Context No. 2359 of 4322 · Job
Context · Reflection
Job 5:1-16: in context
1“Call now; is there any who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? 2For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple. 3I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation. 4His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them, 5whose harvest the hungry eat up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance. 6For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; 7but 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, 9who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number; 10who gives rain on the earth, and sends waters on the fields; 11so that he sets up on high those who are low, those who mourn are exalted to safety. 12He frustrates the plans of the crafty, so that their hands can’t perform their enterprise. 13He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong. 14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night. 15But he saves from the sword of their mouth, even the needy from the hand of the mighty. 16So the poor has hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.
These words come from Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, and Scripture will later say the friends did not speak rightly of God, so his counsel has to be weighed, not simply swallowed. Yet within it sits an observation hard to deny: man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. Eliphaz urges Job to seek God, who does great things past finding out, who lifts the low to safety and frustrates the schemes of the crafty.
The trouble is real; where Eliphaz goes wrong is in implying Job's suffering must be his own fault. That is worth separating out. Trouble does rise as surely as sparks, and it visits the innocent too. What stands, apart from Eliphaz's misdiagnosis, is the picture of a God who sets the mourner on high and saves the needy from the mouth of the strong. The description of God is truer than the accusation aimed at Job.
Can I hold on to what is true about God even when it reaches me wrapped in someone's flawed judgment of my pain?