Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
Parallel translations
- KJV Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,
- BSB Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
- NKJV Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
- NASB Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded,
- NLT Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied to Job:
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Eliphaz the Temanite begins the first cycle of speeches. The friends now move from silence to argument.
Overview
With Eliphaz's reply, the long dialogues over Job's suffering commence. As the apparent eldest, he speaks first, offering what seems gentle wisdom. His speech will introduce the friends' central but flawed assumption that suffering is always punishment for sin, a view the book will ultimately correct.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 6:1Then Job answered,
- Job 15:1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
- Job 22:1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered,
- Job 3:1–2After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
- Job 8:1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,
- Job 42:9So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.
- Job 2:11Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 4:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.