Bible Commentaries
Job 5

Verses 1-27

JOB - CHAPTER 5

The Conclusion of Eliphaz On the Vision

Verses 1-27:

Verse 1 sounds a note of sarcasm as Eliphaz challenges Job to pray, call to heaven, see if any of the "saints" or band of heavenly angelic servants will reply, look, or come to rescue him from his plight of affliction, divinely purposed or granted, as surely as the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, Job 2:6; Luke 22:42; Matthew 16:21.

Verses 2, 3 charge that wrath slays the foolish man and envy stays the silly one. This implies that Job destroyed himself by implying that he was just and righteous, and by supposing that he merited nothing but good from God. He states that he has seen the foolish and envious killed by their own fretting and complaining, such as Eliphaz now charged to Job, Proverbs 14:30; Psalms 37:35-36; Jeremiah 17:8.

Verse 4 adds that his children are far from secure; and they are crushed in the gate, the place of judicial punishment, alluding to the death of Job’s children, as if it had been an act of Divine judgment for Job’s sins, Job 31:21; Psalms 127:5; Proverbs 22:22; Genesis 23:10; Deuteronomy 21:19.

Verse 5 contends that the foolish and silly man, v. 3, has his harvest eaten up, consumed, even out of the thorns. It is taken by the robbers, who leave nothing. Here Eliphaz classifies Job and his loss of property, children, and health, as a foolish and silly man who holds to his integrity in the midst of his suffering and great loss, much as his wife had done, Job 2:3; Job 2:9-10.

Verses 6, 7 affirm that trouble and affliction does not come out of the dust or the ground like a weed, without a cause, of its own accord. Eliphaz hints that Job’s affliction is because of something sinfully hidden in Job. Rather, truly, or instead, every man is inherently born for sin and trouble, as surely as the sparks of coals or flames of fire fly or swirl upward, Song of Solomon 8:6; 1 Peter 4:12; Isaiah 43:2.

Verse 8 appeals to Job to "seek to God," and commit his cause to Him; or Eliphaz said, that is what he would do, if he had sinned, or was in Job’s place, Psalms 50:15; Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 9:13; Amos 5:8; 1 Chronicles 22:19.

Verses 9-11 ascribe to God the doing of innumerably great, unsearchable, and marvelous things, sending, repeatedly giving, rain upon the earth and waters upon the fields. He does this to set up (raise on high), or elevate those that be low, and tc cause those who mourn to be exalted to safety, lifted from their depression. Based on this Sovereign God of nature’s works Eliphaz appeals to Job to humbly turn to the Lord for help or relief, Job 5:16; Job 18:14.

Verses 12, 13 certify that the God of nature, the living God, disappoints or entraps the devious plans of the crafty, so that their hands can not successfully perform their enterprise. The Lord seizes or grasps them in the net of their own crafty inventions, to carry them headlong to their own destruction, as illustrated; Psalms 9:15; as Haman was hanged on his own gallows, Ezra 5:14; Ezra 7:10; 1 Corinthians 3:19.

Verses 14-16 adds that the crafty and deceitful are confronted with darkness or confusion in the daytime so that they grope at high noon as a blind man in total darkness. Judicial blindness is often sent upon keen-minded men of the world, Deuteronomy 28:29; Isaiah 59:10; John 9:39. But the Lord saves (secures) the poor from the sword, as described Psalms 35:10; Psalms 57:4; Psalms 59:7.

Verse 16 asserts that the poor has hope of God’s intervention, so that iniquity stops her mouth, or God causes the curses against the poor to be stopped, giving them hope, 1 Samuel 2:8; Psalms 107:42; Micah 7:9-10; Isaiah 52:15; Judges 1:15; Isaiah 25:8.

Verse 17 affirms that the men whom God corrects, His own child, is happy (spiritually prosperous) therefore he is not to despise or take lightly the chastening of the Almighty, Psalms 94:12; Proverbs 3:11; 1 Corinthians 11:32; Hebrews 12:5; James 1:12; James 5:11; Revelation 3:19.

Verse 18 declares that the Lord both makes sore or wounds, theca mercifully binds up the chastened one, with His own hands of care. Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:6; Isaiah 30:26; Hosea 6:1. Such chastening or suffering must not be refused, resented, or despised, Hebrews 12:5-11.

Verse 19 assures that in six, yea in seven troubles, no evil shall touch, to take the life of any who regards or looks to Him; The seven means that one in trouble, extended to the farthest end, shall find deliverance in the Lord, Psalms 34:19; Psalms 91:3; Proverbs 24:16; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Psalms 19:10.

Verse 20 adds that the Lord will redeem His own in famine and in war, from the sword and from death. For death does not end all for one who trusts in Him, Psalms 33:19; Psalms 37:19; Exodus 14:30; Isaiah 59:20.

Verse 21 promises that Job should be hid, sheltered, or sheathed from the devastation of the tongue, the smiting of the serpentine tongue of self-righteous men, so that he should not be afraid or tremble when devastating words were thrust at him, Psalms 31:15; Psalms 73:9; Jeremiah 18:18; Psalms 31:20.

Verse 22 pledges that at devastation and famine Job would eventually come to laugh. Nor would he one day have any fear of the beasts of the earth, the vultures and the jackals that often waited to pick the bones of the infirm, the afflicted, and the dying, Habakkuk 3:17-18.

Verse 23 further promises that Job should come to be in league with stones of the field so that beasts would be at peace with him. This is a pledge or future deliverance, and restored prosperity to Job, a symbol of that awaiting both saints and believers in the Lord, Psalms 91:12; Hosea 2:18; Romans 8:38-39; 2 Thessalonians 1:10. See also Isaiah 65:23; Isaiah 65:25; Isaiah 11:6-8.

Verse 24 adds that Job will also come to know, as a matter of experience, that peace is his sanctuary. And he will visit his habitation (his flock fold) to find none missing, stolen or destroyed.

Future peace within, and prosperity without, are foretold to be Job’s reward for fidelity to the Lord under afflictions, 1 Corinthians 15:58.

Verse 25 assures Job that he would also have seed or children as the grass of the earth, or as herb-bearing seeds increase, though he had his children, Job 42:13; Job 42:16; Psalms 72:16.

Verses 26, 27 conclude Eliphaz’s first address with prophecies of future blessings arid better days for Job, even to old age, or an extended age, Genesis 47:7; Genesis 35:29. His long and mature life before him is compared with corn that has come to full ripeness to be preserved in the barn, Psalms 91:16; Psalms 111:2; Exodus 20:12; Matthew 13:30; Psalms 1:3. This was to be for his good, his personal pleasure and joy in sunset years, Psalms 91:2; Proverbs 9:11-12; Proverbs 10:27.