Call, I pray thee! Is there any that answereth thee? and to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
Job 5:1 comes in the middle of Eliphaz's first speech to Job. Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, throws down a dare: let Job shout for help and see who answers. Behind the dare lies a real question — who can a suffering person turn to? — and an unspoken accusation about why Job is suffering at all.
Eliphaz is not offering Job a list of helpers. He is hinting that Job has been looking in the wrong direction.
Eliphaz suggests to Job that he call out to creatures for help, even to holy ones — holy men or angels — and see if anyone will answer him (v.1). He is implying that Job is not seeking God in his affliction. In contrast, Eliphaz claims, "As for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause" (v.8).
One writer traces the whole line of thought this dare belongs to:
He holds to the sure righteousness of God's way: God could never forsake the innocent, any more than He would spare the guilty… He insists on the folly of turning to creature help. All things are in the hand of Him who suddenly deals with the foolish man who thought himself secure. Last of all, he calls on Job to repent: if he would only humble himself before God, this trial would not only be turned away, but would leave him more blessed than ever.
So who are these "holy ones," and what would calling on them achieve?
He tells Job it will be no use to cry for aid to the "saints," the holy ones. His only help is in God. If he complains against Him, he will only lay himself open to divine anger… He is describing the result of his experience and observations: that in the end, even in this life, suffering is the portion of the sinner. It hardly needs saying how incomplete and unsatisfactory this is.
This verse has also been put to another use. One writer lists it among texts translated in ways that prop up a doctrine. His quotation below comes from an older Roman Catholic version, not the ESV:
For instance, Job 5:1 reads: "Call now if there be any that will answer you, and turn to some of the saints."… It is easy to see how renderings like this make texts of Scripture appear to support the doctrines of saint-worship, the worship of Mary, and the honouring of images.
Much of what Eliphaz says is true. The problem is the conclusion he draws from it.
Next he gives Job some of his experience, which is very true indeed. But the insinuation is wrong. He reasons from experience that suffering is the lot of the wicked, and therefore Job must belong to that class.
What is the challenge built on? One writer traces the source of Eliphaz's confidence.
Verse 3 begins, "I have seen …," and if we turn to Job 15, his second speech, again we find him saying, "That which I have seen I will declare" (verse 17). So whether his argument holds depends mainly on his own powers of observation. He trusted those powers for his opinion about the meaning of the disasters that had fallen on Job.
This way of judging has a cost, and it shows up two verses later.
"I have seen the foolish taking root; but suddenly I cursed his habitation." Ah, there it is! No prayer for him — cursing his home! No pity for him! That was just the spirit produced by this readiness to judge, and to base the judgment on how things look… Sometimes a good man is in a position where appearances are very much against him. There we have to take great care. So judging by appearance is very dangerous ground. That is exactly where these friends were.
Eliphaz points Job to no one. So who can stand between God and a suffering man? One writer describes what such a person must be.
The One who takes up the part of Daysman or Mediator must Himself be God to fully represent God, and must be Man to rightly represent man. The Man Christ Jesus is He. Being Man, we have no need of further men to come in as subsidiary mediators between Him and ourselves.
- Call — Eliphaz dares Job to shout to the "holy ones," holy men or angels, and see if anyone answers. His point is that Job should be seeking God.
- Creature — turning to creature help is folly. Job's only help is in God. The rendering "saints" has been used to prop up saint-worship.
- Correct — much of the speech is true. The hint behind it is false: that Job's suffering proves he is wicked.
- Confidence — Eliphaz's case rests on what he had seen. He argues the same way in chapter 15. Judging by appearance is dangerous ground.
- Cost — the fruit is no prayer and no pity. The real need is a Mediator who is both God and Man, and Christ alone meets it.
For vexation killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the simple.
Job 5:2 is a proverb spoken by Eliphaz, the first of Job's three friends to answer him. It sounds like plain wisdom: anger and jealousy destroy the person who holds them. The hard question is not whether the saying is true. It is why Eliphaz says it to a man who has just lost his children, his wealth and his health.
Eliphaz does not name Job as the fool. He does something quieter. But the next verses, about children crushed in the gate, make his target hard to miss.
He fears that Job has been guilty of resembling a foolish man too closely (v.2). So he warns him about what he had seen: the fool taking root (v.3), then suddenly exposed to a curse, his sons far from safety and crushed in the gate (v.3). Job's sons had died suddenly. Was Job therefore a foolish man? Eliphaz did not say so, but he implied that Job might be dangerously close to such a charge. He had watched foolish people suffer. So he reasoned that since Job was suffering like this, there must be something seriously wrong in Job.
There are many ways to give a hint without making an accusation. Notice the spirit behind this one.
"I have seen the fool taking root" — he was an old man and enjoyed looking back on his experience — "I have seen the fool taking root, but suddenly I cursed his dwelling." Ah, there it is! No prayer for him — cursing his home! No pity for him! That was just the spirit produced by this readiness to judge, and to base the judgment on appearance.
You can agree with every word of this verse and still be wrong to use it. A saying can be true as a general rule and false about the person in front of you.
All he says is true in principle but in Job's case false. It is right in itself, but wrong in the place he puts it. The wicked often grow old in their sin, while good people are cut down in the strength of their youth. The ungodly often live in plenty while those who fear God have to do without the common necessities of life. Eliphaz and his two friends drew false conclusions, just as often happens nowadays.
Eliphaz keeps going back to one source of authority.
Verse 3 begins, "I have seen …," and in his second speech in Job 15 he says again, "what I have seen I will declare" (verse 17). Clearly, then, his argument rests for its validity mainly on his own powers of observation. He trusted those powers to tell him what Job's disasters meant.
Read suffering as proof of folly, and a man's circumstances convict him. Kelly warns that appearances mislead in both directions.
"Do not judge by appearances," said the law. We must wait for solid fact. Sometimes a bad man puts on a good appearance, and we are not deceived by that at all. Sometimes a good man is in circumstances where appearances are very much against him. There we have to take great care.
Ridout compares Eliphaz with the Lord Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, and finds one wrong assumption running under the whole speech.
Would we not expect some words of sympathy from a friend? The blessed Man of Sorrows did not take sufferers to task in this way. He was moved with compassion, even to tears, at human sorrow. This harshness shows a wrong principle in Eliphaz, and it comes out more clearly as he goes on. For him, sin and suffering are root and fruit. He knows no classes of suffering. He fails to tell the righteous apart from the wicked. So in the end he proves to be a false accuser of his friend.
Set the misuse aside. The verse still names something real, and Scripture has more to say about it.
Look for a moment at what Scripture says about it. It is clearly forbidden (Matthew 5:22; Romans 12:19). It is a work of the flesh (Galatians 5:20). It marks out fools (Proverbs 14:29; 27:3). It brings its own punishment (Job 5:2; Proverbs 19:19).
The second half of the verse names jealousy. Schofield traces how fast it spreads.
There is no saying how far even a child of God may be led, once he willingly allows this feeling. It grows so rapidly that, from only beginning to be envious of another's success, prosperity and position, we may soon begin to hate him, and then plot against him.
- True words. The proverb is sound. Resentment and jealousy destroy the person who nurses them, and the punishment is built into the sin.
- Wrong target. True in principle, false about Job. The wicked often grow old in sin while godly people go without.
- Wrong source. Eliphaz built his verdict on what he had seen. He trusted his own eyes to explain another man's disaster.
- Wrong method. Appearances convict the innocent as easily as they clear the guilty. So we wait for solid fact.
- Wrong outcome. Treating sin and suffering as root and fruit erases the difference between the righteous and the wicked. It turns a friend into a false accuser, when the sufferer needed compassion.
I myself saw the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation.
Eliphaz stops arguing from general rules and starts arguing from what he has seen. He says he watched a fool settle in and prosper, and then he cursed the man's home. Two questions follow. How much weight can one man's experience carry? What kind of friend curses a house instead of praying for it?
Eliphaz keeps going back to one source of authority: his own eyes.
Verse 3 begins, "I have seen …". Turn to Job 15, which gives his second speech, and again we find him saying, "What I have seen I will declare" (verse 17). So it is clear that his argument stands or falls on his own powers of observation. He trusted those powers to tell him what Job's disasters meant.
His observations may have been true. The mistake was making them a rule for everyone.
These sentences make it very clear that Eliphaz was one of those people who argue mostly from their own experience. His motto was, "As I have seen." Now, what we have seen may be all true enough, so far as we are concerned. But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience, and yet thousands make that mistake. What, for instance, had the experience of Eliphaz to do with Job? Perhaps he had never met a case quite like it. And if the two cases differ at even one point, the whole argument from experience counts for nothing.
Eliphaz names no one, but every detail of the picture fits Job.
He fears that Job looks far too much like a foolish man (v.2). So he warns him with what he had seen: the foolish taking root, then suddenly exposed to a curse, his sons far from safety and crushed in the gate (v.3). Job's sons had died suddenly. Was Job therefore a foolish man? Eliphaz did not say so, but he hinted that Job was dangerously close to that charge. He had watched foolish people suffer, and he reasoned that since Job was suffering like this, something must be seriously wrong in Job.
The second half of the verse exposes the speaker more than the man he describes.
"I have seen the fool taking root, but suddenly I cursed his dwelling." Ah, there it is! No prayer for him — cursing his dwelling! No pity for him! Well, that eagerness to judge by appearance produced exactly this spirit. "Do not judge by appearances," said the law. We must wait for solid facts. Sometimes a good man is in circumstances where appearances are very much against him. There we have to take great care. So judging by appearance is very dangerous ground.
Eliphaz sums up his experience: the wicked prosper only for a moment. It does not fit what Scripture itself records.
Wicked men have prospered for a little season, only to fall under the curse... He is describing the result of his experience and observation: in the end, even in this life, suffering is the sinner's lot. It hardly needs saying how incomplete and unsatisfactory this is. Even in the Old Testament the "man of the earth" prospers; the wicked spreads himself out "like a green laurel tree," and has no pangs even in death.
One shared principle lay behind everything Job's three friends said.
That principle is that all suffering is punishment rather than teaching, and that it rests on God's justice rather than on His love — though these two are always joined in all His ways. Such a principle must fail to tell the difference between the sufferings of the righteous and those of the wicked. Carried to its logical end, as the friends did carry it, this principle meant that Job's sufferings were for some sin not yet detected, and that his only hope of relief was to confess his sin and obtain mercy.
The man who cursed a house had to be brought to the man he misjudged.
Jehovah made known to Eliphaz His anger against him and his two companions: they had not spoken to Him rightly, like His servant Job. So they had to come to Him with a sacrifice, through the very man they had so badly misjudged... And His servant Job, whose prayers they had despised, would pray for them.
- Seen. Eliphaz's whole case rests on what his own eyes have observed, and he treats that as final authority.
- Assumed. From "I have seen the fool" he moves to "you must be one" — Job's dead sons make the hint unmistakable.
- Cursed. His response to a falling man is a curse on the house, not a prayer for the man; judgment by appearance produces no pity.
- Corrected. The rule fails. The wicked often prosper, and suffering is not always punishment, so no one can sort the righteous from the wicked by their circumstances.
- Reversed. God's anger falls on Eliphaz. He must come by sacrifice to the friend he condemned, and let Job pray for him.
His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, and there is no deliverer
Eliphaz has been describing a man he calls "the foolish." The man seemed to take root, and then a curse fell on him. Now Eliphaz reaches the man's sons, ruined in public with no one to step in. He says all this to a father who has just lost every one of his children. It raises the question the whole book turns on: does disaster prove guilt?
The verse is one link in a chain of observations, and the chain is meant to lead Job somewhere. One writer traces how the older man builds his case without ever naming his friend:
He warns Job about what he had seen: the foolish man taking root, then suddenly exposed to a curse, his sons far from safety and crushed in the gate. Job's sons had died suddenly. Was Job then a foolish man? Eliphaz did not say so. But he hinted that Job might be very close to such a charge. Eliphaz had watched foolish people suffer, and he reasoned that since Job was suffering like this, something must be badly wrong in Job.
The gate of a town was its courtroom, where the judges sat. Job later uses the same phrase about himself, and one writer explains it:
When Job saw his "help in the gate" — the judges ready to decide in his favor, not because they were bribed, but because they were giving him what he was owed — he did not press his case against the orphans.
So the sons in Eliphaz's picture are not just unlucky. The one place that should protect a wronged person destroys them instead, and no one steps in.
Eliphaz keeps his language general, and that is what makes it cut. One writer notes both the restraint and the wound:
"Do not judge by appearances," said the law. We must wait for solid facts... Sometimes a good man may be in such circumstances that appearances are very much against him. There we have to take great care. So judging by appearance is very dangerous ground. That is exactly where they were... "His children are far from safety; they are crushed in the gate, and there is no one to deliver them." That was a very painful thing for Job to hear. Job had been most careful about his children. Job watched over them with much prayer to God, and burnt offerings... Eliphaz did not make it personal; still, there are many ways of giving a hint.
Commentators differ on how pointed the hint is. One reads it as a summary of long experience that only later hardens into open charges:
So far he barely hints at Job's family, and yet verses 4 and 5 could be read as a description of them — children crushed with no one to rescue them, and harvests taken by the hungry robber... This picture of life is plainly incomplete and unsatisfactory. Even in the Old Testament the "man of the earth" prospers; the wicked spreads himself "like a green bay tree."
The trouble is not that Eliphaz is lying. He takes a real rule, stretches it into a law for every case, and aims it at one particular man:
All he says is true in principle, but false in Job's case. It is right in itself, yet wrong in the way he applies it. The wicked often grow old in their sin, while good people are cut off in the strength of their youth. The ungodly often live in plenty, while those who fear God go without the basic necessities of life... In his view, Job's sufferings proved that his earlier righteousness was nothing but spiteful hypocrisy.
The opening chapters give the reader information Eliphaz never had. Job's sons were not struck down as a verdict on their lives:
Despite all the burnt offerings Job made for his children, God did not spare their lives. It was not a divine judgment because of their sins. It was what God allowed in His government to test Job.
Chapters later, Job answers this whole line of reasoning. He points to the evidence his friends will not look at:
He looks at the other side, at the case of the prosperous wicked... They live to old age and grow mighty in power. Their families grow up around them, everything stays quiet, and the rod of God never falls on them... Their children — in sad contrast to the now childless speaker — are like a flock of lambs skipping around the home, and the home rings with the sound of tambourine, harp and pipe.
- Observation. Eliphaz argues from what he has watched: the foolish take root, then their sons are crushed with no rescuer.
- Insinuation. He never names Job, but Job had just lost all his children. One writer calls it a very painful thing to hear — a hint rather than a charge.
- Appearance. Judging by how things look is dangerous ground. A good man's circumstances can make him look guilty.
- Misapplication. The sayings are true in principle but false about Job. The wicked often grow old, while those who fear God go without.
- Answer. Job's children did not die as a judgment on their sins. God allowed it to test Job. Later Job points to wicked homes full of music and safety.
Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh even out of the thorns; and the snare gapeth for his substance.
Eliphaz is telling Job what he has watched happen, and here the picture reaches its grim end. The question is not whether such things happen — they do — but whether Eliphaz has any right to aim them at Job.
Eliphaz speaks through chapters 4 and 5. This verse closes the part he builds on what he says he has seen:
(1) A rebuke for Job's despair (Job 4:1-5). (2) God's favour to the righteous (vv. 6-11). (3) A vision of God's greatness and holiness (12-21). (4) Experience of God's ways (Job 5:1-5). (5) A call to Job to seek God (vv. 6-11). (6) God's triumph over evil (vv. 12-16). (7) What affliction is for (vv. 17-27).
So the lost harvest is the last link in a chain. The foolish man takes root, the curse falls, his sons are crushed, and now his crop is gone.
The crop here is not just grain in a field. It covers everything Job had gained, and Eliphaz reasons back from its loss to a fault in Job:
Eliphaz had observed foolish people suffering, and reasoned that since Job was suffering as he did there must be something seriously wrong in Job. Job's harvest (all the substance he had gained) was eaten up… Trouble does not happen by chance. This is true, for there is no doubt that God is behind it.
Everything here rests on one foundation: what Eliphaz himself has watched happen. He returns to it again and again.
As we open Job 5, we find Eliphaz going on in the same way, and again he refers to what he had seen. Verse 3 begins, "I have seen …". Turn to Job 15, where he gives his second speech, and again we find him saying, "What I have seen I will declare" (verse 17). So his whole argument clearly stands or falls on his own powers of observation.
The trouble is not that his observations are false. It is the leap from them to a rule that must cover every case:
But it is a total mistake to build a general rule on one person's experience, and yet thousands of people are prone to it. What, for instance, had the experience of Eliphaz to do with Job? Perhaps he had never met a case quite like it. And if there is even one point of difference between the two cases, then the whole argument from experience counts for nothing.
Eliphaz never names Job, and he does not have to. The way he judges is itself the problem:
"Do not judge by appearances," said the law. We must wait for solid fact… Sometimes a good man is in such circumstances that appearances are very much against him. There we have to take great care. So judging by appearance is very dangerous ground… Eliphaz did not make it personal; still, there are many ways of giving a hint… Something very like that had happened to Job. I do not say that he charged it against him, but that was still the spirit at work.
Some of what Eliphaz says is true. That is what makes his method so slippery:
Some of the things Eliphaz says in this chapter are quite true… But we can see that he brings all these facts forward in a way that turned them against poor Job. He had seen men take root and then suddenly come under a curse, but these were "the foolish." Their children were struck down too, and robbers swallowed up their possessions. All these remarks clearly carried a veiled charge against Job.
Read suffering as proof of guilt, and the best men in Scripture stand condemned along with Job:
Suppose Abraham, Jacob, or David reasoned like this about their sufferings: then they were wicked, because they suffered! And in the New Testament, how could anyone glory in the suffering that produces patience? How could "this light momentary affliction" be said to prepare "for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison"? Eliphaz, with all his experience, shows that he knows little of God's ways with His suffering people.
The book settles the matter at the end, with God's own verdict on these speeches:
This is plain from Job 42:7-8. There the LORD says to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."… They had utterly failed to bring God before the soul of their friend, and so they failed to produce the self-judgment Job needed.
- Seen — Eliphaz's whole case rests on his own observation; "I have seen" is his motto here and again in chapter 15.
- Generalised — What he saw may be true. But building a rule for everyone on one man's experience is a mistake thousands still make.
- Aimed — The lost harvest stands for all Job had gained. Eliphaz never names Job, yet the hint lands.
- Appearance — Judging by how things look is dangerous ground. A good man can be in circumstances that look very much against him.
- Answered — Abraham, Jacob and David suffered too. God's closing word is that Eliphaz did not speak what is right about Him.
For evil cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
Eliphaz has just described the sudden ruin of foolish men, and Job's losses look like his list. Now he states a principle: hardship does not sprout up on its own like a weed.
The saying is true; the use Eliphaz makes of it is not. One writer traces his logic, then separates the principle from the accusation:
Eliphaz did not say so, but he implied that Job might be dangerously close to such a charge. He had watched foolish people suffer. So he reasoned that since Job was suffering like this, something must be badly wrong in Job. Job's harvest — everything he had gained — was eaten up (v.5). Why? Because, he says, affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground (v.6). In other words, trouble does not happen by chance. This is true, for there is no doubt that God is behind it.
If sorrow does not grow out of the soil, someone sends it. The opening chapters of Job show who acted first, and it was not Satan:
Job 5:6 says that affliction "does not come from the dust." Whatever the instruments may be, those who live in this world do not direct its course. Nor does even the enemy of our souls, in the first place. It was God who said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?" God saw that Job needed the sifting. The enemy himself was only an instrument in it.
Job's losses came through raiders, fire and wind. Faith traced them further back:
The agents of his sorrows were plain for all to see — the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, the fire, the whirlwind. But behind these lay the evil power of Satan, thrusting hard at him. And behind even this lay the chastening hand of God. Job's faith and patience showed in this: he did not look at the third cause, or even at the second. He looked straight through to God, and accepted everything as from His hand. It is just the same for us today. If we look at second or third causes when trouble sweeps in, it leaves us confused and often angry. If we bow beneath the hand of God we are greatly blessed.
He takes a true premise — trouble is sent — and adds a false one: that the amount of trouble measures the guilt. Tested against other lives in Scripture, the rule collapses:
Suppose Abraham, Jacob, or David had reasoned this way about their sufferings: then they were wicked, because they suffered! And in the New Testament, how could suffering that produces patience be something to glory in? How could "this light momentary affliction" prepare for us "an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison"? Eliphaz's own experience shows how little he knows of God's ways with His suffering people.
Eliphaz follows his principle with advice, and the advice is good in itself. What spoils it is the assumption hidden underneath:
It is always good to advise people to trust in God, for He never fails those who trust in Him... So, taken on its own, this counsel is good. But remember the assumption underneath it — that Job is suffering for his sins — and it can only irritate. It is as if he said: "Sin belongs to everyone, as trouble does to everyone, so humble yourself as a sinner before God, and He will lift you up." It is all the more subtle because it comes so close to the truth.
Freed from Eliphaz's misuse, the verse steadies anyone under trial. It ties God's control to His care:
So the trial throws us back on Him. Without Him not a sparrow falls to the ground, and by Him the very hairs of our head are all numbered. Affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. All of it is under the hand of the One who has made us His for glory. Meanwhile He puts our faith to the test in this present evil age, training us not only in patience but in endurance.
- Not from dust. Trouble never grows by itself out of the ground; it is sent, and behind every instrument stands God.
- Not from Satan first. In Job's story God raised the subject and set the limits; the enemy acted only as an instrument.
- Not from second causes. Raiders, fire and wind were visible; faith looked past them, took everything from God's hand, and was blessed in bowing to it.
- Not proof of guilt. Eliphaz turned a true principle into a false measure — a rule that would condemn Abraham, Jacob and David.
- Not without purpose. The same hand that sends the trial numbers the hairs of our head, training us in patience and endurance.
For man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.
Eliphaz has just said that affliction does not come out of the dust. Now he states a proverb about human life. The proverb is true — but he uses it to hint that Job's ruin proves Job's guilt.
The words themselves are sound. The use Eliphaz makes of them is not.
Some of the things Eliphaz says in this chapter are perfectly true. For instance: "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," in this world of sin… But we can see that he brings these facts forward in a way that turned them against poor Job.
Behind his advice sits a fixed idea about who suffers.
He reasons from experience that suffering is the lot of the wicked. So Job must belong to that class. The advice he gives to Job is in full keeping with his dogmatic assertion.
Trouble does not grow up out of the ground by itself. So something — Someone — stands behind it.
"Affliction," it is said (Job 5:6), "does not come out of the dust." Whatever the instruments may be, the people who live in this world do not direct its course. Not even the enemy of our souls directs it, in the first place. It was God who said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?" God saw that Job needed the sifting. The enemy himself was only an instrument in it.
That leaves the sufferer with a choice about where to fix his eyes.
Man does not look beyond the circumstances that surround him. To stay in circumstances is unbelief; affliction does not spring out of the dust. Satan is behind the circumstances to set us on; but behind all that, God is there to break our wills.
The verse says trouble is universal, but not where it came from. One writer traces it back, and refuses to lay it at the Creator's door.
Man is very ready to blame the Creator for all such things. He forgets that God made man upright, and that God declared everything He had made, including man, very good. Sin has brought in the misery. Man became the willing servant of Satan, and so put himself into the hands of his enemy.
If anyone hopes that faith cancels the rule, the answer is blunt — and it comes with a compensation.
Trouble of one sort or another is the common lot of man… and it can hardly be contradicted. The child of God gets no special exemption in this matter. Indeed it would seem that he gets more of it. He faces opposition from the world, if not persecution. By its very nature, the child of this world never knows that opposition. With it, however, he gets the support of God, and in the end he will get a salvation equally divine.
The trouble a believer meets is of more than one kind.
Besides the afflictions of fallen humanity, there are afflictions that fall specially on the Christian. He may have to suffer for righteousness' sake, and for Christ's sake. Another kind of affliction comes to him directly from the hand of God, for his good.
Eliphaz draws a conclusion from his proverb: commit your cause to God. Taken by itself the advice is excellent; taken with his assumption about Job it stings.
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," therefore let him commit his cause to God. It is always good to advise men to trust in God, for He never fails those who trust in Him… So, taken in itself, this counsel is good. But it rests on the idea that Job is suffering for his sins, and that can only irritate. It is as though he were saying: "Sin is common to all, as trouble is to all. So humble yourself as a sinner before God, and He will exalt you." The counsel is all the more subtle because it comes so near the truth.
The saying describes the present state of things, not the design or the destination.
Man was not made to experience only emptiness, sorrow and trouble. It is true now that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." But the Scriptures introduce us to the birthday of a new humanity. They lead us on to the new heavens and the new earth, and there they leave us.
- Cause. Trouble is not from the Creator: God made man upright, and sin brought the misery in.
- Common. Trouble is the common lot of everyone born, as sure as sparks flying up. Nobody can deny it.
- Controlled. Affliction does not come out of the dust; instruments and even the enemy act only under the hand of God.
- Counsel. "Commit your cause to God" is good advice. Eliphaz spoils it by assuming Job's suffering proves Job's sin.
- Compensation. Believers get no exemption, and often more trouble. They also get God's support now, and a divine salvation at the end in a new heavens and new earth.