Job chapter 4

After reading chapter 4:

*Eliphaz the Temanite, Job's friend, talks next. He says Job has been strong for other people when they were weak, but now he is in trouble and discouraged. Shouldn't Job be confident and hopeful if he is pious and blameless. "Who being innocent has ever perished?" What kind of question is that? Lots of innocent people have perished. "Where were the upright ever destroyed?" Um, pretty much everywhere.

* Eliphaz says he has observed that you reap what you sow, evil for evil, trouble for trouble. "At the breath of God they are destroyed." Really, are wicked people always destroyed? Do none of them ever prosper?  I need to note that "God" here (and in more of Job than I realized ) is Elowah, not Elohim. It is the singular version of Elohim, probably "a god." Then he uses a metaphor of a lion, re presenting the wicked, coming to a sad end.

*Now Eliphaz says he had a dream and heard voices. He was trembling all over and felt a spirit glide past his face. He saw an unknown apparition which whispered," can a mortal be more righteous than god? Can a man be more pure than his maker?" (I will say this again: Are dreams and visions reliable sources? ) Then there are more metaphors about those who live in houses of clay, easily crushed, obviously meant to be humans. This is probably a dig at Job's " blamelessness." Surely Job couldn't be better than a god. He's only human, destined to perish.

*Verse 21 has something about tent cords being pulled up. The literal hebrew has nothing about tents or tent cords, it just has a sense of departure or going away. I guess that's when you pull up the stakes of your tent,  but it seems to me that the translators took a few liberties with the  text. No tents in the King James either. Also, Interpreters aren't sure where the spirit stops speaking and Eliphaz resumes. Some think it is at verse 17.