Job 5
About JobWritten by AI
Job is a long poem framed by a short story. A good man loses his wealth, his children, and his health, and no one tells him why. The writer and the date are unknown: the story is set in the age of the patriarchs, but the book may have been written much later, and Christians hold different views on when. Some Jewish tradition credits Moses.
After two prose chapters, Job and three friends trade speeches in rounds. The friends insist suffering must be punishment for sin; Job insists he is innocent and pleads for God to answer him. A younger man, Elihu, speaks next. Then the LORD Himself answers out of the whirlwind, and the story closes in prose.
Read the friends with care. They say many true things about God, but they apply them wrongly, and at the end God says they have not spoken of Him accurately as Job has (42:7). Watch for Job's flashes of hope in the dark: “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
Before you read Job 5Written by AI
Eliphaz continues: if he were Job, he would appeal to God, who lifts the lowly and catches the wise in their schemes (Paul quotes 5:13 in 1 Corinthians 3:19). Blessed is the one God corrects, he says, so accept it and you will be restored. True words, but aimed at the wrong target.
Eliphaz Continues: God Blesses those Who Seek Him
“Call out if you please, but who will answer?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
For resentment kills a fool,
and envy slays the simple.
I have seen a fool taking root,
but suddenly his house was cursed.
His sons are far from safety,
crushed in court without a defender.
The hungry consume his harvest,
taking it even from the thorns,
and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
For distress does not spring from the dust,
and trouble does not sprout from the ground.
Yet man is born to trouble
as surely as sparks fly upward.
However, if I were you, I would appeal to God
and lay my cause before Him—
the One who does great and unsearchable things,
wonders without number.
He gives rain to the earth
and sends water upon the fields.
He sets the lowly on high,
so that mourners are lifted to safety.
He thwarts the schemes of the crafty,
so that their hands find no success.
He catches the wise in their craftiness,
and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.
They encounter darkness by day
and grope at noon as in the night.
He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth
and from the clutches of the powerful.
So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.
Blessed indeed is the man whom God corrects;
so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
For He wounds, but He also binds;
He strikes, but His hands also heal.
He will rescue you from six calamities;
no harm will touch you in seven.
In famine He will redeem you from death,
and in battle from the stroke of the sword.
You will be hidden from the scourge of the tongue,
and will not fear havoc when it comes.
You will laugh at destruction and famine,
and need not fear the beasts of the earth.
For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
You will know that your tent is secure,
and find nothing amiss when inspecting your home.
You will know that your offspring will be many,
your descendants like the grass of the earth.
You will come to the grave in full vigor,
like a sheaf of grain gathered in season.
Indeed, we have investigated, and it is true!
So hear it and know for yourself.”