Job 5:6

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.