Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
All Commentaries on Job 5:7 Go To Job 5
Didymus the Blind
AD 398
The text demonstrates that the curses with which Eliphaz cursed the evildoers … were said for a reason. “Afflictions are fitting for human beings but not for animals.” The words may be meant as a comfort. As many people used to say, “What you have suffered is not beyond human nature. For our life consists of hardship. Even our birth occurs with hardship and suffering, since those who give birth must endure a thousand things. In addition, the life of a new born is cumbersome. One can aptly compare this text to the story in the Bible of the man born blind.” For it was regarding him that Jesus’ disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Young vultures fly upwards” means “Punishment does not tame animals.” The young vultures, he says, fly upward, meaning, “They are untroubled—they do not live in wickedness after all.” His meaning is this: Lifeless things and animals—by the vulture’s young he seems to refer to animals—do not experience vengeance themselves, whereas human beings harvest the fruits of their sins.
