John Gill Commentary Job 5

Call now, if there be any that will answer you
That is, call upon God, which, if seriously, and not ironically spoken, was good advice.

God is to be called upon, and especially in times of trouble; and invocation is to be made in faith, in sincerity, and with fervency, and to be accompanied with confession of sin, and repentance for it; and sooner or later God hears and answers those that call upon him; but Eliphaz suggests, that if Job did call upon him, it would be in vain, he would not hear him, he going upon the same maxim that the Jews did in Christ's time, "God hears not sinners": (John 9:31);

or call upon him to give him an oracle from heaven, to favour him with a vision and revelation, and see if he could get anything that would confront and confute what he had delivered as coming that way;

which, if it could be done by him, would appear to be a falsehood and an imposture, since one revelation from God is not contradicted by another: or else the sense is, "call" over the catalogue and list of good men that have been from the beginning of the world, and see if there be any that "answers to you" ^F14 , whose case, character, and behaviour, correspond with you; if ever any of them was afflicted as you are, or ever behaved with so much indecency, impatience, murmuring, and blasphemy against God, as you have done;

that ever opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth, and reflected upon the providence and justice of God as you have, as if you were unrighteously dealt with: or rather, "call now", and summon all creatures together, angels and men, and get anyone of them to be your patron, to defend your cause, and plead for you, to give a reply to what has been said, from reason, experience, and revelation:

and should you obtain this, which is not likely, "lo, there is one that can answer you" ^F15 , as some render the words, meaning either God or himself; thus Eliphaz insults Job, and triumphs over him, as being entirely baffled and conquered by him, by what he had related as an oracle and revelation from heaven:

and to which of the saints wilt thou turn ?
or "look", or "have respect" ^F16 , that will be of any service to you?

meaning either the Divine Persons in the Godhead, sometimes called Holy Ones, as in (Joshua 24:19) ; (Proverbs 9:10) (30:3) (Hosea 11:12) ; the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, who may and should be turned and looked unto; God the Father, as the God of providence and grace for all good things; Jesus Christ his Son, as the Redeemer and Saviour for righteousness and eternal life; the blessed Spirit, as a sanctifier to carry on and finish the work of grace; but it is suggested, it would be in vain for Job to turn and look to any of these, since he would be rejected by them as a wicked man, nor would any of them plead his cause:

or else the holy angels, as the Septuagint express it, and who are called saints and Holy Ones, (Deuteronomy 33:2) (Daniel 8:13) (Zechariah 14:5) ; and it is asked, which of those he could turn or look to, and could expect relief and protection from? Signifying, that none of these would vouchsafe to converse with him, nor take him under their care, nor undertake to plead his cause:

or rather holy men, such as are sanctified or set apart by God the Father, to whom Christ is made sanctification, and in whose hearts the Holy Spirit has wrought principles of grace and holiness, and who live holy lives and conversations; and it is insinuated, that should he turn and look to these, he would find none of them like him, nor in the same circumstances, nor of the same sentiments, or that would take his part and plead for him; but that all to a man would appear of the same mind with Eliphaz, that none but wicked men were afflicted by God as he was, and that he was such an one, and that for the reason following:

the Papists very absurdly produce this passage in favour of praying to departed saints, when not dead but living ones are meant, and even turning to them is discouraged; and besides, this would contradict another tenet of the Papists, that the Old Testament saints, until the coming of Christ, were in a sort of purgatory, called Limbus Patrum, and therefore incapable of helping saints on earth that should apply unto them.

FOOTNOTES:

• F14: (Knwe vyh) "si est correspondens tibi", Bolducius.
• F15: "Ecce est qui respondeat tibi", Schultens.
• F16: (hnpt) (oqh) , Sept. "obtueberis", Montanus; "respicies", Vatablus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis.

For wrath kills the foolish man
Not one that is an idiot, and destitute of common sense, and has no understanding in things natural and civil; but a wicked man, who has no knowledge of things divine and spiritual, and so foolish; which is the character of every natural man, and of God's people before conversion; and even of some professors, who are foolish virgins, and carry the lamp of a religious profession without the oil of grace; and such a one Eliphaz took Job to be, whom sooner or later the wrath of the Lord, as the Targum interprets it, which is revealed from heaven, and comes down upon the children of disobedience, would consume like devouring fire:

or this may be understood of the wrath and passion of such men themselves, which sometimes rises in them to such a height, as that they die in a fit of it; or do those things which bring them to death, either by the hand of God, or by the civil magistrate:

and envy slays the silly one ;
one that is simple and void of understanding, and is easily persuaded and drawn into sin, either by his own heart, or by evil men, or by the temptations of Satan; and in whose heart envy at the prosperity of others dwells, and which insensibly preys upon him, eats up his own spirits, and is rottenness to his bones, and crumbles them into dust, (Proverbs 14:30) ;

or the word may be rendered "jealousy", or "zeal" ^F17 , as it sometimes is, and may signify the jealousy of the Lord, zeal for his own glory, which he sometimes stirs up as a man of war, and which smokes against wicked men, and consumes them as fire, see (Isaiah 42:13) (Psalms 79:5) (Deuteronomy 29:20) ;

Eliphaz by all this would represent and insinuate that Job was such a man, hot, passionate, and angry with God and his providence, and envious at the prosperity of others, particularly his friends; and so was a foolish and silly man, in whose breast wrath and envy rested, and would be his ruin and destruction, as he was already under slaying and killing providences.

FOOTNOTES:

• F17: (hanq) "zelus", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt, Michaelis, Schultens.

I have seen the foolish taking root
Such foolish wicked men as before described; those Eliphaz had observed to prosper in the world, and increase in riches, and even to have attained to a seeming stability and firmness, as if they would ever continue in such happy circumstances, see (Jeremiah 12:2) (Psalms 37:35Psalms 37:36) ;

By this he would obviate an objection that here might be raised and made against the assertion he was proving, that wicked men are afflicted and punished of God for their sins; whereas it is notorious that they are not in trouble as other men, but in very prosperous and flourishing circumstances; this he grants is their case for a while, as he had observed, but in a short time they pass away, they and their substance disappear, and are no more seen, as follows:

but suddenly I cursed his habitation ;
not that he wished ill to him, or imprecated evils upon him; for cursing and bitterness only fit the mouths of wicked men, and not good men, among whom Eliphaz must be allowed to be; but he immediately thought within himself, as soon as he saw the flourishing state of the wicked, that the curse of the Lord was in their houses, as in (Proverbs 3:33) ; that they and all they had were under a curse, and that God had given them what they had with a curse, and had cursed all their blessings; which makes the difference between a good man and a wicked man; the one has what he has, his cottage and his small substance, with a blessing; the other his pleasant habitation, as the word ^F18 here used signifies, his stately palace, rich furniture, and large estates, with a curse;

Or he prognosticated, he foresaw, and could foretell, and that without pretending to an extraordinary spirit of prophecy, that in a short time the curse of God would light upon him, and upon his house, see (Zechariah 5:3Zechariah 5:4) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F18: (wxwn) "pulchritudini ejus", V. L. "commodam ejus", Cocceius; "amoenam", Schultens.

His children are far from safety
From outward safety, from evils and dangers, to which they are liable and exposed, not only from men, who hate them for their father's sake, who have been oppressors of them, or from God, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children; and from spiritual and eternal safety or "salvation", or from salvation in the world to come, as the Targum, they treading in their fathers steps, and imitating their actions:

and they are crushed in the gate ;
or openly, publicly, as Aben Ezra and others; or in the courts of judicature whither they are brought by those their parents had oppressed, and where they are cast, and have no favour shown them.

Or literally by the falling of the gate upon them; and perhaps some reference is had to Job's children being crushed in the gate or door of the house, through which they endeavoured to get when it fell upon them and destroyed them; the Targum is, ``and are crushed in the gates of hell, in the day of the great judgment:''

neither [is there] any to deliver [them] ;
neither God nor man, they having no interest in either, or favour with, partly on account of their father's ill behaviour, and partly on account of their own; and sad is the case of men when it is such, see (Psalms 50:21) .

Whose harvest the hungry eats up
This is to be understood of the foolish rich man before described, as taking root and flourishing; though he sows, and reaps and gathers in his harvest, and fancies he has goods laid up for many years, to be enjoyed by him, yet he is taken away by death, and another eats what he has gathered; either his hungry heirs, that he has kept bare, and without the proper necessaries of life; or the poor whom he has oppressed, who, driven by hunger, seize upon his harvest, and eat it up, whether he be alive or dead: Sephorno interprets this of the wicked man himself, who should eat up his own harvest, and not have enough to satisfy him, the curse of God being upon his land; and another learned interpreter ^F19 thinks the sense is, that such should be the curse of God on the fields of wicked men, that they should produce no more than what was usually left to the poor, and therefore should have no need to gather it.

and takes it even out of the thorns ;
that is, either the hungry man takes the harvest out of the thorns, among which it grows, see (Matthew 13:7) ; or which he had gotten "through the thorns", as Mr. Broughton renders it; that is, the owner, through many difficulties; and hunger will break through many to get at it; or though his harvest being got in, is enclosed with a thorn hedge, the hungry man gets through it, and takes it out from it, surrounded by it.

The above mentioned Jewish writer understands this also of the wicked man, who takes his own harvest out from among the thorns, so that there is nothing left for the poor and his friends, as it is meet there should.

The word ^F20 for "thorns" also has the signification of armour, particularly of shields; hence the Targum is,

and the robber swallows up their substance ;
the house robber, who breaks in and devours all at once, and makes a clear riddance of it.

Some render it "the hairy man" ^F21 either that neglects his hair, as beggars, or such that live in desert places, as robbers, that they may appear the more terrible; or that take care of it, and nourish it, and tie it up in locks, and behind their heads, as Bar Tzemach and Ben Melech observe they do in Turkey.

Others translate it "the thirsty" {w}, and so it answers to the hungry in the preceding clause, and designs such who thirst, and gape after, and covet the substance of others, and greedily catch at it, and swallow it up at once, at one draught, as a thirsty man does a large quantity of liquor, see (Proverbs 1:12Proverbs 1:13) ;

This may have some respect to the Sabeans and Chaldeans, that swallowed up Job's substance, and took away his cattle from him at once, and were no other than bands of robbers;

And the use of the word for a thief or a robber, as we take it, is confirmed by a learned man {x}, who derives it from the Arabic word which signifies to smite with a club or stone.

FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Schmidt.
• F20: (Mynum) "de lanceis", Bolducius. (hnu) "est et elypeus, umbo", Codurcus.
• F21: (Mymu) "comatus", Cocceius, Schmidt; "horridus", Junius & Tremellius.