Job 5:6

_ALTHOUGH AFFLICTION COMETH NOT FORTH OF THE DUST, NEITHER DOTH TROUBLE SPRING OUT OF THE GROUND;_ Although - rather, For truly (Umbreit). AFFLICTION COMETH NOT FORTH OF THE DUST - like a weed, of its own accord. Eliphaz hints that the cause of it lay with Job himself. The cause of afflictions is not to be sought for extrinsically, but in man himself....

6-16 Eliphaz reminds Job, that no affliction comes by chance, nor is to be placed to second causes. The difference between prosperity and adversity is not so exactly observed, as that between day and night, summer and winter; but it is according to the will and counsel of God. We must not attribute our afflictions to fortune, for they are from God; nor our sins to fate, for they are from ourselves. Man is born in sin, and therefore born to trouble. There is nothing in this world we are born to, and can truly call our own, but sin and trouble. Actual transgressions are sparks that fly out of the furnace of original corruption. Such is the frailty of our bodies, and the vanity of all our enjoyments, that our troubles arise thence as the sparks fly upward; so many are they, and so fast does one follow another. Eliphaz reproves Job for not seeking God, instead of quarrelling with him. Is an...

Verse Job 5:6. _AFFLICTION COMETH NOT FORTH OF THE DUST_] If there were not an adequate cause, thou couldst not be so grievously afflicted. _SPRING OUT OF THE GROUND_] It is not from mere _natural_ causes that affliction and trouble come; God's justice inflicts them upon offending man....

ALTHOUGH AFFLICTION COMETH NOT FORTH OF THE DUST - Margin, “or iniquity.” The marginal reading here has been inserted from the different meanings attached to the Hebrew word. That word (און _'âven_) properly means nothingness, or vanity; then nothingness as to worth, unworthiness, wickedness, iniquity; and then the consequences of iniquity - adversity, calamity, affliction; Psalms 55:4; Proverbs 22:8; Psalms 90:10; Job 15:35. The Septuagint renders it κόπος _kopos_, “labor,” or “trouble.” The Vulgate, Nihil in terra, sine

EXPOSITION JOB 5:1 Eliphaz, having narrated his vision, and rehearsed the words which the spirit spoke in his ear, continues in his own person, first (Job 5:1) covertly reproaching Job, and then (verses 8-27) seeking to comfort him by the suggestion that, if he will place himself unreservedly in the hands of God, it is still possible that God may relent, remove his chastening hand, deliver him from his troubles, and even give him back all his former prosperity. The anticipation is in remarkable accordance with the ultimate event (Job 42:10), and shows that Eliphaz, if not a prophet in the higher sense, is at least a sagacious interpreter of God's ways with men, and can very happily forecast the future.

ALTHOUGH AFFLICTION COMETH NOT FORTH OF THE DUST,.... Or rather, "for" or "indeed" y, this being a reason showing that wicked men are justly afflicted and punished; seeing their afflictions come not from the creatures, though they may be instruments, but from God for the sins of men: the word for affliction also signifies iniquity or sin, the cause of affliction, as well as affliction the fruit of sin; and so does the word in the following clause; and Aben Ezra understands both, not of natural but moral evil, and so do others z; both senses may be taken in: sin does not come from God, the Maker of the dust of the earth, he is not the author of sin, nor does this spring out of the dust which he has made; good things, as Schmidt observes, come out of the earth for the use of man as well as beasts, bread, and wine, and oil, and all the necessaries of life; the precious things produced by th...

CHAPTER S 4-5 THE FIRST ADDRESS OF ELIPHAZ _ 1. He rebukes Job (Job 4:1)_ 2. The righteous are not cast off (Job 4:6) 3. An awe-inspiring vision (Job 4:12) 4. Experience and exhortation (Job 5:1) 5. Happy is the man whom God correcteth (Job 5:17) With this chapter the long and tedious controversy between Job and his three visitors begins. His pitiful lamentation brings forth the addresses of his friends. Eliphaz and Bildad speak thrice, each answered by Job, and Zophar twice with corresponding rebuttals by Job. Job delivers his last word, the length

JOB 5:1 contains the application of the principles just laid down. JOB 5:1. If the angels are imperfect, it is no use for Job to appeal to them as intercessors with God. Duhm, following Siegfried, rejects this verse connecting Job 4:21 closely with Job 5:2_._ The foolish man, he says, means in this context, the man without the fear of God. A man must be an impious fool, Eliphaz would say, in agreement with the Job of the Volksbuch (Job 2:10), if in misfortune, instead of, like a wise man, feeling his worthlessness and submitting to God, he allows himself to be carried away into rebell

Job 5:1-7. Having laid this broad ground, Eliphaz proceeds to apply the principle to Job....

ALTHOUGH AFFLICTION COMETH NOT, &C.— The Hebrew is rather, _For iniquity cometh not forth out of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; i.e._ "As the wickedness of men does not proceed from any natural cause _in the origin of things,_ but from their own free-will, or from the abuse of divine grace; so neither are their miseries to be considered as the effects of merely natural causes, but as the distributions of a free agent likewise, who fits men's punishments to their crimes; and hence man, being prone to sin, is necessarily born to suffer: _yet man is born,_ &c." But this verse would be better rendered, agreeable to the interpretation given of the preceding one, _for_ then _man_ would be _born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;_ that is, it would fall upon him naturally and necessarily, without any determination or direction of any mortal agent. He could neither pr...