Eliphaz: Man Is Born to Trouble
1 “Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? 2 For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple. 3 I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation. 4 His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them, 5 whose harvest the hungry eat up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance. 6 For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; 7 but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. 8 “But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God, 9 who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number; 10 who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields; 11 so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety. 12 He frustrates the plans of the crafty, so that their hands can’t perform their enterprise. 13 He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong. 14 They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night. 15 But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty. 16 So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.
A true account of God's dealings is delivered as an argument, and the truest line in it is the one aimed most precisely at the man's dead children.
The chapter opens by cutting off appeal. Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? Job 5:1. There is no court, and nobody in the heavens will take the case — which is exactly what Job will spend the next twenty chapters trying to establish is false.
Then an example, offered as observation. Eliphaz has seen the foolish taking root, and the collapse that followed: his children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate Job 5:3–4.
Job's ten children had been crushed in a house four chapters earlier. Whether the aim is deliberate or careless, the illustration lands on the freshest wound available, and this is the gentlest of the three speakers.
The general principle that follows is one of the finest lines in the book, and it is true. Affliction doesn't come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward Job 5:6–7.
Suffering is not a feature of the soil, arising on its own. It belongs to the human condition as reliably as sparks rise from a fire. Taken by itself the observation is sound and even comforting, since it removes the assumption that trouble is always a personal message.
Eliphaz does not take it by itself. He uses it as the setup for advice: as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God Job 5:8 — a recommendation with an unstated premise, that Job has not been doing this.
The description of God that follows is genuinely fine and is quoted in the New Testament. He does great things that can't be fathomed, gives rain, sets up on high those who are low, and takes the wise in their own craftiness Job 5:9–13 — that last clause appearing again in a letter arguing that human cleverness is not where wisdom lies 1 Corinthians 3:19.
So the theology is not the problem. Almost every sentence Eliphaz utters here could be signed by the writer of this book.
The problem is the use. Everything is arranged to lead to a conclusion about the man listening, and the closing image gives it away: the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth Job 5:16. The speech is on its way to telling a blameless man that his mouth should be shut too.
settled What this mark means