Read & explore together
Eliphaz Continues: God Blesses those Who Seek Him
In Job 5, Eliphaz continues speaking to Job. He contrasts the fate of the foolish with his own advice to seek God, then describes God’s power, justice and correction, ending with a strong claim that his words should be accepted.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage is part of wisdom and dialogue. Eliphaz addresses Job directly, asking who could answer him and then offering his understanding about trouble, God’s actions, and the value of God’s correction. These are Eliphaz’s words in this conversation, not a separate story of events.
Job 5:1–27Main takeaway
Job 5 presents Eliphaz’s argument that people should seek God, because God rules over human trouble, overturns the crafty, helps the lowly, and corrects those he blesses.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Eliphaz opens with a challengeEliphaz begins by asking who would answer and which “holy ones” Job could turn to. He then warns that resentment and jealousy destroy the foolish and simple.
Explanation
Eliphaz begins by asking who would answer and which “holy ones” Job could turn to. He then warns that resentment and jealousy destroy the foolish and simple. His example describes a foolish person seeming established, yet his household and produce are not secure. The point is not comfort, but a sharp warning about the end of folly.
02Trouble belongs to human life, so Eliphaz says to seek GodEliphaz says affliction does not simply spring from the ground, yet human life is marked by trouble, “as the sparks fly upward”.
Explanation
Eliphaz says affliction does not simply spring from the ground, yet human life is marked by trouble, “as the sparks fly upward”. Because of that, he says he would seek God and commit his cause to God. This moves from describing trouble to advising where a person should turn.
03God does great works and overturns the craftyEliphaz praises God as the one who does unfathomable and countless marvellous things, including sending rain.
Explanation
Eliphaz praises God as the one who does unfathomable and countless marvellous things, including sending rain. He says God lifts up the lowly and gives safety to mourners. At the same time, God frustrates the crafty, exposes their plans, and saves the needy, so that the poor have hope and injustice is silenced.
04Eliphaz calls correction a blessingEliphaz says the person corrected by God is “happy” and should not despise the Almighty’s chastening.
Explanation
Eliphaz says the person corrected by God is “happy” and should not despise the Almighty’s chastening. He describes God as one who wounds and binds up, injures and makes whole. He then lists repeated forms of rescue and peace, ending by insisting that this teaching has been examined and should be heard for good.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What reason does Eliphaz give for saying he would seek God?
02Which kinds of people does Eliphaz say God helps, and which kinds does he oppose?
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Job 5:1–27
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.
17“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.
18For he wounds and binds up. He injures and his hands make whole.
19He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven no evil will touch you.
20In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.
21You will be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, neither will you be afraid of destruction when it comes.
22You will laugh at destruction and famine, neither will you be afraid of the animals of the earth.
23For you will be allied with the stones of the field. The animals of the field will be at peace with you.
24You will know that your tent is in peace. You will visit your fold, and will miss nothing.
25You will know also that your offspring will be great, your offspring as the grass of the earth.
26You will come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season.
27Behold, we have researched it. It is so. Hear it, and know it for your good.”