Verse 5. - But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest. Now it is thy turn - calamity has come upon thee and all that thou weft wont to say to others is forgotten. The wise physician cannot heal himself. Instead of receiving thy chastisement in a right spirit, thou "faintest," or rather, "thou art angry, art offended" - as the same verb is also to be translated in the second verse. There is a tone of sarcasm about these remarks, which implies a certain hardness and want of real affection in the speaker, and which cannot but have been perceived by Job, and have detracted from the force of what Eliphaz urged. If one has to rebuke a friend, it should be done with great delicacy. Our "precious balms" should not be allowed to "break his head" (Psalm 141:6). It toucheth thee, and thou art troubled; or, perplexed - "confounded."

4:1-6 Satan undertook to prove Job a hypocrite by afflicting him; and his friends concluded him to be one because he was so afflicted, and showed impatience. This we must keep in mind if we would understand what passed. Eliphaz speaks of Job, and his afflicted condition, with tenderness; but charges him with weakness and faint-heartedness. Men make few allowances for those who have taught others. Even pious friends will count that only a touch which we feel as a wound. Learn from hence to draw off the mind of a sufferer from brooding over the affliction, to look at the God of mercies in the affliction. And how can this be done so well as by looking to Christ Jesus, in whose unequalled sorrows every child of God soonest learns to forget his own?But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest,.... The affliction and evil that he feared, Job 3:25; or rather the same trials and afflictions were come upon him as had been on those whom he had instructed and reproved, and whose hands and hearts he had strengthened and comforted; and yet now thou thyself "faintest", or "art weary" (z), or art bore down and sinkest under the burden, and bearest it very impatiently (a), quite contrary to the advice given to others; and therefore it was concluded he could not be a virtuous, honest, and upright man at heart, only in show and appearance. Bolducius renders the words, "God cometh unto thee", or "thy God cometh"; very wrongly, though the sense may be the same; God cometh and visits thee by laying his afflicting hand upon thee:

it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled; suggesting that it was but a touch, a slight one, a light affliction; thereby lessening Job's calamity and distress, or making little and light of it, and aggravating his impatience under it, that for such a trial as this he should be so excessively troubled, his passions should be so violently moved, and he be thrown into so much disorder and confusion, and be impatient beyond measure; no bounds being set to his grief, and the expressions of it; yea, even to be in the utmost consternation and amazement, as the word (b) signifies.

(z) Defatigaris, Cocceius. (a) aegre tulisti, Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus; "impatienter fers", Schmidt, Michaelis, Piscator. (b) "consternaris", Mercerus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis, Schultens.