

Eliphaz is saying true things: God is just, the wicked do suffer, the righteous are generally protected. These are not lies. The problem is that he is applying general truths to a specific case that doesn't fit. This is the book's central theological problem with the friends: they have accurate theology and terrible hermeneutics.

There is a particular cruelty in being told by someone who means well that you must have done something to deserve this. Eliphaz is not attacking Job; he is protecting his theology. That makes it worse, not better.