Job 5:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Eliphaz continues to give Job more of the same medicine, or rather poison, for Job cannot swallow this counsel without abandoning what he knows to be true. Satan sees the religion of Job’s friends: that they can earn salvation. Satan knows it is not true, but he will use them to undermine Job. He would also like to use Job by making him crack in order to seal the friends in their delusion. Job, being under great pressure, fell back a long way. He did not deny God, but he came into state of resentment. Eliphaz has this simple idea that if you live an upright life God will bless you, and if God sends suffering, it is proof of wickedness, secret or otherwise. In Job’s case, because he denies that his sins have brought this suffering on him, there must be hypocrisy at work. Eliphaz has two standards of righteousness – one for God, one for us. Even the proudest man does not think that he is without fault, but, like Eliphaz, he thinks God does not expect you to be perfect. This theology allows the one who believes in works religion to hold on to his own earned righteousness.Eliphaz invites Job to find a single saint [holy one] who agrees with him. This is supposedly an appeal to the universal consensus of the godly. Satan is attempting to drive Job to despair. He has turned his wife against him; he encourages him to believe that God’s standards are against him, God is against him, and the combined opinion of the godly is against him. Job maintains his cause all alone and therefore he cannot be right. His integrity is put to a severe test. Satan is trying to get Job to deny not only his own integrity but the doctrine which he knows to be true which he has received from prophets who came before him and from the verbal traditions which God’s people taught before the Scriptures were written down. Whether Eliphaz is referring to other like himself who believe in a works theology, or whether he is falsely coopting true saints to be on his side is not clear, but it is painful for Job to hear this. ‘For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.’ This is an abbreviated way of saying to Job, that he will not find any of the saints who do not teach that God punishes the wicked in this way. His wrath kills the foolish man, and his indignation slays the silly or simple one. This is so clear that it does not need to be said that all the godly believe this. You are on your own Job in holding your opinion.