Job 4:17

4:12-21 Eliphaz relates a vision. When we are communing with our own hearts, and are still, Ps 4:4, then is a time for the Holy Spirit to commune with us. This vision put him into very great fear. Ever since man sinned, it has been terrible to him to receive communications from Heaven, conscious that he can expect no good tidings thence. Sinful man! shall he pretend to be more just, more pure, than God, who being his Maker, is his Lord and Owner? How dreadful, then, the pride and presumption of man! How great the patience of God! Look upon man in his life. The very foundation of that cottage of clay in which man dwells, is in the dust, and it will sink with its own weight. We stand but upon the dust. Some have a higher heap of dust to stand upon than others but still it is the earth that stays us up, and will shortly swallow us up. Man is soon crushed; or if some lingering distemper, which consumes like a moth, be sent to destroy him, he cannot resist it. Shall such a creature pretend to blame the appointments of God? Look upon man in his death. Life is short, and in a little time men are cut off. Beauty, strength, learning, not only cannot secure them from death, but these things die with them; nor shall their pomp, their wealth, or power, continue after them. Shall a weak, sinful, dying creature, pretend to be more just than God, and more pure than his Maker? No: instead of quarrelling with his afflictions, let him wonder that he is out of hell.

Can a man be cleansed without his Maker? Will God justify sinful mortals, and clear them from guilt? or will he do so without their having an interest in the righteousness and gracious help of their promised Redeemer, when angels, once ministering spirits before his throne, receive the just recompence of their sins? Notwithstanding the seeming impunity of men for a short time, though living without God in the world, their doom is as certain as that of the fallen angels, and is continually overtaking them. Yet careless sinners note it so little, that they expect not the change, nor are wise to consider their latter end.

(17) Shall mortal man be more just than God? —This is the burden, or refrain, upon which the friends of Job are for ever harping. It is perfectly orthodox, but at the same time perfectly inadequate to deal with the necessities of Job’s case. He is willing to admit that it is impossible for any man to be just with God; but then arises Job’s dilemma, Where is God’s justice if He punishes the innocent as the guilty? The word rendered “mortal” man is really weak, frail man, involving, it may be, the idea of mortality, but not immediately suggesting it. As far as mortality implies sin, the notion of being just is absurd; and even a strong man—such is the antithesis—cannot be more pure than He that made him, who, it is assumed, must be both strong and righteous.

Job 4:17 . Shall mortal man be more just than God? — Shall man, fallen man, as the word אנושׁ , enosh, here used, signifies, subject as he is to diseases, troubles, and all those calamities which are the necessary consequences of sin and disobedience, pretend more strictly to observe the laws of justice, and therefore to be more just, than the righteous God? The sense is, Thou, O Job, dost presumptuously accuse God of dealing harshly and unrighteously with thee in sending thee into the world upon such hard terms, and punishing an innocent and righteous man with unparalleled severity; but, consider things calmly within thyself. Were it possible for God and thee to come to trial before any equal and impartial judge, canst thou think that thou wouldest go away justified, and that the great God would be condemned? No righteous man will punish another without cause, or more than he deserves; and, therefore, if God do so with thee, as thy words imply, he is less just than man, which it is blasphemous and absurd to imagine. Shall a man — Hebrew, גבר , geber, a great and mighty man, as this word signifies; shall even such a one a man eminent for wisdom, or holiness, or power, or any other perfections, who therefore might expect more favour than a poor, miserable, and contemptible man, signified by the former word enosh; be more pure than his Maker?

— More holy and righteous; show a greater hatred to injustice, or be more equitable in his proceedings, which he would be if he could justly reprehend any of the divine dispensations, and would not act toward his fellow-creatures, as he supposes God acts toward him or others? No, this cannot be: it would be the most daring presumption to entertain a thought of the kind; for though a man may have some qualifications which are not in others of his fellow-creatures, and some pre-eminences above many of them; yet, in the presence of his Maker, from whom he has received every excellence which he possesses, and on whom he is daily dependant for them, and all things, he must acknowledge his own comparative nothingness, and confess that the highest qualities which are in him are both derived from God, and exist in God in an infinitely greater degree. It is not without reason that enosh, fallen man, is here placed in opposition to Eloath, the great and holy God; and geber, a mighty man, to gnoseh, his Maker. For the contrast in both cases is remarkably striking, namely, between man, sinful, miserable, mortal, and the immutable, holy, blessed, and immortal God; and between even a great and mighty man, and the Being from whom he has received all his might and greatness, nay, and his very existence, and on whom he is dependant for them every moment; or between the man of power, and the maker and upholder of that power.

17 . be more just than God ] This translation is possible. It is very unnatural, however; for though, if a man were found complaining of God’s ways, the immediate inference might be that he was making himself more righteous (at least in the perception of moral rectitude) than God, such an inference does not seem drawn by any of the speakers, the idea of a man being more righteous than God being too absurd to suggest itself. The charge brought against Job was that he made God unrighteous, not that he claimed to be more righteous than He. Two senses seem possible, either, Can man be righteous before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? a sense which the phrase has Numbers 32:22 , and is adopted by the Sept.; or, can man be in the right in his plea against God ? a meaning which the phrase has in the speeches of Elihu, ch. Job 32:2 . This latter sense is less suitable to the second clause of the verse. The first and more general sense is the more probable because, of course, the vision appeared to Eliphaz before Job’s calamities befell him and had no direct reference to them. This sense also suits the scope of the following verses, and the general aphorism ch. Job 5:6-7 with which Eliphaz sums up this paragraph of his speech, and is most in harmony with the studiously general tone of Eliphaz’s first discourse.

Verse 17. - Shall mortal man be more just than God? Is it to be supposed that the ways of God can be rightly criticized and condemned by man? Surely not; for then man must be more penetrated with the spirit of justice than the Almighty. If our thoughts are not as God's thoughts, it must be, our thoughts that are wrong. Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Equally impossible. God alone is absolutely pure. The best man must be conscious to himself, as Isaiah was ( Isaiah 6:5 ), of uncleanness. Job 4:17

The sense is, Thou, O Job, dost presumptuously accuse God for dealing harshly and unrighteously with thee, in sending thee into the world upon such hard terms, and punishing all innocent and righteous man with such unparalleled severity; but consider things calmly within thyself; if God and thou come to a trial before any equal judge, canst thou think that thou wilt go away justified, and the great God shall be condemned? No righteous man will punish another without cause, or more than he deserves; and therefore if God do so with thee, as thy words imply, he is less just than a man; which is blasphemous and absurd to imagine. Shall a man; a great and mighty man, as this word signifies, a man eminent for wisdom, or justice, or power, or any other perfections, such as thou art thought by thyself or others to be; who therefore might expect more favour than a poor miserable and contemptible man, which the word enosch , used in the former branch, signifies. So he anticipates this objection which Job might make. Be more pure than his Maker? an unanswerable argument against Job. He made thee, and that for himself and his own glory, and therefore hath an unquestionable right to deal with thee, and dispose of thee, the work of his hands, as he sees fit. Woe to him that striveth with his maker! Isaiah 45:9 .