Job 4:6

6. Is not this thy fear More literally, Is not thy fear (of God) thy confidence? thy hope (is it not) the uprightness of thy ways? Eliphaz in all cases uses the word fear in the sense of the fear of God. “The word fear is the most comprehensive term for that mixed feeling called piety, the contradictory reverence and confidence, awe and familiarity, which, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, keep man in his orbit around God.” Davidson. This verse was meant in kindness, “but it is two-edged, for there is also implied, if thou despairest, thou hast no fear of God.” Dillmann. The introduction is a masterpiece, judged by rhetorical rules. It has admirably paved the way for the fundamental thought of the next two verses. It has been simple, pertinent, conciliatory. It has treated, in the main, of the kind offices of Job to others. In the meantime, he is reminded that he has not been equal to the emergency, which is thus far the only sentiment to which exception could have been taken. Job, the well known consoler of the feeble, ought to have been strong to bear his own grievous trials.

Second strophe The axiom Eliphaz proceeds to lay down (Job 4:8) involves an insinuation of wrong-doing on the part of Job , vv7-11.

The horns of the grand dilemma of the debate now begin to take shape, and for the first time protrude themselves. If Job’s case be a hopeless one, he must be a transgressor, for the testimony of experience everywhere is, that hopeless sufferers are not guiltless.