Job 4:7

Call to mind now: ¹  Who, ²  being innocent, ever perished? ³  And where were upright people ⁴  ever destroyed? ⁵ 

"Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?

"Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed?

"Stop and think! Does the innocent person perish? When has the upright person been destroyed?

"Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end?

Have you ever seen destruction come to an upright man? or when were the god-fearing ever cut off?

"Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?

"Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever cut off?

Call to mind now: ¹  Who, ²  being innocent, ever perished? ³  And where were upright people ⁴  ever destroyed? ⁵ 

¹ sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.

² tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).

³ tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).

⁴ tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.

⁵ tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”