Job 4

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,

2 “If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

3 Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.

4 Your words have supported him who was falling, you have made the feeble knees firm.

5 But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

6 Isn’t your piety your confidence? Isn’t the integrity of your ways your hope?

7 “Remember, now, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?

8 According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same.

9 By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.

10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

11 The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

12 “Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.

13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

14 fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

15 Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up.

16 It stood still, but I couldn’t discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying,

17 ‘Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

18 Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error.

19 How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

20 Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

21 Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’

Around Job 4

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Job as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

The storm comes at last. After chapters of grief, argument and silence from heaven, the LORD answers Job “out of the whirlwind”. He does not explain. He asks: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

How Job got there is the rest of the book. He is a good man who loses his children, his wealth and his health. Three friends come to comfort him and end up arguing that he must have sinned to suffer so much. Job insists he has not, and demands an answer from God.

A younger man, Elihu, adds his view. Then God speaks, not with an explanation but with questions about the making and running of the world. Job is humbled. God says that Job spoke rightly and the friends did not, and Job is restored.

Background

The story is set in the land of Uz, outside Israel, in a time that resembles the age of Abraham. Its author and date are unknown. The opening and closing are prose; everything between is poetry, some of the most demanding in the Bible.

How Christians read it

The book rejects the idea that suffering is always punishment for sin, without offering a full account of why people suffer. Readers differ on what God's answer means: a rebuke, a comfort, or an invitation to trust a wisdom larger than our own. The accuser in the opening chapters is understood by most Christian tradition as Satan; the Hebrew uses the word as a title. James 5:11 holds up Job as an example of endurance.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 19 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

Report a mistake

CommunityVoices, not sources

Readers share what this chapter means to them in the app.

See what readers say about Job 4

World English Bible. Public-domain source and edition notes