Job 4:18-20 and eliphaz's vision and crushed like moths

In 4:12-16 Eliphaz provided a most stirring buildup to the revelation that the form which glided by his face gave him. Then, Eliphaz recounted the words he heard. "Can humans be more just than God?" (4:17) The question is a rhetorical one, but Eilphaz has put his finger on what will be Job's psychological state for the remainder of the book. Job feels not only that he has been unjustly singled out by God but that he is morally superior to God. He never says this in so many words but if you read between the lines of Job's speeches, you see him describing himself as a man who is morally upright and God as a God who not simply condones but actually promotes evil. The implication is clear: Job is morally superior to God.

In 4:18-21, then, Eliphaz "explains" the words of actual vision in 4:17. He does not make clear whether these four verses are also words received from the "form" or whether they are his interpretation of what these words mean. In any case, the tone of 18-20 [I have two essays on v.21] is one of increasing hostility to Job under the guise of Eliphaz's general observations about humans. In this connection it is Eliphaz's way of "matching" Job 3:20-23, where Job apparently asked a question about human life in general but really was concerned about his own plight. This essay will focus on the structure of 4:18-20 but, even more, on three verbs of violence in vv.19-20 that make me shudder. Perhaps, ironically, Eliphaz has been successful in communicating the terrifying and eerie dimensions of his experience in 4:12-16.

A Word on Structure

Job 4:18 consists of two parallel clauses, the first with four words and the second with three, that are comparatively easy to understand. Then, 4:19, like 4:16, violates the "two-clause rule" by having three clauses, of four, three and three words, respectively. The clauses grow in intensity, with the first two being descriptive of the human condition while the third (lit. "they crush them like (or before) a moth") is an unexpected and, in my mind, viciously vivid description of the death that awaits humans. Finally, 4:20 has two clauses, of three and four words, where images of death pervades. I would like to focus on Eliphaz's words concerning death and destruction and ask why he is seemingly obsessed with this subject when the original words of the vision don't seem to require that he "go there."

Fixation on Death

It didn't dawn on me until I was working through the Hebrew concordance that the word for "perish" (abad) is used more times in this chapter (4X) than any other chapter of the Bible. In 4:7 Eliphaz asks whether the innocent ever perish? Then, in 4:9 he says that those who plow iniquity perish. In 4:11 the strong lion (Job?) perishes while in 4:20 humans are said to perish. In addition, Eliphaz drops in another few verbs that lead to the same result ("die" in v.21; "are destroyed" in v.20 and "crushed" in v.19). What is up? Eliphaz will talk about the hope he has for Job in ch.5. And, though seeming to chide Job gently in ch.4, Eliphaz appears to be confident that Job is not in the number of the wicked. But he just can't help himself. Just as Job has a major theological problem in the book, trying to hold on to and resolve the tension between an omnipotent and just God and the stark reality of his pain, so Eliphaz has a significant psychological hurdle to overcome--how to identify his true feelings about Job. Is he optimistic from the beginning about Job? Or, is he so conflicted in his mind that he just can't help but let drop all kinds of negatively suggestive words?

Eliphaz's speech in ch.4 makes me want to comb psychological studies and literary works for examples of people who say two things while wanting only to say one. The rhetorical term to capture what Eliphaz is doing is amphibology, which originally meant casting the net on both sides of the boat for fish. An example: "Nothing is good enough for you." Now isn't that a delicious double-entendre? I am now beginnning to understand why Job reacts with such hostility to Eliphaz in 6:14ff. I used to look at that passage as an indication that Job has initiated the breach between the friends. But I am not sure. Eliphaz's language of death, destruction and crushing in ch.4 might tend to give the impression to a suffering person that he is just about to be crushed like the moth.

Crushed Like the Moth

Speaking of being crushed like the moth, Eliphaz says that this is the fate of humans (4:19). That Job is listening to Eliphaz and responding to him is suggested by Job's use in 6:9 of the same verb (daka) there as Eliphaz uses here. Eliphaz says, "they (the "they" is never identified) crush them like a moth" and Job, in 6:8f. says, "O that I might have my request...that it would please God to crush me." Maybe the friends are listening to each other more than commentators usually suggest.

But Eliphaz's use of daka in 4:19 is stunning for two reasons. On the one hand, there is nothing in the revelation of 4:17-19 to prepare us for it. Eliphaz seemingly wants only to stress the distinction between the holy and righteous God and the limitations of angels and humans. We live in dust; we sink our foundations into the earth; the angels even are not clean before God. Ok. Fair enough. But then Eliphaz launches into "crushing" language in v. 19 that takes him through the end of v. 21.

On the other hand, it is stunning because of the vigor of the word. The word daka is a particularly strong and poignant term for "crush" in the Bible. It was God who "crushsed" Rahab (Ps. 89:10) in the primeval time. Even more, however, it is the suffering servant of God in Is. 53 who will, on two occasions, be described as being crushed." The language of bruising, afflicting and crushing pervades this final servant song. The servant was "crushed" for our iniquities (53:5). It was the will of the Lord "to crush him with pain" (53:10). If Job was written about the same time as Deutero-Isaiah it may share the same linguistic world with it, and this world saves the term daka for the most extreme forms of human suffering. That, Eliphaz says, is what happens to humans. David Clines, in his superb commentary on Job, tries to argue that Eliphaz only means that "some" humans will be crushed. It is a pleasant way to try to deal with the shocking words of Eliphaz, but I don't want to rescue Eliphaz that easily.

More Destruction

If people are crushed like moths in 4:19, they are really pummeled in v.20. We have already seen this by considering abad. But there is one other word, translated as "destroyed" in 4:20, that calls for comment. It is the Hebrew verb katat, used about 25 times in the Bible, and variously translated "to beat," "crush," "break in pieces," or "destroy." A pleasant dish of hors d'ouevres. Usually it is used in connection with other words of destruction, such as in Mic.1:7, where the prophet speaks about the crushing of images (katat) along with the laying waste idols and burning prized possessions.

Thus, Eliphaz seems to have mastered the vocabulary of horror and destruction pretty well. He says that this is going to be the fate of humans. When all is said and done, they die and without wisdom (4:21). Whereas the "bookends" of Eliphaz's speech seem to be quite hopeful, when you slog through the deep middle, the words of are incredible brutality and destructiveness. Maybe Eliphaz really believes this about humans or about Job. Maybe, however, he is simply trying to process, like Job, the great loss before him and speaks rash words. In any case, it brings to the fore the ambiguity of human conversation.

Concluison

How conversations ever "connect" in conversation is something of a mystery to me. That mystery is deepened by a close reading of these verses.