The Inverted Kingdom Text: Job 5:8-16
Introduction: Right Dogma, Wrong Dog
We come now to a fascinating and dangerous portion of Scripture. It is dangerous because everything Eliphaz says in this section is, on its own terms, gloriously true. The problem is not the truth of the propositions, but the profound misapplication of them. Eliphaz is a man who has a fistful of correct biblical doctrines, but he is using them like a club to beat a man who is already down. He is a prime example of a counselor who gets the diagnosis completely wrong, and therefore his prescribed cure, however orthodox it sounds, is pastoral malpractice of the first order.
Job is sitting in ashes, scraping his sores, having lost everything. His friends have sat with him for seven days in silence, and then after Job’s lament, Eliphaz opens his mouth. His basic argument is simple: you are suffering, and since God is just, you must have sinned grievously. Therefore, you must repent. To support this, he now launches into a beautiful hymn about the nature and character of God. He extols God's sovereignty, His wisdom, His care for the lowly, and His confounding of the proud. And he is right on every point. The problem is that he is aiming this fusillade of truth at the wrong target. He thinks Job is the crafty, wise man whom God is bringing low. He cannot conceive that Job is the lowly one whom God intends to exalt through this suffering, not from it.
This is a perpetual temptation for the orthodox. We love our doctrinal systems, as we should. But it is possible to have a perfectly arranged theological skeleton and have no living flesh on it. It is possible to speak of God’s sovereignty with a heart full of accusation. It is possible to praise God’s justice as a means of condemning the righteous. Eliphaz’s speech here is a warning to all of us. Truth without love is not just a clanging cymbal; it is a weapon. And so, as we walk through this passage, we must do two things. First, we must appreciate the profound truths Eliphaz articulates about our God. Second, we must learn the wisdom of applying these truths with pastoral care, humility, and a right understanding of the situation, lest we find ourselves, like Eliphaz, rebuked by God in the final chapter.
The Text
"But as for me, I would seek God, And I would set my cause before God, Who does great and unsearchable things, Wonders without number. He gives rain on the earth And sends water on the fields outside, So that He sets on high those who are lowly, And those who mourn are lifted to salvation. He frustrates the thoughts of the crafty, So that their hands cannot attain success of sound wisdom. He catches the wise by their own craftiness, And the counsel of the twisted is quickly thwarted. By day they meet with darkness And grope at noon as in the night. But He saves from the sword of their mouth, And the needy from the hand of the strong. So the poor has hope, And unrighteousness must shut its mouth."
(Job 5:8-16 LSB)
God's Unsearchable Providence (vv. 8-11)
Eliphaz begins by offering what appears to be pious, sound advice.
"But as for me, I would seek God, And I would set my cause before God, Who does great and unsearchable things, Wonders without number. He gives rain on the earth And sends water on the fields outside, So that He sets on high those who are lowly, And those who mourn are lifted to salvation." (Job 5:8-11)
The counsel to "seek God" and "set my cause before God" is, of course, exactly right. This is what the Psalms are full of. But the subtext of Eliphaz's counsel is, "If I were you, Job, a man clearly under divine judgment, this is what I would do to get right with God." He is not identifying with Job's suffering; he is positioning himself as the wise, detached advisor. He is telling Job to plead his case, but he has already decided Job is guilty.
He then supports this with a magnificent description of God's work. God does "great and unsearchable things, wonders without number." This is absolutely true. God's ways are not our ways; His thoughts are not our thoughts. His providence is a deep ocean; we can splash around in the shallows, but we cannot fathom its depths. This should lead to humility and trust, especially when we cannot connect the dots of our circumstances. The irony is that Eliphaz uses this truth about God's unsearchable ways to support his own very searchable, simplistic formula: suffering equals sin.
He points to God's common grace: "He gives rain on the earth and sends water on the fields." This is a beautiful picture of God's benevolent, sovereign rule over creation. He sustains the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). This is meant to show Job that God is a God of blessing, and if Job would only repent, the blessings would flow again. But God is also the God who sends the storm, the God who gives and takes away, as Job himself has already confessed. Eliphaz presents a one-sided portrait of God's providence that suits his argument.
And the purpose of this providential rule? "So that He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to salvation." Here we have the great reversal, the central theme of the kingdom of God. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. He casts down the mighty from their thrones and exalts those of low degree (Luke 1:52). This is the gospel pattern. But Eliphaz has it all backwards. He sees Job, once on high, now brought low, and assumes God is humbling him for his pride. He cannot see that Job is the lowly one, the mourning one, whom God is in the process of lifting up through the trial itself.
God's Confounding Wisdom (vv. 12-14)
Eliphaz continues his description of God's ways by focusing on how God deals with the arrogant and worldly-wise.
"He frustrates the thoughts of the crafty, So that their hands cannot attain success of sound wisdom. He catches the wise by their own craftiness, And the counsel of the twisted is quickly thwarted. By day they meet with darkness And grope at noon as in the night." (Job 5:12-14 LSB)
Again, this is impeccable theology. This is a direct assault on human autonomy and pride. The world is full of crafty men, schemers, and manipulators who believe they are the masters of their own fate. They lay their plans with cunning and skill, but God in heaven laughs. He throws a divine wrench into their machinery. Their hands, so competent and sure, "cannot attain success."
The Apostle Paul quotes verse 13 in his letter to the Corinthians: "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'" (1 Corinthians 3:19). The world's wisdom is a closed system that refuses to begin with the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all true wisdom. Therefore, its best-laid plans are built on a foundation of sand. God doesn't just out-think the wise; He uses their own cleverness as the very snare that entraps them. The trap they set for others is the one their own leg gets caught in. Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai and ends up swinging on it himself.
The result of this divine frustration is a profound and ironic blindness. "By day they meet with darkness and grope at noon as in the night." This is a picture of judicial hardening. When men who are surrounded by the light of God's general and special revelation refuse to see, God gives them over to their preference. He confirms them in their darkness. They become utterly disoriented, stumbling around in broad daylight, unable to make sense of the world, because they have rejected the Logos who holds it all together. This is a perfect description of our secular age, so full of information and so devoid of wisdom, groping at noon.
The Great Deliverance (vv. 15-16)
Having described God's demolition of the proud, Eliphaz now turns to His deliverance of the weak.
"But He saves from the sword of their mouth, And the needy from the hand of the strong. So the poor has hope, And unrighteousness must shut its mouth." (Job 5:15-16 LSB)
Here is the other side of the great reversal. While the crafty are groping in the dark, God is acting as the great rescuer. He saves the needy from two primary threats: slander and oppression. The "sword of their mouth" refers to the malicious words, the lies, the accusations that the powerful use to destroy the weak. The "hand of the strong" is the raw power of physical, economic, or political oppression.
Our God is the defender of the fatherless, the widow, and the sojourner. He is the God who hears the cry of the oppressed. This is woven into the fabric of the Mosaic law and trumpeted by the prophets. God's justice is not an abstract, neutral balancing of scales; it has a particular concern for the vulnerable who have no other defender. He is their champion.
And the result of this divine intervention is twofold and glorious. First, "the poor has hope." Hope is not wishful thinking. In the Bible, hope is a confident expectation based on the character and promises of God. The poor, who have no reason to hope in their circumstances, are given a reason to hope in their God. He is their future. He is their vindication. This is a profound gospel truth.
Second, "unrighteousness must shut its mouth." When God acts to save His people, the mouths of the wicked are stopped. Their arrogant boasting, their crafty counsel, their slanderous accusations are all silenced in the face of God's decisive, saving action. There is a finality to God's justice. There will come a day when every argument against God is rendered silent, when every knee bows, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Eliphaz is right. There is coming a day when all unrighteousness will be forced to shut its mouth. The tragic irony is that on the last day of this story, God will tell Eliphaz to be quiet and will command Job to pray for him.
The Gospel According to Eliphaz (and Christ)
So what do we do with this? Eliphaz has preached a sermon full of glorious truths, but he has aimed it at the wrong man for the wrong reason. He is a doctor who correctly describes the properties of a powerful medicine but tries to administer it to a healthy man as though he were sick.
The truths he speaks are not just general principles of how God runs the world. They are a specific prophecy of the work of Christ. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of this entire passage. He is the one who does "great and unsearchable things." He is the one who came to set the lowly on high and lift up those who mourn.
And how did He do it? By becoming the ultimate victim of the crafty wise. The scribes and Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, the politicians, they were the crafty ones who laid their plans against the Lord and His Anointed. They caught Him, they thought, with their cleverness. They put Him on a cross. And in that moment, at high noon, the sky grew dark. They were groping in the darkness, thinking they had achieved their great success. But in that very act, God was catching them in their own craftiness. The cross, the ultimate symbol of their worldly wisdom and power, became the instrument of their own undoing and the salvation of the world.
Through that cross, God saved the needy, us, from the hand of the strong, that is, from the power of sin, death, and the devil. He saved us from the sword of the accuser's mouth. And because of this, we, the spiritually poor and needy, have a sure and certain hope. And because of this, on the last day, all unrighteousness, every proud, autonomous, self-justifying thought, will once and for all shut its mouth in the presence of the slain and risen Lamb.
Eliphaz saw the pattern but misread the players. He thought Job was the arrogant man being brought low. But Job was a pointer to the truly Righteous Sufferer, Jesus Christ. Our response, then, is not to take these truths and use them to beat up our suffering brothers. Our response is to look at our suffering, look at the world's chaos, and see in it the stage upon which God is still performing this great reversal, culminating in the cross and resurrection of His Son. We are to trust His unsearchable wisdom, cling to the hope He gives the poor, and wait for the day when He will silence all unrighteousness forever.