For man is born for trouble, As sparks fly upward.
Parallel translations
- WEB but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
- KJV Yet man is born unto 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.
- 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 14:1“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Gen 3:17–19To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
- Eccl 5:15–17As he came out of his mother’s womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.
- 1 Cor 10:13No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
- Eccl 1:8All things are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
- Eccl 2:22For what has a man of all his labor, and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun?
- Ps 90:8–9You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
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.