Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 2. For wrath killeth the foolish man ] Foolish, silly, and simple, are epithets given by Solomon to sinners and transgressors of all kinds.
Such parallelisms have afforded a presumptive argument that Solomon was the author of this book. See the preface. The words of Eliphaz may be considered as a sort of maxim, which the wisdom and experience of ages had served to establish; viz., The wrath of God is manifested only against the wicked and impious; and if thou wert not such, God would not thus contend with thee.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-5 - Eliphaz here calls upon Job to answer his arguments. Were any of the saints or servants of God visited with such Divine judgments as Job, or did they ever behave like him under their sufferings? The term "saints," holy, or more strictly, consecrated ones, seems in all age to have been applied to the people of God, through the Sacrifice slai in the covenant of their reconciliation. Eliphaz doubts not that the sin of sinners directly tends to their ruin. They kill themselves by some lust or other; therefore, no doubt, Job has done some foolis thing, by which he has brought himself into this condition. The allusion was plain to Job's former prosperity; but there was n evidence of Job's wickedness, and the application to him was unfair an severe.
Original Hebrew כי3588 לאויל191 יהרג2026 כעשׂ3708 ופתה6601 תמית4191 קנאה׃7068
