13 In troubled thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep comes on men,
And the Lord God sent a deep sleep on the man, and took one of the bones from his side while he was sleeping, joining up the flesh again in its place:
Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.
For God gives his word in one way, even in two, and man is not conscious of it: In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep comes on men, while they take their rest on their beds; Then he makes his secrets clear to men, so that they are full of fear at what they see;
But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.
And he had a dream, and in his dream he saw steps stretching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down on them.
And God said to Israel in a night-vision, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.
And he said, Now give ear to my words: if there is a prophet among you I will give him knowledge of myself in a vision and will let my words come to him in a dream.
Then the secret was made clear to Daniel in a vision of the night. And Daniel gave blessing to the God of heaven.
But there is a God in heaven, the unveiler of secrets, and he has given to King Nebuchadnezzar knowledge of what will take place in the last days. Your dreams and the visions of your head on your bed are these: As for you, O King, the thoughts which came to you on your bed were of what will come about after this: and the unveiler of secrets has made clear to you what is to come.
Now while he was talking to me, I went into a deep sleep with my face to the earth: but touching me, he put me on my feet where I had been.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 4
Commentary on Job 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
Job having warmly given vent to his passion, and so broken the ice, his friends here come gravely to give vent to their judgment upon his case, which perhaps they had communicated to one another apart, compared notes upon it and talked it over among themselves, and found they were all agreed in their verdict, that Job's afflictions certainly proved him to be a hypocrite; but they did not attack Job with this high charge till by the expressions of his discontent and impatience, in which they thought he reflected on God himself, he had confirmed them in the bad opinion they had before conceived of him and his character. Now they set upon him with great fear. The dispute begins, and it soon becomes fierce. The opponents are Job's three friends. Job himself is respondent. Elihu appears, first, as moderator, and at length God himself gives judgment upon the controversy and the management of it. The question in dispute is whether Job was an honest man or no, the same question that was in dispute between God and Satan in the first two chapters. Satan had yielded it, and durst not pretend that his cursing his day was a constructive cursing of his God; no, he cannot deny but that Job still holds fast his integrity; but Job's friends will needs have it that, if Job were an honest man, he would not have been thus sorely and thus tediously afflicted, and therefore urge him to confess himself a hypocrite in the profession he had made of religion: "No,' says Job, "that I will never do; I have offended God, but my heart, notwithstanding, has been upright with him;' and still he holds fast the comfort of his integrity. Eliphaz, who, it is likely, was the senior, or of the best quality, begins with him in this chapter, in which,
By all this he aims to bring down Job's spirit and to make him both penitent and patient under his afflictions.
Job 4:1-6
In these verses,
Job 4:7-11
Eliphaz here advances another argument to prove Job a hypocrite, and will have not only his impatience under his afflictions to be evidence against him but even his afflictions themselves, being so very great and extraordinary, and there being no prospect at all of his deliverance out of them. To strengthen his argument he here lays down these two principles, which seem plausible enough:-
Job 4:12-21
Eliphaz, having undertaken to convince Job of the sin and folly of his discontent and impatience, here vouches a vision he had been favoured with, which he relates to Job for his conviction. What comes immediately from God all men will pay a particular deference to, and Job, no doubt, as much as any. Some think Eliphaz had this vision now lately, since he came to Job, putting words into his mouth wherewith to reason with him; and it would have been well if he had kept to the purport of this vision, which would serve for a ground on which to reprove Job for his murmuring, but not to condemn him as a hypocrite. Others think he had it formerly; for God did, in this way, often communicate his mind to the children of men in those first ages of the world, ch. 33:15. Probably God had sent Eliphaz this messenger and message some time or other, when he was himself in an unquiet discontented frame, to calm and pacify him. Note, As we should comfort others with that wherewith we have been comforted (2 Co. 1:4), so we should endeavour to convince others with that which has been powerful to convince us. The people of God had not then any written word to quote, and therefore God sometimes notified to them even common truths by the extraordinary ways of revelation. We that have Bibles have there (thanks be to God) a more sure word to depend upon than even visions and voices, 2 Pt. 1:19. Observe,