Eliphaz is the first to venture his opinion. I suppose I can't really consider his speech here "scripture" in the traditional sense, as it is spoken just by some guy (albeit wise-sounding), not a priest or a prophet or anything. So anything he (or the other two) say should probably be taken with a grain of salt. We also need to keep in mind that we know why God allowed this to happen to Noah, and chances are good Job's friends won't nail it exactly, though they may touch on truths.
That said, what do you say to a guy who is mourning, cursing his birth, who no longer has family, whose wife is no option? He really has no one to go to.
I guess he starts out kinda strong. Job's example did not go unnoticed. Also, of course someone struck with so much pain and discouragement is probably right to mourn.
To make a claim that the innocent have never perished and the upright have never been destroyed is a bit shaky to me. Without getting into semantics about definitions of "innocent" and "upright," sure the upright have perished. Noah, for one. He didn't exactly end well, especially one of his sons.
To suggest that Job somehow is reaping what he sowed (v. 8), is false. Who can claim to know what others do in secret? Besides, this is something he claimed to have observed, thereby going on personal experience, not necessarily God's truth.
Then Eliphaz claims to have had a vision in which an angel tells him some stuff. His description of the vision is pretty intense, and a troubling read. He is asked if a mortal can be more righteous than God, which, of course he cannot. It is meant to put man in his obvious place. Man is dirt. But we already knew that (Ge. 2:4). His speech goes on in chapter 5.
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