Even Satan may be God’s servant to make better saints of us, the blow at the outward man proving the greatest blessing to the inward man. We should therefore be more desirous of knowing God’s purpose in our trouble than of getting out of it.
Job 5
1 Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn?
2 For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.
3 I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation.
4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.
5 Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
6 Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;
7 Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
8 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:
9 Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:
10 Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields:
11 To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.
13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.
15 But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.
16 So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.
17 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
18 For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.
19 He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
20 In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
21 Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.
22 At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
23 For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.
24 And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.
25 Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth.
26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.
27 Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.
Job 5:1-6 – J. Vernon McGee
Job 5:7 – J. Vernon McGee
Job 5:8-19 – J. Vernon McGee
Job 5:20-27 – J. Vernon McGee
Job 5 – The Benefits of Chastisement
In this chapter Eliphaz closes his first speech. He had already suggested that Job’s sufferings were the result of some secret sin. It could not be otherwise according to his philosophy. Affliction and trouble did not come by chance. It was as much a law of nature, so Eliphaz thought, for calamity to follow sin as for sparks to fly upward. However deeply evil men had rooted themselves, they were doomed to be destroyed. Was it not obvious that Job had in some way offended? Let him confess and be restored!
The ideal life which will ensue on a genuine repentance is described in the most thrilling and glowing terms, Job 5:8-17. Each sentence is a priceless jewel, and each has been tested by generations of returning prodigals, for whom each promise has been countersigned by the “Yea” of Christ, II Corinthians 1:20. Paul quotes Job 5:13 in I Corinthians 3:19. —Through the Bible Day by Day
Job 5:12 – During the siege of Sebastopol a Russian shell buried itself in the side of a hill outside the city, and opened a spring. A little fountain bubbled forth where the missile of death had fallen, and afforded to the weary troops encamped there an abundance of pure cold water during all the rest of the siege. What enemies mean shall do us evil often becomes a spring in the desert of privation and persecution.
Job 5:13 – A Russian fable tells of a man who wished to accomplish a journey over the snow and ice, through an inhospitable region infested with ravenous wolves. The distance was so great that it could only be traversed in a day by the strongest and swiftest horse to be found. Thus furnished, the traveler set forth to cross the steppe. When well on his way a huge wolf sprang upon the horse and devoured him. The wolf then became entangled in the harness and sped forth at a rapid rate, and soon drew the traveler to the very place he sought. Rev. Wm. Taylor says the devil has often attacked him in this way, and the result has only been to take him the quicker over the rough roads to the place desired. The devil himself becomes the Lord’s servant to save and help His people.
Job 5:17
Happy, because the correction is designed to bring him into paths of blessedness and peace.
Happy, because there is no unnecessary severity in it.
Happy, because the chastisement is not so much against us, as against our most cruel enemies – our sins.
Happy, because we have abundant words of consolation.
Happy, because whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.
Happy, because our light affliction is but for a moment. (Bowen)
Job 5:18—He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.
Has this been your experience lately? Have you been made sore by the heavy scourge of pain, and wounded by the nails of the cross? Do not look at second causes. Men may have been the instruments, but God is the Agent. The cup has been presented by a Judas, but the Father permitted it; and it is therefore the cup that the Father bath given you to drink. Shall you not drink it? How much He must love you, to dare to inflict this awful discipline, which makes your love and trust, that He values so infinitely, tremble in the scale! “Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:5-6).
But do not look back on what you have suffered; look on and up! As surely as He has made sore, He will bind up; as soon as He has wounded, His hands will begin to make whole. Consider the reparative processes of nature. So soon as the unsightly ruin or chasm yawns, nature begins to weave her rich festoons, to cover it with moss and lichen; let the flesh be punctured or lacerated, the blood begins to pour out the protoplastic matter to be woven into a new fabric. So when the heart seems bleeding its life away, God is at work binding up and healing. Think of those dear and tender hands, that fashioned the heavens, and touched the eyeballs of the blind, as laid upon you to make you whole. Trust Him; He loves infinitely, and will suffer none that trust in Him to be desolate.
We must be careful, however, that nothing on our part shall hinder the life of the Son of God from flowing through us, as the sap of the vine through every branch. —Our Daily Homily