Job 4:14

¹³In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, ¹⁴fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder. ¹⁵Then a spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled.

Sermons

Consider the Hidden Judgments of God Lest You Become Proud of Your Own Good Deeds

Thomas a Kempis

Summary

In this verse, Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, speaks about a vision he had where a spirit passed before him, causing his hair to stand on end and filling him with fear. This vision serves as a basis for Eliphaz's argument that humans are inherently impure and cannot be righteous before God. Eliphaz uses this experience to urge Job to repent and seek God's forgiveness, implying that Job's suffering may be a result of his sin. However, this perspective overlooks the complexity of Job's situation and the possibility of suffering without direct correlation to personal sin, setting the stage for the debates that unfold in the book of Job.

Commentary

John Gill
Tyndale

John Gill Bible Commentary

Then a spirit passed before my face,.... Which some interpret of a wind (q), a blustering wind, that blew strong in his face; and so the Targum renders it, a stormy wind, such an one as Elijah perceived when the Lord spoke to him, though he was not in that, Kg1 19:11; or such a whirlwind, out of which the Lord spake to Job, Job 38:1; or rather, as Jarchi, an angel, an immaterial spirit, one of Jehovah's ministering spirits, clothed in an human form, and which passed and repassed before Eliphaz, that he might take notice of it: the hair of my flesh stood up; erect, through surprise and dread; which is sometimes the case, when anything astonishing and terrible is beheld; the blood at such times making its way to the heart, for the preservation of that, leaves the external members of the body cold, and the skin of the flesh, in which the hair is, being contracted by the impetuous influx of the nervous fluid, causes the hair to stand upright, particularly the hair of the head, like the prickles or hedgehogs (r); which has been usual at the sight of an apparition (s). (q) "ventus", Vatablus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Broughton. (r) "Obstupui, steteruntque comae----". Virgil. Aeneid. l. 2. ver. 774. & l. 3. ver. 48. "arrectaeque horrore comae". Aeneid. 4. ver. 286. & l. 12. ver. 888. (s) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. p. 665.