Charles Ellicott Commentary Job 5

Call now.— The speaker now becomes more personal and direct in his tone and bearing. He insinuates that Job is “unwise” and “silly,” and promises swift destruction for all such.

I cursed. —The word means, “I was able to declare distinctly, and I did declare without hesitation, that his lot would be as follows.” All these general results of experience carry the sting of insinuation, implying that they hold the key to Job’s unfortunate condition. There is a secret unsoundness within him that is the cause of his manifest and open misery. It is impossible that a man so stricken should be anything other than, for some unknown reason, the guilty victim of the righteous wrath of a just judge.

They are crushed. —Rather, perhaps, they crush one another. Their internal rivalries and dissensions bring them to ruin. They exemplify the house divided against itself.

Whose harvest the hungry eats up. —The meaning becomes more pointed if we understand the wicked man himself as the subject whose harvest he, famished, will eat and will have to take from among the thorns—there will be so little, and that little choked with thorns. The word “robber” is perhaps a trap, or snare. Some of the old versions use other vowels, and read, “the thirsty swallow up,” making the parallelism complete.

Although affliction... . —These two verses are admittedly very difficult. It is also hard to see the connection between sparks flying upwards and man's being born to trouble.

It seems to make better sense if we understand Eliphaz as comparing man’s lot, prepared for him by God, with his own pride and presumptuous ambition. Man is born to labor, but, like sparks of fire, he flies high. Trouble and toil are not an accidental growth, but a lot appointed by God, which would be beneficial if man did not thwart it by his own pride.

They lift themselves up and soar high like sparks of fire with daring and presumptuous conduct, and so bring on themselves deserved punishment. The same word means trouble and toil, and it may be understood in the two consecutive verses in these related, but slightly different, senses. It would be no consolation to Job to tell him that man was born to trouble; besides, this is a sentiment more likely to come from the sufferer himself than from an observer.