Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
Job 4:18 is the statement of Eliphaz at the beginning of the debate between Job and his three friends about his afflictions, a debate spanning Job 4-31. The friends treated affliction as evidence of sin, urged Job to confess, and charged that his sufferings were because of sin, and that counsel was wrongly applied to Job, whom God had not condemned. That misjudgment shows how humanity misjudges its fellows, while God was disciplining Job through the fire of affliction over the great problems of overruling providence, sin and suffering. The friends' statements were generally true but misapplied to Job, so the verse does not establish that every statement they made was true. Eliphaz's statements are not to be treated as reliable truth about God unless they are supported by inspired declarations elsewhere in Scripture.
The verse declares that God puts no trust or confidence in his servants and charges his angels with folly and error, showing that mortal man cannot be more just than God or more pure than his Maker. The passage containing the verse is an example of God communicating through a night vision.
The verse presents human frailty and mortality, in that men dwell in houses of clay with foundations in dust, are crushed before the moth, destroyed from morning to evening, perish forever without regard, and die without wisdom when their excellency departs. This frailty brings man to sheol, a place of silence, secrecy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption and worms, where the dead remain in the dust. The reference to dwelling in houses of clay does not prove that an intelligent entity lives apart from the body or that people remain conscious outside their bodies, for the dead know nothing. How much less can frail human beings be trusted to do what God refrains from doing, and the verse rebukes frail worms of the dust who assume to command in the name of the Lord a day of rest and worship God never enjoined, such as Sunday, attempting a Sunday law that God in wisdom withheld.
Job 4:18 is the statement of Eliphaz at the beginning of the debate between Job and his three friends about his afflictions, a debate spanning Job 4-31. The friends treated affliction as evidence of sin, urged Job to confess, and charged that his sufferings were because of sin, and that counsel was wrongly applied to Job, whom God had not condemned. That misjudgment shows how humanity misjudges its fellows, while God was disciplining Job through the fire of affliction over the great problems of overruling providence, sin and suffering. The friends' statements were generally true but misapplied to Job, so the verse does not establish that every statement they made was true. Eliphaz's statements are not to be treated as reliable truth about God unless they are supported by inspired declarations elsewhere in Scripture.
The verse declares that God puts no trust or confidence in his servants and charges his angels with folly and error, showing that mortal man cannot be more just than God or more pure than his Maker. The passage containing the verse is an example of God communicating through a night vision.
The verse presents human frailty and mortality, in that men dwell in houses of clay with foundations in dust, are crushed before the moth, destroyed from morning to evening, perish forever without regard, and die without wisdom when their excellency departs. This frailty brings man to sheol, a place of silence, secrecy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption and worms, where the dead remain in the dust. The reference to dwelling in houses of clay does not prove that an intelligent entity lives apart from the body or that people remain conscious outside their bodies, for the dead know nothing. How much less can frail human beings be trusted to do what God refrains from doing, and the verse rebukes frail worms of the dust who assume to command in the name of the Lord a day of rest and worship God never enjoined, such as Sunday, attempting a Sunday law that God in wisdom withheld.