Wisdom · Chapter 5 of 42
Job 5
Eliphaz continues, warning that resentment destroys the fool and that trouble is native to human life, as sparks fly upward. He counsels Job to commit his cause to God, who does great and unsearchable things, lifts the lowly, and foils the crafty. He then paints the blessings awaiting the man who accepts God's correction: protection, peace, and a long life ending like ripe grain.
What happens in Job 5
Eliphaz presses on, telling Job that wrath and envy kill the foolish, and that he has seen the prosperous fool suddenly cursed. Affliction, he insists, does not sprout from the dust; rather, man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. His remedy is to seek God, who does marvelous, unsearchable things, catching the wise in their own craftiness so that the schemes of the crafty come to nothing. He then delivers a beatitude: happy is the man whom God corrects, so Job should not despise the Almighty's chastening, for God wounds and binds up, strikes and heals.
Eliphaz lists the rewards of the corrected man, deliverance in famine and war, safety from the scourge of the tongue, peace with beasts, many descendants, and a death in full old age like a shock of corn gathered in season. He ends assuring Job the friends have searched this out and it is true.
Job 5 in context
Eliphaz completes his first speech with a mix of genuine wisdom and misplaced diagnosis. Much of what he says about God's greatness and the blessedness of accepting correction is true and even quoted later in Scripture. Paul cites verse thirteen, that God takes the wise in their own craftiness, in First Corinthians.
The problem is the frame: Eliphaz assumes Job merely needs to repent and be restored, not grasping that Job's suffering is not a discipline for sin at all.
Main themes of Job 5
Job 5 (KJV)
1Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn? 2For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one. 3I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation. 4His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them. 5Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance. 6Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; 7Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. 8I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: 9Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: 10Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields: 11To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. 12He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. 13He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. 14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night. 15But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty. 16So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth. 17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: 18For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole. 19He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. 20In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword. 21Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh. 22At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth. 23For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee. 24And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin. 25Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth. 26Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season. 27Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.
Verses to carry from Job 5
“Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”Job 5:7
“He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.”Job 5:13
“Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:”Job 5:17
New Testament quotation
How Job 5 points to Jesus
Eliphaz declares that God wounds and his hands make whole, that he strikes and then binds up, and this rhythm finds its deepest expression in Christ. By his wounds we are healed, Isaiah says, and Peter applies it to the Son who bore our sins in his body. Paul lifts a line directly from this chapter, that God takes the wise in their own craftiness, to show how the cross overturns worldly wisdom, catching the clever schemers of this age in the very cleverness by which they rejected God.
Eliphaz meant the verse as a warning to Job; the Spirit repurposes it to celebrate the wisdom of God in a crucified Messiah. The God who binds up the wounds he permits is most fully seen in Jesus, who was wounded to make us whole.
Questions about Job 5
Where is Job 5:13 quoted in the New Testament?
Paul quotes it in First Corinthians 3:19: For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Paul uses the line to argue that the world's wisdom is foolishness to God, and that the cross of Christ confounds the clever. Eliphaz originally spoke it about God frustrating schemers, and the Spirit, through Paul, applies the same truth to the surprising wisdom of salvation.
Is Eliphaz right that suffering is God's correction?
Sometimes, yes; Scripture affirms that God disciplines those he loves. But Eliphaz treats it as the only explanation, insisting Job's pain must be corrective for sin. The book flatly denies this in Job's case. Suffering can be discipline, but it can also be testing, spiritual conflict, or mystery. Eliphaz's error is collapsing every cause into one and misreading his friend.
Reflection
Some of Eliphaz's words are worth keeping and some are quietly poisoned by the same sentence. He is right that God wounds and heals, wrong that Job's wound must be punishment. Learn to hold true doctrine without forcing it onto stories it does not fit. And take comfort that the God who wounds also binds up, most surely at the cross.
A prayer from Job 5
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