Job 5 explained: Eliphaz Urges Job to Accept Correction

No one will take your side (vv. 1-5)

Eliphaz says none of the 'holy ones', probably heavenly beings like angels, will back Job's complaint, and that resentful fools destroy themselves. His picture of a fool whose children are crushed in court (the town gate, where cases were judged) and whose harvest is stolen seems a pointed hint at Job's own dead children and stolen herds.

Trouble has a cause (vv. 6-7)

Trouble does not just sprout from the ground like a weed, Eliphaz says; humans are born into it as surely as sparks rise from a fire. He implies the cause lies with people themselves, and so with Job.

If I were you, turn to God (vv. 8-16)

Eliphaz praises God as the one who sends rain, lifts up the humble and trips up schemers in their own plans, so the poor have hope. The apostle Paul later quoted verse 13 in one of his letters (1 Corinthians 3:19).

Suffering as God's correction (vv. 17-26)

Eliphaz calls Job fortunate to be corrected by God, who wounds but also heals, and promises rescue in six troubles and then seven, a Hebrew way of saying every possible trouble. If Job accepts this, he will be at peace with stony fields and wild animals, have many descendants, and die in ripe old age like grain harvested at the right time.

We have checked this (v. 27)

Eliphaz closes by saying his group has studied the matter and Job should take it to heart. Readers know from the book's opening that Job's suffering is not a punishment, and at the end God says the friends did not speak rightly about him (42:7).

Key verse: Job 5:17

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how to weigh Eliphaz's words: some see them as true wisdom wrongly applied to Job, while others see them as a flawed view of suffering that the book as a whole sets out to reject.

Something to think about

When someone is suffering, when does explaining why it happened help them, and when does it only add to the hurt?