Bible Strands
Job 4:18
If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz the Temanite addresses Job during his prolonged suffering, using rhetorical questions to dismantle human claims of righteousness. He speaks these lines as the opening premise of a discourse on human frailty and divine sovereignty.
The words — The Hebrew הֵן (hen) operates as an emphatic conditional "behold" or "if," establishing the rhetorical setup. The phrase יָשִׂים תּוֹהֳלָה (yaśîm tōhŏlâ) literally means "he puts error," describing God's act of charging His messengers with fault.
The thread — The motif of divine scrutiny extending to non-human beings appears in Job 25:5, where even the moon and stars lack purity in God's sight. The same concept of celestial accountability is referenced in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6 regarding angels who sinned.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that human moral standing is fundamentally incomparable to divine perfection. It demands the abandonment of self-justification by establishing that no created being, celestial or earthly, stands morally unimpeachable before God.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
Cross-references
- Job 25:5 If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight,
- 2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
- Jude 1:6 And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day.
- Job 15:15 If God puts no trust in His holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in His eyes,
- Psalms 103:20 Bless the LORD, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.
- Psalms 104:4 He makes the winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants.
- Isaiah 6:2 Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.