mortals superior to God and job 4:16-17 and eliphaz's vision and book of Job

As we have seen in the previous essays, Eliphaz narrates in 4:12-15 a night vision/hearing of terrifying quality. He only heard a small part of it, but the power of the presence of the word made his hair stand on end and his bones rattle. Before he gets to what he actually heard on this occasion, he gives one more verse describing the coming of the word (4:16). Let's get to it.

Job 4:16

We may translate the verse as follows:

"It stood and I did not recognize its appearance. Its form was before my eyes. Silence. And I heard a voice."

The questions roll off our tongue. What kind of vision/audition was this? Who or what was it that "stood" (NRSV has "it stood still")? There was some kind of wind or spirit, some kind of thing that had a form but whose "appearance" (reehu) couldn't be descried. What does it mean that it stood before Elihpaz? In the preceding verse it is as if it is a wind that glides across his face, but now it is standing. The Hebrew text then drops in that little word "silence" (demamah). Its sound is similar to the doubled consonantals annanah and renanah in ch. 3 where Job wished that "clouds" (annanah) and darkness would cover him and that there should be no shout of joy (renanah) on the day of his birth. No joy but clouds for Job. Silence for Eliphaz. How long was the silence? If we read the last three words of v.16 together the text would say, "Silence and I heard a voice." One way to look at these words is to see in them another indication of Eliphaz's ambiguity in speech.

Is Eliphaz claiming to see God here? 'No one can see God and live,' is the biblical truism. Nevertheless Eliphaz sees a form right before his eyes. In the last chapter of the book, Job will come out directly and say to God, "but now my eyes see you" (42:5). Has Eliphaz's night vision/audition in some way stimulated Job's creative energies so that when he hears God speaking to him in chs.38-41 he too will call it a vision of God? Another biblical passage comes to mind on the subject of seeing God. God told Moses to visit him on Mount Sinai, along with some of the elders of Israel (Ex.24). They climbed the mount, and what did they see? "And they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel" (24:10-11). What did it mean that they saw God? Maybe they too, like Eliphaz, limned a form.

Job 4:17

Ok. We have waited long enough. What is the message that Eliphaz heard the "form" deliver? The literal translation of 4:17 is:

"Is a man more just than God? Is a man-child more pure than his maker?"

No one is happy with any translation of this verse, even though almost all scholars take these words as rhetorical questions. Two problems are presented to the translator. First, is Eliphaz trying to describe the human situation ("Can mortals be righteous before God?" (i.e., in God's presence)--NRSV and many translations) or did he hear the "form" ask him if humans are more righteous than God? I will stay with the literal translation, since there is no compelling reason to accept the NRSV words. Second, how do you render the word I translated "man-child"? Surely my translation will win no awards at Park City or Cannes, but no one's will. Good translates the word geber as "hero" and the NRSV reads it as "human beings." I read it as "man-child" because it is the same word as Job uses to describe himself in 3:3, "a man-child is conceived." Job, then, is the geber of the first few poetic chapters of the book.

Almost all interpreters of Eliphaz's speech have felt that there is a sense of anticlimax in his words. After the huge "buildup" of 4:12-16, where the night vision/audition is described in most spooky terms, one would have expected some kind of revelatory words that were the verbal equivalent to Beethoven's Ninth. That, at least, is what the scholars say.

But if we look at Eliphaz's words in 4:17, the words he heard from the "form," we need not rush to that conclusion. The words following a theophany need not be "earth-shattering." Indeed, the theophany itself shakes you up. The experience shatters you, not necessarily the words. When Elijah met God in the storm he realized that God did not speak in the wind, or earthquake or fire, but in a still small voice. And the content of that voice were very traditional theological concepts. So, Eliphaz's report of what he heard is not at all unexpected. The words are meant to be true words, to be sure, but they need not be earth-shattering.

We should notice one other thing, however. By using the word geber in the last part of v.17, Eliphaz has added this to the list of double-entendres that have characterized his speech. Rather than simply asking the rhetorical question about human unworthiness before God or humans being more righteous than God, he is asking obliquely whether Job himself thinks of himself as more righteous than God. Does the man-child, the same man-child that wishes he never was born, in some ways think of himself as superior to God? Does Job's longing for obliteration bespeak a deeper psychological attachment to his status as more just, more righteous, indeed more "perfect" (tam) than God? Eliphaz, for all his ambiguous speaking, may have hit the nail right on the head.

Conclusion

Read in this light, then, Eliphaz's recitation of the words from the "form" suggests what will really be at stake in the rest of the Book of Job--whether Job, in fact, considers himself superior to God. Job's words take on a whole new light when seen from that angle. As if we needed another angle to read the Book of Job!