Step Into Faith

Chapter Reflection

This chapter is a speech about the way human life is bent: trouble is not an accident dropped from nowhere, but something woven into the condition of a world where the foolish are undone by their own heat, and the crafty are trapped by their own designs. Yet the speech keeps turning upward, toward the God who sends rain, raises the lowly, and gives the poor a mouth for hope when iniquity is silenced. What stands out is the great reversal: God both wounds and binds up, correcting not to destroy but to heal, as a physician whose hand is severe only because the sickness is deep. The image of peace spreads outward at the end—from the household to the field, from the harvest to the beasts—so that restored life is not merely private relief but a quieting of the whole order around the righteous. Even in a sharp and sometimes bitter argument, the chapter confesses that divine action is not arbitrary force but wise care, and that the human person is not abandoned to fate, but summoned to endure, trust, and be made whole.

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← Job

Job 5

1Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; and to which of the saints wilt thou turn?

2For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.

3I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

4His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.

5Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

6Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

7Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

8I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:

9Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:

10Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields:

11To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.

12He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.

13He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.

14They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night.

15But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.

16So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

18For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.

19He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

20In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.

21Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh.

22At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

23For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.

24And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.

25Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great, and thine offspring as the grass of the earth.

26Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

27Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.

Who God is

What kind of God is this, who wounds and binds up, and whose strength is shown in raising the lowly?

The condition of man

What does it reveal about you that your wisdom can become your snare, yet you are still made for healing, hope, and peace?