Job 5 · a question people ask
What does "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward" mean?
The saying is Eliphaz's, and it is joined to the verse before it: "For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground" (5:6); "but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward" (5:7) (tap affliction, trouble, sparks). He doesn't explain it further. He goes straight on, "But as for me, I would seek God" (5:8). Job later says something close: "Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble" (14:1). In Hebrew 14:1 has the same words for man and born as 5:7, but its trouble is a different word. The chapter gives the saying as Eliphaz's and goes no further, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground; but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. “But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God,”
““Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.”