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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 5:1 - 5:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Call now, - is there any one who will answer thee?
And to whom of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
2 For he is a fool who is destroyed by complaining,
And envy slays the simple one.
3 I, even I, have seen a fool taking root:
Then I had to curse his habitation suddenly.
4 His children were far from help,
And were crushed in the gate, without a rescuer;
5 While the hungry ate his harvest,
And even from among thorns they took it away,
And the intriguer snatched after his wealth.
The chief thought of the oracle was that God is the absolutely just One, and infinitely exalted above men and angels. Resuming his speech from this point, Eliphaz tells Job that no cry for help can avail him unless he submits to the all-just One as being himself unrighteous; nor can any cry addressed to the angels avail. This thought, although it is rejected, certainly shows that the writer of the book, as of the prologue, is impressed with the fundamental intuition, that good, like evil, spirits are implicated in the affairs of men; for the “holy ones,” as in Ps 89, are the angels. כִּי supports the negation implied in Job 5:1 : If God does not help thee, no creature can help thee; for he who complains and chafes at his lot brings down upon himself the extremest destruction, since he excites the anger of God still more. Such a surly murmurer against God is here called אֱוִיל. לְ is the Aramaic sign of the object, having the force of quod attinet ad, quoad (Ew. §310, a).
Eliphaz justifies what he has said (Job 5:2) by an example. He had seen such a complainer in increasing prosperity; then he cursed his habitation suddenly, i.e., not: he uttered forthwith a prophetic curse over it, which, though פִּתְאֹם might have this meaning (not subito, but illico; cf. Num 12:4), the following futt., equivalent to imperff., do not allow, but: I had then, since his discontent had brought on his destruction, suddenly to mark and abhor his habitation as one overtaken by a curse: the cursing is a recognition of the divine curse, as the echo of which it is intended. This curse of God manifests itself also on his children and his property (Job 5:4.). שַׁעַר is the gate of the city as a court of justice: the phrase, to oppress in the gate, is like Pro 22:22; and the form Hithpa. is according to the rule given in Ges. §54, 2, b. The relative אֲשֶׁר, Job 5:5, is here conj. relativa, according to Ges. §155, 1, c. In the connection אֶל־מִצִּנִּים, אֶל is equivalent to עַד, adeo e spinis, the hungry fall so eagerly upon what the father of those now orphans has reaped, that even the thorny fence does not hold them back. צִנִּים, as Pro 22:5 : the double praepos. אֶל־מִן is also found elsewhere, but with another meaning. עַמֶּים has only the appearance of being plur.: it is sing. after the form צַדִּיק, from the verb צָמַם, nectere, and signifies, Job 18:9, a snare; here, however, not judicii laqueus (Böttch.), but what, besides the form, comes still nearer - the snaremaker, intriguer. The Targ. translates לִסְטֵיסִין, i.e., λησταί. Most modern critics (Rosenm. to Ebr.) translate: the thirsty (needy), as do all the old translations, except the Targ.; this, however, is not possible without changing the form. The meaning is, that intriguing persons catch up (שָׁאַף, as Amo 2:7) their wealth.
Eliphaz now tells why it thus befell this fool in his own person and his children.