Job 5King James Version
Eliphaz continues. Afflictions do not come out of the dust. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. He would seek unto God, happy is the man whom God correcteth. All of which might be true in general but is cruel to a man sitting in ashes with dead children.
Eliphaz continues his first speech. He says Job should call on God, that God wounds and binds up, that God saves the poor from the sword. He lists the blessings that come to those who accept God's discipline: prosperity, many children, long life, security. His argument is that Job's trouble is discipline from God Almighty, and if Job will accept it, everything will be restored. He ends by urging Job to consider this carefully.
Eliphaz frames Job's suffering as corrective discipline: accept it, learn from it, and God will restore what was lost. This is pastoral advice that completely misreads the situation.
17: "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty." The verse is true in principle. Applied to Job, who is suffering not as correction but as demonstration of his righteousness, it is a category error.
The ancient wisdom tradition Eliphaz stands in was the dominant theology of the ancient Near East: retributive justice, God disciplines the wicked and rewards the righteous. It was broadly true as a generalization about the world. The book of Job was written precisely to push back against that generalization when it becomes a rigid system that cannot accommodate a Job.
Eliphaz continues his first speech. Job is the silent recipient of this counsel, which is well-intentioned and, in Job's case, structurally backwards.
Eliphaz ends his first speech with a vision of restoration so beautiful it is almost irresistible: flocks multiplying, children at the table, old age like ripe grain at harvest. He is describing Job's ending correctly, but he has the causation wrong. Restoration will not come because Job learns his lesson; it will come because God vindicates him.
When people tell you to look on the bright side of your suffering, they are often doing what Eliphaz does here. The advice is not wrong in the abstract. In the specific moment, it feels like being handed a map to a country you are not in.
1Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn?
2For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.
3I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation.
4His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.
5Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
6Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
7Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
8I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:
9Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:
10Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields:
11To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
12He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
13He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
14They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.
15But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.
16So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.
17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
18For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.
19He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
20In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
21Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
22At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
23For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.
24And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.
25Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth.
26Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.
27Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.