Job 4:1-21 - When a Friend Becomes a Miserable Comforter (Session 8)

In this verse-by-verse Bible study of Job 4, Reasoning Through the Bible introduces Eliphaz, the first of Job’s friends to speak. At first, Eliphaz sounds thoughtful and respectful, but his counsel quickly turns hurtful as he assumes Job’s suffering must be the result of personal sin. This session explores why good deeds do not guarantee an easy life and why painful things can still happen to faithful people. 

This study also examines Eliphaz’s use of sowing and reaping, the danger of drawing rigid conclusions from experience, and the callousness of blaming a suffering person without evidence. It highlights a crucial lesson for Christian care: sometimes presence and compassion help more than speeches and explanations. 

The episode then turns to Eliphaz’s mysterious night vision and asks whether Christians should seek supernatural messages. The answer given in this session is clear: any claimed spiritual message must be tested by the written Word of God. Job 4 becomes a warning not only about insensitive friends, but also about half-truths dressed up as spiritual insight. 

Topics in this episode include:

•  Eliphaz’s first speech 
•  does suffering prove guilt 
•  can good people still suffer 
•  sowing and reaping in Job 
•  why friends can make suffering worse 
•  testing supernatural messages by Scripture 
•  bad theology in a time of pain 
•  how to comfort the hurting 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

Setup: Friends With Good Motives

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to find out what happens when friends come over with good motivations, whether they really help or not. I can think of times in my life when I've had deaths in my family, then our friends and our neighbors that came over and helped, they were a true godsend. They were a great help in time of need. Today we're going to find out Job has three friends. We're going to meet the first of them today, and we're going to find out is this friend really a help or not? Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We do verse-by-verse Bible studies through the Word of God. Right now we're reasoning our way through the book of Job. If you have your Bible, open it to Job chapter four, and we're going to meet a man named Eliphaz. And if we remember, Eliphaz was one of several friends that came and spent an entire week with Job, commiserating with him in his time of suffering. And we're going to see Eliphaz speak very elegantly, especially at first. He seems to, on one hand, respect God, but he also very eloquently says some very insensitive things to Job in his time of suffering. So as we're going to see, Job's friends in many cases make his life worse. This is the first discourse by Eliphaz. We'll go through each of the three friends with Job's responses and then back through each of the three friends. That's how the book is structured. So let's see what Eliphaz says first. Steve, can you read the first 11 verses of Job chapter 4?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Then Eliphaz the Tamanite responded, If one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? But who can refrain from speaking? Behold, you have taught many, and you have strengthened weak hands. Your words have helped the stumbling to stand, and you have strengthened feebled knees. But now it comes to you and you are impatient. It touches you and you are horrified. Is your fear of God not your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? Remember now, whoever perished being innocent, or where were the upright destroyed? According to what I've seen, those who plough wrongdoing and those who sow trouble harvest it. By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they come to an end. The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion and the teeth of the young lions are broken out. The lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

Good Deeds Do Not Buy Safety

SPEAKER_00 3:03

In the first few verses there, Eliphaz reminds Job that Job was a good friend to people in need. He helped a lot of people. Job helped people that were weak and feeble and needy. He helped the people around him. And when people are sick or in need, they could depend on Job. So, first question, Steve, will doing good deeds keep bad things from happening to us?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Not in general, meaning that if you're doing good deeds, you're doing it because of the Holy Spirit that is in you, because of the relationship that you have with Jesus Christ. And you're not doing the good deeds in order to win favor or to earn your salvation with God. And the natural outcome of having the Holy Spirit in us is to treat our neighbor as ourselves, as Jesus encouraged us to do. So doing good deeds is not going to ward off bad things that might happen to us.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

The reason I ask that is because in our minds, regardless of what our theology might be, we tend to think that way anyway. We think, well, God, look at all the good things they did. Therefore, why is this suffering happening to me? And we see other people. I remember seeing people, family, that have one tragedy after another. And we think, boy, that's such a good-hearted family. They love the Lord and they do good service work in the church. And yet, look at the pain and the tragedy that's happened. It screams out with us, it's not fair. And I think that's one of the messages in Job here. Even his friend Eliphaz admits, Job, you were out there helping weak people. You were a great friend and a neighbor. I guess the next question would be: can painful things happen to faithful people who do a lot of service work for God? And the answer has to be yes. It's good to be right with the Lord. That's what we're supposed to be, but that's not like some sort of a give and take where just because I do good things for the Lord, therefore I'm never going to have anything painful happen to me, right?

The Blame Game In Suffering

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, I think it's uh it's not something where there's a scale and you have good things and you have bad things. And if your good things outweigh your bad things, then you're gonna make it into heaven, or God is gonna look upon you more favorable. Now, there are some religions that do teach that. Therefore, people do good things, so to speak, in order to earn their way. But that's not how we should look at life. We should just live our Christian life, love one another. And as Paul tells us, we are to love our Christian brethren more than we do other people in general. That's just how we should approach life and not worry about what type of impact it's going to have on our life. Now, that said, if we have that attitude of a Christian, helpful attitude, I think our life will be better. We'll be in a better mood, we'll have a better awareness about ourselves, we'll be in better mental health. I think that is a general principle that we can apply to it, but I don't think that we should say it's an either-or. We need to do good works in order to keep bad things from happening to us.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

In verse six, it says there Eliphaz is saying to Job, is your fear of God not your confidence in the integrity of your ways, your hope? What Eliphaz is saying is, Job, you're putting too much confidence in your fear of God. You're putting too much hope in your faith in God, because, verse seven, whoever perished being innocent. When he says, whoever perished being innocent, he's making sort of a back-handed insult with Job, saying, Job, if all this pain and suffering, this doesn't happen to innocent people. Innocent people don't have pain and suffering and all these things. Remember, Job's family just died. So when he says, whoever perished being innocent, something happened with you and your kids must have been guilty. That's what he's really saying here. And I think the very strong suggestion is that Job is not innocent. His family wasn't innocent. So he's suffering because of some sin he committed. That's the clear message from Job's friend Eliphaz. And I think part of the answer is Eliphaz has too small of a view of God, just like many of us. He shows no understanding that God might have a greater purpose for Job's suffering, or at least a greater reason, a more transcendent thing that's going on rather than a reward and punishment thing in Job's life. I find here verse eight is very descriptive. It says, according to what I've seen, those who plow wrongdoing and those who sow trouble harvest it. Very descriptive. That brings up this principle of sowing and reaping. Steve, what do we know about sowing and reaping?

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Well, I think we're taught very plain in the New Testament scriptures that those who sow are going to reap what they sow. It's been taken out of context in many ways, and it's been twisted to mean that you need to sow money in order to get more money back. That's not what the original principle is. The original principle is just if you live an evil life, then you're going to harvest evil consequences. And if you sow a Christian life, then you're going to harvest a Christian life experiences. So I think that's the general principle that we see in the New Testament. But as Eliphaz is talking to Job here, one of the things he brings out that starts all this, I think Glenn is in verse five, where he says, But now it comes to you, talking about the calamity that Job has helped and benefited other people to get through. Now this calamity has come to you and you're impatient. It touches you and you are horrified. Now, Eliphaz, as he goes here, I think he starts in your point saying insensitive things because then he goes in and he says, Whoever perished who is innocent. That's an insensitive thing to say to Job that yes, while he's experiencing this, Job knows in his heart that he's innocent. Eliphaz is looking at it from the outside, and he is starting to tell Job things based on his experience. And I think that's what we should look at and keep in mind as we go through chapters four and five, is that someone's experience and the lessons they learn out of it aren't always something that we need to pay attention to, meaning that they might be learning the wrong lessons from it. And I think that's possibly what Eliphaz is going through here as he goes through these verses, is he's saying, when does God ever punish the innocent? He says, Remember, according to what I've seen, those who plow wrongdoing and those who sow trouble harvest it. Well, that might be a true statement on its surface, but Eliphaz is attributing that to Job without any evidence that Job has plowed wrongdoing. And that's really what I'm getting at. Eliphaz is applying an experiential learning to Job without actually observing Job doing anything that would put him in this situation or put him in the category of being guilty and not innocent.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

In this passage, Eliphaz is accusing Job of getting what he deserved, saying he sowed trouble, so he's reaping trouble. Eliphaz is showing no understanding beyond the simple sowing and reaping. He shows no ability to grasp that God might have something grander here, something greater. The principle does not say that painful things are always our fault. Moreover, Eliphaz is very eloquently being insensitive. Imagine going up to someone who just had their family members die, who's got this very, very difficult disease, and saying, Had to be something you did that caused all this. I see this is really the main issue here, is that they're constantly pointing back to Job. Verse 9, he says, quote, by the breath of God they perish. He's mean God is killing those who sow trouble. Job's friend is saying very hurtful things, but he's saying it in a very eloquent way. I see this as just being very callous. So, Steve, do we ever see people in our churches that maybe start from a good position, start from a loving, trying to be helpful, but they say very callous and hurtful things?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Eliphaz is arguing that the innocent and upright are not cut off by God. And according to his experience, it is the wicked who are punished. Eliphaz is applying a syllogism of saying, in my experience, Job, God only punishes the wicked. You're being punished, therefore, you're wicked. Something that you have done is wicked. Now, a syllogism can be used in a good way. It's basically taking two points and drawing a conclusion out of it. But in this case, Eliphaz is completely off base. I think it's a lesson to us is that we can't always look at something in a situation and then determine, as a matter of fact, this is what it is. And that's what Eliphaz is doing. And that's what leads to him giving this insensitive conclusion to Job. I think that it's something that we need to keep in mind and take a lesson from Eliphaz that when we're there supporting other people, that many times the support is being nothing other than just present. And that goes to what you were talking about at the very beginning here of when people would come by after a death in your family. You don't always need to say something, just being present is enough.

Eliphaz’s Night Vision Story

Test Every Message By Scripture

SPEAKER_00 13:25

And I would agree. Let's go on and hear the next part of what Eliphaz is saying. This next section, Eliphaz claims to get his inspiration from a vision. And he's going to give us this sort of spooky story of this vision that he got in the night. And we're going to see what this supernatural message that he got is as we read this next section starting in verse 12. Now a word was brought to me secretly, and my ear received a whisper of it, amid disquieting thoughts from visions of the night when deep sleep falls on people. Dread came upon me and trembling and made all my bones shake. Then a spirit passed by my face, the hair of my flesh stood up. Something was standing still, but I could not recognize its appearance. A form was before my eyes. There was silence. Then I heard a voice. Can a man be pure before his maker? He puts no trust even in his servants, and he accuses his angels of error. How much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth? Between morning and evening they are broken in pieces. Unregarded, they perish forever. Is their tent cord not pulled out within them? They die, yet without wisdom. So here Eliphaz is claiming to have seen a vision, a vision of the night, and gotten this message from this supernatural spirit. He says it was at night, this form appeared before me, and he gets this message. So the first question, Steve, before we get to what the spirit actually claimed to have said, as Christians, should we be seeking messages from supernatural sources?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

The short answer is no, we should not be seeking spiritual sources or answers other than from God Himself, because we don't know where those spiritual sources are coming from. They could be good, they might be bad. So, as a general rule, we shouldn't go out seeking them. Where should we be seeking our message?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

And if we do get some sort of a supernatural quote unquote message, where should we look to verify whether it's true?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

We should be going to God and looking for answers from Him. We should be taking advantage as believers of the Holy Spirit in us in order to seek answers and also to seek wisdom, to seek where God wants us and what he wants us to do and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit that is in us. That's where we should seek. Now, if we happen to get something which is determined to be supernatural, where we need to go and balance it against is scripture. If we go with just our experiences, again, as we've just talked about, our experiences can lead us in a wrong conclusion. We should go to the scriptures and look and see what the scriptures have to say. And if it directly contradicts the scriptures, then we can know that it is a source that is not from God Himself.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

The only objective source of evaluating messages that we receive is the written word of God. And I say that's the only objective because that has been proven true. And if we hear a message, supposedly a new message from a supernatural source, God or otherwise, the only way to evaluate whether that's true or not is the word of God. And the reason we bring that up is because people every so often will stand up and say, Well, I've seen a vision or I got a word from God. There's people that claim to have gotten messages from angels that have appeared before them. There's people that have claimed to have seen Mary over time. There's people that have claimed to have seen Mary every week for many decades. I've met people that claim to have gotten messages from their ancestors that are giving the message. People claim to have gotten messages from Jesus himself. There was one televangelist that claimed that Jesus appeared and rode in his car with them for a while. There was another televangelist that claimed to have seen an 800-foot-tall Jesus. And so there's people that get messages periodically from Mary and angels and Jesus himself. And the Holy Spirit says, and the only way to evaluate these is the written word of God. We should verify any message we receive against what has already been proven true in the Bible. We should expect these messages to either be so common sense that anybody could know it, and it's not really a special revelation, or else just false, simply because there's too many of them that have been errors so far. If we look at, for example, in 1 Samuel 28, the King Saul goes to a witch at Endor. The witch goes through her motions and this spirit appears, and the witch seems surprised that it actually worked. And what does this vision that supposedly Samuel say? Well, the message was something that anybody would have already known, which is, hey, Saul, old buddy, your army's fixing to lose tomorrow because you're a bad military person, right? So it wasn't really anything that was a true revelation. And if we look at here in Job, Eliphaz, oh, it was at night, all of my hair stood on end, and there was this swarm at the foot of my bed. And what did it say? Well, if we look at what it says, we can tell that this is nothing special. What does he say? Verse 17, quote, can a man be just before God? That was the first part of the message. Well, I ask you, Steve, can a man be just before God? Well, actually, yes, we can through faith in Christ, but uh common sense will tell you that people sin. So this supposed vision from this supernatural source really didn't say anything that wasn't already commonly known.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Let's talk a little bit about receiving the word from the Lord, Glenn. Modern-day pastors use that I believe in order to associate themselves with what God did in the Old Testament with prophets and other people. And they use such things as what Eliphaz experienced here when he says, I received a word in secret. But we ought to put in context what's going on. At the time of Eliphaz, they didn't have any scripture. And in the time of the Old Testament, the prophets, they had some scripture that had come out of Moses, but God spoke to them through their prophets. And the messages that he gave to them was specifically to the nation of Israel, with some commentary on some of the other nations, but that's who the prophets were serving, were the nation of Israel itself. Now, post-Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection in the first century, where we have the epistles and other letters from the apostles and gospel messages, it says in Hebrews chapter one, verse one, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets, in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son. So, in other words, there is no new revelation that is coming because there doesn't need to be any new revelation. Now, does that mean that that God can't speak to some people? Well, God can do whatever he wants to do, but we need to bounce off of what these pastors that say, I've received a word from God, and then proceeds to tell people of his congregation that there's people out there that need to give money, that there's people out there that there's going to be a blessing on your life and others. We need to bounce off of scripture what they're saying, because in most cases they're charlatans that are trying to separate people from their money. And we need to realize is that God is spoken in the last days through his son. We have enough revelation now to know what's right and what's wrong. And God, in general, is not speaking to people. Through sending a word to other people. And we should just be cautious about listening to people that say that quite often.

When A “Word” Turns Half True

SPEAKER_00 22:09

The Old Testament prophets that you mentioned, Steve, and the New Testament apostles all had miraculous signs that followed them. There was times, for example, when Ezekiel predicted the exact day that a battle was happening in, you know, in another country. There were times where an army surrounded Jerusalem, and the prophet would say, No arrow will be shot. No one will die here. And so therefore the predictions came true. So that's how we knew then that the prophets were true prophets. And so always the scripture speaks against what the old King James, the phrase it used was a familiar spirit. It says, do not consult with familiar spirits. And I always used to think, what in the world is a familiar spirit? Well, then you bump into these people that say, Oh, yeah, I have the spirit guide and gives me messages on a regular basis. Or I meet with Mary or whomever on a regular basis. That is what the old King James called a familiar spirit. And the Bible strongly speaks against those. Deuteronomy 18, verses 11 and 12 says that anyone who gets messages from spirits is, quote, detestable to the Lord. Leviticus 19, 31, quote, give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits. Isaiah 8, verses 19 and 20 tell us to seek God, not those who get messages from spirits. Over and over again, the scriptures tell us that we should only seek what has been proven to have been given through the apostles and the prophets that had the miraculous signs of apostles and prophets, and not to just whoever you happen to meet at the bus stop that claims to have gotten a message from some other side. Verse 17, can mankind be righteous before God? Well, that's common knowledge, uh, the answer to that. The next verse, the message he got from the Spirit, was just flat and correct. God puts no trust even in his servants, and he accuses his angels of error. Well, I'm sorry, no, he doesn't. He does not accuse his angels of error. He can trust his servants. So these messages, if we measure it against what we know about the word of God, then Eliphaz's source was, at the very least, suspect. So we have here this message that Eliphaz is giving to Job is sort of a half-truth. He is just enough words about God to seem right, but he includes a healthy dose of error. We don't need new messages from supernatural beings. I think we need to spend a little more time understanding the old messages that we got before. Those are the ones that we need to learn. The message is here in this section, especially in verses 19 to 21, that Eliphaz is telling Job, God is punishing you, Job. That's the message. He's saying people are, quote, crushed before the moth is the phrase he used. Job, you're so weak that if a moth lands on you, then it's going to crush you. So is that message true or is it false? Is God punishing Job?

Next Time And Closing

SPEAKER_01 25:27

No, God is not punishing Job, and we know that because of the narrative. Now, of course, Eliphaz doesn't know that. And but Job, like I mentioned before, does know it within himself. Eliphaz is looking at linear reasoning here, and it's backing him into a corner because the importance of what you're saying about charging error to angels is that he's insisting that God charges both his angels and all humans with error, which then leads to a logical step of concluding that no human can ever please God. That contradicts God's affirmation of other figures such as Job and also Enoch and others that say they were righteous and upstanding man, that they feared God. So it's a fallacy that Eliphaz is putting that no one can ever please God, again, based off of the experience that he has or this secret word that he has received from this so-called spirit.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

We'll stop there for today. We're at the end of chapter four, but we're not at the end of Eliphaz's first speech. He's going to continue in chapter five giving increasingly insensitive advice to his friend Job. So be back next time. We will continue to reason through the book of Job. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

May God bless you.