\\INTRODUCTION TO JOB 4\\ Job's sore afflictions, and his behaviour under them, laid the foundation of a dispute between him and his three friends, which begins in this chapter, and is carried on to the end of the thirty first; when Elihu starts up as a moderator between them, and the controversy is at last decided by God himself. Eliphaz first enters the list with Job, \\#Job 4:1\\; introduces what he had to say in a preface, with some show of tenderness, friendship, and respect, \\#Job 4:2\\; observes his former conduct in his prosperity, by instructing many, strengthening weak hands and feeble knees, and supporting stumbling and falling ones, \\#Job 4:3,4\\; with what view all this is observed may be easily seen, since he immediately takes notice of his present behaviour, so different from the former, \\#Job 4:5\\; and insults his profession of faith and hope in God, and fear of him, \\#Job 4:6\\; and suggests that he was a bad man, and an hypocrite; and which he grounds upon this supposition, that no good man was ever destroyed by the Lord; for the truth of which he appeals to Job himself, \\#Job 4:7\\; and confirms it by his own experience and observation, \\#Job 4:8-11\\; and strengthens it by a vision he had in the night, in which the holiness and justice of God, and the mean and low condition of men, are declared, \\#Job 4:12-21\\; and therefore it was wrong in Job to insinuate any injustice in God or in his providence, and a piece of weakness and folly to contend with him.
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