Job 5

Go ahead and call out, if you think anyone will answer you. Which of the holy ones will you turn to for help?

1Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn?

NoteThis is Eliphaz, the first of Job's three friends, continuing the speech he began in chapter 4. The "holy ones" (KJV "saints") are not holy people but heavenly beings, the members of God's court, what later readers would call angels. Eliphaz's point is that there is no one in that court Job can appeal to as an advocate.

2Anger kills the fool, and envy destroys the simple-minded man.

2For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.

NoteThe "simple" man is the gullible one, in Hebrew wisdom writing, a person who is easily talked into things and has no settled judgment, not someone of low intelligence.

3I have seen a fool putting down roots and settling in, but all at once I called down a curse on his home.

3I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

NoteThe Hebrew here is ambiguous and translators split over it. It can mean that Eliphaz himself pronounced the curse (as the King James and this rendering take it), or simply that the fool's household was suddenly cursed, with no one named as doing it.

4His children are nowhere near safe. They are crushed in court, and no one steps in to rescue them.

4His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.

NoteLegal cases were heard at the gateway of a walled town, where the elders sat to judge. "Crushed in the gate" means losing in court, with no relative or patron standing up to speak on your behalf.

5Hungry people eat up his harvest, taking it even from among the thorns, and robbers swallow up everything he owns.

5Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

NoteA farmer would pile cut thorn branches around a crop as a makeshift fence; "taking it even from among the thorns" means the plunderers strip the harvest right out of its protection. The word rendered "robbers" is uncertain in Hebrew: it has also been read as "the thirsty" or as "a snare," and no reading is secure.

6Hardship does not come up out of the dust, and trouble does not sprout from the ground on its own.

6Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

NoteA proverb about origins: trouble is not something that germinates by itself out of the soil the way a weed does. What follows in verse 7 supplies the contrast.

7Yet people are born into trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

7Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

NoteThe Hebrew phrase is literally "the sons of Resheph fly upward." Resheph was a name for flame (and, in older Canaanite usage, a god of plague and fire), so the image is usually taken as sparks or flames shooting up from a fire; some read it instead as birds of prey. Either way the point is inevitability: this is simply what happens.

8If I were you, I would go to God and lay my case before him.

8I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:

9He does great things no one can figure out, and wonders too many to count.

9Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:

10He sends rain down on the earth and pours water on the fields.

10Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields:

11He lifts up those who are low, so that people who are grieving are raised to safety.

11To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.

12He ruins the schemes of clever, scheming people, so their hands never pull off what they planned.

12He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.

13He traps the wise in their own tricks, and the plans of twisted people are swept away in a rush.

13He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.

14In broad daylight they run into darkness. At noon they feel their way along as if it were night.

14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night.

15But God saves the poor from the sword, from the mouths of such people, and from the grip of the powerful.

15But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.

NoteThe Hebrew of this line is broken and hard to construe; "from the sword, from their mouth" may mean the sword that is in the mouths of the powerful: that is, ruinous speech pictured as a weapon.

16So the poor have hope, and injustice is left with nothing to say.

16So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

17Look: the man God corrects is well off. So do not brush aside the discipline of the Almighty.

17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

NoteThe word behind "happy" describes an enviable, well-placed condition rather than a cheerful feeling. "Chastening" translates a word used of a father training a son: correction meant to instruct, not merely to punish.

18He is the one who injures and then bandages up. He wounds, and his own hands heal.

18For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.

19He will rescue you from six troubles. Even in seven, no harm will touch you.

19He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

Note"Six... and seven" is a standard Hebrew way of counting (name a number, then go one higher) used to mean "however many there turn out to be." The same pattern appears elsewhere in Hebrew poetry (three and four, seven and eight).

20When food runs out, he will buy you back from death. In war, he will save you from the blade of the sword.

20In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.

Note"Redeem" is a family and commercial term: to pay the price that buys a relative, a slave, or forfeited property back out of another's hands.

21You will be hidden from cutting words, and you will not be afraid when ruin arrives.

21Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.

NoteThe word is the one used for a whip or lash. Slander is pictured as a beating administered with the tongue.

22You will laugh at ruin and hunger, and you will not be afraid of wild animals.

22At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

23You will have an agreement with the stones in your field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you.

23For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.

NoteStones were the enemy of anyone farming in that country; clearing them out of a field was constant labor. A "league" is a covenant or treaty, so the picture is of a formal peace agreement with the very things that normally work against you, the stones and the wild animals both.

24You will know your tent is safe. You will look over your home and find nothing missing.

24And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.

Note"Tabernacle" here simply means tent; Job and his neighbors are pictured living the herding life of tent-dwellers. The last phrase turns on a Hebrew verb whose basic sense is "to miss": you take stock of your household and nothing has gone astray. The King James translates it with its other, moral sense, "sin."

25You will know that your children will be many, and your descendants as thick as the grass on the ground.

25Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth.

26You will go to your grave at a ripe old age, the way a stack of grain is gathered in when it is ready.

26Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

Note"Corn" in 1611 English meant grain of any kind, not maize; a "shock" is a stack of cut sheaves left standing in the field. The word behind "full age" is rare and disputed: it may mean old age, or bodily vigor still unspent.

27Look, we have looked into this, and it is true. Listen to it, and take it in for your own good.

27Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.

Note"We" is the voice of the wise and their inherited tradition. Eliphaz is closing with the standard formula of a teacher handing on a settled result: we have examined this, and it holds.