Job 5:11

Eliphaz the Temanite is the first of Job’s three friends to answer him, and his speech fills Job 4–5. He is replying to Job’s lament in Job 3, where Job cursed the day of his birth. The book is set in the land of Uz, among the men of the east, in a region east of Israel that may be Edom or northern Arabia. Its questions about suffering belong to every people.

Eliphaz reasons from a principle that all three friends share: God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked, so great suffering points to great sin. He has already asked, “who ever perished, being innocent?” and said that those who plough iniquity reap the same (Job 4:7–9). He has told of a vision in the night that taught him that no mortal is righteous before God (Job 4:12–21). So when he urges Job to seek God, he means that Job should come as a sinner ready to confess, and the hope he holds out in these verses is the hope of a man restored after repentance. The verses after this passage make that plain, for he calls Job’s trouble the chastening of the Almighty and promises blessing to the man who accepts it (Job 5:17–27). The tone of his counsel is gentle, and the charge underneath it is real. Job answers by holding to his innocence, and the long debate of the book begins.

“I would seek unto God” is Eliphaz’s way of saying, “If I were in your place, this is what I would do.” The verb dârash means to seek, to inquire of, to require or to care for, and it is used of turning to God in prayer and worship. To seek God this way is to turn from despair and from human remedies to the one who can help.

“Commit” is sûwm, to put, set or appoint. The word for “cause” is dibrâh, a feminine form related to davar, “word”, and it means a reason, a suit or a case. To set one’s cause before God is to lay the whole matter before him as a man lays his case before a judge, with its arguments, its defence and its outcome left in his hands. “Unto God” stands twice in the verse, and the second line restates the first, so all the weight falls on him as the one to go to.

This counsel is sound whoever speaks it, and Scripture repeats it. “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5). “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee” (Psalm 55:22). Peter writes, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Paul tells believers to be careful for nothing and to make their requests known to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and he promises that the peace of God will keep their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6–7).

There is an irony here. Job did seek God, and more truly than his friends, because all through his speeches he keeps crying out to God himself. It is always right to come to God, in anger, confusion or grief as much as in calm. The psalmists bring raw complaint and sorrow straight to him (Psalm 22, Psalm 77), and he receives those who come to him as they are.

Jesus did what this verse describes perfectly. In Gethsemane he prayed, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and on the cross he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). God vindicated him, declaring him to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). He now ever lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), and so we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” to find help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). The cause we commit to him is in good hands, for “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).

Verse 9 gives the reason for seeking God: he is the one “Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number”. The verb ʻâsâh is the ordinary word for doing or making, used in the broadest way, and here God is the one who does. The “great things”, g’dolot, take in his creation, his rule over everything he made, his acts in history such as the Exodus, and his dealings with people.

“Unsearchable” joins chêqer, a searching out or fathoming, with the negative particle ʼayin, “nothing”, so that the phrase reads “and there is no searching”. “Without number” is built the same way, ein mispar, “there is no number”. The “marvellous things”, nifla’ot, come from pâlâʼ, to be great, difficult or wonderful, and they are works that make people marvel because only God could do them.

The same praise runs through Scripture. “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:3). “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8–9). A psalmist says that God’s wonderful works and his thoughts toward us are more than can be numbered (Psalm 40:5). Paul cries out, “how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).

Eliphaz’s first great work of God is the rain. Nâthan is the everyday verb “to give”, used very widely in the sense of put, set or make, and shâlach means to send or to stretch out. Mâṭar is rain, the water that comes down from the sky, which can refresh the land or flood it. In a dry land like Uz the rain decided whether crops grew and herds lived, and drought meant famine and death. So the rain was the plainest daily evidence of who rules the world. The first line speaks of “the earth” and the second of “the fields”, narrowing from the whole land to the farmed ground that feeds people.

The rain falls on everyone. Jesus says that the Father “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), a truth wider than Eliphaz’s scheme of reward and punishment, though his verse is true as it stands. The Psalms praise God “Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth” (Psalm 147:8), who “watereth the hills from his chambers” (Psalm 104:13) and who visits the earth and waters it (Psalm 65:9–10). Paul said that God gave “rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons” as a witness to himself (Acts 14:17).

All things were created by the Son, and by him all things consist (Colossians 1:16–17), so the rain on the fields is upheld by Christ. He also gives the water that rain can only picture: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37), the living water he offered the woman at the well (John 4:10).

Verse 11 tells us what God’s great works are for: “To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.” The low, shâphâl, are those brought down in body, in standing or in spirit, the humble, the abased and the poor. Those who mourn are described with qâdar, a verb that means to be dark or ashy and so to mourn, from the sackcloth of mourners and their darkened faces. Sâgab means to be set high, out of reach, and so safe and strong, and the word for “safety”, yeshaʻ, means deliverance or salvation. God lifts the mourner to a height where harm cannot follow.

This reversal runs through the Bible. Hannah sang that the LORD “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill” (1 Samuel 2:7–8). Mary sang, “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree” (Luke 1:52). Jesus said, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). The promise is God’s presence and help within suffering, and his power to turn grief into safety in his own time.

Christ himself took the low place. Being in the form of God, he made himself of no reputation, took the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:6–9). He was anointed to bind up the brokenhearted and to comfort all that mourn (Isaiah 61:1–2). He calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), and he promised his people another Comforter, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16).

Verses 12 to 14 turn to the other side of God’s justice. “He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.” “Disappointeth” is pârar, to break up, frustrate or make of none effect, and when God does it to a plan the plan is finished. The “devices”, machăshâbâh, are plans or intentions, a word that can describe a good purpose and here describes a scheme. The “crafty”, ʻârûwm, are the cunning or shrewd. The same word can mean prudent in a good sense, and beside devices that God breaks it means cunning turned to selfish or harmful ends, the opposite of the wisdom, chokmah, that walks with God. Their “hands” stand for their power to act, and “enterprise” for the whole of what they set out to do.

Verse 13 goes further: “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.” The verb lâkad means to catch, capture or seize, and it is used of catching in a net, a trap or a pit. The word for “craftiness”, ʻôrem, is a stratagem, from ʻâram, to be cunning. The “wise” here are clever in a worldly way, and God catches them in the very cleverness they trusted, as Proverbs says: “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein” (Proverbs 26:27). The “froward” are the crooked and perverse, and their counsel is “carried headlong”, mâhar, a verb meaning to hurry in a good sense or a bad one. Here the context makes it bad, and their plans rush to ruin.

Paul quotes this verse: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:19). Words first spoken by Eliphaz are taken up by the apostle as Scripture.

The rest of Scripture says the same. “The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect”, and the next verse adds that the counsel of the LORD stands for ever (Psalm 33:10–11). “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21). “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD” (Proverbs 21:30). Isaiah tells the nations, “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought” (Isaiah 8:10). The builders of Babel are an early example of a human plan that God brought to nothing (Genesis 11), and Psalm 37 sets the end of the wicked beside the end of the righteous.

Eliphaz leaves Job to hear himself among the crafty, as though God were now breaking Job’s own hidden schemes. The opening chapters of the book have already shown that Job had none.

Verse 14 describes what becomes of the schemers: “They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.” “They” are the crafty and the wise of the verses before. Chôshek, darkness, often stands in Scripture for confusion, distress, misfortune and judgment. Mâshash means to feel one’s way, and so to grope. Tsôhar, “noonday”, comes from a word for light, and its dual form means “double light”, the brightest hour of the day. People who planned so cleverly end up as helpless at midday as they would be at midnight. The light around them is full, so their blindness comes from God’s judgment on them.

The picture comes from God’s law, where it is one of the curses on disobedience: “And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness” (Deuteronomy 28:29). Isaiah uses it of a sinful people: “we stumble at noonday as in the night” (Isaiah 59:10). “The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19). Jesus said that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).

Christ is God’s answer to this darkness. He said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness” (John 8:12). He is the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9). He spoke of himself as the light of the world when he gave sight to a man born blind (John 9:5), and he came as light so that whoever believes in him should abide in the light (John 12:46). In him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

“But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.” The verb yashaʻ means at root to be open, wide or free, and so to be safe, and in its active sense to free or to rescue. The poor, ʼebyôwn, are the needy and destitute, who have nobody powerful to speak for them. In Job’s world such people had little legal protection or standing, and they were easy to exploit. The mighty, châzâq, from châzaq, to be strong, are the strong and hard, and here they use their strength against the weak.

The verse names three dangers. The sword is open violence, war or execution. The mouth is harmful speech, such as false accusation, slander or an unjust decree from those in power. The hand of the mighty sums up every grip of power that can crush the defenceless. The repeated “from” shows how complete God’s rescue is.

This is who God is throughout Scripture. “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD” (Psalm 12:5). “I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor” (Psalm 140:12). Proverbs warns against robbing the poor, “For the LORD will plead their cause” (Proverbs 22:22–23). God’s law commands an open hand to a poor brother (Deuteronomy 15:7–11), Amos condemns those who tread upon the poor and turn aside the poor in the gate (Amos 5:11–12), and a psalm charges judges, “Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy” (Psalm 82:3–4). The God who defends the poor calls his people to share that work with whatever voice and means they have.

Verse 16 draws the conclusion: “So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.” The word for poor here is dal, which Strong’s explains as properly “dangling”, and so weak or thin, the lean, the needy and the low. The hope is tiqvâh, a word that can mean a cord and figuratively an expectancy, a confident looking forward. The poor have hope because of who God is and what he does, and that hope holds when their strength and circumstances give way.

The word for iniquity, ʻevel, is a general word for wrong or injustice. Here it is pictured as a woman who has been loud, boasting and accusing, and now has to close her mouth. To stop one’s mouth is to be silenced and put to shame, and in a world that prized public honour that meant defeat: the oppressor could boast and harm no longer. The poor were saved “from their mouth” in verse 15, and now the mouth of wrong itself is shut.

Scripture holds out the same hope. God “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; That he may set him with princes” (Psalm 113:7–8). When the wicked plot against the just, “The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming” (Psalm 37:12–13). “The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish” (Proverbs 10:28).

Christ is the hope of the poor. He gave the kingdom of heaven to the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), and he counts what is done for the least of his brethren as done for himself (Matthew 25:40). The accuser of the brethren is cast down, overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:10–11), and in the end God will wipe away all tears, and there shall be no more death, sorrow or crying (Revelation 21:4).

These nine verses give one of the fullest pictures in the book of Job of God at work. He is great past searching. He gives rain to the just and the unjust. He comes near to the lowly and the grieving, and he sets himself against every scheme that preys on the weak. The poor have hope because of him, and wrong will at last be silenced.

The book also shows how these truths are to be held. Eliphaz knew them and used them to press a charge on a suffering friend, and God rebuked him. Job, who could not see why he suffered, kept bringing his cause to God, and God said that he had spoken what was right. So the counsel of verse 8 stands, and it stands best on Job’s lips. The One who does marvellous things without number is the One to whom every cause may be committed, and in Christ the way to him is open.