Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 5:4
His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither [is there] any to deliver [them].
4. they are crushed in the gate ] The gate of the town is the seat of the Oriental court of law, where justice is administered, ch. Job 29:7, Job 31:21; Psa 127:5. The words are crushed might be reciprocal, “crush one another;” more likely the word means exactly, “must let themselves be crushed,” as the last clause indicates: having none to deliver them. In the East he has right who has power (ch. Job 22:8), and the poor, who cannot bribe the judge or find powerful men to speak for them, go to the wall.
The iniquity of the father is visited upon the children, Exo 20:5, a law of providence which does not quite meet Job’s approval, ch. Job 21:19-20. That this principle created difficulty to thoughtful men about this time appears also from Eze 18:19 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
4, 5. These verses describe the desolation that befell the home and family of the man who hardened himself against God. The speaker falls here into the present tenses because, though he is describing an instance which he saw, the instance illustrates a general truth.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
His children are far from safety – That is, this is soon manifest by their being cut off or subjected to calamity. The object of Eliphaz is, to state the result of his own observation, and to show how calamity overtook the wicked though they even prospered for a time. He begins with that which a man would feel most – the calamity which comes upon his children, and says that God would punish him in them. Every word of this would go to the heart of Job; for he could not but feel that it was aimed at him, and that the design was to prove that the calamities that had come upon his children were a proof of his own wickedness and of the divine displeasure. It is remarkable that Job listens to this with the utmost patience. There is no interruption of the speaker; no breaking in upon the argument of his friend; no mark of uneasiness. Oriental politeness required that a speaker should be heard attentively through whatever he might say. See the Introduction, Section 7. Cutting and severe, therefore, as this strain of remark must have been, the sufferer sat meekly and heard it all, and waited for the appropriate time when an answer might be returned.
And they are crushed in the gate – The gate of a city in ancient times was the chief place of concourse, and was the place where public business was usually transacted, and where courts of justice were held; see Gen 23:10; Deu 21:19; Deu 25:6-7; Rth 4:1 ff: Psa 127:5; Pro 22:22. The Greeks also held their courts in some public place of business. Hence, the forum, agora, was also a place for fairs. See Jahns Archaeology, section 247. Some suppose that the meaning here is, that they were oppressed and trodden down by the concourse in the gate. But the more probable meaning is, that they found no one to advocate their cause; that they were subject to oppression and injustice in judicial decisions, and then when their parent was dead, no one would stand up to vindicate them from respect to his memory. The idea is, that though there might be temporary prosperity, yet that it would not be long before heavy calamities would come upon the children of the wicked.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. His children are far from safety] His posterity shall not continue in prosperity. Ill gotten, ill spent; whatever is got by wrong must have God’s curse on it.
They are crushed in the gate] The Targum says, They shall be bruised in the gate of hell, in the day of the great judgment. There is reference here to a custom which I have often had occasion to notice: viz., that in the Eastern countries the court-house, or tribunal of justice, was at the GATE of the city; here the magistrates attended, and hither the plaintiff and defendant came for justice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
His children; whose greatness and happiness he designed in all his enterprises, supposing that his family was and would be established for ever.
Are far from safety, i.e. are exposed to great dangers and calamities in this life, and can neither preserve themselves, nor the great inheritance which their fathers got and left for them. Thus to be far from peace, Lam 3:17, is to be involved in desperate troubles.
In the gate, i.e. in the place of judicature; to which they are brought for their offences, and where they will find severe judges, and few or no friends; partly because, being wickedly educated, and trusting to their own greatness, they were insolent and injurious to all their neighbours; and partly because those many persons whom their powerful fathers defrauded or oppressed do seek for justice, and the recovery of their rights, which they easily obtain against such persons as plainly declared by their actions that they neither feared God nor reverenced him, and therefore were hated by all sorts of men.
Neither is there any to deliver them; they can find no advocates nor assistants, who are either able or willing to help them; but, like Ishmael, as their hand was formerly against every man, so now every mans hand is against them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. His children . . . crushed in thegateA judicial formula. The gate was the place of judgment andof other public proceedings (Psa 127:5;Pro 22:22; Gen 23:10;Deu 21:19). Such propyla havebeen found in the Assyrian remains. Eliphaz obliquely alludes to thecalamity which cut off Job’s children.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
His children are far from safety,…. From outward safety, from evils and dangers, to which they are liable and exposed, not only from men, who hate them for their father’s sake, who have been oppressors of them, or from God, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children; and from spiritual and eternal safety or “salvation”, or from salvation in the world to come, as the Targum, they treading in their fathers steps, and imitating their actions:
and they are crushed in the gate; or openly, publicly, as Aben Ezra and others; or in the courts of judicature whither they are brought by those their parents had oppressed, and where they are cast, and have no favour shown them; or literally by the falling of the gate upon them; and perhaps some reference is had to Job’s children being crushed in the gate or door of the house, through which they endeavoured to get when it fell upon them and destroyed them; the Targum is,
“and are crushed in the gates of hell, in the day of the great judgment:”
neither [is there] any to deliver [them]; neither God nor man, they having no interest in either, or favour with, partly on account of their father’s ill behaviour, and partly on account of their own; and sad is the case of men when it is such, see Ps 50:21.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) They are crushed.Rather, perhaps, they crush one another. Their internal rivalries and dissensions bring them to ruin. They exemplify the house divided against itself.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. His children In the East the fate of the children was involved in that of the parent, as in the case of Haman’s ten sons, who were hanged on the gallows. Est 9:13-14. The merciful legislation of Moses was arrayed against such monstrous perversion of justice. Deu 24:16. Are crushed Davidson unnecessarily supposes the verb to be reflexive, that the children crushed each other by “family feuds and ruinous litigations.” “In the gate,” (Job 31:21; see also Job 29:7,) plainly points to courts of justice before which fatherless children, having no natural defender, would fare badly, even to being crushed.
In the gate of the city the great assemblies of people were held, (Pro 1:21,) whether for reading the law and proclamations, (Neh 8:1; Neh 8:3,) or for the administration of justice, (Jos 20:4; Rth 4:1,) or even for market purposes. (2Ki 7:1.) The sculptures found by Botta ( plate 18) represent the king sitting at the gate in an arm-chair, the seat of judgment. This Oriental custom is transmitted in the title of the court of the Sultan, The Sublime Porte the word “porte” signifying gate. In the Koran ( Sura xxiii, 79) we read: “We have opened against them the gate of supreme judgment.” See note on Mat 16:19.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 5:4. In the gate In the tempest. See ch. Job 9:17 and Parkhurst on the word shangar, 9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 5:4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither [is there] any to deliver [them].
Ver. 4. His children are far from safety ] This is one principal root of wicked men, viz. their children, which have their very name in Hebrew from building, because by them the house is built up, and way made to greatest honours by friendships and affinities of other great families. These are far from safety, that is, they are in a great deal of danger (Lavater); or, by their intemperance, they run into many diseases and disasters; by their evil practices they come under the lash of the law, and without repentance under the danger of damnation too; salvation is far from them, Psa 119:155 Isa 59:11 .
They are crushed in the gate
Neither is there any to deliver them
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
children = sons.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
children: Job 4:10, Job 4:11, Job 8:4, Job 18:16-19, Job 27:14, Exo 20:5, Psa 109:9-15, Psa 119:155, Psa 127:5
they are crushed: Job 1:19, Luk 13:4, Luk 13:5
neither: Job 10:7, Psa 7:2
Reciprocal: Jos 20:4 – at the entering 2Ch 21:17 – carried away Job 19:3 – ye reproached Job 21:8 – General Job 31:8 – let my Pro 12:7 – wicked Lam 5:8 – there
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 5:4. His children Whose greatness he designed in all his enterprises, supposing his family would be established for ever; are far from safety Are exposed to dangers and calamities, and can neither preserve themselves, nor the inheritance which their fathers left them. There is no question but he glances here at the death of Jobs children; and they are crushed in the gate That is, in the place of judicature, to which they are brought for their offences, and where they find severe judges, and few or no friends; because, being wickedly educated, and trusting to their own greatness, they had been insolent and injurious to all their neighbours; as also because those many persons, whom their powerful fathers had defrauded or oppressed, seek for justice and the recovery of their rights, which they easily obtain, against persons who plainly declared, by their actions, that they neither feared God nor regarded man, and therefore were hated by all sorts of people. Neither is there any to deliver them They can find no advocates or assistants who are either able or willing to help them: for, as their hand was formerly against every man, so now every mans hand is against them. Justice, therefore, takes hold on them, and will not let them escape.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
5:4 His {e} children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the {f} gate, neither [is there] any to deliver [them].
(e) Though God sometimes allows the father’s to pass in this world, yet his judgments will light on their wicked children.
(f) By public judgment they will be condemned and no one will pity them.