Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Parallel translations
- WEB but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
- BSB Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.
- NKJV Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward.
- NASB For man is born for trouble, As sparks fly upward.
- NLT People are born for trouble as readily as sparks fly up from a fire.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. It states that hardship is a built-in feature of human life in a fallen world.
Overview
With a vivid image of sparks rising from a fire, Eliphaz asserts that trouble is the native condition of humanity. This rings true after the fall, where toil, pain, and death entered through sin. The verse honestly names the universal experience of suffering, the very condition Christ entered and bore, becoming a man of sorrows so that he might lift fallen humanity beyond its inevitable troubles.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 14:1Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Gen 3:17–19And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
- Eccl 5:15–17As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
- 1 Cor 10:13There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
- Eccl 1:8All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
- Eccl 2:22For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
- Ps 90:8–9Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 5:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.