Job 5 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Job 5 Short Summary:

In Job 5, the Eliphaz continues his monologue expressing his confidence that God is disciplining Job for some secret unconfessed sin. Eliphaz oversimplifies the nature of God by suggesting God always elevates the righteous and always humbles sinners. He encourages Job to confess his sin and accept the Lord’s reproof, which will allow God’s blessings to return to him.

Job 5 Bible Study

SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

• Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan

• Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution

• Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.

• Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost

WHEN:

• The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).

• I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.

• Eliphaz – One of Job’s 3 friends. Eliphaz was the first to speak and suggest a reason for Job’s suffering.

WHERE:

• Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.

OUTLINE:

• ELIPHAZ - TROUBLE DOESN’T COME FROM NOWHERE (5:1-7):

  • After recounting his night vision in Job 4, Eliphaz challenges Job to find any righteous man or angel who would refute his conclusion.

  • He goes on to talk about the fate of fools. The fool will have no respect, he will lose his wealth, and his children will be “far from safety” (5:4).

  • Eliphaz doesn’t call Job a fool, but it certainly seems like he was suggesting it, especially considering the fate of Job’s children and wealth.

  • In verse 6, Eliphaz says, “For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.” With these words he appears to be reinforcing to Job that trouble doesn’t spring out of nothing, it’s always the consequence of something, and he believed the source of Job’s trouble was a sin he was concealing.

• ELIPHAZ - GOD’S GREATNESS AND HIS ELEVATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS (5:8-27):

  • Eliphaz declared that if he were in the place of a fool, he would turn to God and commit himself to God’s ways.

  • He spoke about God’s amazing power, and how He uses that power to govern the world.

  • He saw God as One who supported the lowly and comforted the mourning. On the other hand, He saw God as One who caught evil men in their schemes and prevented dishonest men from achieving success.

  • Perhaps speaking more directly to Job, he said, “Blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For He wounds, but He binds up; He shatters, but His hands heal” (5:17-18).

  • In this, Eliphaz probably thought he was offering Job hope, suggesting that God would restore him if he would repent.

  • In reality, his words were unhelpful and probably hurtful, because Job wasn’t being reproved by God.

  • Eliphaz’s statement that the righteous would be blessed with many children and live healthy long lives (5:25-26) must have been a dagger to Job’s heart in light of his current illness and the death of his 10 children.

APPLICATION

• Let’s try to be careful not to oversimplify the nature of God.

• One thing that stood out to me in this chapter is the Eliphaz’s statement that God elevates the lowly and humbles the proud is true, and this is confirmed by other Bible books like Esther and the Psalms. The psalmists regularly used almost that exact language to describe God.

• The mistake that Eliphaz made in applying this to Job’s situation was that He was taking one general truth from God’s nature and assuming that was the only way that God was allowed to act.

• He had an incomplete picture of the nature and behavior of God. We know this because we get the privilege of reading Job 1 and 2 and seeing the interactions between God and Satan that precede Job’s suffering.

• Does this kind of oversimplification ever happen in the modern day? I think it does!

• Have you ever heard someone quote 1 John 4:8, “God is Love,” and insist that God can act in no other way than to bless, affirm, and support people no matter what kind of life they live.

• Or maybe you’ve heard someone quote that verse and suggest that since there is suffering in the world, the God of the Bible must either be incapable of removing it (not all-powerful), or He is indifferent to it, thereby making Him unloving

• Both suggestions are gross oversimplifications of the behavior of God.

• Like Eliphaz, those who promote these ideas have an immature understanding of the nature of God. In the modern day, that is likely due to a lack of time learning about God in the Scriptures.

• 1 John 4:8 is most certainly true, God is love! The oversimplification happens when we act as if that is the only true thing we can know about God’s character, and we suggest that that is the only characteristic of His nature He is allowed to exercise.