Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth! This "opens," as Professor Lee observes, "a new view of the subject." Hitherto Eliphaz has regarded afflictions as simply punitive. Now it occurs to him that they are sometimes chastisements.
The difference is that punishment has regard only to the past, to the breach of the moral law committed, and the retribution which has to follow it. Chastisement looks to the future. It aims at producing an effect in the mind of the person chastised, at benefiting him, and raising him in the scale of moral being.
In this point of view afflictions are blessings (see Hebrews 12:5-11). Recognizing this, Eliphaz suddenly bursts out with the acknowledgment, "Happy is the man [or, 'blessings on the man'] whom God correcteth!"
(Comp. Proverbs 3:11, Proverbs 3:12; Psalms 94:12; 1 Corinthians 11:32). He suggests to Job the idea that his sufferings are not punishments, but chastisements—that they may be but for a time. Let him receive them in a proper spirit; let him humble himself under them, and they may work altogether for his good, his latter end may surpass his early promise.
Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. Words quoted by the authors of Proverbs (Proverb s3:11), and of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12:5), and well deserving to be laid up in the recollection of all faithful souls.
They remind us that God's chastenings are blessings or the contrary, as we make them. Accepted humbly, they improve men, exalt the moral character, purge it of its dross, and bring it nearer to the perfection at which God would have us aim (Matthew 5:48).
Rejected, chafed against, received with discontent and murmurings, they injure us, cause our characters to deteriorate, sink us instead of raising us in the moral scale. Job was now undergoing the ordeal—with what result remained to be determined.