Job 5:8-27

Eliphaz advises Job to accept the Divine discipline so that God may again show Himself gracious. As for me, instead of being impatient like a fool, I would seek unto God (cf. Job 1:21; Job 2:10).

Job 5:9 gives the motive for submission, viz. the omnipotence of God, which is also a reason for hope. God's power is manifest in nature (Job 5:10). He also shows it by the restoration of those who abase themselves (Job 5:11), and equally by crashing the impious (Job 5:12). [Job 5:13 is quoted, 1 Corinthians 3:19 * the only quotation from Job in NT apart, perhaps, from Romans 11:35.]

Job 5:15 f. continues the theme of Job 5:11. But in Job 5:15 the text is undoubtedly corrupt. The usual parallelism is wanting, and the words - he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth-' yield no satisfactory sense (Peake). Duhm accepts Siegfried's emendation: He saves from the sword the needy, and from the hand of the mighty the poor.

Job 5:17 paints an idyllic picture of the happy condition of the man who submissively accepts the Divine discipline and so is restored to prosperity.

Job 5:17 f. takes us back to Job 5:8. The reason of Divine chastisement is not in some obscure mystery of God's nature (Job's why? Job 3:23), but in man's own sinfulness; it is educational (Proverbs 3:11 *). Observe that the poet often puts the name Shaddai (the Almighty) into the mouth of Job and his friends, as a name of God suitable to non-israelites (Joel 1:15 *). It is the name by which, according to P, God made Himself known to Abraham (Gren. Job 17:1 *) long before the revelation of the name Yahweh (Exodus 6:3), The six or seven troubles from which Eliphaz promises Job that God will deliver him (Job 5:19) is a round number meaning many or all: so three, four (Proverbs 6:16; Amos 1:3). The wild beasts will not devour Job's flocks, the stones will keep out of his field (Job 5:22 f.). Duhm quotes in illustration the couplet: vom Acker, den sein Pflug berü hrte, schwand das Gestein, als obs der Wind entfü hrte. The idea of a sympathy between man and nature is often expressed in the OT, e.g. Psalms 104, but especially belongs to the picture of the Messianic age (Isaiah 11:6; Isaiah 65:21). The climax of blessings promised to Job is that he shall have a large posterity, and die in a ripe old age (Job 5:25 f.) [An interesting theological point in connexion with Job 5:26 is that death is here conceived not as the punishment of sin, but merely as the natural close of life. In general the OT is not governed by Genesis 33, as are the later Judaism and the NT. The true OT idea is rather that a premature death is the punishment of sin (Psalms 55:23).] Eliphaz concludes his speech (Job 5:27) by bidding Job lay to heart the truth which it contains.

The first speech of Eliphaz is a literary masterpiece; yet how out of touch with facts it is! Eliphaz does not perceive that he is stating a mere doctrine; he has, like the vast majority of both cultured and uncultured men, continually found in life his own opinions confirmed, because he has always presupposed them, and has finally taken them for experiences (Duhm). Thus he cannot enter into Job's problem. His prejudices prevent him from understanding his friend's perplexity. To Eliphaz it is as plain as the sun in heaven that affliction is due to human sin, and Job's questionings about God seem simply impious. Hence, with the best intentions in the world, he fails in sympathy; and the psalm-like conclusion (Job 5:17), in spite of its beauty, can in Job's circumstances only be an irony.